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01/08/2009

What I am working toward in 2009

Live | Learn | Lead

2009 may create economic challenges for many that we have never had to deal with before (at least not to the same degree). Budgets are shrinking. Insecurity is rising. People and organizations are downsizing. Businesses are drowning. So this year what I am aspiring to has a very different flavor (and I think a much healthier flavor) than in the past.

Live

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” – Jesus

live in relationships that matter with
live in community that cares for each other
live in anticipation of what God will do in peoples lives
live in moderation and not excess

Learn

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly until you learn to do it better.” G.K. Chesterton

learn humility and to put others before myself
learn from others what they have to offer (be a good student)
learn things that will be helpful to the local and global community that we are all a part of
learn to live within our means and to still have extra for others

Lead

“if you are called to lead, lead with all diligence.” – The Apostle Paul

lead with a commitment to helping others first
lead by walking the walk and talking the talk
lead in service to others without regard for self
lead for the greater good [it's not about me]

01/07/2009

New Years Resolve

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what I want to move towards

I heard a great talk on Sunday from one of our pastors, George Antonakos on how to be resolute in the New Year. He framed a lot of our relationship with Jesus around three ideas:

1. It’s about relationship. At the end of the day that is what is important. Jesus first steps were toward people, and usually the people that no one else cared about. We need to orient our lives around relationships in 2009 and beyond. We will need to seek these relationships out (including Jesus – he moves towards us as we move towards him).

2. Success involved a diminishing preoccupation with self. Healthy living is living that is not focused on self. I think this is why parenting is such a valuable time in life. It isn’t about me. It’s not about Elise. We move from ourselves to focus on others. I want 2009 to be a time of making sure it is not about me (even though I am so good at it).

3. Personal transformation is a process. We are work in progress. I struggle with this more than most I think. I want to have arrived. I want to have been through tough stuff and be “over that”. It really doesn’t happen that way. We move from struggle to struggle in many ways and our character gets developed along the way. The good news of the process is that it’s never too late to move towards the person we are becoming in Christ. That’s comforting to me. Especially during times of significant challenge.

I can easily waste a lot of time not pursuing who I want to be in Jesus. This usually results in pain and disappointment for me and those around me. This year I am going to strive to be resolute about following Him as closely as I can.

Keep moving forward,

Greg

grace.mercy.peace.truth.love.action

12/01/2007

Desire and our Story

I have been struck a lot lately by the amount that our desire and deciding what our story will be determines where we go and what we do with our lives. Two thoughts that I ran into this week made me stop dead in my tracks and think about what kind of a man I am becoming. One was a quote from a book I am reading called Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton:

“The depth of desire has a great deal to do with the outcome of our life. Often, those who accomplish what they set out to do in life are not those who are the most talented or gifted or who have the best opportunities. Often they are the ones who are most deeply in touch with how badly they want whatever they want; they are the ones who consistently refuse to be deterred by the things that many of us allow to become excuses.”

The other was a talk by Donald Miller about Our Story. It was a great reminder to me that each day every action is part of the story line of my life. The final quote by Miller was this:

“Our stories get written by what we do. Not by what we think or what we feel or what we want. That doesn’t count when you write a story. Its only written by what we do.”

What kind of a story am I creating? What will my legacy be? How will my wife speak of me when we are old and grey? How will my children speak of me when they are grown and gone? Who will I love and be loved by? What friends will I go the distance with? Who will exeperience God’s goodness as a result of my actions?

At the end of the day, when my life on this side of eternity ends and I pass on to the other side. What I want, my deep desire, what I want to determine my actions, is to be known as a man who was sold out for the mission of Jesus Christ on this earth – willing to lay down everything for Him. I fall way short most of the time but what I desire is to be that kind of man and to create that kind of a story.

I was talking to a good friend in Hawaii last night on Skype and he quoted a teacher he had learned from this week who said:

“Is the life that your living worthy of the death that Jesus died?”

This is my one and only life. My one chance. I want to lay it all out there and love people and be loved in it. Someday I’ll go home and my deep desire is to hear “well done Greg, your a good and faithful servant”.

grace.mercy.peace.truth.love.action

11/24/2007

Sailing anyone?

Read a great segment from a book called “Exploring the Depths of Jesus Christ” yesterday. Really struck me as how God grows us into the people he wants us to be. Enjoy:

“When sailors first take a ship out of port it is very difficult to head her out to sea. They must use all their strength to get that ship clear of the harbor, but once she is at sea she moves easily in whatever direction the seaman chooses.

It is the same with you as you begin to turn within to God. You are like that ship at first you are very strongly bounded by sin and by self. Only through a great deal of repeated effort are you turned within, but eventually those ropes which bind you have to loosen.

Keep on turning within. Do so despite every failure, despite all the distractions that pull you away. If you will remain faithful and strong in this continual, turning gradually you will push off from the port of self, Leaving it far behind you will head for the interior to an abiding with God, for that is your destination.

What happens once the ship has left port? She moves farther and farther out into the deep sea and the farther from the port she goes the easier she moves.

There comes a time at last which she can use her sails, her oars are useless. They are laid aside, now her course is swift and what does the pilot do? He is content to spread the sails and hold the rudder. All he does now is keep the swiftly moving vessel gently on its course.

To spread the sails is to lay yourself before God in simple prayer. To spread the sails is to be moved by His spirit.

To hold the rudder is to keep your heart from wandering away from its true course. To hold the rudder is to recall the heart gently. You guide it firmly by the moving of the Spirit of God.

Now as you begin to move into Him, He will gradually gain possession of your heart. He gains it in the same way – little by little – that the gently breeze fills the sails and move the ship forward.

When the winds are favorable, the pilot rests from his work. The pilot rests and leaves the ship to be moved by the winds. Oh, what progress they make without becoming the least bit tired.

They are making more progress in one hour without any effort than they ever did before even when exerting all their strength. If the oars were used now, it would only slow the ship and cause fatigue. The oars are useless and unnecessary.”

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