Loving Your City

Growing up in the city of Glendale, a small Oregon logging community of about 800 people, I heard the phrase, "I can't wait to get out of this town," more than just a few times. It is a city that has a single supermarket, two mills and zero stoplights (unless you count the blinking red one at the intersection just off the off-ramp...if you do, you may count it as half a stoplight).

Glendale has never been a popular destination, just like the city I currently live in: Klamath Falls. Klamath is located in a high desert area of southern Oregon — only about 25 miles from the California border. This city boasts around 40,000 people, two collegiate schools (Oregon Tech and Klamath Community College), a movie theatre (!), potatoes, cows and snow and ice from November to the end of May...or June.

The attitude of many youth, college students and adults who live in Klamath Falls is, "All I want to do is leave." And who could blame them, especially after reading how I described them?

Maybe you live in a city like this, or, maybe you live in a big city like a Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles or Las Vegas and you find yourself stuck in traffic, always wishing that you could get out forever.

No matter what city you find yourself living in today, I want to encourage you to love your city.

Why?

1. It's not as bad as you think.

There are always ways to have fun in whatever city you're in. Truth be told, I have loved living in Glendale and Klamath Falls — even though neither city has many of the amenities that larger cities have to offer, it's easy to find a way yourselves. It's just that some places require more creativity than others.

2. It's not about "what your city has to offer," it's about the people.

This is summed up by Jesus in Luke 10:27b, when he states, "Love your neighbor as yourself." When I say "love your city" I'm not talking about the buildings, lakes, or restaurants. I'm talking about the people. After all, God didn't command us to love a specific climate or a triple-decker mall, but he did command us to love people.

3. Jesus did it.

If there was ever a man who had every right to say, "I want to get out of here," It would have been Jesus. He left Heaven, a place of perfection, to come live in a place of deceit, murder, pain, suffering and sin so that we could live our lives in freedom. Could you imagine Jesus coming and living a life that consisted of trying to kill time until He could move on? Instead, He chose to stay to give us grace and love. Jesus did eventually ascend to Heaven, just like most of us will not always remain in the same city, but the world He lived in has never been the same. Love your city, and I promise, it'll never be the same.

Don't live a life always wishing you were somewhere else. Live a life confident that you're with God.

He Seeks His Servants

"I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant." — Psalm 119:176

Imagine this scenario:

You work for a huge company that has worldwide influence. The product that you offer is the most important thing that has ever hit the market — it saves lives, heals bodies, mends families and frees people from any kind of addiction — and you're just one of millions of employees.

The crazy thing about this company is that, even though you're "just" one in millions, the owner — not just your supervisor — knows when you're skipping out on work, sick, lazy, tired, thinking about quitting, bored, going through the motions, or sleeping at your desk. The owner, with his millions of employees, could come down hard and strip you of your salary and your benefits, but he is different. He just wants to talk to you, get to know you, and give you more of a share in the company.

P.S. If you have this job, I suggest you keep it.

This is a picture of God's relationship with His people. He is the leader of a workforce that is naturally lazy and self serving, but even though He has the right to, He doesn't go around casting everyone out of His kingdom. Instead, He gives His people more grace over and over again.

God, the Creator of the universe, "seeks His servant" over, and over, and over again. You and I deserve the worst, but because of the infinite grace of God, we are perpetually given the best. There is no boss, friend, parent, husband or wife that can provide that.

Wherever you go, God will seek you; not to punish you, but to give you more than you can possibly imagine.

Golf and Expectation

The more I think about it the more I realize that a considerable amount of my childhood was spent on the golf course with my dad. Together we witnessed an incredible hole-in-one (my dad would witness another one by the same guy), soggy spring days, crisp fall mornings and stunning summer afternoons.

Like thousands of golfers, we would try all sorts of remedies to cure our slices, hooks, worm-burners, air-balls and chunks. We got better, but I think it's clear that neither of us ended up on the PGA Tour.

But, one day, Dad was trying a new "visualization" technique. It consisted of teeing up the ball, then stepping back and about 15 feet and visualizing the ball going onto the fairway or green. I thought this was silly, of course, because to me hitting a solid shot was entirely a physical act.

He proceeded to tell me something like this:

"I've been concentrating on all of the negative parts of my swing for so long that they became all that I thought about when I stepped up to the ball. It's hard to hit the ball square when all you're thinking about is putting it into the trees, so I'm going to start thinking about the best thing that could happen."

This is something that I've found that applies perfectly to my relationship with God. It's easy to enter into a service or a day thinking about all the things that could go wrong. What if worship doesn't go the way that I want it to? What if the message is terrible? What if the new people don't like our church? What if I'm not good enough? What if I don't deserve God's blessings on my life? What if I don't have all the answers?

How can I live a life for Christ when I'm expecting the worst? How can I experience the overwhelming presence of God when I'm so caught up in myself?

But, by the grace of God, when I EXPECT Him to show up in a mighty way, my life is consumed by Him. Whenever I enter a worship service expecting God I can worship Him with all my heart. When I enter into worship thinking about myself and I decide to wait to worship until the music moves me, I just become more obsessed with me.

Expectation breeds success, joy, miracles and life changing moments. We must be a people that expect God in everything we do.

Grace Be With You

Is God Enough for Me?

The title of this post may seem like a silly question to some, but it's something that I really asked myself during my devotional time. Is God really enough for me? Really?

Currently, I'm doing a reading plan with my Pursue Journal from the City Bible church in Portland. This morning, I found myself in the book of Joshua, reading chapters 12-15. This portion of scripture veers away from the epic battles and incredible supernatural intervention to give us a bit of logistical information and historical fact. This is usually the type of thing that I have to *try* to read, because, like a lot of us, I want to get to the "good" stuff.

In chapter 13, the land of Canaan is being divided among the tribes of Israel — remember, this isn't like figuring how to divide the remains of a cheesecake. They're dividing up a massive amount of land to bless these tribes, with the intention of living and thriving in these places for generations.

Then, verses 32 and 33 say, "These are the territories which Moses apportioned for an inheritance in the plains of Moab, beyond the Jordan at Jericho to the east. But to the tribe of Levi, Moses did not give an inheritance; the Lord, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as He had promised to them."

My first thought was, "How unfair is that?" I pictured a child watching their parents give out presents on Christmas morning to all of their siblings. After everything was unwrapped, the mom and dad look down at the gift-less child and say, "Your present is being with us today." How shattering would that experience be as a child.

Then, the truth hit me. God should be all that I really need, but is that the way that I live my life? If the world stopped today, and all of my goals and dreams were left unaccomplished, would that be OK with me? When all of my "inheritance" is stripped away, and I'm left with Jesus, am I still satisfied?

I don't want to have a relationship with Christ that's weighted on how many blessings I receive or the incredible direction that my life is heading. My life in Christ should be based solely on Christ, because...well, that's the best inheritance anyway.

Is God, just God, enough for you?

Grace Be With You

Do You See What I See?

Note: Well, so far I've dropped the ball on this one. I'll climb right back on the blogging horse and see if I can keep this up. The goal is to have a new post once a week...we'll see how that goes.

My life is infinitely blessed. I have never experienced a time in my life that has been so full of happiness, and, well...that's the way it goes when you're God's favorite (a title that's available to you, as well).

I have seen some incredible things since my last blog post:

— I am married...yes! Rebecca Kathleen Fleming (!) is the most wonderful woman that I have ever known. She is more loving, caring, beautiful (!), hardworking, and intelligent than I deserve. No woman can love like my wife can, and no one can pray quite like my wife can. The things that God speaks into her life are stunning, but more importantly, how she responds with an unwavering faith makes her an angel. Satan, look out. You get in her way and I promise you it will be a case of "wrong person, wrong time." This is the second greatest union that I have ever been a part of — and finishing second place to God, the salvation that He offers, and all of His everlasting, perpetual miracles isn't something to stick your nose up at. (And I have the sneaking suspicion that she's starting to enjoy baseball. Miracles happen when your team actually drives the ball with runners in scoring position.)

— I have seen immense spiritual growth in two of my most faithful leaders. Brian Pisan and Heather Morehouse are two of the most consistent and blessed leaders and servants that I have ever had the pleasure of working with. The wisdom and blessing that God is pouring out on these two is something that I could have never imagined.

Brian is the rock of the Klamath Christian Center young adult ministry. He comes early and often with a heart of pure gold. His sincere, worshipful life continues to bless me, even during the hardest of times.

Heather is best defined as "someone who sees God." I usually hear God and feel God, but Heather is someone who sees Him with High-Definition lenses, and it's reflected in her faith. She sees God in places, ministries, worship, and, most importantly, in people. She doesn't care who you are, she always wants to see God in you, and in everything you do.

— I have seen how incredible my family is. I think about my Dad, Mom, Sister (and Brad), Brother (and the wonderful Beth), Father-in-Law, Mother-in-Law, Justin and Mary LaPlante, Uncle Dan and Aunt Alissa, and my nieces and nephews (they're all cuter than yours) on a daily basis. I cannot help but feel so blessed to be a part of something that is so much greater than myself. So much light is being shed on this world because of what God is doing with my family. Without them, and my vast extended family, life would be broken and it would only contain a fraction of the joy that it does today.

Until next time — Go Mariners

Grace Be With You

Greetings

Is this thing on? Yes? Good.

I welcome you onboard for the first voyage of the "Grace Be With You" blog. Hold on folks, this may be a bumpy ride.

A few months ago, I was inspired by Pastor Elton of Life Bible Church to start a blog...so here it goes. I figure if I can get about three of you to read the first post that I will be exceeding expectations. I have come to the realization that this new (to me at least) form of communication is a powerful thing, and is one worth exploring. Writing down one's thoughts can cause reflection and I plan on wondering why I believe what I believe. Maybe you can answer some of my questions and maybe I can help you along with some of yours.

I am a passionate person. I'm passionate about watching a Klamath Falls sunset, sitting in comfortable sweats, having just the right amount of mustard on my bratwurst (JUST mustard—I don't plan on ruining the taste of the sausage with any other garbage), the Seattle Mariners, loving the woman I'm going to marry (I look forward to calling her my wife...I'll give more on that someday), and I am truly passionate about God.

I've been striving to look at God in a new light lately. As I said in my message at Beyond this last Thursday, I don't believe that the face of God always looks how we think it does. For example, how often do you think about Jesus Christ laughing? Crying? How do you think he looked when he was in fervent prayer in Matthew 26:39:

"And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.'"

All of these things remind me of how passionate God is. Jesus laughed hard and cried hard. He felt the joys of love and His heart raged against sin. There is so much more to the passion of Jesus that I simply cannot describe in the amount of time that I would like to complete this blog post, but the point that I am trying to convey is that this passion is inside of me.

The blood of Christ that fell from His hands, that stained the wood of the cross, flows through my veins. When Christ came and purified me He came to stay and work through me. The passion to say, "Yet not as I will, but as You will" exists in my heart because of His grace.

I want to live with the same passion that Jesus had.

Grace be with you.