Give it up, it won't kill you

Have you ever had nothing?
I mean nothing at all.
Not a dream, a hope, a plan?
Ever been desperate to the point of death?
If I don't have this I will die?

I mean desperate like making light from dark.
Life from death kind of desperate.



The Bible records in the first book of Kings chapter 17 a remarkable tale of just what kind of trust God asks of us...and proves he is good for it.

Elijah the prophet was sent on a rather unpopular mission to call a nation to repentance and announce a drought. No rain meant starvation and death...humiliation because God had turned his back. God told him he would be taken care of. He would drink from a nearly dry brook and the only food would be delivered to him by ravens. Elijah had to trust the water would hold and the birds would come.

He did and went
It did he drank
They did he ate.

Eventually the brook dried up and God provided another way even more ridiculous than a mud puddle and birds 

Elijah, I have a desperate woman who is near death. She has no one to care for her. All of her means are about to run out. Go to her and ask her to feed you.

He trusted and asked, she trusted and gave. God provided.

I ask you.
Will you have the same trust?
Will you take what God gives you?
It may be food from a mud puddle and scrapes from a birds mouth but if that is what he gives you will you take it in this life? Is God enough for you?

Elijah and the widow were both desperate and trusted and God provided.

You and I are in the same place of dependence, we just fool ourselves.
We are dependent upon God for food and water.
But even more so, we are dependent upon him for salvation. And just like he provided food for the prophet and widow and her son, he provides the impossible way for us.

Our life comes from trust, obedience and death. Not ours, but Christ's.

 [Jesus} Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Jesus gave all he had in trust and lived.
God asks the same of us.

I did, and went to God.
Jesus died in my stead and I live.
I gave up my life, and saved it.
...the option is there for all

God uses folks who are a little nuts

I was never a boy scout.
My dad somehow got involved with a program called "Indian Guides"instead. For a young boy it was pretty cool. We had fires, learned native dances, wore felt loin clothes over our blue jeans, and headbands with feathers and plastic bear claw necklaces.

My dad was the "Medicine Man" and even had a real buffalo head-headdress! He would run around the fires at big Pow-Wow's calling out to the winds and elements to send fire down. It always happened too...but as his kid I knew his elaborate system of trip wires and test-tubes or wires in trees. It was still cool, but all fake.

I can't find any information on the "tribe" we belonged to but the name sounded like "soo-key-og" which wasn't as cool as Mohawk or Appache.
We each chose our family name and since my parents had a massive Oak in the front yard  my dad claimed the name "Tall Oak", my older brother became "young oak" and I was "little Acorn."

Needless to say I was the brunt a a bit of harassment but it was always mitigated by the fact that my dad was the head pyro.

The cool thing now is that I understand God was setting me up.

The Book of Judges, chapter 6 tells of Israel's plight and the runt whom God chose to save his people so that they would never boast of their own power (Judges 7:2ff). This "tween-ager" was hiding in a wine press out of fear and God shows up and calls him out. "Greetings mighty warrior!" the angel declares and for the good fortune of God's people Gideon didn't believe it!

God does not need powerful men and woman. He is powerful. He uses the weak to shame the strong.

What God does use no they are insignificant yet are are faithful people who trust God's simple math;

Nothing + God + Everything
Everything - God = Nothing


God called down more than just Fire from the sky.
He called Jesus, and he brought the Fire of the Holy Spirit. No wires. No Tricks.

Are you hiding?
Re-check the work on your math folks.
Oh, and if you still get stumped. Check the back of the Book...

My church really stinks

 "In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.
This is a terrific responsibility. Is anyone competent to take it on? No—but at least we don’t take God’s Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets to sell it cheap. We stand in Christ’s presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say straight from God and say it as honestly as we can."

2 Corinthians 2:14-17

As we left the house of  the family we were serving last night the third youngest girl (whom I had just given a dollhouse donated by my two very own daughters) looked up at me, my shirt soaked front and back, drops of water running down my entire face and froze.  Her face turned from a smile to a cross between fear and disgust and proclaims:

"Hey mister, you"re smelly!"

If I had the time, or my wits about me, I would have retorted:

"No honey, my whole church is smelly!"

I was blessed to watch a team of 13 drench themselves for over three hours in a blazing hot third floor apartment as they carried, cleaned, and assembled a box truck full furniture for a family of seven who were sleeping on the floor on a couple of air mattresses and only two chairs for the lot of them.When we found that the box spring for the parents bed would not fit in the winding stairwell we asked a neighbor for saw to cut it in half. He not only offered up his tools to complete strangers but gave us scrap wood to patch it once it was upstairs and refused payment for his broken saw blade.

There were no arguments. No complaining. 

The running joke was "man, hurry up, my back is freezing!"

The group contained a mix of folks that ranged from middle-school students to Aerospace engineers and everything in between all held together by the common bond of Jesus Christ. 

Yes, we reeked. Yes, we were drenched. But to our Master, the One who prayed sweating blood over our souls, who ascended more than three flights of stairs to plead on our behalf in front of His Father on the behalf our very lives we an exquisite fragrance. 

Years back, while at a Young Life Camp I was talking with a young football player well into the night after that evenings' talk. He had just come to faith in Christ and was so excited he couldn't shut up. 

"Bryan"  he said, "I always thought that following Jesus was something you did alone. But now I see you don't. It's a parade, and I love parades!"

I love them too....

and so does the Lord. Especially when they reek.