my wife is out of town on a retreat….I have the kids (she still has our newborn for obvious reasons)…their ages: 4 and 2.5…their volume: loud…their energy level: off the chart….the house: complete chaos…my love for them: growing every day.
It is Saturday morning and I am sitting here at our annual Leadership Retreat for our church. All of our ministry leaders are here, we have a great couple who is speaking (Dave and Jackie Argue), and there is a good balance of meetings, food, and free time. I look forward to having some fun with my wife and kids today. We are up at Snow Mountain Ranch (in the Rocky Mountains) enjoying the beautiful scenery and wonderful weather.
I will try to post a picture later today.
Why are business deals so frustrating? Especially with other Christians?!! I finally am getting a product that I paid for months ago that I even paid extra for in order to have it rushed to me. Well, I initially got part of what I paid for, but I am just now getting the rest of what I paid for. The excuse….ministry. The person I did this business transaction with claims that he needed to set aside the last few months to focus entirely on his ministry. Now, as a pastor, I understand the importance of ministry, but I wonder if sometimes we use “ministry” as an all too encompassing excuse. After all, if we are involved in minstry and representing God in all that we do, shouldn’t we represent Him in our business transactions as well? I mean, shouldn’t we show integrity when we say we will do something? Was it too much to ask for this guy to call me before he went on his ministry-excuse-of-a-break and let me know what was happening? Of course, he knew that I am a pastor so he probably expected me to have plenty of patience and understand that his ministry comes first. I guess I am struggling with this right now because I am more and more often finding it easier to business with non-Christians than with Christians.
Has anyone else run into this problem of the “ministry excuse”?
God is in me. God is omnipotent. Omnipotent means all powerful. So in me I have the power to do…anything. I am struggling with this because I see so many things that I fail at. So if I have the power to do it, why is it not happening. It is not like I am not trying. I am not a lazy bum by any means. I work, act, and try with everything that I am, yet I still feel like there is more in me that has not come out. What is hindering it? Since I am the holder of the potential within I guess it is me that is hindering it. I just can’t figure out how it can be released. Is there something else that must be broken? It seems hard to believe that more could be broken than already is.
I guess there is something good about not feeling like I have arrived at this place of success, because if I ever get there, I may stop trying. The pursuit of releasing the potential goes on. And since the potential within me is God, and what He can do is limitless, then I will never be able to say…”I have done all that I came to do.” Instead, I will always find myself curiously imagining “What else can I do?”
Does anyone relate?
The book of Exodus has many interesting thoughts and images. I found myself scanning quickly over the description of the tabernacle that God gave to Moses. Although I am aware of the symbolism behind the materials used and the shapes that were formed, I could not get away from the amazing “creativity” of God. God is creative. We are made in His image, and are there fore creative. God often times gives us things in our life and says, “be creative!” And all too often we form something that has already been created by someone else before, or let it sit there and create nothing at all. I believe that God has placed in each one of us a creativity that is yearning to get out. It is beckoning for it’s release… to display the potential that lies within. God was creative with us and we should be creative with what He has given us.
