Tis the Season...

Christmas…

For all the significance this event has, for all the wonder that is Christ, I struggle with Christmas.

I would really like to understand why. When I am done with this post I will pray about this very thing.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Is 7:14

I love the Old Testament prophesy announcing the virgin birth. I love all the wonder associated with the Lord Jesus Christ. I often want to find a way to make Christmas worship more meaningful. I want to thank God for the miraculous gift of his son.

All the while the world swirls around me and my family. The pervasiveness of consumerism is oppressive. Buy this, indulge in that, no payments for 90 days, credit trouble we can finance you, spend spend spend.

This is not what Christmas is about.

I want a Christmas where Christ is central. I want a Christmas where we wake up on Christmas morning and pray first. I want a Christmas where the glory and honor go to God not to man.

I am not big on Christmas carols. I struggled with this for some time. Fortunately I have learned that it is not that I do not like carols. It is just that I am frustrated with the same ones over and over and over and over and over. You get the point.

Last Christmas out of frustration, I purchased a Mercy Me Christmas CD. It was a mix of older songs sung their way and their own music. I loved it. This year my wife and I purchased a Jars of Clay Christmas CD, I love it too.

Praise God I can honor him in song with music I love that does not seem tired and old.

There are some things I like about the season. I eagerly anticipate this months Adopt a Block Saturday. Sharing the season of life and giving with those in need, now that is exciting! Of course I do this every month though. I look forward to meeting with my small groups and basking in our friendships, celebrating the season. I look forward to spending time with family and friends reinforcing the love that exists between us. I look forward to reaching out to old lost friends and strangers and the hope of new or renewed relationships.

What will bring me a true sense of joy in this season? Worship? Giving? Service? Time with family? New traditions? Old traditions? All these will play a role I am sure.

What works for you? How do you put Christ in Christmas?

I think it is time I prayed…

What if God ran Google…

The other day I was messing around in Google analytics marveling at the statistics it provides. It shows me where people who visit this site come from, how they found it, how long they stayed etc. I wish it told me your names so I could thank you for reading this work, but it does not.

What I have learned is that most people who visit do so organically. A googleized term meaning you typed in a search word and clicked onto the site. No big deal right? It is actually. 80% of the people who find the site do so through organic google searches.

You see I did not set out to build a popular site, frankly I am happier to be in obscurity since I am being uncomfortably transparent here. So if you don’t tell your friends about the site, fine, really! I set out to honor God. I set out to document my own faith journey and in doing so hoped that it might touch some person who might find God themselves in part from reading my story. That is it the only goal.

Funny thing happened in Google analytics when I realized the significance of an 80% organic score with a healthy growing reader base. I was hitting near the top of search phrases in google! That is the only way people who do not know me were finding the site.

I am humbled to discover that for certain search phrases I was coming up on the second and even first page of google results. This stunned me. Imagine being in the top twenty results of hundreds of thousands of hits even in tens of millions. For those of you who may not know it is commonly believed that if you do not show up on the first three pages of google people will not find you since they either refine their search or stop looking further. So here I am on page one and two. What keywords were amplifying my search results?

how do I know if I am saved

This question when entered into google spits one of my blog posts out at # 17 of 12,900,000 results!

When I saw this and realized the post actually was not even intended to answer this question directly I was shaken. You see google has a complicated algorithm it uses to rank the importance of web articles and returns them accordingly. It returned my post in the top 0.000013% of all results.

I do not believe this is accidental, a coincidence, even a fancy algorithm, I believe this is God at work using this post to reach out to those curious about what it means to be saved.

So then I started to get creative…

What if God ran Google

• It would not be spiders crawling web sites it would be saints
  
  
• It would no longer be pay per click, but kneel per click
  
  
• Safe search really would be
  
  
• Search result 12,900,000 would of course be shown first and mine would be ranked 12,899,983’rd
  
  
• Never again would you skip past a seemingly unrelated result but stop and wonder “What is he trying to tell me here???”
  
  
• Somehow the words Prayer, Worship, Faith Hope and Love would mysteriously appear in every search. Love would of course be first and in bold font.
  
  
• No matter how hard they try to remove his name, God would appear in the text of every search
  
  
• You could conduct the same keyword search day after day and get completely different and richer meaning from the results
  
  
• The poor of spirit would always get the quickest response times and best search results
  
  
• Somehow the rich guy, he just couldn’t get the search button to actually work and return any results
  
  
• All the old school web experts would be offended and refuse to consider what their search results meant
  
  
• And when the final search was hit it would return a simple message that every knee should bow and every tongue confess the name of Jesus.

Do you have any others? I would love to hear them. Post a comment.

Father I thank you for all you do to draw us near

I praise you for the creative spirit you have blessed us with

I praise you for keen intellects

Father I pray that you continue to shower us with your blessings

That we continue to seek you in all our actions in all our heart

I thank you for our salvation and hope in your son

Our savior

Jesus Christ

Amen

The Desert

I was reflecting the other day on the highs and lows of the journey to discipleship in Christ and realized I had a story to tell. Here it is.

The Desert

In 2000 I left the only company I had ever worked for to move west to California. It seemed the right move to make. I was done with my old company and the new job was exactly what I had been seeking. You know many people thought my wife and I brave. We left our country, our home, the only company I had ever known for a new life in socal. We didn’t think ourselves brave, just decisive and perhaps adventurous. As a life long catholic who had only two years prior begun to rediscover his faith, the decision process was embarrassingly secular. I did not seek Gods wisdom in prayer, I did not pray for the success of the transition. We just negotiated a good deal and moved.

We had no church to call home, we had no friends, we had no relatives within 2400 miles to lean on. We had nothing but each other. We had God of course but we did not know how to seek him. I did not know how to pray beyond a Hail Mary and an Our Father. Somehow neither seemed to be on point.

We were in a desert of our own making.

Have you ever felt loneliness? Have you felt the sting of not being able to reach out and connect with people? To suffer alone, to be a shadow of your full vibrant self, to have no friends? Do you know this pain? This is not the church of Christ described in Acts 2:42!


We tried local catholic churches, none fit. I am not sure the local churches in socal have heard of the second Vatican council. Latin masses and blind faith?! No this is not my idea of spending time with God. We continued searching. Months past, it felt like years. I prayed longingly for Godly men to come into my life to befriend. Someone with whom I could share my heart.


After months of loneliness and quiet suffering, we were invited to a Lutheran church. If only the Lutherans knew how similar they are to Catholics. It is profoundly saddening to know how much we share yet neither cannot admit to. The Lutheran tradition was so close to what I had come to love in Catholicism that the transition was softened. We quickly were welcomed into this church family and began to heal and eventually grow once again in our faith.

Was this desert a lesson? I certainly think so. It takes me back to my favorite verse in Jeremiah (29:11) Seek me with all your heart says the lord and I will be found by you. I will release you from captivity.

This desert time was long and painful, lonely and discouraging yet through it we emerged even more dependent on God, even more committed to our faith, even more resolved to move toward complete surrender and one day be a disciple totally on fire for God.

Let me end this post on the word that the Lord gave me as I wrote it for I know this verse was given to me so that I might know he was with me through this challenging time in "the desert"

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Mt 11:28


Praise be your Holy name Father

May you grant me the wisdom to seek you in all the decisions of my life

That I may make your will mine and that I would honor you always

In your son's victorious name I pray

Amen

I Look Onto the Hills

Psalm 121, my favorite.

I returned to my mountain playground this afternoon after several weeks of straight road biking. If you read my previous post What's in your wallet you will know that the fall is fire storm season and riding in the bone dry scorched brush mountains is not so safe an activity.

It has been cool and dry for a while now (60-70 degrees) California cool so I thought I could safely ride again. Returning to my outdoor prayer closet is an indescribable joy for me. You see on the road I have no private place to pray.

My prayer time today was powerful. The combination of personal weakness, solid sermons on prayer and the holy spirit, reading about prayer and surrender, listening to bible podcasts all combined for a climatic prayer experience. I was so relieved to be back in the Lords presence, so humbled to talk to him, so sad at my own weakness.

Yet the Lord is good and his grace abounds.

These past few weeks I have found myself drifting, drifting away from the Lord's protective hand. I found myself deceived by the evil one, separated and attacked. Yet the Lord's grace abounds and his love infinite. Today I confessed my sin and weakness and asked forgiveness. I interceded on behalf of many in my life who are lost and hurting. I prayed my dangerous prayer; use me Lord, your will be done through me.

For I know there is no condemnation in Christ and the weakness in me is of the flesh. I am not my flesh I am a child of the most high God, saved and washed clean by the blood of my savior Jesus Christ. Victory.

Father

I praise your Holy name.
I thank you for your son, his sacrifice
I confess my own weakness and shortcomings
I beg your forgiveness
I praise you Father.

Amen

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is a day for reflection and thanksgiving. I pray all my readers a peaceful day filled with family and friends. May your celebrations be all that you desire. May you find many reasons to be thankful. I hope you take the opportunity to thank those who have been a blessing in your life. may all of us recognize the source of our life and being and thank our heavenly Father for his generosity.

This is my 10^th American thanksgiving celebration after over 30 of them in Canada. It is a fascinating thing to consider the differences between the two. Today however I can only focus on the common theme of gratitude prayer and thanks.

To all my family, friends, and acquaintances I thank you for the influence you have had in my life.

I pray each of you will have a wonderful celebration of thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving

Ron

Tent City: "State and Grove"

Do you love me Peter? Feed my sheep

I looked into the eyes of Alice as I smiled and shook her hand. Alice had seen life the hard way; living out of a run down tent in the bad part of Ontario California, Alice has seen life. She had bad decaying teeth, leathered pock marked skin and tattered dirty cloths. She was searching for a blanket, maybe a newer pair of shoes.

Do you love me Peter? Tend my lambs

There was Ianna. She had been on the street for a couple of months. Her boyfriend had left her. She had nowhere to go no one to reach out to. Her tent had burned to the ground. She showed us scars on her forearm where the nylon material had scared her permanently. She was searching for a jacket and baby cloths. She shared how she was bipolar.

Do you love me Peter? Feed my sheep John 21:15-18

I said hello to Bobby. He blessed us and shared how he had been on the streets now for three years. He lived out of his truck with his old dog, his companion. Bobby could have been Jesus himself. He had deep blue eyes that seemed out of place in this land of despair.

I watched as Alice received a burger, water and some snacks from other volunteers. The gratitude was sincere. This was a lady who depended on the generosity of others. Other came through the food line, so many others.

There were those who had given up on life resignation written all over their face, others who had a glimmer of hope that seemed to be ground out of them moment by moment. A jet screams overhead clawing its way into the sky. I had been in one just days earlier taking off from the Ontario CA airport bound for Portland over this very spot. All the while I was praising God for his blessing on my life. If only that praise and blessing could have rained down on these brothers and sisters as the jet thundered over head.

There were those whose minds were not right, who struggled just to exist. Those who had fear and pain etched into their face. You wanted to wash it off to care for them to help them up. So much pain so much fear, so much despair. It hurt to watch, it hurt to be there.

In the dry dust of an empty field over 200 hopeless, homeless carved out a life, no a survival. No heat, no plumbing, no air conditioning, no sound insulation, this was a hell on earth. Yet in the midst of all the misery there was hope. Several Christian churches were there handing out food, handing out cloths, handing out love.

I was there for a few hours and it changed me, wrecked me actually. My son and I left there in a somber mood. We both thought of these people all day, we resolved to return to the tent city in Ontario. To hand out love and to share the hope of the gospel of our savior Jesus Christ.

Will you join me?

Father

today I felt your pain, your heartbreak over your children

Your people suffering, living in despair

People who have no one nothing, people who need you

Father, it was such as these you sought to save, to heal

I pray that you use me, you teach me how to care for these

to care for your people

Father I pray that this blog touches those who can make a difference

A difference with their hands and their hearts

I pray that many of your people will wake up and feel the suffering around them

and finally do something about it Father

Do not let me lose this heart ache I feel

Use me to help your people

amen

Ron

Retreat! no Advance...

I am in such a joyous place. I returned Sunday from my churches men’s retreat in a glow. I had expected to have a mountain top experience. I had expected to celebrate with my heavenly father a year of obedience spending time with him every morning. I had expected many things.

What I found was so totally different and beyond what I had hoped for. It was as if everything I experienced had happened in slow motion. I had so many revelations, so many moments of clarity, it is hard to describe. Yet it is simple. The revelation came later so much later. I returned to work Monday exhausted and aglow. All I wanted to do was worship, worship, pray and worship. What an incredible place to find myself. It was ridiculously impossible to concentrate on Monday. I basked in the glow of revelation. I enjoyed the momentary pleasure of knowing after the fact that I truly had communed with my heavenly father. I think he just held up my understanding until afterward so as to manage my tender and immature spiritual emotions.

Cabin Time

So if you did not know I am called to lead. I would find a way to lead putting out the garbage if it made sense to do so. When I arrived at the retreat, I immediately did the opposite of what I would normally do. I sought deliberately to follow, to serve, to ensure the retreat was a success. I took on any role necessary.

The message this night seemed peculiar to me. Leadership in the home. It fit the theme of the retreat but it was a stretch for me. Despite this I resolved to be in the moment and see where the spirit would lead. He led to the cabin and a particularly important discussion with the men there. We discussed the leadership role of a man in his home and family. We discussed many things. At one point I was asked why I did not pray with my wife regularly. Was it fear, embarrassment, pride? For me it was fear and self consciousness. Uncertain of my wife’s reaction to this question, I avoided it. I asked her Sunday if she would pray with me daily. Her response…Yes. I have done so for the past three days Praise God.

The same conversation was held related to children. In the end again I resolved to pray for them daily as well. This is a relief. The guilt I have carried on this front has been significant. Today I am free of this burden. Praise you heavenly father.

The River Bank

Saturday morning our pastor delivered a thought provoking message on the life of Peter. Each word seemed to cut deeply as I considered the meaning of Peter’s actions and how they related to my life. After an hour of in depth study our pastor abruptly stopped. He invoked his right as our spiritual leader, commanded us to talk to no one except God for the next hour. Get into a quiet place and talk really talk to your father, go.

I obediently left the chapel and searched for a location to be alone with God. I found a spot on the edge of a mountain stream; a place scoured by winter rivers of Californian flash flood. The cold dry ground sparkled in the weak noonday sun. Even the rocks sparkled a limp gold color in the sun. I sat in the dirt and in earnest prayed. I sought my father. I begged him to show up. Help me to clear my mind of the funk and dirt of life, those clouding thoughts that keep me from greater intimacy with him

For half an hour I quieted my mind and sought him. My mind swirled from thoughts of worldly things to deeper contemplation of my faith journey. Deep, deep within I found his words. Pride, lust, approval. I knew what he meant. My ego (pride) has my whole life kept me from surrendering to him, kept me from greater intimacy. Lust became a discussion of his victory in me. A battle to be wary of. The enemy still is on the prowl looking to bring me down. But this day, this month I am totally in him in this battle and I claim victory in his holy name. Then there was approval. I know that I seek his approval in my life as I have from my earthly father.

I lifted up in order each word. I asked for his forgiveness. I cast out each word from my person. I begged for the Holy Spirits intervention in my battle against pride. I praised my heavenly father for his deliverance on the lust front. I lifted up “approval” and sought his wisdom. I vowed to seek him just because I loved him, not for his approval. I would seek him however long necessary, I would seek him to love him. As I contemplated the word love and what an intimate relationship with God would mean…my radio squawked “Ron from Water of Life come in”

Ron From Water of Life Come in!

The moment was broken, intimacy disappeared in an instant. I could have gotten upset. I could have ignored the call. I could have done many things. This day I did what was needed. I had vowed to serve this weekend. I was to be the liaison between the retreat staff and our leadership, a Godly gopher! So liaise I did. I addressed the concern. As I let the transmit button on my radio loose, I fell to my face in tears. I wanted so badly to re-commune with God, to claim back the moment. It was gone. It was soon replaced with peace and a bright smile. I was here to serve and serve I will. No towel for me, obscurity such a better place. I served with joy and purpose dealing with the issues of the day to ensure a smooth experience for our group.

Praise and Worship

So those of you who know me through this blog know that worship is not my strong suit…yet. Well that would change too. This weekend had more time in worship than I have experienced since the last Promise keepers conference I attended a few years back.

Friday, Saturday morning, Saturday evening, I struggled. Yes there were moments where I was in the spirit praising and worshiping. I could not stay there though. Sunday morning was different. Was it the music, the song choices, I don’t rightly know. What I do know is God showed up for me. A simple whisper “on your knees” I obeyed and their started one of the most profoundly God charged worship times I have experienced. From my knees to my face, I worshiped my heavenly father. As I did so he revealed to me further that pride was not the only root, selfishness was there also

Will you pray for me?

I found myself walking to the front for an altar call. Part way there a brother from last years small group stood in praise. I asked him to pray for me, ask God to break the bonds of pride in my life. Over the decibels of the praise song my brother prayed hard for me. With a thankful hug I continued to the front. To my knees, to my face I prayed for forgiveness and deliverance to be selfless, to be humble.

Praise God. I left the retreat a changing (not changed too presumptuous) man of Christ.

How was the retreat Ron?

In the last three days I have been asked that question so many times. Each time, the Lord reveals a new detail of what we experienced together. So many moments so many stories.

I am a new creation in Christ. I am a man of God. I am forgiven, I am saved.

Praise God


Ron