Facing Your Giants!

                Giants come both big and small, public and private. They are whatever seems larger than us and/or our resources or abilities to overcome or complete the task. Maybe like half a page of blank screen onto which I am to write something entertaining and thought provoking so much so that you will consider and complete a life change for your spiritual development (no pressure). Giants come in the form of desktop computers and devices they attempt to connect to. I have been struggling with a computer and mixer for some time for several hours at a time. Giants are the daily commute on GA 21 with an accident at I-95 (duh). Giants are a looming health concern for which a clear choice of treatment there is not (Yoda like). Giants are boredom with relationships, our purpose and passion. A giant might be a toddler in the “terrible 2’s” or an inattentive spouse at home. They come in all shapes and sizes. Our methods for dealing with those giants are as varied as the size and type of giants. However, most if not all but one are simply coping and not really dealing with the giant.

                The real beginning of the defeat of our giants is gaining a proper perspective of the problem. It is a problem of image. Not one of the giant being so big but our view of ourselves being too small. It’s called the grasshopper complex. When Israel was ready to cross the Jordan to claim the promised land of God, they sent a recon team of twelve men into the land to get an idea of what they were up against. They returned after 40 days to say the land was indeed flowing with milk and honey and brought back a branch of huge grapes. They also reported the people were strong and big.

“We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!” ³² So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. ³³ We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.” Numbers 13:31-33 HCSB

Yep it’s an image problem. We see ourselves as too small and therefore our god as too small because we make our god our size. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is alone the largest giant to overcome.

                As a result it took Israel 40 years to change their view of God. Facing a giant today? How you look at it narrows or expands your view. Question: Is your giant bigger than you? OK, is your giant bigger than your God? That's what I thought. "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty." Zech 4:6 HCSB   What we need is a bigger God. Not because he is too small but because our view of him is too tiny.

Bro G

I Hate being in the Middle!

Continuing this week are several projects that have yet to be completed or can be completed. That bothers me. Does it bother you? I like for things to be completed. I find satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment in reaching a conclusion an end. These projects have been on going and one or two have not made any progress because of others. However, one or two are not going anywhere because I have not done anything about them. Sure, I have been praying about them but not doing anything about them. You know when you have a health issue and you pray and complain or complain and pray about it but never schedule an appointment at the Dr’s office! That’s what I have been doing with some of these projects.

Knowing that I like it when a project is completed. I wonder if Disney did that to me. You know all of the Disney movies where they live “happily ever after.” The ending where the good guy wins and destroys the bad guy. Chuck Norris television and films, Steven Segal movies, John Wayne westerns and war movies, I like all of those. They finish well (meaning how I want them to). As opposed to life that rarely finishes well or “happily ever after.” The TV show Extreme Makeover was a joy to watch a family in need being helped and the energy and care that went in from the community and cast until that moment of the reveal when the family is overwhelmed by the finished home. That was always warm and fuzzy. But then came the stories of what happened later to the families or what the families chose to do. The same is said of large lottery winners, super star athletes etc. who have a financial blessing only later to fall into bankruptcy, no happily-ever-after there for them.

We allow ourselves to be lulled into the fantasy that everything here ends well. Some in the entertainment industry buck this trend by releasing movies that don’t end as we hope. Several years ago my family watched War Horse on Netflix. It is about a boy/man and horse enduring World War I. The events for both are horrific. Just about the time something good might happen something bad did happen. They never quit connected until the very end when they meet up bruised and battered going home. No victory parade, no medals, no heroic save-the-day, their win is surviving and going home alive together. All of us just sat there stunned at the end. We said we were traumatized by what happened in between. That is more like life is her for us. Even in the Bible there are many stories that don’t end “happily ever after.” The story of Jonah, Noah has a poor ending, Hosea buys Gomer back, Paul and John are in prison yet all had faith in an ending unseen by them. We call it faith. Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. Hebrews 11:1 HCSB

Well, there is my answer. I will always be in the middle when I am counting on Jesus to be the end and that’s OK.

Bro G

Friday finally made it!

I don’t know how it happens, but Friday took a long time to get here this week. I know time is time is time and it goes no faster or slower any given day. Occasionally we add time to the clock. June 30, 2015 we added a leap second to the official atomic clocks to take into account the ever slower of the earth rotation. See it took longer for Friday to get here this week, exactly one second. I noticed. How about you?

When you are waiting on something time moves ever so slowly. Waiting for: test results from the doctor; as a child your birthday; the call about the job; time to get off work; the promotion just to name a few. I have worked retail and when business is slow time drags. You do one thing and then recognize 5 minutes have passed. FIVE minutes, ugh what is taking so long?

However when you are busy time flies by. It is never more evident than in children. As their departure for college or the work world or marriage looms, a parent often wonders where the time went and how did it go by so quickly. It can’t be possible that they are grown and that old. You were busy about life and living and time passed before you knew it. It can also go too fast when we are trying to avoid and outcome or event as we dig our feet into the earth trying to slop the motion.

It really is a perception and not a mathematical or time keeping issue. What we know is the here and now and like it or not our system of time keeping is determined by our environment. A day is 24 hours because it take 24 hours for the earth to complete one rotation. If it is slowing one day might be 25 hours long in the distant future. A year is 365 1/3 days as that is the amount of earth rotations it takes for our planet to rotate around the sun. Distance in the cosmos is measured in light years which is a unit of measure based on how far light travels in one calendar year (5.6 trillion miles). Our life is centered on time.

Dallas Willard in his book Divine Conspiracy speaking of time and God wrote, “Time runs its course within eternity.” Eternity is bigger than time. God is bigger than eternity. His name I AM that I AM. Present, always, is forever, larger, longer than eternity, THAT God. When we’ve been there 10, 000 years…kind of God. God is beyond time. That’s why both statements are true,

8 Dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape you: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 2 Peter 3:8 HCSB.

Time is our focus not God’s. God is looking to eternity. He is shaping us for eternity not the time here on this planet all be it 70-80-90+ years. That seems like a long time to us time-bound-burdened-battered people. It is but a portion of a drop. Be glad it’s Friday but be more glad that one day in the Kingdom there will be no more days!

Bro G