We Are In A War

If we were fighting for our lives in enemy territory, how would we be behaving?  If we knew that the enemy was seeking us, seeking to capture us, torture us, and eventually kill us, what would that look like?  We are in a war like this!
God created everything and it was good.  There was no sin on earth, things were functioning in the design that God had created.  Everything was living in Truth.  Then Lucifer questioned God and he was kicked out of heaven with his angels.  At that point, God allowed Satan to roam the earth, and the war was started.  Satan roams the earth, seeking to kill and destroy, seeking to destroy Truth.  But Truth can't be defeated and God will not be defeated.  In many ways, the earth is Satan's territory, as Satan roams the earth, controlling much of our culture.  Yes, God is with us and His angels are surrounding us, but Satan is roaming the earth like he owns the place.
At times I forget that I'm in a battle.  I forget the seriousness of the battle.  We are not fighting for our physical life but for our souls, our eternal life.  Satan is seeking to capture us, to torture us in our own doings, and by doing this, kill us.  Let us not forget this.  In C.S. Lewis book 'Screwtape Letters', he speaks from the viewpoint of Satan's servants.  In this book he writes that one of Satan's greatest and most devastating tactics is causing humans to be complacent.  There comes a point where a Christian lets down his guard and becomes ho-hum about life.  Satan's servants discuss what to do, and they decide, let's not do anything, because if we do something to him, he will turn to God, so let this Christian be, because he is falling into our trap.  We forget that we are in a battle, and slowly we begin to become like the world, and when it's a gradual thing, we don't recognize it.  We become ho-hum and that is where Satan wants us.
Sometimes its frustrating constantly being on guard, constantly watching everything we do, having to be careful what we watch, analyzing what we do, but we are at war.  Yes, we know we have won, but Satan continues to attack.  So although we know God has won the war, and that Jesus death has saved us, we are still at danger, because Satan roams the earth and he is still seeking to destroy us.  Keep your guard up, we are in enemy territory.  Don't become complacent, but guard your hearts!  I love you guys!

'You shall be Holy'

^{1 Peter 1:13-16}

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”


What's it mean to be Holy?  What's that look like?  How can we be Holy when we are sinful creatures?

Joy in Patience

Psalm 37:3-5  "Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it."

I love these words. Words that instruct us to trust and be faithful. Words that demonstrate God's provision for us.  What a great feeling to hear that God will give us the desires of our heart if we delight in Him. I many times focus on this piece, praying that God will grant me my hearts desires. At times I would get anxious, wondering why God was not giving me these desires.

It wasn't until I moved to Colorado that I realized the importance of the words later in this passage. One week I was in my one-on-one meeting with my supervisor and I was sharing this passage with Him and how I was trying to fully trust in the Lord and sharing my deepest desires, when Ron quoted verse 7 to me, which says, "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him."  I think this was back in April or May, and since then, God has been using this simple verse to work in my heart. Everything in verses 3-5 are great, but true joy comes in resting in the Lord and waiting patiently. This humbled me. I had my timeline on things, when I thought things needed to be done, but I was missing the big picture. I was missing the journey that He had me on. I was missing the lessons that I needed to learn before those desires could be focused on God. And you know what I found? When I am patient and work in God's timeline, I have expereinced great joy. God knows what He is doing, He hasn't forgotten about you, but is asking all of us to rest in Him. He wants us to slow down and spend time with Him. And when we rest in the Lord, we are able to wait patiently for Him, for we know we are in His hands, and that He will give us the desires of our hearts.  It may not be in our timeframe, but in His perfect timing. For there is great joy in waiting patiently for the Lord.

Unheralded Faithfulness

When you think of faithfulness, what do you picture?  Maybe you picture friends or family members who have been married for 50 years.  Maybe you imagine people in your church who have served sacrificially for years.  Maybe it's someone who sticks with a sports team through years of losing.  Maybe it's a friend who has stuck by your side through thick and thin.  Or parents who have never wavered in their love for you.  Whatever it is, it comes up short to the faithfulness of God.  Maybe we know this in words, but do you truly believe this in your heart.  It can be hard to see the faithfulness of God, or believe that He is always faithful because He is unseen.
Take some time though, look back on the years, and see God's faithfulness.  Despite some of the decisions we make, God remains faithful.  Think of the pain that God must endure with us each day.  We choose to serve other things, we choose to spend time with things that are pointless, we pursue task, jobs, and people, that keep us from discovering who God is.  Don't you think that must be painful?  Think of the hurt Jesus must have felt as He carried the cross through crowds spitting on Him and saying nasty things to Him.  These same people were those who followed Him and those He spent time with, and now they turned their back on Him.  Jesus should have dropped the cross and left this world, but He remained faithful to us, not succumbing to the temptation to leave us dying to sin, but followed through, saying "I Love you!" and offering us grace!  Take time to look back on God's faithfulness and His hand on your life and soon you will see the Love God has for you!

Conflict

It's a part of daily life.  So many struggle with how to deal with conflict in a healthy manner.  We can blow up and get upset when something happens, or we can avoid the issue and storm away, never resolving the issue.  Both of these lead to further issues of mistrust and hurt between the parties.
So how do we handle it in a positive way?  It starts with honesty and talking to the other party right away.  Often times, people don't do things to us to purposefully hurt us, but we make assumptions that the act was done maliciously.  If we are honest with the other person, saying I felt hurt when you did this, because I felt like you meant to hurt me.  Often the response back will be, oh, I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't realize that when I did that, it hurt you.  Not only does this clear up confusion and keep us from making inaccurate assumptions, but it will help down the line, now that this person knows not to do that again.  When talking through conflict, always use "I" statements, stating how you feel, because it's no longer an opinion then, but truly how you feel.
This is not something that is easy, because we become vulnerable when we approach someone.  We feel like we will be hurt worse if the person sees us with pain.  But trust me, usually it will be a healing process.  Conflict is something that will never go away, so it's important to learn how to deal with conflict and to deal with it effectively.  Let's work on effectively communicating with eachother!

Grace Not Freedom

Grace is a beautiful thing.  It keeps us from being condemned to Hell.  It gives us freedom from our sins.  It's not something we earn, but something God has given us.  It's so important to understand grace and to be able to receive it.  But lately, as I have heard people talk of grace, I believe we have begun to take grace and state that because of grace we are free of God's commandments.  It has become a way to excuse ourselves from things that Jesus teaches.  But that is not grace!

Grace extends itself freely, granting us freedom from our sins.  But it does require something from us after we accept grace.

John 8:11 says, "And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you either.  Go. From now on sin no more."

We like to hear Jesus tell us that He does not condemn us.  But sometimes the next part can be tough.  Go, like right now, and sin no more.  Jesus states here, yes I have given you grace, and you have been freed of your past sins, but go now and sin no more.  How often do we read over passages and try to ignore them cause they require too much from us, or find it tough to follow follow after Christ.

1 John 5:3 - "For this is the love of god, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome."

God gives us commandments not as a way of punishment, but as a way to make our life easier.  It's God's way of saying, here's how to live a joyful live and to avoid a lot of heartache.  When we truly Love God and are all in for Him, we see how His commandments are not a burden, but really a blessing that He has given us these things to help us along our way.

There are many things in this world that Satan has a grasp on, things that tear us away from our Maker.  God extends grace to say, I Love you, and want you, but you must die to self and come to me.  Are we really excepting grace as what it is, and turning from our sins?  Give it all to God, follow His commandments, and draw near to Him!  May you find peace, strength, and courage, as we carry the cross!

#1 Together The Road Is Much Easier

During training, at times it was tough to finish a workout.  I would get bored talking to myself and slowly become demotivated as the run or bike ride went on. But during race day there was an adrenaline that came from having fans around me for an entire day.  The day did not seem that long, it did not seem that difficult, and it was definitely more enjoyable then what I expected.
Life is the same way.  It is much more enjoyable and easier to navigate when we are surrounded by people who encourage us, who are driven for the same thing, and who stick around us till the very end. I'm very blessed for the people that God has surrounded me with over the years.  People who have stuck by me and encouraged me.
So often we try to do things on our own.  We try to overcome our struggles, addictions, and try to battle on our own.  But God doesn't want us to take these things on our own.  He wants us to rely on each other, to help each other, and to really seek Him in our weakness.  It really is more enjoyable when we allow others to help us, to support us, and to walk through life with us.

#2 You'll Never Be The Best

From the time I exited the water on the swim, till I crossed the finish line, I passed almost 1,000 people, but I was still somewhere in the 600's.  There was always a line of people in front of me, no matter how fast I ran.  As I ran, I thought about this, how no matter what, I will never be the best.  If I'm seeking significance in this, I'll always come up empty.  Sometimes we strive so hard to be the best, and when this is our pursuit, we will do anything to get there.  In an age where it seems every athlete is using performance enhancing drugs, it's easy to see what this mindset can do.
It's refreshing and peaceful to know that God does not ask us to be the best there is.  He does not tell us that we must be #1 in order to be invited to heaven.  Instead He extends grace to us and states that He wants us in a state of weakness, for when we are weak He is strong.  He states that we should do the best we possibly can, to work as if working for the Lord not for man, but He does not require us to be #1.  What a refreshing thought that we don't have to outdo everyone around us, that we don't have to compete with those around us, but that we can join together, encouraging each other to be the best we can be.
There was such great camaraderie among these athletes, because the goal of the Ironman is to finish.  As you pass people (or get passed) they always encourage you and you encourage them.  There is not the competitive side with each other, but truly a challenge to oneself to finish.  And this is how the race of life should be.  We should not be running to beat those around us, running solely for ourselves, but we should be encouraging of those around us, pulling them along, and striving for the finish.

#3 It Can Be Addicting

When I arrived to check-in on Friday morning, I received a flyer for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes prayer time later that evening.  I knew I had to attend this to connect with other Christian athletes.  I arrived expecting a hundred or so athletes, but was shocked when I walked into a room with about twenty athletes.  I was disheartened by how few athletes were willing to join together for prayer.  As the leaders talked, it was mentioned how so many of these athletes train 30-40 hours a week, and how this becomes there life.  They talked about how once people do one, many of them continue to do more and begin to lose focus of other things in life.
Talk about how we are in everyday life.  Many times we make decisions based on serving God and where He is leading us, only to quickly lose sight of why we are doing what we are doing.  We quickly make these opportunities into our god, throwing ourselves into what we are doing.  So many of these athletes are addicted to doing Ironman events.  They seek for significance in this event, using the event as a way to have people appreciate them.  Every person has a void in their hearts, a longing for something.  The only difference between people is what they fill this void with.  And at the Ironman, I could tell, many of these people filled this void with triathlons.
This event was a great accomplishment for me and something I can cross off my bucket list.  After I finished, I did and still do have a desire to do another one.  But as I sat in the FCA meeting, I heard a fellow athlete who was crying, as he shared that this was his 8th and last one, because this event had turned into an addiction for him, something that stole time from his wife, kids, and God.  Anything can become an addiction.  We want to do things that makes us feel significant, but we must find our significance in God!

#4 Goals Require Sacrifice

Each day is filled with thousands of choices. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we all prioritize our lives by the choices we make.  Everything we do is prioritized.  When we are striving to achieve a goal, that goal is placed near or at the top of the list.  Everything we do focuses on the top.  When I signed up for the Ironman, immediately this became a top priority.  I had to sacrifice time with friends (so I could get rest), I had to sacrifice certain eating habits (although I didn't sacrifice as much as I probably should have:), and at times I even sacrificed my relationship with God.
Daily we make decisions that reflect what our priorities are.  Too often we do not stay focused on our goal, which should be to know Christ and to make Christ known.  When we are not focused on this, we waste hours of our day on meaningless things.  We can sit down in front of the tv for hours and watch pointless shows or spend countless hours on facebook, where we compare our lives with others.  We tend to waste lots of time.  We waste money trying to improve our self-esteem or on the latest 'thing'.  When we stop striving to become more like Christ, we lose focus and become poor stewards of what God has given us.
As I trained, I never listened to music.  Before training started I told myself I would use this time to talk with God and to listen, making sure that He would stay #1 on my priority list.  There were times were I lost focus of why I was doing this event.  At times, becoming an Ironman was selfish, a goal to gain significance in the world and in the eyes of those I love.  And it was in those times where God lost priority that I struggled, that I wanted to stop training, and where I felt weak.  But when we are weak, God is strong, and as race day came closer, I refocused, knowing that the only way I could complete this task, is with God's help.
I have learned that no matter what our goals in life are, God MUST be #1 on our priority list.  It's not so much about what we are doing, but about why we are doing it.  Make God #1, and never sacrifice this!

#5 The Road Is Long

When Paul explains running the race with endurance, he very accurately explains how long and difficult it is.  It's a decision that takes extreme sacrifice.  So often we get excited to do these awesome things, only to fall apart a week later when we realize the work it takes to get there.  Life takes sacrifice.  God requires us to sacrifice a lot to follow Him.  Yes, we want to follow Jesus because He is incredible, but we quickly abandon the cause of Christ when we have to start sacrificing.  But if we push on, staying strong, running with endurance, the reward is incredible.
There were many weeks where my workouts struggled because I couldn't stay motivated, but I continued doing the workouts, pushing past those rough weeks, and in the end, it was so worth it.  I had to sacrifice time with friends, money, and pretty much my life for 6 months.  At times I wondered if it was worth it, if all this sacrifice would pay off, but crossing that finish line, it was worth it.
The biggest thing was keeping my eyes focused on the goal.  If I was not focused on the goal, I would not have made it to the end.  The race of life takes focus and constant sight on the goal.  Only when our eyes are set on the finish, can we stay strong and committed to the cause of Christ.

Ironman Wisconsin

Absolutely incredible!!  One of the coolest things I've done & another thing off the bucket list!  It's too hard to explain in one blog post.  2400+ athletes swimming together in the water and taking on the challenge of a lifetime.  This event was so different than anything else, not only because of the distance, but because the goal is to finish, not to beat anyone else.  Everyone on the course was cheering each other on, 55,000 fans cheering us on, and 4,000 volunteers there to support us.  It was so awesome to be a part of this and to join the Ironman family.
I felt so much better than what I could have ever imagined.  I just kept going faster and faster and felt better and better.  It was incredible.  God has blessed me so much with strength, the athleticism to complete something like this, and He gave me such favor in this event.
Over the next few days I'm going to explain the top things I have learned from this event, and the lessons God has taught me.
I want to thank all of you for your support, prayers, and continued encouragement!

Two Days

First thing I'm finding out, I'm way out of my league here!  I'm not from this triathlon world, so I don't know the lingo or how to behave at such a function.  The nerves are starting to set-in a bit, the question of can I do this?  Two days and that question will be answered.  I really am jumping into this with little experience.  It's the little things that I'm not sure about.  What will transitions be like, how do I handle aid stations, what do I carry on my bike?  But it's exciting to step out and take on a challenge.  So in two days, all questions will be answered or dissipate as the starting gun sounds.

Fear

One of the big issues in the church is fear.  We fear uncertainty, we fear the future, we fear failure.  We have to have everything planned out, and everything has to go according to detail.  We don't do things if we think we can't accomplish it.  We are scared to take risk, we are afraid to do something if there is any doubt of accomplishing it.
Going into the Ironman, there is plenty of doubt.  Lots of people have doubted me.  I doubt myself at times.  But I do not fear it, cause God's word says, "Perfect Love drives out fear".  I don't have to worry about not finishing, cause I have failed before, I will fail again, but no matter what, God still Loves me!  He will Love me no matter what happens.  That is perfect Love!
This Love should drive us to take risk, to step into the future without worry of what's next.  Knowing God's unfailing Love should drive us to attempt big things, because no matter what happens He will Love us.
I say this, yet to many times I myself don't believe it.  God says He takes care of the birds and animals, yet I find it hard to believe that He Loves me as much as them.  We see ourselves as unloveable at times.  We let our experiences with others dictate our relationship God.  But what we forget is that God's relationship and Love for us is Perfect!  We must take hope in this, cause God's Love MUST be enough, or else we have nothing.  If we do not accept God's perfect Love, our hearts will always long for something more.  Easy to say, hard to do.  It starts with accepting God's Love, and once we have done this, we no longer have to fear anything.  Allow yourself to be Loved and fear no more!

Longing to be known

We all long to be known.  That's what we dream of as little kids, doing something that makes us noble and great in the eyes of the world.  You don't hear kids say, "I want to play basketball at the Y."  it's more like "I want to play in the NBA" or "Be the next Lebron James".  We want to be significant!  There is a part in every person that wants to prove ourselves to the world, that we are strong and courageous!  And sometimes we strive so hard for this we lose sight of everything around us, and forget that God loves us no matter what.  Yes He wants us to do our best, but He calls us to live where we are, to be significant for His name's sake, and to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength".  We work so hard to prove ourselves to those around us, that we fail to strive for relationship with God.  Don't let your pursuit of your desires drive you away from God, rather "delight yourself in the Lord; And He will GIVE you the desires of your heart!"

Family Life Services Vision

This is what we are about and why we do what we do at FLS!

Family Life Services

We need Him!  There is a longing in every heart, the only difference in people is what we choose to fill that longing with.  And every last thing leaves a bit of emptiness, except when we fill that with God.  Even then we often still feel empty because we are not giving everything to Him.  We still find ourselves becoming anxious, desperate, longing, but at the point where we fully surrender to God, dying to ourselves, we come alive and experience true Joy and fulfillment!

Calling Out Lies

I have found that verbally calling out lies in my life has helped so much.  Satan slowly weaves lies into our lives without us knowing it, and slowly we begin to believe them if we are not calling them out.  Verbalizing these lies helps us to identify them and move forward.  This past week I sat in my room and just started verbalizing the many lies that Satan has led me to believe and it was so freeing.  As I started, more and more kept coming to mind, many that I didn't even know existed in my life.  Just begin calling them out and allow the Spirit to bring them up as you go, and slowly you will find yourself being free of the lies and you will no longer be blinded from the Truth.

What is tolerance?

What has happened in the past week shows how intolerant people have become of Christians.  I have talked with many non-Christians about how people should stand up for their beliefs, yet when Christians stand up for their beliefs we are called intolerant.
John 3:18-20 - 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

I'm Not Home

This song has rung so true for me over the past month.  I have struggled with this world, struggled with seeing brokenness every day, and struggled with my own flesh.  So much of me longs to be with my maker.  I remember leaving the concert after these guys sang this song and saying to the other two people in the car, "I'm ready to be home.  Not like home here, but to be with God."  And since that point my heart has longed for that.  I have longed for God to say it is time, but He obviously has more in store for me.  I'm not home yet and I look to the time when I finally reach home.  But for the time I strive to finish the race, racing with endurance, and pushing on, even when all I long for is to be Home!