Month: December 2011

Categories
Daily Post

Giving Peace and Light

Sometimes I come up with original content.  Other times I come up with ‘borrowed’ content.  It’s probably a great debate about which one makes it better.  Today as yesterday will be borrowed.

I have tried to read more this month and I found some great reading plans at the YouVersion Bible site.  I have actually been reading two different plans, one that is discussing a Christmas carol a day, and the other that is just discussed different areas surrounded the birth of the Christ.  Yesterday there was a question posed at the end of the both readings and interestingly enough they were both very similar. One asked this

How has your life been a light to those around you? Make a point to be light during this season.

and the other this

What one thing could you change to give those around you a foretaste of God’s Kingdom of peace?

Great questions, how would you answer them?

 14-16“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16The Message (MSG)

 

Categories
Daily Post

One Verse For Today

Last night I was doing my normal poking around the web, following links and trying to forget about how terrible the BCS system is.  ( but I am excited my Mountaineers are in the Orange).  I decided to take a look at a web site I stumbled upon late last week.  It’s a blog of a normal guy, just doing his thing somewhere in Indiana.  What I saw on his blog is that he started a group this fall with local businessmen to get together each Friday morning to discuss faith in the workplace.  That’s a pretty cool thing.  And they have recorded several of these gatherings so that others can listen.  That’s pretty cool as well.

So I was watching on of these events last night, really I guess I was listening, while I was doing some busy work, and the speaker mentioned something that I thought I would share with you.  As he approached his work days, he mentioned that an idea about heading into the day with just one verse, one thought in mind that we worked on during the day.  Well that resonated with me, as I find that approach helps me a lot as well.  Then he went on to share several examples that he thought everyone could benefit from focusing on.  And that is what I will share with you today, as you head into this first Monday of December.

19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. James 1:19-20

Spend some time thinking about that and see how it impacts your day.

 

Categories
Daily Post

Tomorrow Starts Today

It was such a nice day yesterday afternoon that I decided to walk back to the garage to pick up the car, instead of taking the shuttle. It’s about a 20 block walk through parts of town that are in various stages of renovation. But it was a delightful day with mild temperatures and the glory of the sun beaming down.   I had noticed this sticker in an office window a few weeks ago,  so I this time I stopped and took a picture of it.

20111201-164212.jpg

That sticker is from Chattanooga Stand, which is a non-profit whose work was to encourage people to think about the city and to create new ideas and changes that move the city into a positive future direction.

But hey , I like the message.  Because it’s so fitting.  If you want change, you can’t just wake up tomorrow and be like – “hey, I am different now!”  No, you future depends on what you do today.  It’s the same idea that I expressed earlier in the week with the braces post.

So what do you want to be like to tomorrow?  Start that today.

 

2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  Colossians 3:2 New International Version (NIV)

 

Categories
Daily Post

Automatic or Manual

Today I got the pleasure of driving Amy’s new car.  I had to take it to the garage for some routine maintenance.  One of the cool things about this vehicle ( which may be standard on all vehicles now!), is that although it’s an automatic transmission, you can put it in a full manual mode.  Yeah, instead of having L1 and L2, it has an M on the drive shaft.  And when you put it in M, you can control the shifting yourself.

So on the way in today, I decided to place it in M and see how well I could do.  Well, it’s a wonder I did not have to have some transmission work done by the time I got to the garage!!!  Ok, not really, I did fine, but I could tell you this, I don’t usually drive a manual transmission, and both I felt totally out of control, instead of totally in control as I guess you are supposed to feel with a manual transmission. 

Of course, this made my mind wander right over to a half-baked analogy.  I immediately thought about how we want so bad to be in control of our lives so much that we shift it right on down to M and have at it.  Only to realize that we really don’t know what we are doing and end up tearing stuff up.  Life can be so much better when we set the transmission on automatic, and let the spirit handling the shifting for us.

Yes, I know, this is really close to the whole “Jesus Take the Wheel” thing, and the analogy, if taking too far, can really start to break down.  It’s not perfect, but hang with me and get the point!  And that point today is that when we run are lives completely on manual, we usually end up making some bad decisions on when to shift and those decisions usually have unintended consequences.

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Romans 8:14 NIV

Who is doing the shifting for you today?