Faith As 'Proof Of Existence'

Those that regularly read my blog posts, I normally stay away from what some may call 'religious' speak. The following was on my heart and wanted to share with others. I am not trying to convert or preach to you in this piece, just sharing and allowing you to take what you might from it. So please allow me this little bit of leeway for today and as always, your comments are always welcome.

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As our great pastors at C3 - Atlanta always do, they always preach on those things most relevant in my life. I guess that I should feel sorry for other members of the congregation as those sermons are always written for what is going on in my life. For that I apologize to each and every one of you.

This past Sunday (May 3, 2009) was no different in Pastor Dean Sweetman's return to the pulpit, speaking on faith as a tangible and real thing. All of my life I have had faith in a 'believing' sense of what I can not see, hear, touch, taste or smell. Those are most of the physical senses that we have and are those which give us 'proof of existence' in life. Yet I never thought of faith as having a substance to itself. It has always been just something I was supposed to have.

At this point, you may wonder about a man nearing the age of 50 and still questioning faith. It happens to all of us and we continually learn through out our lives. For me, I've always questioned and tried to learn more about my belief. Faith has never been in question, but the example of it being a bridge between the natural and the spiritual shines a new light for me.

Now why in the world would I need a new perspective on faith in my life? Well, my wife Laura and I have eight kids, three grand kids; both of us come from large families with aging parents. This doesn't make our circumstances any harder or more intriguing then anyone else. It simply makes us human and like you, we have our opportunities in life to get our faith tested.

With those tests of faith that we are working through, I have been searching for new inspiration on how to let faith work for us. It isn't enough to just say, "I believe and all will be well." God has expectations for us and so many times we will simply go to the natural. It is those things that I previously mentioned, the physical 'proof of existence' that we run to many times.

Yet the bridge of faith from physical to spiritual is just as real as anything we could touch or see. So it is this bridge that I am envisioning to help us achieve what God has called for us. If we step out in faith, knowing that the bridge will be there, even though we can not see it, keep walking and the bridge will appear. With each step I take, the stronger the connection of my faith to what God has planned for me becomes.

It will be the bridge of faith that gives me proof of God's love for me, for you and for all the world.

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New Beginnings

Discovery of America by Salvador Dali

"The beginning, is half the whole." - Aristotle

Last night I was a volunteer in the kids rooms at our church for Wednesday night service. Every fifth Wednesday, the regular volunteers get a break (same thing on every fifth Sunday) and others within the church are called into duty.

I'm not sure what it is, but my wife and I get placed in the infant room each time. It is always a struggle for me leading up to it, but once I get situated it all works out just fine. The idea of herding little infants (up to one year olds) can be an overwhelming thought for some of us.

With two of us working the room with six kids, our work was cut out for us. There was the quiet and content Isaiah; the 'its been a long day' Saxton; sweet and happy Katherine; the inquisitive Kent; 'wow whats that' Langdon; and finally 'everything goes in the trash can' Nolan. Each have their own wonderful and distinct personalities which are slowly beginning to evolve.

As I watched...ok, herded...these kids around, it occurred to me that this is really just a very small start for them. Their lives are just in the very early stages of development with a huge world of opportunity before them. They will be shaped by all that is around them and all that they do. We would say these kids can be anything they want to be.

Yet we can say the same thing about ourselves. In your twenties, forties, sixties, older or somewhere in-between, a new beginning is possible. We each may feel that we are in the 'whole of our life' and that we are past the opportunity of new change. Nothing could be further from the truth, a new beginning can take place at any point along the timeline of our life.

All we have to do is have the courage to try something different. An infant attempts new things out of new born curiosity. They reach out to discover possibility in their ever expanding world. My thought to you is to take your well-learned life and attach that new-born curiosity to it. You will see things in a whole new light and change will once again become possible.
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Stand By Me

Your day can drag on in what seems like a 'you against the world' type of atmosphere. All that you try to do is a lonely uphill battle with no end in sight. You tell yourself that if you try hard enough, you can accomplish it on your own. This can be true at times but is not always the case.

The great thing about our human existence is our connection to other people. There are others that will stand by us and help steady our climb. They offer encouragement, a helping hand or the means to keep moving. As coincidence may have it, a friend of mine sent me the following video.

I was in the middle of writing this article at the time and his email came to me titled, "Something to smile about ..." It is a video put together from street performers around the world performing the classic Ben E. King song, "Stand By Me."



It can put a smile on your face and one of the things to take away from it; we can all stand together, help each other and empower each other to make it in life.
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Expect the Unexpected

EXPECTATION by Gustav Klimt

"If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult." - Heraclitus of Ephesus

All of us have expectations in life. We expect,

- our kids to be good
- our marriage to be wonderful and exciting
- our jobs to be enjoyable and well paying
- our health to be good with little suffering
- our car to always function properly
- our retirement to be well funded and relaxing
- our death to be pain free and peaceful

But having an expectation and actually having it happen requires some level of work on our part. Many of the above expectations do not simply 'occur' to our benefit. They require that we put time and effort into achieving each of them.

Achievement in each of these or many other areas of our life depend upon us having some level of expectation. Expectation is the yearning for something that we either dream of or envision for our life. It drives us to attempt and reach a goal.

It is with this expectation that we learn to "expect the unexpected" that life will either throw at us or give to us. You can't plan for it, but you can accept that the unexpected will happen. While we tend to accept that bad things will happen, we should put as much effort into believing that unexpected good things will happen as well. If you concentrate on the bad things, you are going to miss the good things that will happen.

So 'expect the unexpected good' that will happen in your life. Move forward towards your dreams and envision the outcome. Before you know it, the reality will occur.
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