Observing the Silence

As we enter into the Christmas season and approach the start of a new year it only seems natural to move into a mode of reflection. We look back to the past year, the good, the bad, the fun, the boring and we talk about how we can improve ourselves and our lives for the coming year. If I may, I would like to make a suggestion on something I think we all can improve on and that would be silence. In the month of December Solid Rock will be focusing a lot of our time on silence, listening to God and through that listening, figuring out how to respond to God. Sitting in silence is not easy. Try sitting in complete silence for 5min. Go ahead, give it a try right now, I’ll wait……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Good, I bet that felt like 20min! But over time as you do it more, it becomes easier. You learn to focus your breathing and your attention. Of course I speak as if I am a pro at this and I am most certainly not! I, like many of us, need to work on finding quite time.

So what do you do during this silence, you ask. Well focus on God of course! You see in your silence, you are able to speak with God more clearly. To often we pray a quick prayer as we are driving to and from where ever, or we rush through grace at dinner. There is nothing wrong with any of this, in fact it is terrific that you are praying! But praying is a two way street. God wants us to speak to him, but he wants us to hear him speak back! (Did I just blow your mind?) Yes, God is speaking back to you and when we pray in the midst of the craziness in our lives, it is very difficult to hear what God is saying back to us. And here in lies the most important part. God is speaking to us. Not necessarily spoken words or through angels like in the bible, but he is speaking to us in our hearts. It is not obvious and not always clear and this is why silence is so important.

When we are able to disconnect ourselves from the craziness of the world, shut off our phones, power down the computer, and turn off our brains to the billions of things we need to get done, or are worried about, we are able to better understand and hear God. He is not always easy to hear so the fewer distractions we have the better the chances are that we will hear him!

When I was a senior in high school, the church did a 24 hour pray vigil during holy week. People could sign up for 30min slots in the chapel and the youth would host it by staying the night and welcome people who came to pray in the middle of the night. My senior year I decided to try this out. I signed up for a 30min slot and around 3:30pm my time began. It was just me and God in the small chapel of the learning center. I had a lot going on, I was 3 months from graduating and preparing to head off to college. I hadn’t decided on where to go yet. It was between a very expensive private Lutheran college or Florida State. I wanted to go to the Lutheran college so badly but the financial burden it would have put on my family would have been very difficult. I couldn’t understand why God wouldn’t want me to go to a Lutheran college. I was struggling with a lot!

So my time started. Silence. Just me and God. It was funny because at no point did I feel alone. I began to have this conversation in my head...or maybe it was my heart. I don’t really recall, but I remember processing everything and throughout this 30min things seemed to become clear. I’ll admit, the first 10min were tough. I cried and fought for a little while. But after I settled down and listened to the silence things became easier. I remember the knock on the door at the end of the 30min. It flew by and I wasn’t ready to leave but the next person was there and ready to start their time. I left the chapel feel more comfortable then ever before. All of my problems hadn’t gone away, but I felt a comfort about things. The only way I can explain this is God’s presence speaking to me through my heart, calming me.

Since that experience, I’ve better understood the path God has led me on. Of course, I didn’t learn my lesson and I still do not spend as much time in silence. But every once in a while I do and that feeling of comfort comes back.

So what is God trying to speak to you about? Are you listening to what he is saying? Are you really sitting in silence or are you just sitting in a quite place thinking about the work you need to get done and what you are going to wear tomorrow at school? I challenge you all as we prepare for the birth of Jesus, spend time with him. He is the greatest gift we have and why waste it?! You wouldn't let that new Xbox 360 just sit there after Christmas morning would you? The silence rejuvenates you, allows you to operate smoother. It’s like when you’ve had your computer hooked up to a bunch of printers, the internet, and lots of other peripheral things. It operates slower and doesn't’ function as well. But when you disconnect it from everything and all you are running is just the hard drive, all of a sudden it is able to function at a higher level and handle tasks better. We need to disconnect from everything once in a while and just run off of God. When we do that and we plug back in, everything seems to run smoother.
So may you find silence in the craziness of this time of year. May you observe God working in your life and more importantly hear what he is saying and respond accordingly! God loves you and I do too!

Thank Goodness for Christmas Music

I know this week I'm probably expected to write about thanksgiving and how we are to give thanks, not just one day of the year but every day, etc, etc, etc. But I feel like that has been done. So being the "rebel" that I am I've decided to focus on something a little different; Christmas music!!

A while ago I decided that i would not start listening to Christmas music until after thanksgiving. Some years I start on thanksgiving, but I just felt like its wrong to listen to Christmas music before the Macy's day parade and Santa comes rolling into town! But I LOVE Christmas music! I am chomping at the bit to pull out my Christmas Cd's this week, blast the carols and sing them loud every where I drive! It just puts me in such a good mood and best of all, so many of the songs are praising God!!

So that got me to thinking, what if we listened to Christmas music all the time? This time of year, things are different. People become so generous and friendly. Joy is almost everywhere you look and there is more giving in this one month than many years see in total. It's an awesome site to see, plus you throw up some big trees and lots of lights and decorations and things just look beautiful! Why wouldn't we want this feeling all year round? I think that is what having Jesus be a part of your life is like, Christmas all year round!

This summer as our student leaders scheduled our calendar they decided they wanted to do some time of service every month. Then we got to December... We started discussing the options we could do and the list was endless, we could feed the homeless, do toys for tots, package meals, raise money for a family, decorate houses, sing carols, the list goes on and on. So I said, "What if Solid Rock was THE group that didn't do anything during Christmas, but instead did Christmas all year?" The students stopped and thought about it for a second. Then they all smiled and shook their heads in agreement and we moved on to December. The decision was made quickly and I'm not sure if the students fully grasped what had just happened. They had made a decision to go against the grain of their culture and be different in the name of Jesus.

So what does Solid Rock do now? Every month we celebrate God's love by serving people in our community. In fact, this week we will be going to serve dinner to 80-100 kids at the Ronald McDonald Houses in Orlando! But in December we are going to take a break from all of that. We will sit back and watch everyone else serve and we will get to see them being Jesus' hands and feet. Every once in a while it is great to see others doing that because sometimes you can better see God moving through others than in ourselves. Once January roles around we will get right back to it though. We will begin to celebrate Christmas in January and February and so on in hopes that others will catch on to the joy that it brings us and others and maybe one day we will all take December off and see Christmas as a year long holiday.

So may you hear that Christmas music all year round, playing hymns of joy and peace and happiness and may these feelings you experience this December be ones you experience for the next 11 months as you experience Christmas year round! Thanks Goodness for Christmas music!!!

2012...The End or the Beginning

I just got back from a 4 day cruise to Cozumel, Mexico in which I went on a tour of the Mayan Ruins of Tulum. It was an extremely interesting tour that was led by one of the most passionate people I think I've ever met. His name was Angel, a descendant of the Mayan, and long time tour guide (possible post about him in the future). The tour involved a 45min. bus ride to the site, an hour long guided tour around the ruins and then a 45min. bus ride back to the dock. During this time, Angel shared with us the incredible history of the Mayans, their culture, their beliefs, and their way of life. One of the more interesting facts was about the Mayan calendar which has become the center of discussion about the end of times. It is said that the Mayan calendar ends on December 21st, 2012 and many think that the Mayans knew that this was the end for us all. Well here is the funny thing...the image that everyone associates the Mayan calendar with is actually not even Mayan! It is Aztec!! The picture above is the actual Mayan calendar (or a simplified version)! Here is the other thing because of the way leap years work and the lose of hours and days throughout our earths rotation the actual last day on the Mayan calendar would be equivalent to our December 22nd! The one thing that this myth has correct is that the Mayan calendar does in fact "end" in the year 2012.

But here is the thing, the Mayans did not believe that this was the end. Everything in Mayan culture is cyclical. For every end there is a beginning, for every up a down, male female, left right, earth moon, ying yang, and on and on and on. The Mayans were advanced beyond their years with mathematics, astronomy, and astrology. They understood the lunar cycles, the earths rotation around the sun, the seasonal changes, all of that sort of thing. They had it all mapped out mathematically and numerically. This was their way of life, it is how they functioned and all of the things in their lives fit into this calendar which was 360 degrees and the cycle of their lives.

So why 2012? Well their calendar and the way they viewed the world mathematically made their calendar around 5000 years long in full circle. The Mayans existed sometime in the 3000BC area. Fast forward to 2000AD and guess what, a 5000 year long calendar is reaching the end! But that's not really the important part. What's important is the circle. So if we were Mayan following this calendar and we get to 2012 (which if we were Mayan would actually be in the year 5000 something) we wouldn't think that the world is coming to an end because in a circle there is no end! You just start back at zero! For the Mayans, this number was just that, a number! It was a cycle of life that happened naturally in the world and the way it fell mathematically on a piece of paper, or a piece of stone in this case! The cycle in their calendar is just starting over back to zero. Life goes on!

So why is it that we always have to be concerned with the end? Why do we as humans find this constant need to fear the end? What would it be like if we just let God deal with that stuff (He's the only one with any control over it anyways!) and we focused on today? It is said that only God knows when the kingdom will come to earth. So anyone who claims they know this is calling themselves God, which in case you were not sure is not a good thing! So why do we try to figure the impossible out? I guess it is just our inability to let go of our lives and turn it over to God. This is what it really all boils down to. So as we head towards 2012 I invite you all to join me in seeing this date as the Mayans did, not the end but a new beginning. Challenge yourself to let go of your life, leave it up to God and just live for him and his creation! We've got two years to prepare for this new beginning so lets start now and let God do his thing through us and for us! Let's start believing he's got this. If we turn away from all the doom and gloom it's amazing how bright life ends up being! God Bless you and the new beginning we all get each and every day!

Tempting...isn't it...

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful: he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

~ 1 Corinthians 10:13

Temptation is all around us. It is not something that goes away with age or maturity. So it is one of those things that we must learn how to deal with because if we don't it will eat us alive. There are so many things that can be classified as tempting and for each person it can be different; sex, drugs, alcohol, candy, food, and the list goes on and on. Some temptations are small and wont really effect our lives in great ways, but others could completely alter our lives forever. The verse above should give us comfort though. We ALL are tempted. It is one of those things that every single human on this earth has in common. Jesus was even tempted (Matthew 4:1-11)! So we can take comfort in knowing that this is a normal part of life and NONE of us are different or weird because of our temptations.

But even more comforting is that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can handle. An interesting question was posed this past Sunday night with our high school students as we discussed this verse; "How do we know that we can handle the temptation that is in front of us?" Terrific question! But not an easy one to answer! Really, like many other things in our lives, it comes down to faith. Just like we have to believe that God loves us no matter what and that he is always with us taking care of us, we too HAVE TO believe that God is walking through temptation with us making sure that the situations we get into are manageable by us. We have to have faith that this is true. This doesn't mean that we wont be challenged (I don't know of many situations that God doesn't challenge us!). We might have to call on our friends and family for support, but maybe that is how God is working. Maybe because we have to lean on others to get through temptation, that is God working in us to build relationships and spread love. Boy does He work in some crazy ways!!

So fear not, God is always with us. Have faith and remember when you are tempted you have the ability to defeat it! Maybe not on your own, but with God anything is possible. All you have to do is have faith...maybe cave into the positive temptation that is out there, and that is being tempted by God to fully believe that he is present to you all the time, walking with you, and loving you NO MATTER WHAT!!!

God loves you and so do I! Peace!

Knowing WHO God Is

"Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles."

~Romans 1:22-23

Martin Luther says, "There's a big difference between knowing there is a God who exists and knowing who that God is. All of creation teaches us that there is a God. This is already written on all of our hearts. But only the Holy Spirit can teach us who that God is."

This is a major clarifying point of Christianity! This is what separates Christians from other believers. Many of us live, work, and play with people who believe that there is a God or a higher being. In fact I would argue a very great majority of people across the world would believe this. BUT not as many know WHO God is. It is the WHO that makes us distinctly Christian. The WHO is Jesus, God as flesh in human form. He suffers like us, He's tempted like us, He bleeds like us. Jesus pleads with God to not let him die on the cross. Our God became human so that we can have life and see His love for us! That is WHO God is. It's not until we understand WHO He is that we can fully grasp our faith.

Our faith is built around this relationship with God. Just like any relationship, it can't exist unless we know who the other person is. Thankfully, through the power of God, even when we don't know who He is, He still has a relationship with us, we just don't know about it. But He is present to us. When we do find out who He is and we understand this relationship, that is when we are able to understand the kingdom and draw near to it; draw near to heaven on earth! It is through prayer, worship, service, and praise that we find who God is. The relationship goes from there. He is always working through the Holy Spirit in and around us.

If you don't know WHO God is, spend this week finding out. He is worth knowing and He is in your life whether you know Him or not, so you might as well say, "Hi!"