Apart From Him We Can Do NOTHING!

We all have natural abilities. While we may not be able to play like Michael Jordan on the basketball court, there are certain natural skills that we all possess. Some may be good with numbers, while others may be great at fixing things with their hands. Some may have excellent problem solving skills, while others have a 4 octave vocal range. Some may be great speakers, while others can throw a football 60+ yards. While I would love to throw a football 60 yards, or glide through the air like Jordan, I was not endowed with the ability to do either. Regardless of how hard I tried or practiced, I would never be able to measure up to Jordan or even a bench warmer on the worst team in the NBA.

I'm a musician. While there may be some who would debate that statement having heard my skills, I do play guitar a little. I'm not sure how much "natural" ability I have when it comes to playing guitar, but I have to think there is at least a little bit. Afterall, I have tried to teach some people to play that after a few lessons I'm convinced can never be taught to play. So, my theory is that if you can even play a little bit, there has to be just a hint of natural talent at the least. Perhaps I could become a better player if I practiced more, but the truth is if I haven't reached my peak, I'm pretty close. Over the years I have logged in many, many practice hours on the guitar and although I seemed to improve in the early days, that improvement has either stopped or become little more than stagnant. Kind of like my basketball skills. When I was young, I played and played and played and played and at some point hit my peak. I came to the end of my ability to improve.

I know there is always room for improvement, but let's face it sometimes we just have to come to terms with the fact that there is a pinnacle and once that is reached, all that we do from then on is an effort to stay at that level. So, it could just very well be that as far as my guitar playing goes, everything I'm doing now is simply an effort to maintain rather than increase my skill level. What I need now is for God to breath on it. Actually, from day one, that's what we all need.

We are very good at doing life apart from God. While that is certainly true about unbelivers the tragedy is that it is often equally true about believers. We have these natural skills and abilities and navigating through life without God is not all that difficult. Sure, we claim to know God, but we invite Him in only when we truly need Him. Only when we come to the end of our ability. We walk through life leaning on our own abilities and often trust ourselves more so than we trust God. Ouch! Some would argue that it was God who gave us our gifts and abilities so are we really doing life apart from God? Picture Adam and Eve in the garden. Was is not God who breathed life into them? Was it not God who gave them a free will? And what did they do with it? They chose to do life apart from God with the very breath He gave them and the ability to choose granted to them by their Creator.

We do the very same thing as the two of them. We take our natural abilities and we choose to do life apart from God. If and when we come to the end of our ability then we ask God to get involved. Somehow, I think we are missing the point of how we are to do life.

Picture if you will a famous rock star. Maybe a great guitarist. While it might be true that he has a great deal of natural talent, apart from God, it is nothing but the flesh. He may receive the glory and praise of thousands of followers, but in the end his natural ability, that is void of the life of God, does little more than entertain.

In Scripture we are told of David who was a musician. Now, you can't find any of his concerts on youtube, so we aren't sure how great he was at playing his instrument, but the Bible does tell us that he was a skilled musician. We are told that when he played before Saul, the atmosphere in the room shifted and the tormenting spirits that plagued Saul left. If we aren't careful, we'll make the mistake of thinking that David must have been some awesome musician. The fact is that the atmospheric shift in the room was less about David's skill and more about God's presence in the room. Apart from God's breath on His playing, David would have been unable to do little more than entertain Saul.

Leaning on our natural abilities will always leave us inept at living the kind of life God designed us to live. Scripture tells us that apart from Him we can do nothing. Jesus speaking of Himself makes this statement, "The Son can do nothing on His own." Perhaps one day we'll discover that what is true about Jesus is true about all of us. Whenever we lean on our own abilities and try to attempt life apart from God, then all that we do amounts to zero, nada, zip, the big goose egg, NOTHING! Flesh is flesh. Whether its extremely talented flesh or mildly talented flesh, the result is always the same. On the other hand whenever we determine to do life in such a way that we lean on God and trust in His ability more so than ours, we'll tap into the kind of life He designed us to live.

The Lord never intended for us to simply connect with Him when we have reached the end of our ability. He wants to be a part of the ride from the beginning. He longs for us to understand that He is the vine and we are the branches and only when we are connected to Him can we experience true life. Doing life apart from Him is pretty much the equivalence of a branch disconnected from a tree trying to attach itself to something other than the trunk in order to find life. All I know is that all the branches in my back yard disconnected from the trunk are dying or are already dead. So it is with everything we attempt apart from our Creator. It all ends up to be death in the end.

While I could spend endless hours trying to get my fingers to play Bbmaj9, I'm thinking it would be more advantageous for me to figure out how to get God to breath on my playing. Afterall, the former would do nothing but stroke my ego a bit, while the latter just might bring glory to God.

Tim The Tool Man And A Blown Fuse

Growing up I loved to take things apart. Electronic equipment was my favorite. I took radios apart, computers apart, televisions apart, and anything else that peeked my interest. I have to admit, I was great at taking things apart. However, I wasn't quite as good at putting things back together. Now, that wouldn't be a bad thing if we were talking about items that were broken, but most of the time the things I took apart had nothing wrong with them. I was just curious as to what made them work and with screw driver in hand my adventures of discovery would begin.

Through the years, my curiosity hasn't changed much. Although, I don't often take things apart that are in working order, when something breaks, I always think I can fix it. This week our washing machine went out. Now, I don't know the first thing about washing machines except that they wash clothes. Yet, when my wife told me how much it was going to cost to have a repair man out, I quickly grabbed my tools and went to work.

Something on the inside of me said it was a fuse. So, the first think I checked was the wall outlet thinking perhaps a breaker had been thrown for some reason. The outlet turned out to be fine and there again was this voice saying its a fuse. I proceeded to open up the washing machine's control panel and the very first thing I saw was a fuse. I popped it out and sure enough it had been blown. After replacing the fuse, I plugged in the washer and once again the fuse is blown. Using my "google" tool, which by the way should be a part of every tool box, I googled "Maytag" and "blown fuse" and quickly found how to fix the problem.

I told my wife I knew how to fix it and only needed to find a new part. When I got on the phone with the repair man to see if I could buy a part from him, he was convinced I didn't know what I was doing. He first told me that washing machines don't have fuses. I thought to myself, I've opened enough electronic devices in my day to know what a fuse is. I explained to him that I had purchased some new fuses at Home Depot and each time I replaced them they blew out. After a bit of an awkward pause, he asked me what kind of washing machine I had, because Maytag's have fuses. Still convinced I would not be able to fix the machine, he told me to give him a call when I needed him.

I was able to pick up the part, and actually put the machine back together without any problem. Total cost? Under $20.00! After hearing what a repair man was going to cost, my wife opted to check out Craigslist to see if she could find any good deals on a working washing machine. And after it was all said and done we fixed it for less than it would cost for us to go out to eat. Now, if I was a regular fix-it man I would think nothing of this whole process. But, I'm not. And the fact that my initial thought was that it was a fuse is really a bit bazaar to be completely honest. I had no idea that most washing machines do not have fuses but Maytag's do. Yet, over and over this thought kept coming to me that it was a fuse.

I can't help but think that voice wasn't self-initiated. Afterall, when told the washing machine was out, my own voice said, "Call a repair man, I don't know anything about washing machines." Scripture tells us that the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, will teach us all things and guide us into all truth. Perhaps you think I'm stretching it a bit, but I think He can speak to us about anything including household appliances. The truth was, my washing machine had thrown a fuse and simply finding out why it was throwing the fuse led to an easy fix. I'm thinking the Holy Spirit, who knows all things, knew that and passing that info along to me was one of the things He was sent to do.

I really believe we can get way too "religious" in our approach to God and how we walk out our Christian journey. It's not meant to be some kooky, weird, spiritual encounter that has no practical application here in our real world. God longs to walk in relationship with us. This time of year is all about the price He was willing to pay in order to have that relationship with us. He longs to walk the journey with us, involved in every aspect of our lives. He's not on some distant planet waiting for us to get there some day. He wants so desperately to have an ongoing dialog with us in which we can hear His voice whenever we choose to listen.

Maybe, you're reading this and think I'm making way too much out of a blown fuse. Perhaps, your mindset is, "why in the world would the Creator of the Universe care about some lousy blown fuse?" If that's your perspective of Him, then I would love to invite you to get to know Him more. The truth is, He doesn't care about the blown fuse, He cares about me. He cares about walking through life with me and He is mindful about every single thing that concerns me. So, while He is still the Creator of the Universe, He has plenty of time to walk this journey with me.

Don't put God in a religious box. While He will reveal Spiritual truths to you and show you the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, He will also help you navigate through your daily life. Maybe its not a broken washing machine, but a broken heart or a broken relationship. Trust me, He's the kind of friend that is closer than a brother and He'll speak to you if you're truly listening.

What I hear right now is the washing machine finishing up a cycle. Time to change the laundry!

Slow Leaks

I have a leaking tire on my car. I've looked and looked, yet I haven't found where the air is leaking from. It's a very slow leak, but if left alone, I would come out one morning to find it flat. It may take a couple weeks or so, but becoming flat is inevitable should I do nothing.

My life has felt like that leaking tire before. Slowly deflating and doing nothing to remedy the situation. It reminds me of a song by Casting Crowns called "Slow Fade." The song is about how easy it is for us to digress if we aren't careful. Like the slow leak in my tire that left unchecked will eventually deflate completely, we can slowly drift until we come to the place in our life where we are asking ourselves, "How in the world did I get here?"

It rarely happens quickly. It often starts with a small compromise or a wounded heart that refuses to forgive. Or, a heart that begins turning cold, or ears that grow increasingly deaf to God's voice. Whatever the case the outcome is the same. Slowly we begin to spiral downward and without a course correction can end up in a place we never wanted to be.

Obviously, we have a God who can rescue us at any point along the journey. Whether its at rock bottom or at some other point. The key is to recognize when there is a "leak" and determine to do whatever is necessary to fix it. We have a God who not only will reveal those slow "leaks" in our life, but is also the One who can help us remedy the problem.

I'll be taking my leaking tire, to a tire shop to fix. As for those times my life is leaking, I take that to God who can fix me right up.

Don't Squeeze Me Too Tight!

A couple weeks ago, my 3-year old son came running down the stairs screaming, "Daddy, Daddy!" Thankfully, this was a happy proclamation and not one of alarm. I could tell from the excitement in his voice, he couldn't wait to tell me something. When he finally got to me in the living room, he was grinning from ear to ear as he said, "I asked Jesus into my heart?" Of course, I gave him high fives and hugged him real tight like any father would. He stepped back for a second and let me know that I can't hug him very tight anymore because Jesus was now in his heart and if I hugged him too tight, I might kill Jesus again.

Kids say some pretty funny things don't they? I get a kick out of it when they say things that reveal their simplistic way of looking at life. I couldn't help but laugh just a little. But as I sat there chuckling, I began thinking, how awesome his reasoning was. He literally believed that Jesus came to live in his heart. Think about that for a second. He prayed and asked Jesus to come live in his heart, and he really believed that he did. The excitement that he came down the stairs with was not because of the prayer he prayed, but at the fact that Jesus actually now lived in his heart.

As we walk through our Christian journey, wouldn't it be great if we could remain this innocent and full of trust and faith in God. Let's face it, my 3 year old isn't tainted with religious ideologies and all the junk we often acquire through the years that suck the very life of God out of us. He doesn't care if we are going to heaven pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib. He doesn't care about whether or not he goes to a seeker friendly church, spirit-filled church, or liturgical church. He doesn't care if we have to pay tithe on our gross or our net earnings, he just loves giving in the offering. All he knows is that his mommy helped him pray and Jesus now lives in his heart. And from what I can tell, he's pumped up about it.

Jesus speaks of coming to Him with a child-like faith, and I have to think this is exactly what he's talking about. Years have a way of shrinking God and his ability to do the miraculous in our minds. We grow up and we start putting God in some type of religious box and limiting him in our minds. So often rather than growing, our faith starts to shrink. How God longs for us to just believe Him and trust Him. Naturally, he wants our knowledge of Him to grow beyond that of my little 3-year old, but in doing so he wants that 3-year old kind of simplistic faith to remain in us throughout the process. He wants that kind of excitement that my little one ran down the stairs with to be evident in our lives.

My son will eventually learn what it means to have Jesus in his heart, but I hope he never allows his simplistic faith in God to waiver. And by the way, I still hug him real tight, taking care not to squeeze his heart too much.

Tell Me A Story, Daddy

Tell me a story daddy! I hear that a lot at night. Both of my sons like me or their mommy to tell them a story as they lay down at night. I've told literally hundreds of stories over the years. Stories of knights chopping off the heads of two headed dragons. Stories of Jedi knights whippin up on the bad guys. Stories of little boys who grow up to be race car drivers, NBA superstars, fighter pilots, etc. Stories of giant bugs, or giant dinosaurs, or giant something else attacking cities and how two boys save everybody.

I don't mean to brag, but I think I'm pretty good at telling stories. At least, my two boys think so. It's crazy though when I don't tell the story just the way that want to hear it. Both of them will let me know in a hurry when I take the story in a direction that they don't agree with it. There have even been times when they've attempted to have me deviate so much from my original story that I just tell them to finish the story. Afterall, there is only so much compromise a story teller should have to make. Of course, they never want to do that, so onward I push, even though my creativity has been tampered with.

The truth is they want me to tell them a story, but most often they want the controlling rights to the story. They want the license to change it up, if in fact the storyline strays from the way they want it to go. As I sit here thinking about that, I really think our response to God is often the same way. As a believer, we come to God wanting Him to write our story. We truly want Him to be in charge and we want to follow His direction for our life. At least until that story goes a direction we don't want it to go. We think to ourselves certainly, this can't be God taking us down this road. He would never tell the story this way, and if He does then we want a re-write. We want to take back some control as to how the story should go.

It's as if we sing the song, "I Surrender All," but we sing it with a disclaimer at the bottom of the page that says until we get uncomfortable, or don't agree with the storyline. The bottom line is we want to be in control. We want everything to go the way we want it to go and when it doesn't, it is so easy for us to get all bent out of shape. We pray prayers that often try to manipulate God to make everything go our way, rather than praying the kind of prayer that Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane. You know that one right? "Not my will, but Yours (God) be done."

Ouch, that even hurt writing it. It's the truth though and we all know it. If we truly want God to write our story, then we'll let Him write it. And when it takes a turn that we don't particularly like, we'll trust that He knows what He's doing. He truly is a masterful story teller, and the story He writes for us, has Him walking through each scene with us. Trust me, Hollywood can't write a better story than the one he has for us. Let's choose to allow Him to write our story and then just walk through the adventure with Him, trusting Him the whole way.

An Awesome Place To Live

Worry....it happens during those moments when we have more confidence in an unfavorable outcome than we do in a favorable one. It occurs when we have little or no control over a situation and the outcome is completely out of our hands. Worry leads to stress which in turn can lead to some major physical problems.

So, why do we do it? Why do we sit around wringing our hands worrying about those things we can do nothing to fix? It's as if something inside of us just takes over doesn't it? We can't fix it, remedy it, or control it so everything in us tells us to worry. Of course, our worrying always fixes the problem. Yeah, right. Truth is, it never does. Worrying never fixes anything.

Think of all those moments when you've sat around worrying about something and the end result proved that you had nothing to worry about in the first place. Or, how about those moments when you've worried about something that turned out just as bad as you expected. Honestly, did the worrying help? Of course, it didn't. Here's my point, there are things in life we can do nothing about. Now, all you faith people don't shut me out here. I'm talking about those times when we've prayed, we've believed, we've quoted scripture, and done everything else we can possibly do in order to affect a situation or circumstance. Once you are there, there is nothing else you can physically do.

So, we worry. We panic. We get all stressed out. We sit around wringing our hands hoping things somehow, someway turn out better than we anticipate. It is only when we get to a place in our life when we truly trust God that worry is no longer our default state of being. It is only when we really trust that He's got our best interest in mind, or that we have total confidence in God's ability to be in control. Yeah, we know He's God, but our problem is sometimes we're not really sure He's up to the God role. At least, our actions say that.

When we can lay our head on our pillow at night with the confidence that God's at the helm and because of that all is well, that's faith. No, I didn't say that all is well with the world around us, just the fact that God is the one that's sitting on the throne. He's the one in charge. When we know that, I mean really know that, our actions and reactions take on a much different look. When we know, not just hope, that He's working in our life, righting the wrongs, fixing what's broke, and preparing us for what's ahead, it affords a confidence that we could have no other way.

Faith isn't quoting scripture or claiming something through the power of positive thinking. It's knowing. It's not a formula or a ritual. It's the point where my hope has given way to a confidence so sure that it no longer requires me to hope. It's the point at which the thing I hoped for, I know I have even though I've not actually touched it, smelled it, tasted it, or seen it. As a result, my life becomes a reflection of that confident knowing. Do you think a person who knows acts different than a person who hopes and wishes? Absolutely!

God longs for us to trust Him. He so desperately wants us to know that He's trustworthy and faithful. He wants us to live in such a way that our lifestyle screams all is well because God is on the throne even when what we see is telling us different. The truth is, this world around us and how our 5 physical senses navigate through it, can be a constant challenge for our faith. The main problem is that we are so acquainted with this world and the way it works. What is necessary for us is to become more acquainted with God and how He works. When we determine to do that is when our faith and confidence in Him begins to grow. Its a journey. Its a process of learning to trust and believe God. The final destination is a sweet one though. Its a place void of worry, and fear. Its a place of perfect peace, and complete confidence in One more capable than any other. Its a place of rest and relaxation. It's a place called faith and believe me when I say, you've got to go there some day. It really is an awesome place to live!