A Slap in your Faith

When I served in the Navy, I was working on a Satellite dish for our ships GPS. I had to climb 60 feet into a tower to do this. I was tethered with safety lines to the tower with a safety observer on the ground. The way it worked at the time, is every 20 feet you had to adjust the safety line. You would attach yourself to the tower with the work harness; detach the safety line; take up the safety line slack and reattach the safety line. Then detach the harness line and continue climbing.

In that order...

The safety observer has control of the safety line during your climb, so he must pay attention. Any deviation from the process could seriously hurt me through a fall to the steal deck. I never had an accident but I had to trust the safety observer with my life.

Who do you trust?

In our personal nature, we often trust our families, we trust our friends. With public nature, we have trusted our transportation services, we trusted our national security services, and we trusted our military services. What do all of these things have in common? Sometimes they fail our trust.

We have all felt the disastrous results of failed trust within our families and by our friends. Confidences are shattered, tears are shed, feelings are hurt, trust is damaged and bitterness often grows. We have witnessed the devastating results of national failures. Security was breached, planes were hijacked and used like missiles, lives were lost in the thousands, our nation is shaken and stunned, insecurity rises and fear grows.

Who do you trust?

Far too often in life we become completely focused on the trials and difficulties of life and we lose our focus on Christ. When Peter walked on the water with Jesus he was doing well until he took his eyes off of Jesus and looked at the waves. The same is true of us today. God can get us through the most impossible situations but we must keep our focus and trust on Him. How can we ever expect to find help and healing when we are still focused on our difficulties and not our deliverance?

Check your faith!

Faith is found in our unswerving belief that the God of Heaven will indeed work on our behalf to bring His perfect will for our lives into being. If I were to ask you individually, most of you would very quickly say that you have faith in God but there are times when faith is not so simple. Trusting God is literally against our human nature..

We need to place our trust in something or someone and we do it every day. We trust our cars to get us to our destination. We trust our employers to deliver paychecks. We trust our doctor’s to heal our illnesses. How much more should we trust God?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

In times like these, who do you trust?

You need to trust in God...completely! Or is that a slap in your Faith?

Apple(TM) of God’s Eye

We are in such a time where technology and science have grown exponentially and have given us the greatest time-savers as well as the greatest time-wasters. Science has made it possible for mankind to live longer that he has in thousands of years, but also has made it possible for mankind to suffer longer than he has in thousands of years.
Technology has also given us to means to elevate and expand a virtuous message to billions around the world at lightning speed. It has also given us the means to spread debauchery and evil, the likes of which have not been seen to such a degree ever before. It truly is the Best of Times, and it certainly is the Worst of Times. (Thanks Charles)
I say this only because even the Church is now catching up to technology. Is this a good thing or a not so good thing? I can’t make that decision. Granted, there’s very good reason to keep up with the times. Both in how the word is shared; how we bring the word to the members and we take physical account of things.
Think on this though, look to our homes. In some homes our children are literally playing video games 8 to 10 hours a day; we all are watching TV 4 – 5 hours a day; on the Computer 4 – 5 hours a day and on our cell phones, texting, calling, taking pictures, playing games a lot!
Now look at the church, we Twitter, we blog, we Face book, we email, we chat and we drink our $5 Starbucks coffee. Everything is computerized at church, at home and at work. When is the last time you visually and verbally spoke with someone? With the use of these great communication tools you think we, as Christians, are closer in our relationships.
But you’re wrong; we’ve actually grown further apart.
In my job, technology is a must; I couldn’t do my job without it! The Church needs the technology too. Lately though, God has put on my heart, getting back to the basics. You know, love God, Love Jesus, God first.....
I’m not saying we need to throw our computers, cell phones and games away. Maybe we just ought to take heed to the following scripture:
Philippians 4:4-6
Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
“Let’s rejoice in the Lord”....not Technology.
“The Lord is at hand”... not your Nintendo or cell phone
“Let’s do everything in moderation”... not rush to buy or play that new game or software application.
“Be careful” ... technology can lead you astray.
“In prayer making our requests known to God”... not worshipping at the altar of Apple/Macintosh.
Maybe we will find more peace by doing so?
Let’s not be techno wizards or bean counters, let’s Trust in God to do the counting. He’s better at it anyways.
Just my thoughts