end of a season

It's been a while since I've blogged, and a really long time since I've blogged about anything besides the Super Bowl. The last couple of months have been very tiring, but very rewarding. It's amazing how God starts to move in people's lives when we take time to build relationships with people who aren't living close to God, and invite them into our communities of Christian love. There have been some pretty awesome success stories resulting from our Upward Basketball and Cheerleading season, and we'll never know the extent of the difference made in the lives of each child. Here is a highlight video from the season:

Discerning God's will: living by faith or being unsafe?

It's time for another blog.  There are number of things that I have thought about "blogging" about in the last couple of weeks.  I thought about writing about my dog, about my new wallet and how hard it was to give up the old one that I've had for the last ten years, or about how my voting experience went.  I decided to go in a little more serious direction.  Here is a topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately.  It is a very real struggle that will greatly affect some of the biggest decisions that I will make in my life.  Here it goes:

How do you find the balance between making wise decisions that will keep yourself and your family safe and living a "selfless" ministry centered life that I feel like God has called me to live?  Many people I know lean very heavily onto the safe side of this balance and basically work to make as much money as they can in order to provide their family with the best life they can provide for them.  I also know many people who have purposefully chosen to dedicate their lives to serving God and they and their families have had to make many sacrifices due to these choices.  I know that the easy answers to this question are: God calls us to care for our families and so providing for them is doing ministry in a sense, or just listen for God's will and He will help you make the right decisions.  I don't disagree with these statements, but I don't find them all that helpful as I attempt to discern God's will in the realness of everyday choices.  

Let me try to make this a little more real with a concrete example or two.  What if you had the opportunity to dedicate your life to a great ministry but taking the position will leave you and your family medically uninsured?  What if you feel called to take a ministry position that does not guarantee enough income to provide for your basic needs or is a potentially unstable position would could leave you without income down the road?  At what point does living on faith cross over into the realm of making poor common sense decisions?  How much should basic necessities factor into determining God's will?  What is considered a basic necessity these days? Enough money to eat? Medical Insurance? Retirement savings? Enough money to go on a decent vacation once a year? Do you see where I am going with this?  These are all very real questions that those who want to live a life doing ministry must think through.  I would assume that this becomes an even more real issues once kids are born (at these point I am assume that we will have kids at some point in the next 5-10 years).  

I guess what this is ultimately getting at is: how much should common sense questions (anywhere from "Will I be able to feed my family?" to "Will I be able to save any money to buy a house or have retirement savings?") factor into discerning God's will?  Where is the line between "God probably isn't asking me to make a decision where our family won't have enough to eat" and "God probably isn't asking us to make a decision where our 401k is not growing; where we can't go on a major vacation each year; where we can't have a new car; etc." 

I would guess that most people who would quickly answer: "Trust God and he will provide no matter what" have never made a decision where they are unsure if they will be able to eat or have a place to live.  At the same time those who would quickly answer: "Your first priority is to provide for your family," have never taken a step of faith to pursue God's call in their life.  How do you find the balance between providing for your family as a Godly man should, and giving of yourself to help heal a broken world as a follower of Jesus would do?

How much of discerning God's will for our lives require using the brain that God gave us to think through common sense problems, and how much of it has to do with an internal calling or longing that is confirmed through prayer, scripture, fellow Christians, etc.?  What do you think?

My job

This has been a weird morning.  I have been at home, resting from the long day that I had yesterday and getting ready for church tonight.  My muscles are sore and I have a list of several things that I need to do around the house that keeps growing everyday that I don't get to it.  Last night I didn't get home until after ten o'clock and I will be at the church until around 9 o'clock tonight.  I told myself that I wouldn't do anything work related until after lunch today.  The reason my muscles are sore is because I spent a lot of time playing sports yesterday.  Here is the basic run down of what I did: 

10 am - 2 pm: working in my office

3:30 pm - 6 pm: youth open gym/playing basketball

6 pm - 7 pm: filling in for your junior high basketball coach who is on vacation

9 pm - 10:15 pm: playing softball

(and Monday evening was spend at men' s open gym basketball as well)

Looking at this list doesn't sound like much of a ministry.  However, here is what I really have accomplished in the first two days of this week:

1. Monday night, halfway through open gym, I was able to lead a prayer with 30 young men, most of whom would never step foot in a sanctuary.  We talked about trusting God in an unstable economy, and asked God to help us to be men of integrity that make a positive difference in our workplaces.

2.  After basketball on Monday, I had a conversation with a man who was impressed by our open gym format and began asking questions about our church.  He shared that he recently moved to Columbia and hasn't been attending a church, but that he has a religious background.  I invited him to join us on a Sunday and asked him to consider helping me coach in our Upward Basketball children's league.

3. While in my office yesterday, I was working on collecting registrations for our Upward league.  Last season about half our children heard about Jesus for the first time.  Many of these kids come from rough family situations and were probably in the most positive environment they've ever been in.

4.  During youth open gym, there is a young man that comes every week and asks me to play one-on-one.  We have probably played each other about 40-50 time in the last few weeks.  One day he might beat me if he keeps practicing.  He is trying to get him life back on track after making some dumb decisions.  Each week I am able sit and talk with him about making good decisions, ask about how he is doing at school, and tell him about the life that Jesus has for him if he wants it.

5. At junior high practice, one young man kept saying "I'm not good at basketball" and apologized to his teammates about every ten seconds.  I was able to work with him on a couple basics of the game.  I reminded him every chance I had that even though he didn't shoot or dribble well, he was a rebounding beast and had good court vision.  I don't know if it made any difference to him or not, but I could tell that he wasn't told what he did well very often; only what he did wrong. 

6.  At the softball game I was able to have a conversation with a 30-year-old war veteran with two young kids.  He is a very nice guy.  I don't know where he stands spiritually but I do know that he is not involved in a church.  One day we will have that conversation.

7.  I set up a lunch appointment with a 19-year-old young man on our softball team that is in desperate need of some positive male influence in his life.  We go out to lunch a couple of times a week to talk about life.

I type all of this to say that yesterday was a weird day.  I played a lot of sports.  It would be easy to only see that part of the day.  However, with a little intentionality, it I did a lot more than that.  Sometimes I love my job.  Who wouldn't love spending a work day playing ball?  At other times I don't like it so much.  My wife works until 5 o'clock every week day.  I will be at some aspect of my job until at least 9 o'clock every night this week from Monday through Thursday.  That is really tough.  I can't imagine what it would be like for Christie and I to both be done with work at 5 o'clock each day and have our evenings together.  Despite those difficulties, I am so thankful to have a job that allows me to do something that I love, while making an impact for the Kingdom of God in the lives of the people around me.