Tag: leadership

“There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.”
Genesis 28:13

 I have pretty well documented the man of God I call Gramps.   You can read all about him in this post.  So I won’t labor the point, but just make mention that the small North Carolina native was a called pastor and preacher.

Now the conjecture of my family falls squarely on the man I call dad.  As a young child my eyes saw a classic 80’s stache on a man in a grey suit speak as if God had spoken to him.  Where that road forked I am unsure.  I have a great love for my dad, but it has been decades since that pulpit potential was put on display.  While more than likely not the space for family debate, there is a truth that shined in his eyes on Easter Sunday that reflected a man with a calling still.

Enter the picture me…at 19 tangled in a mess of life where God found me.  In my heart stirred an emotion that can only be described as a have to…I had to preach.  I had to speak. I had to…

The man that would mentor me through the season of “have to” simply said if you can do anything else other than ministry go do it.  If then you realize you can do nothing else, you know you are called.”

What I have come to realize is the God is a god of generations.  We didn’t play house in my house, we played church.  While most of our childhood behaviors surfaced out of the fact we spent as much time in church as we did school (quite possibly an exaggeration, but felt that way at 6) this was more than just a hand-me-down way of acting.

A story that is not told very often in my family is the redemption of Gramps.  As best I remember, as it was told just a handful of times, my grandfather was a bit of a “card-shark” while in the military.  He served in Korea during the time of war.  As relayed to an eager eared youth, Gramps had just step away from his campsite, at that very moment his camp was hit with a bomb of some sort.  In a Ron Howard war movie fashion, my Gramps watched his buddies face death.

In that moment, Gramps committed his heart and future to Jesus.  I am not saying instead of typing inspiring words I would be sitting at a table in Vegas running cards if Gramps hadn’t had a very literal “come to Jesus” moment. But I honestly believe his life transformation transformed my future.

As Moses stood on the mountain with God penning the words on tablets, God said this:
“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments”.

I am not contending that I am accountable for the sins of my fathers, but I am affected by them.  In the exact same way their choices in God affect my future and my calling and my journey with Jesus.

There has to be a moment much like Jacob had in his encounters with Yahweh.  The lying, cheating, tricking Jake had to have a God encounter for himself where the Lord went from the God of Abraham and Isaac to the God of Jacob.  I have intersected that point in my life where God moved from the God of D.A. (gramps) and the God of Chuck (dad) to the God of Jeff.  And while I looked the calling in the face at one point and said “I would never…”, I have come to place where the calling of Gramps and the calling of my father has become not their hand-me-down mantle, but mine to pick up.

We serve a God of generations.  What I am doing today will have an affect on my kids, grandkids and even as far reaching as my grandkids grandkids and beyond. While we think in the moment, God works through the magnificent miles of many generations.

My prayer is that each of my kids will say that the Great I am is the God of Chuck, the God of Jeff and also the God of…

#justbeingjeff

 

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
~Jesus

I ate everything that would crunch.  Grapes, cheetos, finger nails.  If I was limber enough to get a toe in my mouth it would have been that as well.  It was Game 7 of the World Series and my beloved Cubs were winning, then tied and my heart was filled with anxiety of another let down as  a seemingly insurmountable lead was no longer existent.

And then after 9 worrisome innings of baseball the skies opened up and it rained…

I have often experienced my own rain delays.  Life seemingly spins outside of my control.  If feels as if the lead on life I have gained is about to be lost.  As if Steve Bartman is down the foul line waiting to spoil my sure thing. And then the skies open up and I am forced to pause.

These are moments God hits pause on our process simply because our opponent anxiety and worry are beginning to win.

Jesus in his most famous sermon neatly wraps his 1 part series on money with these words
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Today is a day I need the rain.  It the my bottom of the 9th with the score tied, but in a moment of retreat I am reminded I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but this I know the one who clothes the fields with beautiful colors and feeds the birds who do not work for the food.

Sometimes in the midst of the moment worry gets the best of us.  Anxiety steals our hope.  Fear trumps truth.  Yet when we can step away for just even an instant we can gain perspective that worry does not add anything to our life.

Jesus also said this, worry ain’t gonna add one hour to your life (my grandma’s translation).  So in the moments we can’t stop the worry, God sends rain delays to help us regain perspective.

Oh, and that little baseball, the Cubs won!

justbeingjeff

 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us,who can be against us?
Apostle Paul

This has been the mantra of my house for the last few months.  Struggle comes in many forms when you are raising three kids that vary from nearly grown to thinking they are grown.

My nine year old darling did not fully catch the expression and echo right away of Paul’s question posed to the Roman church.

I would say “if God is for us…”
Her echo “he is against us”.

While her heart was in the right place, her semantics were not.  But maybe some truth leaked out her word choice.

I think there are a lot of moments, days and even stretches of time that we feel that the God who is for us is working against us.  Maybe it is not so much that the God of all creation has spun the world against us as much as it a sense of his absence in the middle of the struggles we face.

King David eloquently but with little delicacy expresses in the psalms.

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Psalm 13:1-2

So often we “know” God is for us but we fail to “see” where he his moving.  This creates this Davidic cry in our life of “Where in the world are you?”

I wish I had the answer.  I wish I could evaluate your life and say “God is present right here in this particular area.”

But in truth our only response may be just what David writes at the end of the psalm:
But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.
Psalm 13:5-6

So God is truly for us.  And not against us. Even when circumstances in our life would paint the picture that he is or at minimum absent.  I think we need to echo back to ourselves:
“for he has been good to me.”

We have difficulty seeing the sunshine when everyday is cloudy, but the sun still exists.  The goodness and presence of the Lord is still present even when our life circumstances seem cloudy.  There is “good” if you look close enough.  There is his presence if change your perspective.  He has not left you and he is certainly not against you.

Because if God is for us…