Kyle has his Wednesday evening Bible study with his friends tonight. I am thankful for his peeps and their parents that come and get him and drop him off. It gives Carol and I 2 hours to get things done, have dinner together, sit and talk ... just have a little time together. With everything we are doing and all the places and needs we are meeting - it is nice to have a little time for each other. I miss that and I look forward to the Thanksgiving break and the Christmas break to have more time together.
Some of the things I am learning ......
Proverbs 24:
16 for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly - at first. Anything worth doing is worth failing at and trying again. So many times we stay in our comfort zones. We feel inadequate in taking on new challenges, especially when we have never done something before. We are afraid to move forward. I have struggled in the past to staff my ministry teams with the right amount of people. There never seems to be enough people willing to help. Willing to step forward and take a chance and coming out of their comfort zones. The last few days, it has been clear that people who serve - need to serve with their families. It needs to be a total buy in to Gods vision and purpose and it has to be within the family. The family needs to be involved. I have seen so many times the dad serving or the mom serving and the other is not.... it just doesn't last. I am not saying that to be true in all cases - there are some wonderful folks serving and have served for an extended time. I continue to pray for 7 all out, totally sold out, totally got the fever for Jesus families to come to my church and step up in a way that no matter if they are cleaning toilets, teaching kids or just moving heavy speakers from one place to another........ SOLD OUT!!!
I can remember when I first started serving at church after years of excuses. Excuses of lies really. I just was not sold out on this church thing and was not following Jesus with my heart even though outside - I appeared to be doing everything right. I remember the first few times serving, putting the screen together wrong, upside down, legs at different length - I remember putting chairs up in a row that a blind person could put straighter - I remember those tough days serving and having no idea what I was doing but I knew God wanted me there......... I am forever grateful for the step in faith and trusted Him for leading me to serve. It has been an amazing walk to say the least.....
I have come to realize that its OK to fail at hard things, because all effort - even failed effort- produces growth. I think about our teenagers and our children - we rescue them way too often when they fail. We don't let them experience it and then encourage them to try again. Often times we either bale them out or do the task ourselves. Lessons passed instead of lessons learned. Years later we may have teenagers or 20 somethings afraid to "Do the Hard Things" because fear of failure keeps them from even trying.
Pastor Furtick from Elevation wrote on a recent blog - that when we move up to the next level - we often find ourselves at the bottom of that next level instead of at the top. Its like moving from Elementary school to Middle School. We are at the top of the school in 5th grade only to come to 6th and be at the bottom. Middle to High - High to College - Job Promotion to Job Promotion......... God wants to stretch us, teach us, push us to our limits and beyond .... so that we grow.
Growth being a Christain is the same concept. We are baby Christians we think and act centered around us. Spoon fed........ learning, shaping, character building because of Jesus - our focus becomes others, serving others, helping others.... the graduation from one level to another can't happen without some failure along the way.
BUT - it produces growth...........Great things are ahead ~
Peace,
Lon~
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