The Mill- Sifting Through the Stuff of Life.

I talk to so many people and everyone seems to have a picture in their mind of what could be or should be  in their life and many times IT has been diverted by a bad decision or someone elses  bad decision and it seems that God could have prevented it.   All of us are affected by the one day some day syndrom.  Some people say it’s random some say nothing is random, but one thing is true we do not have it figured out and the one day some day stuff doesn’t always happen.   I do not believe that is proof that your life is spinning out of control or necessarily going in the wrong direction.  Those things are a reminder that you’ve never really been in control. When your one day some day stuff is not a reality and in some cases never will be and can’t come true, that’s not the time to try and take control.  Instead, it is the time to lean hard into the only one who has ever really been in control.  I encourage you to build your faith on the only true foundation, Christ our Lord.

I’ll let this quote speak for itself.

“People who have not ever really faced their own misdeeds, owned their own mistakes toward others, and received forgiveness and made amends rarely have forgiveness toward others.  They still think they are morally superior and lord their superiority over the ones who fail them in some real or imagined way.  But, if they have been honest about their own failures and been accepted for those, then they are more humble and able to forgive other imperfect people like themselves.”   Dr. Henry Cloud.

May we always own our mistakes and receive and extend forgiveness.

This video’s a little long, but well worth your 6 minutes.

Here is a great statement that has been blogged a million times but deserves another look. “To reach people no one else is reaching, we have to do things no one else is doing” (Craig Groeschel) 

Become preoccupied with those you want to reach rather than those you are trying to keep.  Take a look around your community and don’t ask how many people are in the church down the street, but how many thousands are not interested at all and then find a relational way to reach out to them.

It’s probably true that the best ideas for reaching the next generation for Christ isn’t going to come from the existing generation, it’s going to come from the next.  You may be running low on new ideas for you organization if you are 45 or older.  It now becomes our job to recognize the good ideas.  Don’t do to the next generation what the previous did to you. 
Be a student, not a critic.  Paraphrase from Andy Stanley