What Decision are You Delaying?

for The Hanford Sentinel

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. — 2 Timothy 1:7

It seems that nearly everything on this Earth challenges growth and expansion. People that dream big dreams about their lives, about how things can be better, about their families and the future are always challenged. Other people make sure to inform these dreamers about all the reasons why their dreams will not work. They patiently and fervently explain why the dreams simply cannot happen.

And while we are surrounded by dream-crushers on every side, there is an even bigger enemy that we must deal with if we are going to dream big and see God's purposes fulfilled in our lives—FEAR. We are experts at imagining all the worse case scenarios and tragic repercussions of big decisions. We spin glorious tales of how the imminent and unavoidable failures of our dreams will result in very massive and very public crash and burn fiascos.

It doesn't even seem to matter whether the dreams are big or small, the fears spring up like mushrooms that emerge overnight. We imagine that if we told the truth, we would lose everything. We imagine that if we make that change in our life we know we need, we would fail miserably and end up worse then before. We imagine that if we went back to school, we just wouldn't be able to hack it. And on and on.

So all too frequently, instead of moving forward into that preferred future, we stay frozen in fear. Crippled by our imaginations, we stop growing, believing and breaking through to the next thing God has for us. We stop believing what God says—eye has not seen and ear has not heard the good thing that the Lord has prepared for you (1 Corinthians 2:9)—and choose instead to agree with the voice of fear.

What fear is controlling you today? What fear is keeping you from moving forward in your life? Maybe you need to come clean in a relationship. Maybe you need to step out and grow in a new area. Maybe you need to risk losing some comfort to do that thing which is hard but is right. Don't delay it any longer. Don't wait for the perfect time, no such thing exists.

Dorothy Thompson said, "Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." Is it time for you to stop delaying and start living?

This weekend the pastors of Kings County would love to help you be set free from fear and move towards all that God desires for your life. Don't put it off, it may be the start of a new day for you!

C.S. Lewis' View on Education

Just finished reading C.S. Lewis' article "On the Transmission of Christianity" — he argued that the answer for the decline in Christian morals and the Christian life is not to go after education per se, but rather to go after individuals. It may be an important reminder for those embroiled in our culture wars here in the U.S., that to transform a culture, you transform the individuals within the culture first and then the institutions follow. To attempt to transform the institutions without changing the individuals is useless.

If I can be critical for a moment, it seems that the "Christian agenda" has been too focused on "prayer in schools" when it needed to be focused on "prayer in homes." How sad would it be for Christians to "win" this battle, only to discover that no one is interested in praying in schools because there are no Christians left there to pray.

His article is available here at Google books.

Entertaining Angels

I think it is pretty clear that they weren't actually angels, but my family was treated to a special visit from a missionary couple that was driving through our area on their way up north. It was an unexpected visit from a couple that we had never met before, but because of a mutual friend, we were able to host them over night.

My wife and I have often prayed that we want our house to be a place of blessing for others and we want our family to be a part of that process so that they can learn this important part of life. This unexpected visit fit the bill. Rarely is it convenient to host someone in your home, you simply have to make the decision that it is an important thing to do.

And now we have two new friends, we were encouraged to hear about their work overseas, and hopefully we were able to encourage them. This is the kind of thing we need more of!