2013 Christmas Letter

Be faithful with the opportunities and hardships put before you.

The older I get the more I discover things about myself.  I'm task oriented,  I love new idea's, but only ideas that I can make steps of action to see them accomplished, idea's that remain idea's frustrate me.  I love the feeling of accomplishment, the moment I can step back and look at the project completed, and just look and enjoy.  I get what God was up to on Day 7.  Sometimes I get in trouble with this tendency to be task oriented.  Over the years God has been teaching me to refine this part of me and allow Him to take the reigns of what "new" project I'm up to.  Sometimes I create a new project simply to get to the feeling of accomplishment, but God doesn't want me to just do new things, He has things for me that I am to be faitful to.  I'm learning to simply become more aware of what God has put before me and do that well.  In doing this He will expand my influence and opportunities.  Everything God puts before us we have the responsibility to be faithful with, whether it be hardship or opportunity there is a way to be faithful and a way to not be faithful.

Story of Ruth.

This Christmas may you learn what it means to be faithful in your circumstance.  What is it that God desires to do in you through this situation?

My mom tells me when I was a kid I loved the song "This is the Day". She says I would wake up singing this song, often my character was joyful, hopeful and grateful. There is simplicity and rest in these words. "This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24). Yesterday was Zyan and Ana's 3rd and 1st birthday party. I woke up grumpy, maybe you could even say mean. We had decorated the night before, with balloons on the chairs, streamers, a strip of paper down the center of the dinning table with the words Happy Birthday Ana and Zyan. Before church Julie went out to get some bread for lunch, I got the kids their cereal. Quickly things started to get a bit crazy, I was trying so hard to keep everything looking nice that at one point I yelled at Rowan, all he wanted to do was write his name on the paper beside his siblings. Eventually God got to me and convicted me of the moment and the memories I was creating, I brought the boys in close and apologized to them. The thing is I often wake up grumpy, I often find myself ashamed of the memories I'm making. I am soo grateful for God, for His voice and the grace to start new each day. God so desires to restore all things, to make all things beautiful, Jesus wants to cover over every part of us and our lives.

This morning I started the day differently. I began by playing the song "Praise the Lord" by The City Harmonic. Here are it's lyrics.

Praise the Lord, when it comes out easy
Praise the Lord on top of the world
Praise the Lord 'cause in every moment Jesus Christ is Lord
Even in the middle of the joys of life There is always grace enough today to Praise the Lord
Praise the Lord with the world on your shoulders
Praise the Lord when it seems too hard
Praise the Lord 'cause in every moment Jesus Christ is Lord
Even in the middle of the long dark night There is always grace enough today to Praise the Lord

May you hear His voice today and walk in His grace in such a way that Jesus is central to memories you end up creating.

Adventures of Rowan and Zyan

Every night putting the boys to bed is the same routine. They love it, Rowan in particular has it memorized and makes sure each step is followed in the correct order. Supper, Bath, Put on Jamma's, Show & Snack, Drink of Milk/Water, Brush Teeth, Go to the Washroom, Read Books, Pray, Lullaby, Story, Hugs and Say Goodnight. The problem I was starting to have is that I was running out of new creative stories, they were getting lame. Tonight as I was trying hard to create a story an idea came to me out of the story that had come to my mind. The story I told tonight was about a giant masrhmellow that people left in the bag campfire after campfire because it was simply too big to eat. Then came Rowan and Zyan. They looked at each other and at the giant marshmellow and decided to tackle it. Together they roasted the heavy marshmellow and together they bit into it until it was gone. They had sore tummy's but together the team of Rowan and Zyan were enough for the task. I'm thinking this will be my new theme, creating something too hard for others to tackle and having the team of Rowan and Zyan accomplish the task. This at least will get me through a few more nights.

One Thing I've Learned This Year - Hero's Let You Down

I had experienced this before, but this time it was different, he was different. Last weekend I took a group of students and leaders to our yearly student conference. This year the headlining band was Relient K. My all time favourite band, basically Matt Thiessen. For approximately a decade Relient K has been the sole musical influence in my life. I didn't listen to music aside from what I wrote unless it was Relient K. The layered and creative lyrics regulatory lead me into worship. Thiessen has been a spiritual hero in my life, even to the point that I suggested naming one of our children after him. Prior to Friday's concert I had been to 3 other Relient K concerts. The music wasn't much different, songs still sounded the same, but the Spirit was missing. All of a sudden songs were just songs and words were just words and Thiessen was just another musician trying to remain relevant in culture and make a living. I stood about 10 feet from him and simply began to pray. My heart hurt for him, a fallen hero. A man whose words used to cover me with the presence of Jesus, not left me only with a man. His old songs reminded me of the man who once was so close to the vine, Jesus was dripping off of the lyrics. His new music so full of the world and a fallen man trying to make it without Jesus. His last song such a clear statement of were Jesus is at "Through the miles of open road, I lost sight of what might have mattered the most, I hope I haven't heard the last words of the Holy Ghost". All this to say it was a strange experience, my hero fallen. Recently I've been reading through the story of David. David had become a spiritual hero. David had lived as the second man, letting God lead his life enabling him to do incredible things, things only God could do through him. This led to incredible worldly success. He was king, he had anything he wanted, and he was a hero to all. In 2 Samuel 10 David under the leadership of God leads the Israelites to one of their greatest victories as they defeat 7000 charioteers and 40,000 foot soldiers of the Ammonites. The next chapter David takes Uriah's wife Bathsheba and then had Uriah murdered. David quickly becomes a fallen hero. David says no to the Sprit's filter on his life. The last 5 years I've witnessed this moment too often in my hero's. The moment the success gets to them, the moment they choose not to filter all that they do through God, choosing instead to let themselves led and be seen in their actions more then Christ. In the book "Love Wins" Rob Bell broke my heart, this was a radically different piece of work then all of his prior. He was my hero, read everything he wrote, attended his conferences, listened to his sermons. But something broke and the pages begun to read with the words of Rob Bell, not the words of Jesus through Bell. And yet I love King David, I love Matt Theissen and Rob Bell. David when confronted chooses to put God back in charge of His life, although he dealt with the consequences, David was known as a man after "God's own heart". In the end David loved God more then himself. For now Theissen and Bell aren't there yet. I don't know their hurts, their stories, but I know just like in the days of King David's youth when the Spirit was upon him and his life made a hero out of God, that these men's lives were used to make a hero out of God and currently that is not the case. The lesson here for me is this. May I choose to let God lead my life continuing to seek to be like Jesus who "considered himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant". When I fail, may I embrace my sinfulness, seek forgiveness and recover my life with Christ, so that even in my failure God is seen as hero. May I be careful of those that I claim as spiritual hero's always seeking for the true hero behind the hero. May I be full of grace, praying that God will again use the incredible gifts and abilities of those he has entrusted.

Getting to know Jesus

Recently our church has begun a series called "the story". Each week together from the children to adults we are going through the bible story by story. It's been pretty cool watching Zyan begin to get excited about God. I've been praying for Zyan pretty much every night as I do for Rowan and Ana, that they would grow to be people who know and love Jesus, that Jesus would be central to their lives. Recently I've seen Zyan respond to Jesus as Jesus pursues his heart. Zyan decided he wanted his own Bible. We gave him one of our children's bible, and Zyan has slept with it beside his bed for the past week. Tonight Zyan wanted to read the bible together. We read out of "the story" bible, the story of Jesus calming the sea. Zyan was soo interested, asking questions about Jesus. Many times before I had talked with Zyan about inviting Jesus into his heart, inviting Jesus to be with Him, to be His friend forever. Typically Zyan wouldn't be that interested, or he'd just be kinda interested just for me. But tonight I sensed a change so I told him about Jesus' love for him, I asked him if he'd like Jesus in his heart, he said yes. He then prayed that Jesus "be in his heart, be with him forever". It was great. Zyan is getting to know my Jesus, my greatest friend, the one that constantly pursues me. Tonight was one step closer to my dream for my children. May Zyan become his namesake "a man who by his relationship with Christ bring's heaven here"