cup of joe

There is no peace like that which comes when you are assured of your location and vocation. Often the hardest place to be is in the valley of the unknown. Every day we make decisions that will have an impact on our future, our friends and our families. The Good News today is that the Lord is teaching us through the decisions and the conversations. His Holy Spirit allows us to recognize the good things that He is providing us. We are also able to learn life lessons from those things that are not so good. And that same spirit leads us on the path we should follow. There may be other ways as well so it is very important that we listen to the Lord on this.
Don't waste another moment taking your own road or thinking that you may know best. Submit your life, your abilities and your spirit to the Lord and let Him teach you about what is good for you. He will lead you and guide you to the perfect place to fulfill His purposes with you. Here we go!!

May we never forget the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom that we are able to enjoy today. God bless their families and God bless the USA.  #MemorialDay2016

#trainingdays #discipline #disciple

Mark 4:21-22 Jesus went on: "Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or beneath the bed? Don't you put it up on a table or on the mantel? We're not keeping secrets, we're telling them; we're not hiding things, we're bringing them out into the open.
Our lives were meant to be lived out among other people. We were made to connect with others and develop relationships. The best way to grow relationships with people is to grow your relationship to Christ. It's so easy to want to detach and live life for ourselves. To take care of ourselves first and then look outward. That simply does not work. Jesus described it himself later in this chapter when he said: “Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.  Stinginess impoverishes."  Giving IS the way. Give your life to Christ. Give your life to others. Give your life to what Christ is doing: time, talent and treasures. Bring it all out into the open. You were made to be a li…

I am a fan of the quote. Give me a good one-liner because oftentimes that is all I can remember! I love coming up with quotes on my own and I love sharing the great quotes of others. Some encourage and some make you smile. Some are just filled with wisdom. Today I have a wise quote from one of my favorite college football analysts...not that he's the best analyst, but he seems to be a great guy and was a wonderful football coach. His name is Lou Holtz. During the season they even refer to him as Dr. Lou as he gives out the prescriptions needed to be a champions and win games. And the Doc said it like this: “Don't ever promise more than you can deliver, but always deliver more than you promise.”  Now I really take that to heart. Oftentimes we can over-extend ourselves in what we promise to others and then find out at the end of the day that we can't keep the promise. Let me break that down a bit. If you are notoriously late for ALL your meetings, don't promise to be on…

Sometimes you may start to look at your life and what you are doing and feel like you just aren’t growing anymore. When this happens you can become easily discouraged and often quite critical of everything and everyone. You may not even realize that you aren’t really growing because life is busy, things are happening and you mistake activity for progress. I really had no idea that I was struggling until my life kind of shifted last year. My location changed, the people in my life changed and my job changed too. I was so tired and I didn’t even realize it. I was void of hope and my faith supply was severely depleted. Looking back at that progression I see two things that were overtaking me...exhaustion and emptiness. You might say “how could you be empty when you live around all your friends and minister to hundreds of people every week?”That’s really a good question. I can tell you that some of the loneliest and empty people on the planet are surrounded by the largest crowds. Busyness …

Some time ago I had the pleasure of filming a little spot for a local cable program. The mission: what would you say to someone that is going through a "transition" i.e. moving into a new city, a new home, a new relationship, out of one, to a job, from a job...you get the picture. The time limit...you will have about 60 seconds!!! WOW! What a challenge! If all of my personal transitions lasted as long as this spot I would be golden! Unfortunately they do not. Most of my transitions just seem to happen...like being born. For nine months I was prepared and the moment I "came forth", the first thing they did was flip me upside down and spank me! Then they scraped me raw with a rag to clean me up and placed my under some hot lights like a pack of fries at McDonalds! After everything settled, they put my spotless, dew rag covered head in a plastic cart on wheels and led me to the showroom for everyone to see. It was a bit traumatic but I'm still here!  Every one of…

We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.  In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us. And you are helping us by praying for us. Then many people will give thanks because God has graciously answered so many prayers for our safety. 2 Cor 1:8-11
Each one of us can probably relate to the idea of facing something that absolutely overwhelmed us beyond our ability to endure. Paul is describing some pretty dark times when hope was gone and so was the belief that they could survive. I guess he could have just pulled out the white flag and given up. He could have thrown his pity party for …

Looking forward to a week of feasting on the goodness of God! Every day has enough trouble!
Keep your heart happy! Don't let Monday trouble steal your Sunday joy! Praying for you to have an amazing, spirit-filled week!
#happyheart. #cupofjoe

Psalm 51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.  Remember that day when you made Jesus the Lord of your life? Something good overwhelmed you and started growing inside of you. Your countenance changed. You began to see people differently, react differently and even the words coming out of your mouth were different. You found the JOY of the Lord!
Now life has continued, challenges have come and some painful seasons have overshadowed that "joy-full" experience. You find yourself tired of trying, sometimes going so far as to isolate yourself from others. You may even feel like no one understands. 
David had moments just like that too. You can read about his in the psalms. In Psalm 51, out of the darkness of isolation and within the grip of fear and pain, he prayed a simple prayer: Lord, give me the joy back. Help me to continue being willing to trust you and follow you even when I feel like this. It was then that God delivered David. He wil…

Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry,
but those who trust in the LORD will lack no good thing. PS 34:10
Imagine today that you could live life in such a way that there would be no shortfalls. No shortfalls emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually. Sounds like a perfect way to move through the day doesn't it? No shortfalls!
Trusting in the Lord sets us up for the best possible life that we could live. When He is in control then we can be certain that the people we will meet, the conversations we will have and the places we will  end up are being divinely guided or inspired. He orchestrates the steps and the stops! 
When we please the Lord, the Lord pleases us. Therefore there is no lack because you have a new understanding that all things are eventually going to work out for your benefit. Every thing gets mixed and mingled together into something that will be perfect for you.
So what are you thinking about today? Going hungry or lacking no good thing? Are you staying …

EPH 3:13 So please don’t lose heart because of my trials here... Its so easy to want to abandon the plan and throw in the towel when the going gets rough. Sometimes you have to struggle just to find the energy to continue in the fight. Adversity has a way of bringing out whatever is inside of you...good or bad. Paul always wanted those that were listening to the message that he was sharing to stay positive and stay in the game even when the times were tough. His encouragement was always to not lose heart. When you're heart is in it, you can win it. When you do what is in your heart to do, you will be all that you were designed to be. Going through some tough times? You are not alone. Hang in there and please don't lose heart...things are about to turn around!

I've seen and heard many things over the last few days: special Mothers Day poems, merchandise and a variety of momisms. Momisms are those things that only your mom can say. Some of my favorites that I read were "you're going to put your eye out with that thing!" or "look at me when I'm talking to you!" And the infamous one we have all heard, "you'll understand that better when you have kids of your own". The latter rings very true in my life today. As a father of three children, I find myself reaching way back in my memory to try and grab ahold of some of those wonderful words of wisdom that came from mom. I wish I would have wrote some of them down! Mom's have learned how to endure pain for the joy of something greater. They always have compassion and always believe the best of their children even when their children fall short. They nurture, guide, comfort and encourage.  My mom's favorite scripture is found in 3 John 4 where i…

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison 
I often wonder about "timing" and why most of the things I pray for don't show up until that final hour. Have your ever experienced that? I wonder how many things in my life changed because I gave in too soon? Let me keep it real simple today...it's always too soon to quit.  If you are thinking about giving up on a dream or idea take a moment today to ask yourself this question:"If the blessing you were waiting on was coming later today, would you still stop moving forward?" My guess is you would say absolutely not!  Don't give up! Trust in the Lord and don't lean on what you know. Hold up your head and hold out your hope! You could be soooo close! Don't quit...do it!

I am glad that there is a national emphasis on prayer today. I truly believe that what God says is true and no matter how bad this nation becomes or how many mistakes we make, if we humble ourselves, seek His face and turn from our own unrighteousness agenda, God is going to do some great things. He will hear from heaven. That means your prayers will not fall on deaf ears...you will be heard! His plans for us will be dispatched...put into motion, so that He can assist us in carrying them out. He will forgive our sins...can I get an amen to that! All of us could use a little forgiveness. And lastly, He will heal our land.
All that we are required to do is relinquish our control and let God do what He had planned for us. Many folks are gathering in special places to pray at specific times today. If you have a place, show your support. If you cant get to a place, make time in your car, at lunch or during a break and ask God to have His way with this land we call the United States of Amer…

Psalm 139:14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. Did you know just how special you are? You are wonderfully made, hand-crafted by God, designed for an amazing life filled with blessings. With so much potential in us, why are we so overwhelmed and defeated at times? Its obvious that the times we live in are getting harder. Our society changes through the years and though there are many good things around us, evil multiplies too. We need to consistently examine what we are doing and why we are doing it. I love the way that Psalm 139 ends as a prayer asking God to search inside and point out to us where we need to improve. It seems to me that I am always trying to close a gap in my life so that I can keep the enemy at bay. The Good News is that I still can! Why? Because I am fearfully and wonderfully made...wonderfully complex! I'm marvelous! You are too!  Ask God to search your heart and show you things that can be modifi…

The other day as I was working in the office, I received an email. It had the appearance of being for me personally but I noticed very quickly that it was a form letter that had been sent to many people at the same time. I knew this because where “Joe” should have been it said “Null”. To be honest, when I read that I laughed a little bit because that little word is usually placed in a sentence with other little words when I describe that there is nothing there: like zip,nada, zilch and zero. "Null is a special marker used in Structured Query Language (SQL) to indicate that a data value does not exist in the database." Imagine that, no value. Joe doesn't exist in their database, Joe is “null”.  It seems like many people in our country these days are so de-valued and unheard that they lash out in all types of harmful ways. Each of us wants to belong to something greater than ourselves. To be loved by someone other than ourselves. And to become all God said we could be. It…