3 Questions that change a person's life: Question # 1

What Do You Believe?

Each person believes in different things. We also each believe differently about different aspect of God. Here are the 3 realms that you and I choose to place our beliefs.

Realm of FANTASY

This is a place of fictitious characters and events. Examples would be: Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, and Barney the purple dinosaur. Some people place the whole idea of God into the realm of fantasy. They have rituals and events but CHOOSE to believe that Go exists in a world of fiction. Perhaps those of us that believe the Bible choose to place certain aspects of God into this realm.  

2 Timothy 3:5  having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.Avoid such people

What do you believe that you have placed into the realm of fantasy?

Realm of DISTANCE

This is a place of real characters and events that are far away from our daily lives. An example of this realm would be the planet Mars. You and I would agree that the planet of Mars exists and is MORE real than characters in a fiction movie; however it is too far away to be a part of our daily experiences. Tuesday of this past week, I had the privilege of meeting Hoot Gibson at a grand opening event at Centennial Airport for the Interport that VisionAir is in partnership with. He was talking about NASA's mission to get a team of people to the planet of Mars within the next decade or so. Do you know how long the actual mission to Mars takes? Three years. It takes one year to get there as well as a year to get back, so they figured they might as well stay a year. The planet of Mars is FAR away from our daily lives. And so it is with different aspect of God, or perhaps stories we read about in the Bible. We believe that they are REAL but we inadvertently place them in the realm of distance so that we can become comfortable with the thought of something bizarre and/or supernatural being true yet not allow it to interfere with our daily lives. The Bible is clear that God is the same and never changes I believe a direct quote would be "Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever!" Why then are not more amazingly awesome events taking place in our lives and through our lives like they were in the times of the Bible? Perhaps it is because we can put "distance" between ourselves and some part of God in terms of time. Perhaps God and His people only acted that way in the Bible because they had to and now it is much more refined and normal looking. OR perhaps we have created distance between ourselves and the almighty power of God.

Realm of DAILY

This is the place of real characters and events that are part of our daily lives. This is your alarm clock, mortgage payment, job, marriage, schedules, kids, etc. Be honest, when we mention these DAILY REALITIES does God pop into your mind immediately? Usually the honest answer is NO. Have you ever made an honest attempt to have a consistent time with God? Perhaps you are well disciplined and have tuck with it over an extended period of time, or perhaps you are like me and it lasts for maybe 3 days and then you just feel bad about not getting in your time with God.

Once when interviewing Smith Wigglesworth, he was asked: how much time do you spend with God everyday? They were expecting to get an amount expressed in multiple hours but instead this was his response. "I rarely spend more than 5 minutes praying.... but I rarely go longer than 5 minutes without praying!"

Here is an idea. Instead of trying to place the presence of God into a block of time, take all of your time and place it into the presence of God. Take the time that you would normally spend orienting, or organizing your day (task list, schedules, etc) and invite the Lord into that time. What you will find is that you choose to cultivate your daily life WITHIN His presence, He will begin to give you ideas, help you organize your daily life, and even impress you to perhaps write a note to someone, or do something that you feel in your heart is the right thing to do. Start there, and before long you will begin to see supernatural connections and answers coming to your daily projects and problems.

Our Lives should be DAILY bringing the impossibility of God into other people's reality.

counting on God

one of Tre's favorite songs is counting on God by the desperation band at new life church. This morning in church we were singing it as I reminisced about an early morning training flight I had with a client. We came down to the runway and he pulled back to enter the "flare" way too early, which caused the airspeed to degrade rapidly and start to "sink" to the runway. Imagine being 75 feet in the air and the airplane your in just quits flying and drops toward the runway. It is very scary. As we started to drop, I reached up and pushed the power in all the way and took control of the aircraft (pushing his hands out of the way, no time to chat about it or be politically correct.) I have done this many times as a flight instructor, but this morning it felt different in two ways. First, it was completely a reflex with absolutely no conscious thought on my part at all. Secondly, I did not feel any adrenaline or substantial heart rate increase.

Here are the two take aways.

1. Personally for Papa God and I it was affirming to me to tangibly FEEL his complete peace in what was a deadly situation. Our heart cry is to count on God, and I REALLY want my whole life and each little detail to be dependent on His love and power. I know God speaks through me to others and gives me words that I could not come up with on my own as they flow out of my mouth. But this morning it was His way of showing us (Him and I) that He can and will act through me at just the right time. It felt marvelous, beautiful, and perhaps more fulfilling than if He physically picked the aircraft up with His hands, because He was able to act through my mind and body...SWEET TOTALLY SWEET!

2. Each of us as leaders are taking ourselves as well precious others on a flight somewhere. Guess what, you are the pilot, God is not. Does not matter how spiritual we think we can get, we still make all the daily decisions either with God, with others, or by ourselves. We are human and will make mistakes, and in the process negatively affect others. It is dependent on us to develop our unique connections with our Papa God so that in the midst of our humanity He can intervene at the exact time of need. So much of our relationship with our Papa God is theoretical instead of actual. So much of what we say we believe in the Bible as no actual experiential place in our lives. When is the last time you KNOW God saved you and your aircraft?

to tre

Tre, you are a leader! Your papa is so proud of who you are becoming. This is for you and all the other leaders that like you have potential beyond my ability to comprehend because your potential exists in the mind and heart of your Papa God. Your mima and I made a decision long ago, to surrender our lives to Papa God, and only exist and thrive within our relationship with Him. This is why our lives are unexplainable, dangerous, fulfilling, and incomprehensible. Should anything happen to your papa, may these words fuel your passionate pursuit of all that you and your Papa God dream up together. May my ceiling become your floor, and therefore may I push my ceiling as high as possible so that you and every other leader may touch heaven daily and of course take as many with you as possible!