What CAN You Expect?

Our February article for Austin Faith and Family Magazine is available online - just in time for Valentines day! We talk about diamonds & expectations. Our expectations are often unrealistic. They can be misplaced. But they can also be very healthy! So, what CAN you expect?

Click on the link and look for the Journey for Two column on page 16!

http://issuu.com/austinfaithandfamily/docs/www.austinfaithandfamily.com

In His Pasture - Finding Rest In Worship

So come, let us worship: bow before him, on your knees before God, who made us! Oh yes, he's our God, and we're the people he pastures, the flock he feeds. Psalm 95:6-7 MSG


Everyday, I drive by a small pasture filled with cattle. Everyday it's the same. The cows just walk and eat. Eat and walk. They seem pretty oblivious to all the humans rushing past on our way to somewhere. Everything they could think of needing is right there in the pasture.


I wonder what it looks like to be the "the people God pastures"? I bet we would move slower.

The Psalmist continues: Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks: "Don't turn a deaf ear as in the Bitter Uprising, As on the day of the Wilderness Test, when your ancestors turned and put me to the test. For forty years they watched me at work among them, as over and over they tried my patience. And I was provoked—oh, was I provoked! 'Can't they keep their minds on God for five minutes? Do they simply refuse to walk down my road?' Exasperated, I exploded, 'They'll never get where they're headed, never be able to sit down and rest.'" Psalm 95:7-11

I think of those Hebrew children, fresh out of Egypt and how their hearts had a longing to worship. So much so, that they fashioned a golden cow. We ARE worshippers. But we are worshippers with a choice. Are we going to bow before our Maker? Or chose to worship some shinier version of ourselves - the cow that finally made it with wealth, position and power?

There is no end to that worship. There are always greener pastures, right? Another cow across the fence who appears to be feasting on sweeter grass.

But....if we drop everything, drop everything and listen, come and bow before the Lord our Maker in worship...that is where we find blessed REST.

Come join us for worship, communion and REST....This Wednesday February 2nd at Shoreline Church in Austin, TX. You can also watch online at www.shoreline.net/live 7pm cst.

Under the Shadow - But Out of the Nest

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.

Psalm 57:1

I've always pictured a mother hen with her little chicks tucked safely in the nest and under her wings when I read this passage. I know there is a hiding place we find in God. A refuge from the storms of life. That sounds like a stationary place, a singlular location. And frankly, I like the nest. It's warm and cozy. "Safe" is such a good feeling!

But as I was driving through the neighborhood this week, I noticed two large birds soaring over the pastureland and something shifted for me. With their great wings outstretched they cast quite a shadow on the grass below, and that shadow moved. It was not stationary at all, it was in constant motion.

Like birds hovering overhead, the LORD Almighty will shield Jerusalem; he will shield it and deliver it, he will ‘pass over’ it and will rescue it. Isaiah 31:5

I see God hovering over me, shielding me....AS I MOVE. It's a little scary, but maybe it's time to leave the warmth of the nest. It's time to venture out into the world, trusting that we are still under His shadow.

Remember Genesis? "the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters..." It was with His Spirit in that hovering position that God began the process of creation. The nest is a place of recovery, but the hovering shadow is a place of creation. What is He creating in me?

And God said "Let there be....and it was so."

Where do you see yourself? Safely tucked in the nest? Or out under the hovering shadow?


(A special thank you to Wild Leek Photography for use of your picture "Mother's Wing".)

Snow Steps

It's 2 below today is Bismarck, ND; with a 60 percent chance of snow. Brrrr.

I grew up in those Dakota winters. Got up each morning (with the help of my father's voice booming down to my basement bedroom) to deliver the local newspaper door to door. I can picture myself trudging through the snow in my moon boots with The Bismarck Tribune on my back. It was manageable, aside from the Sunday edition which could get pretty hefty. This is probably the root cause of each of my spinal subluxations.

There is something so beautiful about freshly fallen snow, tiny crystals piled up like a sparkling white blanket to cover the dead frozen ground. It's breath-taking. When the temperatures really dip that happens - it will take your breath away! We were always careful to bundle up and breathe through a scarf. I miss the snow, but I sure don't miss the cold.

I remember a game we used to play in our backyard. My daddy would shuttle-step through the snow to create a giant wheel. Then he would add spokes to the wheel and in the center was the home-base hub. The game was called Fox and Goose and the "fox" would chase all the "geese" around the circle. Inside the hub was safety. The critical part was to stay in the snow path that Dad had created with his foot steps. Any steps outside the spokes were easy to spot and you were "caught".

It's much less work, especially when the snow is deep, to walk inside the snow steps that someone else has created. My parents did that for us. They plowed the way through the snow in the backyard and they plowed the way in knowing Christ, in trusting God, in living a life of faith.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD,
And He delights in his way.

Psalm 27:23

Check out the pronouns in that second phrase "He" delights. That is a capital "H". God delights in our steps. The steps that He has ordered for our lives. Lovely, isn't it? God delights in laying out a path before us. He delights when we say "show me the way wherein I should walk". He delights when we create a path that others could follow in and find safety.

Commitment to Change..Together

Our second article for Austin Faith and Family magazine is now available!

Click on the January magazine cover to open the online version.

Our Journey For Two column is on page 18 - Commitment to Change...Together

Got the Holiday Blues?

It happens to the best of us this time of year. Yesterday, Pastor Rob shared a beautiful message on letting go of our expectations of perfection and approaching this Christmas season with a sense of expectancy. What is God up to? What is He doing?

I was reminded of one of my favorite passages: I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Psalm 27:13 NASB

The psalmist says "I would have despaired". I think this is humanity's default setting, with high expectations and past disappointments swinging the scales of our mind. Down and Up. Up and Down. Despair.

Thank God for that 6 letter word "unless". This is the kind of word that turns things around : However, But, Nevertheless. "Unless I had believed." Faith tips the scale.

The psalmist continues "....that I would see the goodness of the LORD" What would it look like for the goodness of the LORD to invade your world this December? I think, just like that first Christmas, it could be rather unexpected. Who thought the Messiah, the new King, would be born in a sheep shed? Who thought that angels would announce his arrival to the marginalized, blue-collar shepherd-type? My Christmas prayer is that we have eyes to see the unexpected arrival of his goodness in our lives this holiday season.

The older I get the more I cling to the hope of heaven, that someday of reunion, joy and resolution. But the psalmist does not cast all of his hope on heaven. He believes to see - TODAY- "in the land of the living."

So when you feel despair dragging your Christmas down, no condemnation! It's just time to reset that default. Pour a little faith onto the scale. Remember the good news of great joy was for ALL people, which includes YOU! I believe you will see his goodness TODAY!

Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. Psalm 62:5 NLT

Two Are Better Than One

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Ecclesiasties 4:9-10

Verse 9 is such a great word about companionship. Two are better than one when there is work to be done. Take - for example - dish duty. For one person, it's a tedious task. But for two (or more), it gets done so fast. The kitchen is clean in no time! I hate dishes left in the sink, but I so do not want to do them alone! I will walk right by and wait for an opportunity to recruit a "dryer" to go with my "washer" or an "unloader" to go with my "loader". I think this is because I grew up washing dishes after every meal. My mom didn't have one of those fancy dishwashing machines...she had three able-bodied children for that job! We rotated positions: washer, rinser, dryer and had lots of fun making beards out of AJAX bubbles. Three were certainly better than one.

Verse 10 takes companionship to a whole 'nother level! If one falls down, his friend can help him up. Things get messy when we fall. People get banged up, bruised and scraped. Wounds need careful washing and tender attention. That takes time. So, are you a friend I can count on when I fall? Will you look at me in my mess and judge me? Will you let me lay there all pitiful lookin' with no one to help me up? Or.....are you a friend who sticks closer than a brother? Will you take the time to cry with me for a while? Then help me up, brush off the dirt, get out the anti-biotic cream and tell me it's gonna be OK?

You find out who your friends are when you fall.