JRMITCH85 Character, Faith

Any Given Day

Today is a regular day, no holiday to celebrate, no reason to hold a parade, but today is a day that we have been given as a blessing from God. So why don’t we praise? What holds us back from opening our hearts and our minds to fully giving ourselves over to God?

I know there are indescribable emotions running through people when we encounter hurt, pain, and all sorts of injustice. These may create blocks in our minds and our hearts against praise, but God wants us to give these things over, lay them at the foot of the cross, and express them in any way we know how.

David does this. His relationship with God was so authentic, that he communicated with God through prayer and song in good times and in not so good times. I pray that I can be more authentic with God, and give all things at all times over to the Almighty, the Creator of the universe.

 

JRMITCH85 Character

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy

Several years ago I went to the UYWI Conference and the theme was Legacy, and posted on the bulletin boards and in miscellaneous places around the campus of Azusa Pacific were flyers detailing the lives of people who lived lives and left legacies to which we should take note. Certainly, I have seen a number of quotations today on twitter and facebook from Dr. King, but one of the greatest lessons I have learned is that my words, my actions, and my faith matter.

God placed a great burden upon the lap of Dr. King, and he did not shrink in that moment, but he answered the call just like Isaiah, “Here am I Lord, send me!” Injustice, prejudice, slavery, war, exploitation, poverty, hate, and suffering are still present in our world, all of the problems have not been solved. God is calling each one of us to stand up to oppression, and fight for justice. Your area of influence may be large or small, but the change to can effect is immeasurable. I urge you to answer God’s call on your life, and go out and be the change that this world needs.

Injustice doesn’t care what language you speak. It doesn’t care about the color of your skin. It doesn’t care what country you live in. It affects all of us. It tricks us with short-term benefits, but in the end we all suffer because of it. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this, and knew that it had to stop. I thank God for putting him in the world so that I could learn how to answer that call.  I matter, you matter, and we both have the ability to truly change the world through the power given to us through the Holy Spirit.

In my eyes, that is a great legacy.

JRMITCH85 Character, Decisions, Faith, Hope, Ramblings

No, You Can’t

My son has repeated to me numerous times the phrase, “I can do it myself, Daddy.” It is one of the most annoying phrases, even though it comes from the a person that I love so dearly. I can guess that it is certainly not unique to my family, and that there are parents out there who feel the same way I do. My own parents probably fall into that category.

No matter his true independence level on a number of tasks, there are many things he does need help doing, for instance, he needed help turning on the faucet at a sink because the handles were just outside his reach. He kept telling me he didn’t need my help, and insisted that I turn the water off, until finally he stood on top of my feet which gave him the necessary boost to reach the faucet handles. In his mind, he probably thinks he did it himself.

Another incident tonight was as he was trying to fall asleep, and he kept whining, indicating he was uncomfortable. I was worried that he might be sick, I asked him whether there was anything I could do to make him more comfortable. In true form, he told me that he was taking care of it himself, and didn’t need my help. However, after another ten minutes of struggling he let me know that he needed another blanket because he was too cold. Oddly enough, he would have had the issue resolved earlier had he just let me know when I first asked him.

These two examples are similar to how we often think we can do everything ourselves, we think we are completely self-reliant. However, we aren’t! We don’t want to hear, “No, you can’t do it all on your own.” However, we often walk along in our lives struggling to do it on our own, when we really just need to learn to ask for help.

The Almighty God desires us in relationship to lay EVERYTHING at the foot of the throne, for nothing is too much or too heavy.

When are we going to wake up and allow others to help us?

 

JRMITCH85 Character, Faith, Ramblings

On the Path

Over the past several weeks I have been struggling to recover from an ankle injury. This has seriously hampered my ability to go out and run. I really enjoy running, and have tried to go out and push through the pain, however sometimes I just can’t go on and run the pain off. My desire is that the hurt just go away, and that I can still go out tomorrow and start running, but I know that may not necessarily be the best thing for my ankle, and for the healing that needs to take place. I probably just need to rest it in order to let it heal, but sometimes the rest is harder than simply running through the pain.

This is one of my major struggles. I do not want to sit on the sidelines and watch, I want to run, I want to control everything about my training. However, this is one of those things that I have to relinquish control and allow the healing to begin. Until then the healing process may never begin, or at the very best be a longer process.

There are many things in our life that we try to control. Sometimes that grasp of control really complicates our life and creates problems, and all we really need to do is give up control and allow our bodies, minds, and spirit to heal. Too often we think we know what is best for our lives, and we know the road that we are supposed to travel down in our lives.

However, we need to learn that God desires us to lay these presuppositions down and follow the Almighty on the path that has been laid for us. Sometimes that path is rosy, but often the path is full of bumps and potholes. Many times these potholes are the character forming parts of our life, and these are the times that we are most tempted to stray from the path. This is an act of faith, this is the path that Abraham took, even if he made a few detours along the way. Are we going to trail blaze our own path? Or are we going to allow the Almighty and Loving God to guide us?

 

JRMITCH85 Character, Decisions

Watch Out!

Sometimes in life things happen, sometimes they are expected, but most times they catch us off guard. No matter what happens, we need to be on the lookout for the opportunities to jump into action, and opportunities to be the people that we are called to be. Whether it happens to be when a loved one is sick, or a friend is in need, or a natural disaster strikes, we should always be ready to jump into action and do what we can to help, to bring God’s grace and mercy to a friend or a stranger in need.

Watch out! Be ready to jump into action! Be “all that you can be”! Prepare your life for the fact that something is going to happen and we will have the opportunity to bring Glory to God!

JRMITCH85 Hope

I’m Thankful

I am so very thankful that there are a number of people that care for me. For I do realize that there are a great deal of people in the world without even close to the support system with which I have been graced. I look at those in Haiti still suffering a year later, I look at the toll war takes on societies half way around the world, and I look into the eyes of the homeless and hopeless in my own community, and I realize that I am blessed.

So I lift my glass to my support system. And I ask for all of you to be in prayer for those without.

How about going a step further, and extending God’s grace and allowing yourself to become support for those without hope?

JRMITCH85 Faith, Hope

32

Today the world sees me as a thirty-two year old. Gone are the glory days of thirty-one.  Now I must…

I know there aren’t too many things that are expected of me, other than the expectations that I place upon myself. Birthdays and New Years are filled with I am going to do this or that in the next year, and I think that if you are driven by “resolutions” then good for you, however that is not how I am wired. There are goals and resolutions I have set for myself, which have put me on a certain trajectory, but if I were to define myself based on whether or not I met my goals, I would be an utter failure!

However, I am not a failure. I am a beloved child of God. While I am not where I thought I would be 10 years ago, God has been by my side and I need to choose to follow the Almighty wherever I am led. I can lose sight of God’s direction if I am too fixated upon being this or that by the age of thirty-two, upon doing this or that in this next year. Losing God’s direction would be true failure in this year.

As I step back and get to fill in a different number in the age box, I choose to be the man God desires me to be this year. I am not setting a goal of being a different weight, I am not setting a goal of doing this or that, I simply want to be more humble, and rely more upon God in everything in my life.

“Here am I Lord, send me!”

JRMITCH85 Faith, Hope, Ramblings

Even Greater Gifts

Now that the holiday season is past and the gift giving has ended for a while, I looked back at one of my deepest joys was getting the opportunity to look at the face of my son as he opened his birthday gifts earlier in the season, and Christmas gifts. For his birthday I decided to give him a skateboard (with a helmet and pads), and I was filled with so much glee that he wanted to go out and immediately put on the pads and go ride his skateboard. That feeling was only to be topped by “Christmas” morning, and he woke me up to tell me, “I got a kitchen daddy, I got a kitchen!”, when the night before I was up until 2 AM putting it together, but his excitement made the sleep deprivation worth it.

Although I am not always the most astute person when it comes to getting people gifts, I knew what it was that would bring him a great deal of joy. Certainly, the excitement of getting gifts is enough to bring joy, no matter what the gift might be, but there is a certain gleam in his eye when he gets some particular gifts. I was overjoyed that the gifts I picked out for him were those special gifts. Even when “Santa” gets the credit for bringing the gifts.

However, no matter how good I was at picking out gifts, God is better at getting us just what we need at the right time. At the same time, God is pleased to give us what we need, and sometimes we also get those wants. We are blessed, we are bestowed with gifts, and God expresses love to us in diverse ways. God wants a relationship with us no matter what, and has gone to the cross to show us the extent of that love.

Jesus teaches us about God’s gift giving in Luke’s Gospel,

“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks fore a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:9-13)

One of those great gifts God blessed me with after Christmas was snow. On Sunday after church the snow started coming down, and it kept going until the next morning. I was just in awe of the beauty with which God has blessed us. Although I never would have thought to ask God for snow, I hope that the worship filled response I had toward the snow, allowed God the same joy I had when I saw the excitement in my son’s face.

 

JRMITCH85 Hope

Happy New Year

I want to thank my readers, my friends, my loved ones, and all those who have touched my life this past year. There is so much for which to be thankful. I have a family that loves me, friends that offer me so much support. I pray that this year is marvelous, and prosperous for everyone of you.

With every new year we think of new beginnings, but I pray that we not forget where we have been because those things help shape us into the people we are, and help guide us and instruct our path as we move forward.

With much love, hope, and wishes for peace and wholeness, I wish you all a Happy New Year!

JRMITCH85 Decisions, Ramblings

Dear Starbucks

Dear Starbucks,

Christmas is not over, so why have you taken down all of your festive decorations and your “holiday” menu already? I thought that I could walk in and still see your red colors, but the brown and green of “ordinary time” has already returned.  The gift of Christmas is 12 days long beginning on the 25th. Therefore, I wished that you would keep up your decorations up until at least the first of January, if not the full Christmas until January 6th on Epiphany, or maybe even until the Sunday after the 6th.

I fully recognize that you, Starbucks, are not interested in maintaining the church traditions about Christmas, and that it is true most people are not going to buy that extra pound of “Christmas Blend” after the 25th of December, I don’t fully understand the need to revert so quickly. I walked into your friend, Target, the other day and they were already trying to get me to buy into the Valentine’s Day hype. I understand this is the commercial aspect of our Western holiday structure, but I don’t go into Target for the experience, I do go into Starbucks for the experience.

If we let the 25th of December be the end of the “Commercial” Christmas, and spent the rest of Christmas resting in the fact that it is Christmas, maybe we would all have a better perspective on what it is we should all be focusing upon during Christmas. Maybe we should all take a lesson from “A Miracle on 34th Street”, when we begin to understand that we all benefit when we work together and strive for a common goal of meeting the “needs” of the world.

Oh well, I guess I will have to settle for leaving my tree up until Christmas is over.

Wishing you a warm and merry Christmas,

ELPISANDSHALOM.COM