the weekend

We had a great time at the bike show Saturday and then church Sunday. We made some new friends, met up with some old ones and made new connections for next year. We had 12 bikes enter the show and a lot of bikers come through then head out on the road again. When I get time I will post some pics on the website and maybe one on this blog. David and Brenda Pantleo, Honor Bound Motorcycle Chaplains are always a great help and fun to be around. They are an encouragement to us and our church every time they visit.

Bike Show

Well in about 6 1/2 hours we will be over at the other church property opening the gates for our 3rd annual motorcycle show. I'm pretty stoked about it myself. I've always had a deep rooted passion for motorcycles and riding. But now that I have an even deeper passion for God it's great to be able to combine them both. I'll most likely be blogging about the day probably on Monday or so. So come on out to the show and have some fun.
-later!

Good Impressions

What is the meaning of life?

Pretty tough question really. On a more personal level, what is the meaning of your life?

Would your answer be "I don't really know.", "I haven't really thought about it." or would you rather answer the question by reflecting back "What do you think the meaning of your life is?"
If you were to reflectively ask me my question, I would have to say I feel the meaning of one's life depends on what that life means to those around oneself. In other words what have you done to influence the other lives around you? Is who you are making a difference in who someone else is? Have you invested in others instead of just yourself? What will you be remembered for when you are no longer present? Will who you are or who you have been still linger in the hearts and lives of those you come into contact with now in a positive way, a negative way or just no way at all?

I guess I believe that a life well lived is a life that's been given and shared unselfishly with others, and has left good impressions that will last forever. Hope the life I've lead and am leading will leave good impressions.

today

Today has been an incredibly difficult day. I didn't think it would affect me this way but it has. I'm gald I have the cross to cling to.

Huh?

Is anybody listening?

Have you ever experienced a time in your life when you are pouring you heart out to somebody and the person you're talking to seems to have that glazed over look in their eyes like they're not even in the same room with you?

Aggravating isn't it?

Try being a Pastor!

Now I've been on both ends of this situation. I remember doing the exact same thing in school. I didn't want to be there but I knew I had to because it's what I was supposed to do. Plus I was a student and that's what students do, they go to school.

I can remember many a time the teacher would be teaching and I would be looking him or her right in the eye but I wasn't really even in that room. Now I'm not talking about an 'out of body experience' but In my mind I was totally somewhere else doing something else I would have really rather have been doing, until...I heard a frightening sound that would shake my core back into the reality of where I was and what I should have been doing. That sound was always the teachers voice saying "Mr. James!" And at that point I had no idea if he or she was calling me to answer a question they'd asked that I was totally unaware of or they just liked the sound of my name. It was always the question thing! And as usual I would answer with the typical intelligent high school answer of "Huh?" while everyone else seemed to be amazingly amused.

But on the other hand in my defense, it wasn't that way in every class...OK, well all but two! I loved art and drafting anything to do with drawing. You see ever since I was very young I felt as though I was an artist. It was who I was and what I loved and had a passion for. And in art and drafting class I not only listened but I always received straight "A's" all four years of high school.

You see I guess it's just human nature that we are truly attentive and truly inspired by that which we love and that which we truly feel we are.

Now by now, some of you are saying "Huh?" because you don't understand the point of this particular post. So I will end it with the question I often ask myself after every service...

...Is anybody listening?

Beauty In The Storm

Evonna and I were driving home the other day and as we were driving we noticed this storm that had moved between where we were at and where we wanted to be. As we continued to drive towards our final destination we couldn't help but admire the beauty of the storm. The cloud formations and contrasting color variations were magnificent. We admired the storm so much that Evonna couldn't stop taking pictures of it with her iPhone.

Now when I first saw this amazing storm I tried to calculate the best route home to go around and totally avoid having to drive through the thing. Because the radio described it as violent and suggested that everyone take cover. At first I thought I had perfectly planned our journey of avoidance but as fate would have it we ended up right in the middle of eighty mile and hour winds and rain that was literally flying horizontal right at us to the point of where we could no longer see two feet in front of us. Now you have to understand that the path we chose was sixty-eight highway which is narrow and has absolutely no shoulders what so ever. We finally found a drive into some farmers field and pulled in behind a grove of trees for protection from the harsh winds. Even though we were shielded by those trees the wind and rains power still shook our car as we sat there helpless and vulnerable. So we did the only thing we knew, we seriously prayed for protection and for the storm to subside so we could make it to our destination.

Eventually the storm finally subsided, at least enough for us to head towards home. And the closer we moved towards where we belonged and where we wanted to be the more we noticed the storm seemed to be behind us and in an instant we could finally see the sun and clear skies again. And as soon as we were out of the storm and heading away from it I couldn't help but look in the rear view mirror and admire the beauty of the storm once again. But this time I had a different perspective, a different admiration and a different respect for the storm.

And just like the storms of life, they're really great to admire from a distance. We can always try to outrun, go around or avoid them but at some point we're all destined to be caught right smack in the middle of one. But what I learned from this storm once again was that we go though storms for a reason. Whether it's to provoke us into drawing closer to the SON, to find that place of rest and protection, to wait it out or to realize after we're delivered from the storm that the SON was always there above it and was there while we were going through it.

You see you can always admire the beauty OF a storm from a distance but you gain a better admiration, respect and understanding of it's purpose and awesomeness when you've been able to admire the beauty IN the storm.

Omitttere

Omission (-mish’en) n. – 1. To leave out; fail to include.
2. To fail to do; neglect. [Lat. omittere.]

Omittere the Latin word from which our word omit, omitted, omitting, omissible, or omission derives from.

We as followers of Christ may understand the concept of the existence of the sins of commission – sins we commit, (things we do but shouldn’t) and the sins of omission – sins we omit, (things we should do but don’t). But we seem to have this tendency to place more emphasis on the things we shouldn’t do but do, then the things we should but don’t. Christianity has become more about what we don’t do or what we don’t believe in rather than what we should do or what we do believe. So we have become this society within society of “don’t-ers” instead of “do-ers”. The Word teaches us that sin is sin and unrepentant sin causes us to condemn ourselves. So why is it we are more worried about the “don’ts” in our lives then we are the “do’s” when both are considered sinful?

I don’t know but maybe it’s that down through the years Pastor’s and leaders of our churches have somehow failed to stress the importance of what we’re supposed to be all about and placed too much importance on what we’re not all about, when there really needs to be an equal value placed on both.

In saying all of that, I need to share a recent “GOD” experience that literally shook my soul. A day this past week God spoke to my heart and opened my eyes and spirit to something I have not been doing that I should have been doing and it rocked my world. I hadn’t seen this aspect about myself so it really caused a life-change for me. I broke into tears and prayers of true repentance.

Now for those of you reading this I will not acknowledge what God revealed, because it’s personal. (But if you ask me on a personal level I will be glad to tell you:) Now please know it’s not that I have been doing anything wrong, it’s that I hadn’t realized I’d not been doing something I should have been doing, and that’s the reason for God’s correction. It hurt, but yet once He ever so softly pointed it out to me I repented and a weight I'd not noticed was there, lifted off of my soul.

Now I’ve said all this to stress that maybe when we pray we should ask God to not only help us to not commit sins, but we should also ask Him to help us see what part of His Will we have omitted from our lives.

Jon and Kate...really?

I don't really watch the "Jon and Kate plus eight" show but have seen the news about the situation and I really think the show should be renamed either "Jon and Kate aren't that great", or "Kate and Jon are just wrong!"

It seems to me that the focus of the show originally was based on "the eight" not on "Jon and Kate." And the producers, the tabloids, the public, and sad to say Jon and Kate, has seemed to have lost the concept that these are ultimately the lives everyone should be MORE interested in. As a matter of fact that's what's happened in our society today. Most parents have become more concerned with their own wants or desires than the needs of the innocent, (the innocent being the children involved and caught in the middle of the mess of mass stupidity and selfishness of supposed mature adults.)

Isn't it hard enough for these little ones lives having their temper tantrums displayed on national TV and now all the world stares as their world as they know it is torn apart and their family unit becomes just another statistic?

I really don't feel for Jon and Kate, my heart goes out to the 8.