It’s always cool to reflect back on various events that have occurred in my life and over the course of my journey in the faith. My family and I have taken some bold and big steps over the course of the last year, leading up to baptizing my family last month. This was by far one of the biggest highlights I could have ever experienced and will probably ever experience in this lifetime. To see my family follow in obedience to the Lord and to make that statement as a family was tremendous.
At the time all of this has occurred and then with the events from the past year, I never really thought about the real impact that these moments have. Not just on us, but on those around us. I’ve reflected on this a good bit and in the conversations I’ve had with many people, I realize just how powerful things like this are and the ripple effect that can come from such events happening. It’s been rather amazing to see the impact this has had on the lives of others, not just our story, but the message that came from us standing there as a family and declaring that we are all going to follow Christ.
My pastor talked about this afterwards in his sermons and in our conversations. That one event that happens, or encountering one person now with a focus on the Lord, can have an impact, even years down the road, that we may never see coming. It’s rather amazing to think about. Think about a rock being thrown into a pond. The ripples that come out from that one rock, go on and on. The energy transfer from the impact of the rock sends not just one ripple, but several.
I look back on past events that had a ripple effect on me. Going back about 4 years ago, a colleague of my handed me a book. Going through a dark time in my life, unsure of direction, I receive this book called Wild at Heart. I had already begun a journey of reading through the Word, but was still unsure of how to put it together. This book sat though. It sat on my desk in my home office for about a year to year and a half.
Then I pick up the book one day, out of nowhere. I begin to read it. Taking my time, began to absorb it. The lights began to come on. I was pulled into more readings which intrigued me more. There was real movement happening. Then I fly to Colorado for the Wild at Heart Boot Camp. There, life is never the same again. I surrendered my life to Christ out there and came home a completely different man. I was the man I was supposed to be. Who God had made me to be. My whole life changes direction as I was now on fire for the Kingdom. My family begins to respond and see tremendous growth. We begin to forge real Christ centered relationships. I am Baptized last summer and then 5 months later I Baptize my wife and our 3 kids. The ripple effect of that one colleague thinking enough of me to hand me a book, 4 years later has made a tremendous impact.
Now from that, the ripple effects continue. I see the impact it has made on so many. Friends now even more hopeful that their own family will begin to respond to the Gospel as well. Men impacted by me being willing to lead my family by example and how it has changed them. I don’t know how far these ripples will go, but the movement is tremendous and I know they will continue to flow.
If we continue to respond in obedience and follow the Lord and live that out, the effects can be more than you’d ever imagine. Acts 19:20 “So the message of about the Lord spread widely and had powerful effect.” That’s what can happen when we continue to respond to the Gospel and use the opportunities laid before us to share and demonstrate how the Lord has changed our own lives. You never know how far the ripples will go. As Paul wrote, “May you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is” (Ephesians 3:18). God’s reach is boundless and He is using each of and our stories and lives to have a ripple effect to continue to spread the Gospel and Christ changes lives.
It can all start with one simple thing, so take advantage when it laid before you as you never know how far the ripple effects will go.
One more reminder that came through this week came as I began my study of 2 Corinthians the other morning. Right out of the gate, Paul writes referring to the Father as “...the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NASB). This was huge to me reminding me that the Father is the source of all comfort and mercy. As a developing Christian counselor and really when it comes to helping anyone with their pain, wounds, and struggles, it is vital to remember to seek our comfort and healing from the Father through Christ so that we can help others in the same light. We cannot do this all ourselves. Just as I wrote before, we do not and will not ever have all of the answers.
When this is remembered, it brings so much more clarity to the day to come. I have found myself more capable to deal with the difficulties that may come and stand strong in any warfare I may face. Psalm 62:8 says “Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us.” He is there for every part of all we face. We have to call out to Him though. We have to bring our lives under Him. Realizing that we are powerless to face all of the struggles of life by ourselves. When we start our day before God, we lay it all out there for Him. Let it come under Christ’s authority to see you through.
Something that I have found in my life is that these gifts we have don’t really come to fruition until we begin to come alive in our faith and truly seek out the Lord in full surrender to Jesus Christ. When we come into our faith and are filled with the Holy Spirit, God can really begin to bring out those gifts. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:6 that “God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.” In verse 7 he continues with “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.” So each of our gifts we are given are meant to help our fellow man and to advance the Kingdom of God. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:3 regarding the Father that He “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.” Being in Christ brings us the blessing of the Father including bringing out our gifts.
When I look back on life, they’ve always been there in some way, even before I came to my faith. Going back to my teenage and early adulthood years, I have often been that person that people could confide in or help with various problems including marriage issues that people close to me had. I was always a good sounding board and could provide some needed advice. As far as writing, I have been doing this as long as I could write in some way, although it was not always shared. I had small books in my elementary school that I wrote, one that won some cool recognition in the 2nd grade. I wrote lyrics in high school to some degree and as an adult, I have been blogging in some capacity for the last 10-15 years about various things. I now realize that it’s always been there. I just didn’t know what to make of it all as life and the world was in the way.
So take some time and look at your life. Have you found or realized the gifts that God has blessed you with. We are all His image bearers, imago dei. He has created each one of us as relational beings to live out our lives seeking Him and to help each other seek Him. Make disciples. Realizing our gifts and how we can use them to advance the Kingdom and make disciples of Jesus Christ is huge and goes a great deal to bring healing and restoration to more and more people. This is freely given to everyone through Christ, but we have to be willing to seek it out. Each of you has a gift…Have you found your spiritual gift(s) and are you using them?
In his book, ‘Beautiful Outlaw,’ John Eldredge speaks to the religious fog and how Jesus himself was very much anti-religious. That’s who he went after directly more times than not through the Gospels. John says this, “The religious fog uses sanctified worlds and activities, things that look and sound very Sunday school to distort our perception of God and our experience of Him. It is cunning as a snake and adaptive as the flu, infiltrating our practices to make them ever so false.” Read the Gospels and as John stated, there is one thing that is unmistakably clear…religion is the enemy. “Every hostile encounter Jesus has is with very “churchy” people. This spirit is the great enemy of our life with God, and it is this spirit that Jesus warned his boys about when they were whispering in the boat about the bread” (See Matthew 16:6-12).
Why do we forget this? There is a cost to following Christ as it will pull you away from many around you, even if you are close them them, if they do not follow as well. However, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Jesus did not put up more religious walls to shield us from God. No…He opened the door. The goal of living a life in Christ is to live as Christ lived. Not to follow every little thing that He may did, specifically, but to follow His example. In ‘The Spirit of the Disciplines,’ Dallas Willard explained it this way, “The secret of the easy yoke is simple, actually. It is the intelligent, informed, unyielding resolve to live as Jesus lived in all aspects of life, not just in the moment of specific choice or action.” 
John Eldredge writes in his newest book, Moving Mountains, “Resist, Fight back. Take your stand. The Scripture is very clear on this point. First, Jesus models it; the the disciples do it; the Paul and the early church. To make it all perfectly clear, the command to fight is also written down in black and white. This is part of what it means to be a Christian.” 
I get amazed every day at the works of the God and how He works in our lives and in those around us. As I wrote the other day, a year ago, my life was forever transformed when I venture out to Colorado for the Wild at Heart Boot Camp. The Lord transformed me in such a way, causing me to change the way I live and the way I look at life. It also changed my outlook and approach as a husband and dad. I had always done the best I thought I knew as a husband and father, but I was still falling way short in many ways. I didn’t know how to truly be godly husband and father and lead my family the way they deserved to be led and the way God has called me to lead them.
With all this life change, this Sunday, January 31, one year to the day from when I nailed the stake in the ground to follow Christ no matter the cost, I will be Baptizing my wife and our 3 children. It’s such an exciting time for our family and huge testimony and statement to how far we’ve come in just the last year. To stand before our church family with my family as they also have nailed that stake in the ground is just beyond any words I can really put together. I am proud of each of them for being willing to take this step in obedience in their walk with Christ.
We are all God’s favorite. He has had us in mind from before the beginning. In John 17:22-23 Jesus, in His prayer to the Father says, “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.” I’m thankful to have realized that through Christ we are united now with the Father and that He loves us as much as He loves the Son. To now reflect the love of the Father with my family, they now know they are also loved deeply by me and the Father. They know where I stand now, no longer waffling back and forth unsure of life, but now with the confidence of 10 men knowing where I stand now alive in Christ and they are responding. It’s tremendous and the Lord’s work will continue as we are now stronger than ever before.
For each and everyone of to go on the journey of transformation requires something big of us and something that is very difficult to do. It requires allowing ourselves to be torn down and rebuilt. I saw a quote from Mike Mason that said, “A thirty-year-old man is like a densely populated city. Nothing new can be built, in its heart, without something else being torn down.” At 36 years of age, that’s exactly what I had to do and what each of us have to do. We have to open the door to our heart to Jesus and allow Him to enter and bring out those wounds and sins, so that we can then renounce and repent and then drive forward to be healed and restored to who we were meant to be. In my counseling studies, this is called exposure. It’s very much needed. We need to be exposed to ourselves and to Christ in order to have a chance at the life we were meant to have.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12 that to keep from exalting himself he “was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud” (Vs7). In verse 9 he reminds that Jesus says “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” He goes on to say that “I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 
4 Stream Living 