What’s Your Type of Success?
I’m learning a lot about being stretched by God in this season. Between 21 consecutive nights of house guests, writing curriculum and re-structuring leadership for re-launching a youth ministry and a discipleship school, doing my final re-write of Book III, preparing for a West Coast book tour, concerts, youth conferences, a speaking schedule, and helping to oversee a church building project as well as two new pizza business, I’m certainly feeling the affects of fatigue.
But not as much as I was six months ago.
While at a leaders meeting this past Saturday, God really moved during our time of corporate prayer. Not during our brainstorming sessions. Not during coffee and donuts. During prayer. When the dust had settled after our time of seeking God, we all rubbed our eyes and sat back, stunned at how God had met with us. Stunned at how we felt energized. Refreshed. And how many new ideas had come with so much peace accompanying them.
So often it seems we, or at least how I roll, live our lives and try make time for God, when in reality–a truer reality–we should be living our lives for God and trying to make time for everything else.
Granted, my life is pretty full and I’ve seen a lot of success, with more coming, I hope. It’s truly amazing how much we can do and be successful without even bothering to take more than ten minutes with God in a day. Even less. He’s just that gracious. But as we were in prayer, God gave me a little line that has really challenged me to determine which kind of “success” I want. Here’s what I mean…
“A life lived for God is successful, but a prayer-lead life lived with God is divinely successful.”
I’m in a season where I don’t just want to be successful, I want to be divinely successful. Anyone can be successful if they work hard enough, cling to diligence, and embrace a lifestyle of excellence. Shoot. Some people even get lucky! But to be divinely excellent, that is quite another thing. To have God breath on His own ideas for your life, for Him to dictate what and when you do, that is something heavenly. Divine. And though I’ve heard it said a thousand times, preached, taught, and recited, I am recognizing that this kind of success only comes through prayer.
Brad Ringer, one of our amazing staff members here at DIBOR, always challenges me with a question: “Are you replacing prayer with study?” Often we replace reading the Bible or a good spiritual book, or even journaling, with time that we should be in prayer. Why? Because reading my Bible is something I can do, and touch, and measure. But prayer gets no glory. I can’t measure it, save maybe in time. But true prayer is much deeper than a religious exercise or a discipline. It’s communion with the Holy Spirit. And I feel as though I’m rediscovering that.
If I ever needed refreshment in the midst of an onslaught of activities, it’s now. If I ever needed divine inspiration and direction, Holy Ghost prompted initiatives and Godly time-management skills, if I ever needed peace in the midst of the storm, I need it today.
Thanks for reading.
CH
5 commentsRed Rings of Death
It seems I just can’t escape Microsoft, even after throwing every PC in my house and office in a dumpster or passing virus laden units on to family. (I know, nice, right?)
For some reason I thought the XBox 360 would be different. Maybe I thought, “It’s just a gaming console, how hard is it to mess that up?” And then last night I went to play a quick session of Vegas 6 before going to sleep and, zing…
The Red Rings of Death.
I suppose a Blue Screen of Death would have been too much of a throw back. (Does anyone else see a trend here?)
For all those wanting to hear from an expert exactly what’s happening to over 30% of all XBox 360s (ummm…that’s one out of every three units purchased), I thought I’d pass along this handy article. It really doesn’t help you do anything about your faulty unit, but it at last tells you like it is…which is pretty bleak. Instead of a poor operating system or a virus prone internet browser, now they just went cheap on everything from CPUs to soldering joints. Oh, and they never spent enough time designing a proper heat sync system to handle the units high output. Oh, and they–
–never mind. Just read the article.
In all fairness, my latest iMac just had to go in for repair (something my Senior Pastor got a kick out of; we have an ongoing PC vs. Mac battle of wits), proving nothing is sacred when it comes to electronics. But at least with Apple, they actually replaced my refurbished iMac with a brand spanking new one. For free. That’s way better than Microsoft’s $140 service charge (plus shipping both ways) to fix my 360. Despite all their flaws, this leaves me with only one conclusion:
You can’t compare Apples and…
…is there another computing platform?
CH
Experimentation on Books
Margaret (cherryblossommj ) over at Creative madness that makes me myself tagged me for a new game she’s created.
Here’s how it works.
I’m going to list five MUST Read novels and five Keep Your Eyes on These novels, then tag five bloggers who I’m asking to post my list on their site. They may then add one book to each list but must also subtract one book. Finally they should tag five other bloggers, link here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction and comment to this post so visitors here know to check out how they may have changed the list.
If you aren’t tagged but want to play, copy the "how to" paragraph above, make your own list of MUST Reads and Keep Your Eyes on These , and tag away!
So, here is the original list with one addition (and deletion) from me! Enjoy!
CH
- - -
MUST Reads :
The Door Within by Wayne Thomas Batson (Tommy Nelson)
Demon: a Memoir by Tosca Lee (NavPress)
Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer (WaterBrook)
The Restorer by Sharon Hinck (NavPress)
Beyond the Reflection’s Edge by Bryan Davis (Zondervan)
Keep Your Eyes On These :
Scarlet by Stephen Lawhead (Thomas Nelson)
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson (WaterBrook)
Auralia’s Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook)
The Legend of the FireFish by George Bryan Polivka (Harvest House)
The Paradise War by Stephen Lawhead (Westbow Press)
FIVE BOOKS TO LOOK FOR SOON:
Shade by John Olson (B&H)
Field of Blood by Eric Wilson (Thomas Nelson)
Isle of Fire by Wayne Thomas Batson (Tommy Nelson)
Stepping into Sunlight by Sharon Hinck (Bethany)
Eternity’s Edge by Bryan Davis (Zondervan)
The bloggers I’m asking to post the list (and make one book-for-book change to each list if they wish):
4 commentsFFT Group Fiction Announced!
Hey gang…
Well, we’re back from Europe and almost caught up on our sleep (but don’t ask me out for lunch in the afternoons…I might fall asleep in my soup). Needless to say the trip was incredible. Teaching 6-7 hours each day at EDEN, a city-wide outreach concert in Longwy (requested by the Mayor!), and preaching at the Radikal for Jesus international youth conference made for a phenomenal experience. Jennifer and I felt very "used" by the Lord–a term with a negative connotation to the world, but a coveted connotation to the Christian. Luik was a real trooper and brought us much joy. He’s a real clown.
Many thanks to all of you who left comments, phoned us, and emailed us after the news of the miscarriage. It was so touching. Jennifer is doing very well and the Lord has been healing both of our hearts. It’s something we’ve never been through before and the grief seems to come in waves. However the waves are getting further apart and less intense. We are left with a peace and assurance that we will meet our daughter one day and have a pizza party together. (I’m sure she’ll like pizza as much as her daddy does. Sushi, too).
The news of the day is a very cool thing the authors are doing over at the Fantasy Fiction Tour website. We thought it would be fun not only to go on an adventure together down the West Coast, but–since we are authors after all–to write an adventure together! Thus we are writing a piece of group fiction collectively on the website. We welcome your comments and hope you’ll join the festivities!
Thanks again for checking in on us and supporting us during our tour overseas. We’re happy to be back and look forward to the month of August.
Enjoy the story!
CH
2 commentsBack in NY!
Tree Teaching
Me teaching a class on Glory Evangelism in a grove of trees at Moncel
yesterday afternoon.
C.
C’est Fini!
Radikal just finished up last night. I preached a final message on the
presence of the Lord and walking into your inheritance. Mats blows a
shofar during worship. He rocks!
C.
Radikal
We’re into the second day of the Radikal for Jesus youth conference.
Yesterday we had powerful time in the presence of the Lord, dancing
until midnight! So many youth were set free and delivered by the power
of the Holy Spirit. God is moving in France!
C.
Our Loss
Jennifer and I would appreciate your prayers. As quickly as the news came confirming our new baby, complications arose and Jennifer went to the hospital yesterday morning. We lost the baby. We know the Lord is in control and have peace that He wanted this little one more than we did. Jenny is OK but certainly needs time. We are left with the emotional part of loss and covet your prayers. Many thanks…
CH
21 commentsConcert in Longwy
Bonjour to all those checking in from the concert we just played tonight in Longwy! See if you can find yourself in the pics I took from the stage. Merci!
CH
