Saturday May 2nd and we’re all feeling a bit of cabin fever. Some are actually feeling a lot more than that, many have lost jobs and many have fallen ill and died.

So how do we navigate the rocky political straits we’re suddenly in? It seems that at one extreme there is a group determined that the restrictions are far too lenient, and the governments should exercise a lot more mandated control over the peoples of the world.
On the other extreme there are those who believe the forced lockdowns and stay home policies to be a vast overreach by local, regional and national governmental powers.

I began thinking about this topic when I was in the YMCA pool and saw a beautiful young boy being carried on a stretcher into a dressing area by his two care givers.  He couldn't hold his head straight, and his hands and feet were twisted lumps.

In heaven there is no Situation Room, there is no Disaster Recovery Plan, and no one is selling insurance! Do you know why? Because God is Unsurprisable! Page after page in the scriptures we are reminded that nothing takes The Creator by surprise.

So then, in the light of that truth, how do we believers (those who call themselves by the name of this Unsurprisable God) handle international crises like the one we're facing now?

3/1/2020 LevelUp

Barry White: Finding God in the middle, making room for the Holy Spirit-

Taking this time to listen and hear from the LORD and give us direction, step out of comfort zones, step into uncertainty and FAITH. 

The Radical Middle

Question: How deep, how far, how long? It cannot be measured- Love and Compassion

Reply: 

I have walked across galaxies just to look upon you.

Stars I have used as stepping stones to reach you.

The night sky is simply a curtain drawn and about to be opened to a new day.

My heart was filled the day I created you, that day was worked with fresh dew.

Lift your voices together and sing and I will gather them like the lilies in the spring.

Your worship and praise have been heard.

This is a drawing that Dawn created around Psalm 139:1. It reminds me of so many aspects of our individual relationships with our God. He is Lord and savior; He is healer, friend, and judge. He is the one who replaces calloused hearts, hearts that have been turned to stone. Ezekiel 36:26 "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

Psalm 139:1 "O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me."

Nothing in 2019 came easy, there have been some setbacks, but some significant victories too.

In many ways 2019 reminded me a lot of the whole decade just past. At the very end of 2009 my family and I moved to Gig Harbor in Washington State from Johannesburg, South Africa. The most difficult thing I have ever done!
By God’s Grace we are still here, I'm not in the best of shape, but we have survived and we’ve had the privilege of bringing God’s Kingdom with us.

On Thursday this week, around tables laden with turkey and pie, +300 million Americans will make lists of thing they are thankful for. Now that's a very nice sentiment, but it is not thanksgiving.

Webster’s defines “molt” as the “casting off or shedding of feathers, skin, or the like, in the process of renewal or growth.” I see it first-hand as my chickens go through a molt in the early Fall. For a few days, they lose piles of feathers, then they are almost naked for a few days. They look horrible and miserable. However, when the whole process is finished, they look young and beautiful again with clean, strong, new feathers which will keep them well-insulated through cold winter months.

This year, as I watched my chickens go through the molting process, I saw it as a picture of my own life in Christ lately. The Lord seems to be ridding me of my old ways of dealing with life that are not helpful for my faith in Him. My “old feathers” need shedding to allow the new, healthy, strong ones to replace them.

Recently in a sermon I read a rendition I wrote of Paul's poem from Philippians 2:5-11.

This small piece of scripture was written as a poem and should, I think, be read as one: