Guaranteed Failure in 5 Easy Steps...

So, this past Sunday I heard a very insightful sermon provided by Dr. Jody Duncan. It was taken from 1 Samuel 13 and I condensed it down to these 5 simple steps. 

How to guarantee failure as a leader, or father, or believer, or just as a person in five easy steps:

1. Dont do what you know you are supposed to do.
2. Let circumstances dictate your actions.
3. Put yourself above the law.
4. Refuse to repent.
5. When those who are telling you the truth walk away, let them go.

It really is that simple. 

It is also pretty simple to change these five steps to failure into five steps to help avoid failure:

1. Do what you know you are supposed to do.
2. Let scripture and the Holy Spirit dictate your actions, not your circumstances.
3. Don't allow yourself to think you are above the law and have people around to hold you accountable.
4. When confronted about your sin, repent, repent, repent.
5. Keep the truth tellers close.

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Col 3:12-13 NASB

Make a Difference in ONE Life!

What is your holy discontent? What is your God-given passion on this earth? You know, that one thing that MOVES you to action, that brings you to tears, and causes you to lose sleep? We have a passion, a yearning to see justice for the fatherless! "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow." - Isaiah 1:17

2011 Gifts of Purpose from Lifesong for Orphans on Vimeo.

It's that time of year again. Holiday music rings through your speaker systems. Decorations light up your street corners. Families gather together.It's the season of love, joy and family.  

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ during this season of giving, we often forget to give to those who NEED it most! This year give differently. Give FAMILY to the 147 million orphans worldwide who dream of belonging. Give HOPE to children living on the streets whose only Christmas wish is survival.

What if, this year, your family gave a gift to those who need it most? A gift that won't fit under the tree? 

Would you consider making a difference in ONE LIFE...

•  Help a child break free from gripping poverty.

•  Give the love of Jesus through Christian mentors.

•  Give a future to an orphan's caregiver.

This year join Lifesong for Orphans in giving a gift with purpose. A gift that will speak Jesus to a child. Introducing Lifesong's 2011 Gifts of Purpose Catalog. 

NOW, for even more exciting news....

In Ethiopia, children need an education to break free from gripping poverty. Public schools are lacking, so kids are left behind without the  HOPE of an education or future. Our current Lifesong school is not only giving by teaching these children about Jesus, but also feeding 350 hungry children 2 meals each day. We currently have a need to build a 12-room expansion to our existing school... please join us to make a difference in a child's life.

As of last night, we have a generous donor that has stepped up to MATCH all donations to the Ziway and Adami Tulu Schools in Ethiopia between now and December 31st... up to $130,000!!!!!! Can you tell I'm excited? What a GENEROUS way to make the most of your giving and bless the children and families in these communities! Let me tell you first hand, these schools NEED to be expanded... these children NEED an education... they NEED to be fed each day... they NEED to hear about Jesus! Lets give HOPE to these precious children in Ethiopia!

Would you join us in prayer as we seek to make the need known?

MAKE A MATCHED DONATION NOW! ***You can use the link above to make a matched donation OR select any of the Hope Ethiopia options below. 

Gift of $30 cares for 2 children for 1 month.

Gift in Honor of

Gift of $525 cares for 35 children for 1 month.

Gift in Honor of

Gift of $1,500 furnishes one classroom.

Gift in Honor of

Also, don't forget that you can give a gift in honor of a loved one this holiday season!

A handful of bread...

So, another Orphan Sunday has come and gone. I showed some pictures, a touching video, and talked about the numbers again. I used the “147 million orphans” number. 147 million is a huge number. 147,000,000 is a lot of zeroes. I saw one analogy that said if you lined the world’s orphans up side-by-side and drive past them in a car, it would take so many weeks to drive past them all. It is an overwhelming number. One person, one family, one church (even a mega-church) can fix 147 million. It is like trying to hold a gallon of water in your hands, you just cannot do it.

            In Mark 6:33-44 there is a process went like this:

·      Jesus told the Disciples to feed the overwhelmingly large crowd (well over 5000 people)

·      The Disciples recognized the impossibility of such a task and were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.

·      One of them, Andrew, found 5 loaves of bread (think dinner rolls) and 2 fish (think little pan fish no bigger than your hand) that a boy had brought as his sack lunch for the day (poor kid, he just had his lunch and probably dinner snatched up by a bunch of ruffian disciples).

·      Jesus tells them to bring what they have found.

·      Jesus divides up the crowd.

·      Jesus blesses the loaves and fish.

·      Jesus starts handing the Disciples pieces of the loaves and fish to distribute among the people.

·      They have enough to feed everyone in the crowd and gather up 12 baskets of leftovers.

           Don’t miss this: Jesus divided up the labor and the resources across the disciples. Each was given only as much as they could carry, clearly not enough to feed everyone at once. Jesus gave them just enough to fit in their hands. He gave them only what they could carry and sent them off to serve. He didn’t make a bunch and divide it up into baskets, or make 5000 individually packaged combo meals, or put it in “family packs”. He gave each Disciple a handful to serve to the people. When they ran out of bread and fish, they had to go back to Jesus for more. Jesus “kept giving” (vs 41) until “everyone was satisfied” (vs 42). Jesus even provided more than was needed.

           So how do I deal with 147 million children? I don’t need to. I can deal with two, or five, or ten, or twenty. I can only be faithful to use the handful of resources He has given me to care for and serve the two or five or ten or twenty in my group. I can only give it all away and rely on Him to give more.

The Truth Department is now open...

So, one more historic figure has gone down in a ball of flames. He is not the first super powerful, highly visible, “very important person” to fall, and he wont be the last. The thing I wonder is why he didn’t have someone in his life who would tell him the truth. All it might have taken was one friend to say, “Joe, you are not doing the right thing. You must do what is right.”

        I think it is pretty sad really, not it a pathetic way, but in a sorrowful way. You would think that he would have someone in his life to keep him honest, to be brutally honest, to tell him the hard things he doesn’t want to hear. He could have even paid someone to do it. 

Maybe there is a new career field in being a professional truth teller. If anyone out there wants to hire me, I will hang out with you, and when you are about to do something foolish, I will let you know. I will be the one who tells you your pants make your butt look big, your song or joke stinks, and your baby is ugly (ok, so maybe not that last one, I would use the word “miracle” instead).  As a bonus, I have excellent grammar and spelling skills, some would call them “mad skills”. I would throw those in at no charge. 

“What about you, Dave,” you ask, "who is keeping you honest?" 

My wife is pretty good at letting me know when my clothes don’t fit. My daughter lets me know when my jokes aren’t funny and my songs are off key. All of our babies were super cute so no need for the “miracle baby” here. I am the “Grammar Hammer” as well. 

I would like to think my friends would let me know when I am doing something stupid. What I wonder is, do they know they have permission to speak the truth to me? I would like to think the answer is yes, but I am the wrong person to ask. So if you see one of my friends around, ask them for me, and then let me know what they say.

 

Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed.  Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.Proverbs 27:5-6 (NASB)

 photo by Andrew King

   So, we are jumping into orphan care next month. I am pretty excited to have some good friends jumping in with us. We are going to host sisters from Latvia for four weeks over Christmas. We are pretty stoked to be bringing more kids into our house, if even for a short time.

   The decision to host was easy, of course we will, how can we not host children when the opportunity presents itself. The process was deceptively simple - go on a web site that has photos of the children along with a short biography...and pick one. I will admit I was kind of a jerk. I sent Jeannie in alone to pour over the pictures of the hundred or so children available to be hosted. I am afraid. I am not afraid of the children, or the possibility of adopting again, or even loving children I have never met. The thing that scares me is the inevitable heart break.

   Adoption always begins with a broken relationship. The broken relationship between a mother, father and a baby. It breaks my heart to think on it. I try to imagine what it would be like to be any of the three people in a family that has been torn apart by any number of circumstances and decisions. It hurts just thinking on it, I can't imagine living it.  
   This is where a better writer would add in some line that makes it all OK. Sorry I am not a better writer. Maybe you have something that helps.

I sent this to my editor/proof reader, who is also my wife, and this is what she added, 

(which is one of the many reasons I love her so much)

"Only God can understand each and every detail completely. He is the only one who knows plan A: for that child to have that beginning, or that family to have that broken history, for that new family and child to be brought together. Yet there is beauty in the way it all works together and God is glorified, even in the heartbreak."

photo by LoveFusion Photography