Category Archives: Encouragement

Encouragement, Marriage

How to Change Your Husband

images-3 Wives, did you know that you could change your husband without even opening your mouth? Impossible you say? Let me share my reference. In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands, even those who refuse to accept the Good News. They will be won over by watching your pure, godly behavior. (I Peter 3: 1, 2) Peter, by inspiration wrote “behavior,” not your strong rebukes, your forceful messages, your threats or your ultimatums. It is your behavior the scriptures state your spouse will observe and then consider change. This Bible verse requires an attitude check for every woman who thinks her Christianity is to be worn on her sleeve rather than in her heart.IMG_0605

Peter continues,” You should be known for the beauty that comes from within…a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.” I know a woman like this. She found new levels in her spirituality through the Holy Spirit, but never competed with her husband who did not claim the same experience. She prayed at new levels of depth and saw miracles, but never threw those signs and wonders up for comparison with his faith. I watched her go through the loss of a teen child, grieve and then keep serving her many other children and grandchildren. And, I have watched her quickly fading and now heading toward her heavenly home still holding hands with her one and only man of 75 years. She has fought the fight and held onto her life-changing godliness. Her husband has watched, observed, changed and loved the…”beauty that comes from within…”

(I know a woman like that, my mother-in-law, age 93…who early one morning this past week did leave this earth for her heavenly home still loving her husband through a gentle and quiet spirit.  We’ll miss you, mom.)

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Encouragement, Leadership, Mission Report

Leaders Need Encouragement Too

imagesIn a recent conversation, someone reminded me that leaders need a regular dose of encouragement. Leaders tirelessly work toward maturity in the lives of others. Leaders lead in such a way that they continually put themselves out front, knowing they will take some personal “hits”. Leaders naturally think toward growth of their organization, their ministry, their staff and their own personal lives. True God-given leadership never stops desiring to effect change and make a better tomorrow. And, when these natural desires are not met, leaders can become discouraged.

Many years ago my wife and I assembled a youth mission team together. It was our first effort to do such a project and we had 14 very excited and rambunctious volunteers. We spent months preparing for our outreach, speaking into their lives and praying with them. The team did great and completed their mission beyond our expectations. Recently my wife and I were thinking about those 14 names and we asked ourselves, “Where are they today?” Below, see the answers to that question to the best of our present knowledge.images-4

Team member:

#1. Continues with various short-term mission teams; conducted a small engine repair clinic in Uganda; married a nurse with a mission’s heart

#2. Various other mission teams; serves with a human trafficking organization; went to law school

#3. Various other mission teams; serves an orphanage in Mombasa, Kenya now in co-mission with her husband

#4. Completed Bible school, married and became a fulltime missionary to the Middle East

#5. Serving God by serving youth in a mental health facility

#6. Went to Bible school and is now a fulltime missionary to Germany working in human trafficking

#7. A fulltime YWAM missionary for several years and now a DOVE International pastor’s wife

#8. Completed her social work degree and now a missionary in South Africa youth prisons

#9. Leading a church planting effort to Germany

#10. Various mission teams; a medical doctor (surgeon) today working with medical missions

#11. Away from God?

#12. Away from God? Unknown whereabouts.

#13. Went to college; married; a mother of two children

#14. Incarcerated for murder; has returned to God and lives for Him daily in prison soon to be paroled

images-6There you have the outcome of one youth mission team who are now adults. Obviously, a lot more has happened in their lives than just that first team, but when we as leaders do not stop and think about the results of sowing into the lives of others we can become discouraged. Take the time to consider what your heavenly Father has done through you as His obedient leader. You just might encourage yourself.

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Encouragement, Leadership, NASCAR

The Need for Speed

images-2NASCAR racing is fast and getting faster.  These cars can cover one full mile of oval track with four turns in 24 seconds!  Being up close and up front is exhilarating when feeling the rush of air currents created, smelling the burning fuel and having to wear ear plugs from the “straight through” exhaust noise.  Eight hundred plus horsepower in the engines times 43 cars sends out a vibration of sheer excitement.  These hyper motor cars are moving faster by you than the human eye can concentrate on any one colorful, decal-filled machine.  The driver concentration must be beyond something that most of us can’t even identify with.  And to continually cover this one mile oval for 400 plus laps, maintaining the speeds needed, holding onto a car that won’t turn, but slides at times, being inches or less from the cars around you…well, that’s just a superhuman feat.  Who says these drivers are not athletes?  You better be in the best of physical and mental shape to handle the resistance in the steering wheel, oppressive heat (most times well over 100 degrees) in the cockpit, the possibility of a crash at any moment, all the while, communicating on the radio with your crew chief and listening to your “spotter” (the person informing you where everyone else is on the track).
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Life seems to be moving faster and faster these days.  Sometimes it’s a rush of excitement and sometimes it’s about protecting yourself from crashing and burning.  It seems to take more concentration today to keep our eyes on the mark and to not become distracted by how quickly our world is changing.  At times there is oppressive heat, noise and resistance as we walk out our faith.  We have so many negative voices yelling at us while we are really trying to hear our Spotter (the Holy Spirit) telling us which way to turn and what areas to avoid.  It takes single-mindedness to stay on the track and in the race.  We need to work on our spiritual conditioning on a daily basis and not fall behind.  No matter how hot it gets or pressure-filled, keeping our eyes on the prize, we will run the race to win and receive that final reward.images

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Encouragement, Leadership, Small Groups

A Thirty Six Year Old Prophetic Word

images-3It was May 6, 1979 and I was 25 years old. A young man (who did not know me) left his drum set from the front of the auditorium – mid worship set – and headed to the back of the room where I was standing. He wiggled his way through the pew and came nose to nose to me, a visitor. He then began to speak in King James language, …”For yea I shall stir thee and move thee out. Yea a gift shall come upon thee. Thou shalt exhort with the word and bring forth a rich blessing to my people that thou knew not of. Yea I shall return unto thee a hundred fold, saith the Lord.” There were words before and more after these few statements, but in re-reading them the other day, while on a two-day prayer retreat, I was struck by the boldness and obedience of this young man and by the ways in which this “word” has come to pass.images-5

I loved God with all of my heart, but those words were a huge stretch for me at the time they were spoken. Only God could speak something so truth-filled and yet so far from the days of fulfillment. How could I possibly comprehend that one day I would have the opportunity to travel around the world depositing the “gift” of God’s word through teaching. And, amazingly, some of those words would turn into books.

imagesGive your life fully to God today so that He can grow you and use you to create a different world tomorrow. No one person can affect everyone, but each of us can do our part and reach the world with the truth of the gospel one by one.

 

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Children, Encouragement, Parents

On Being a Father

IMG_1128Now that I am a grandfather (Papaw is the name my grandson has bestowed upon me), it is easier to recall the decades of raising two sons and a daughter. I loved fathering, almost everything about it. I say ‘almost’ because there were those times of confusion, disorientation and exhaustion. But I would not trade one single day because I chose to love every age period my children went through, even the ‘terrific two’s’ and the teen years of learning through natural resistance.

Everyday was a gift from God to hold them, tuck them in at night, pray over their “bad” dreams, kiss them and listen to their pure hearts. Even during pregnancy, I would talk to my children almost every night. Mary and I would lie in bed and I would read them stories from the story books we were collecting. We sang songs to them and we prayed over them. We prayed perfect health and development, joy and acceptance into our family. With our second and third child, we introduced them to their siblings and together we would speak words of anticipation, waiting upon their birth (Psalm 139:13-16).

From conception we wanted our children to know they were accepted, approved of and loved unconditionally. We wanted them to know this was their time to be fashioned and formed to reflect the image of their heavenly Father who was the One bringing them into existence (Acts 17: 24-26). It was He who chose to place them into our lives to be their parents. We knew they were created before the foundation of the earth and we knew our time with them was only for a season (Jeremiah 1:5; Ephesians 1: 4-5). They were never a mistake or an afterthought. They were always wanted, never rejected. Did we have perfect children? No. Were we perfect parents? No, never.

As a father of adult children now, may I pass some advice on to you?images-6

 

  • Enjoy and embrace everyday; you’ll never get it back.
  • Value your children in every way you can. Show them honor and respect.
  • Do not speak down to them.
  • Do not make fun of them or compare them to others; always be the encourager, all the while, speaking truth.
  • Teach them; impart to them everything you can. Remember that every moment is a teachable moment. Mentor them in how to work, how to care for possessions, how to handle finances and, mostly, how to give.
  • Read to them. Play with them. Date them.
  • Never speak words of power over them, but rather empower them to make right decisions.
  • Don’t try to be their friend; be their parent and discipline them.
  • Create healthy boundaries for them and enforce those boundaries.
  • Turn the TV and the computer games off and have family time regularly.
  • They do not need a lot of stuff, things or possessions, but, rather, teach them to explore and discover, to use their imagination and creativity. (The #1 favorite toy of children around the world is a stick and #2, a box.)
  • Share in a family devotional time that relates to them, not you.
  • Discover their natural gifts and celebrate their personality traits and then provide the necessary reinforcement.
  • Teach them to love and obey God, to pray and place Him first in their lives.images-5
  • Pray for and with them daily. Take the lead in apologizing when necessary.

And lastly, always reinforce to them there is nothing that will ever change the fact that they are your son or daughter and that no matter what they do or say, you are committed to them and will forever love them.

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Encouragement, Marriage, Postmarital, Premarital

What Does it Take to Reach Forty Years of Marriage and Beyond? II

In the last blog entry, we shared the first five of ten priorities in our marriage developed over the last forty years. Here are the remaining five for your consideration.

1. Love trumps all. We discovered that when there is any level of fear in the marriage relationship love has decreased in some way. Where there is love, fear will not be present.  We learned to keep loving even when we were scared of something negative going on in our relationship. Love grows security while fear breeds insecurity.

2. We chose each other. We didn’t wake up one day and find ourselves married. We made a choice to get married; we were not forced into the decision. We spoke vows of promise by our own free will. Through the worst of times, no matter how angry or disappointed we may become with our mate, we must remember that this is the person I chose to become one with and becoming one is a life long journey.

3. We will not be victims and blame each other. We must take responsibility for our own actions toward change. Victims look for someone to blame rather than take the more difficult road of life change. I cannot change my spouse; I can only change me. We chose to never be victims by blaming the other for our personal issues.

4. Sex is loving; lust is taking. We call it “love making,” not “love taking.” Lust is insatiable while love satisfies. Being sexual as a married couple not only provided intimacy, it also provided physical, emotional and spiritual bonding for us. Sex within the boundaries of marriage is a bonding agent as we serve our mate in meeting their sexual desires.

5. It’s all His. We are stewards of everything we own including our savings account, our 401k’s, our car and our home. Being a steward means we hold it lightly, it’s not ours. All we have belongs to God; therefore, we can also give freely. We are givers because we have received so much. We are blessed because we have never been able to out give our God. We have continually maintained a budget and moved in agreement to eliminate debt from our union.1C6A0369

Bonus: Tell her/him that you love them in every email, every text message, every phone conversation, every morning and every night. Keep buying greeting cards, sending love notes and finding small gifts to share. Keep holding hands, hugging and kissing. Forgive quickly.

Steve and Mary

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Encouragement, Marriage, Postmarital, Premarital

What Does it Take to Reach Forty Years of Marriage and Beyond?

Now that you know Mary and I have celebrated 40 years of marriage, we have asked ourselves how we got this far. Of course, it goes without saying it is totally the grace of God. That realized, let us give you ten priorities (five per week) that to us were/are non – negotiable after saying “I do.”

1. We determined to never and I do mean never mention the ‘D’ word. Divorce was determined to not be an option for us. We decided that there wasn’t anything that we could not work through with some help from others.

2. Our first love and our first priority was to love God with all of our heart and soul and then love one another. He would give us the ability to love our life mate in a way that our flesh and soul was not capable of doing.

3. Our marriage would come before our children, our ministry, our jobs and other life commitments. We would continue to date, take weekends away and not allow the oneness of marriage to be stolen from us.

4. We would have fun and keep laughing with one another. Humor is a medicine to relationship. When we stop having fun we can begin to take our career, our finances, our goals and ourselves too seriously.1C6A0380

5. We would keep prayer and communication as a priority. Nothing is more intimate than praying together. When you pray, you reveal your heart and when you reveal your heart, you are communicating your deepest feelings to God and one another.

Bonus:  Having less materially and being content is true wealth in life, love and relationship!

Next week we’ll give you five more priorities plus a bonus one.

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Encouragement, Marriage

Marry a Prostitute?

You fall in love with a prostitute. Well, not exactly. You just happen to bump into her on the street, no, not that way either. Actually, you have been actively rebuking the voice that keeps telling you to take the woman not of your dreams and marry her. She is a prostitute, an “adulterous” wife who will have “children of unfaithfulness.” Ridiculous? I think so, but God didn’t when He told Hosea to marry this woman of the night, Gomer, and have children with her. Gomer even continued to remain unfaithful while in the marriage. Perhaps she was a temple prostitute for a foreign god, but now she finds herself on the auction block. Most likely she is sick and no longer beautiful or desirable, a throw away. Her life is wasting away and it is a more than obvious, and legal, time for a divorce.

images-16Unbelievably Gomer’s husband hears of her plight, gathers some money and some extra grain for good measure and heads down to one of the worst places in his city, where slaves are auctioned like farm animals. This faithful husband buys back his unfaithful, adulterous and most likely diseased wife for 15 pieces of silver. At this point we could stop and say what an amazing love story, the stuff Hollywood movies are made of (remember the movie Pretty Women?). But it’s not a Hollywood movie, it actually happened and is recorded in the book of Hosea in the Old Testament.

This story, this amazing picture is about how much God loves us even when we are “adulterous” and unfaithful to Him. In His mercy He implores us to come to Him for healing as He binds up our wounds and restores us (Hosea 6: 1,2). Even though prostitution (unfaithfulness) and arrogance is in our heart, He loves us and longs to walk with us. He sent His Son to purchase us back from slavery and to forgive us of our sins as we turn away from those sins.  Have you sinned against your heavenly Father or your spouse? Know that forgiveness awaits you.

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Encouragement, Prayer

An Amazing Circuit Rider and a Nation Called America

images-19Francis Asbury preached more than sixteen thousand messages before he died in March of 1816. At about the time of the American Revolution, there were approximately 5,000 Methodists churches and Asbury, an Englishman who never married, had a direct effect upon changing that figure. This circuit rider who is said to have traveled over 300,000 miles on horseback was out to grow the church. By the end of his life there were 200,000 Methodist churches all across America. Asbury slept in barns and wood sheds, was ill much of his life, dealt with depression and doubt, but he took seriously the task God had assigned him.

Father, may Your kingdom come and may Your will be done in this great nation called America. On this National Day of Prayer we remember men like Francis Asbury who gave their lives for Your gospel of freedom to come and to change lives. May we continue to fight the fight, preach the gospel and see souls made new. We ask You for miracles, signs and wonders to follow the teaching of Your word and we humbly ask for a spirit of repentance to come and a great awakening to follow. In Jesus’ name.

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Encouragement, Marriage, Parents, Postmarital

Oh, Those Cutting Remarks

I heard a pretty humorous story that went something like the following. A wife was begging her husband to take her to her High School reunion of 25 years. Reluctantly, he finally gave in to the idea that he also knew was going to be a bust for him. After meeting a few of her friends and former classmates, he just sat at the table yawning, alone and bored to death. Pretty soon the band hired for the evening cranks up and a few persons are beginning to dance. But there is this one character that is on the dance floor just living it up large, break dancing, moon dancing, back flips…the works. Soon his wife returns to their table, sits beside her husband, leans over and says, “See that awesome ‘life of the party’ guy up there?” “Well, 25 years ago he proposed to me and I turned him down.” Abruptly her husband turns to her and quips, “Looks like he’s still celebrating!images-8

Funny? Yes, but cutting. How often have you used humor to bring some kind of indirect and at times hurtful message to your spouse? I have been guilty of it I’m sorry to say. When you make fun of or put down your spouse, you are making fun of and putting yourself down. You are one. There are plenty of hurts already coming from relatives, the work place and others. You and I do not need to “pile on.” Cutting remarks do not change anyone, they are embarrassing, belittling and are words of death. Jesus said it this way, “The Spirit gives life…the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” Speak words of life today to your spouse, to your children, to your co-workers and to your neighbors.

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