There comes a point in all of our lives when we hit obstacles.  We go through pain or loss.  We lose finances, jobs, people.  The difficulties come and we are faced with the challenge of continuing on vs. giving up or giving in.  It would be so easy to just give in to depression or the woe-is-me’s, but life isn’t always about the easy way out.

I was reminded of this a few days ago as I watched a movie called The Kingdom.   (Disclaimer: The movie has a lot of language and blood, so if those are deterrents for you, don’t watch it.)  The movie follows a group of FBI agents who are investigating a bombing in the Middle East in which there was major loss of life including a friend of theirs.  As they are desperately trying to gain access to the country there is a scene between the Attorney General and the FBI Director.  The AG is dragging his feet and not allowing them to go investigate and the Director is fighting for access and the Director puts it into perspective.

You know, Westmoreland made all of us officers write our own obituaries during Tet, when we thought The Cong were gonna end it all right there. And, once we clued into the fact that life is finite, the thought of losing it didn’t scare us anymore. The end comes no matter what, the only thing that matters is how do you wanna go out, on your feet or on your knees? I bring that lesson to this job. I act, knowing that someday this job will end, no matter what. You should do the same.

FBI Director, The Kingdom

My life has had it’s share of hard times.  I was too small for sports.  I didn’t make the team.  I didn’t pass the test.  I got in trouble at work.  I lost my job.  Our finances aren’t great.  I couldn’t find the home I believed was there for us.  A family member died.  Just to name a few.  Thankfully I have had parents that taught me to fight through these things.  But I wonder how many times in my life I have given up when I came to an obstacle.  How many times have  I gone out on my knees instead of standing up and fighting for something?

Next time I am faced with something major I want to go through it on my feet.  I know that with God I have the strength to do it.  Philippians 4:13 says so.  Or Psalm 91.  Or Psalm 18.  Or Isaiah 40:31.  John 14:27.  And on and on and on…

We all have to go through the valleys.  Most of the time we don’t like it.  Sometimes we learn to appreciate how we are growing and hopefully we can look back and (whether we liked it or not) appreciate what wehave been through.  It’s part of what makes us who we are!  Around here mommy makes Jessi do “tummy time” everyday.

She doesn’t like being on her belly.  She does great holding her head up and but of learning process she is not a fan.  She doesn’t know it right now, but this is a major step in her life.  As much as it sucks, there is so much that she needs to learn through this frustrating time.

Our lives are like that.  God puts us in situations and seasons for us to learn.  Many times we don’t like the place He has put us in and we cry, whine and fight it.  But what we don’t realize or think about all the time is that He knows what we need to learn.  He knows the steps that we need to take to get to where we need to go.  He wants us to grow and mature and many times in order to do that we have to go through the rough spots when our neck muscles are getting tired, we are crying and all we want is for Him to pick us up and put us where we want to be.  But He knows we need to learn to crawl before we can run.

Don’t blow off the season you are in just because it is hard/painful/frustrating.  Remember the things that you have been through already that you have learned from and helped shape the person that you are now.  We have to learn from those times when we are too weak to hold our head up anymore.  Thank God for those times and learn what He is showing you!

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. 
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow,

high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Romans 8:31-39

Sometimes we just need this reminder.  Life gets hard.  It gets painful.  You seem surrounded by enemies trying to hunt you down.  BUT it is in those times that God shows up and shows us His power again.  He shows us His love.  His grace.  His truth.  I love that.  None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us.  I’m absolutely convinced that NOTHING can get between us and God’s love.

Ok so I didn’t win an actual money jackpot.  But I might as well have.  I’m just sitting here thinking about all the things that I am blessed with.  Seriously though.  If you sit back and think about all the things you have, how blessed are you?  I have a beautiful wife with a healthy baby on the way.  We have an ornery dog that loves us lots.  We live in an awesome town with a gorgeous view.  We have a roof over our heads and cars to drive.  We have food to eat and friends and family.  We have a TON of stuff for our baby girl.  We can afford to pay all our bills.  We have iPhones and the ability to blog or check our email.  Yes there are plenty of difficult things as well, but I am so rich.  And even more than all that, I am loved by a God who does more than tolerates me.  He wants me.  He loves me.

I don’t talk about this to brag about anything because it could all (except for God’s love) be taken away so quickly.  I bring it up because I take it for granted FAR TOO OFTEN.  I don’t thank God nearly enough for all the amazing things He has given me and how He has taken care of me.  I could be homeless.  I could be single.  I could have divorced parents.  I could struggle to pay bills.  I could eat Ramen every day.  But I am not and I don’t.  I am loved more than I can comprehend.  I pray that I don’t take all that for granted.  I pray the Lord gives me the wisdom to be a good manager of all His gifts.

Even in our hardest, most difficult times, we are blessed far beyond what we truly deserve.  Take a minute to thank God for the things you do have.

Every time I come to a place where the future is unknown I tend to think to myself, I wish I knew what God had in store for me.  If He would just give me a map to follow or a list of places or whatever.  I don’t know how many times I have thought that.  I wish I knew where He wanted us to live.  I wish I knew when He would give us babies.  I wish I knew where He wanted me to work.  If only I knew I would feel safe.  I wouldn’t feel vulnerable.  I would know what was ahead.  I could prepare for it.  But that’s not how life is.  The more I think about this, the more I realize that there is reason for us to not know what is coming up.

If we had this roadmap or knew what was coming ahead, we wouldn’t have to rely on God.  He might be orchestrating things in the background but we wouldn’t realize how in need of Him we are.  We have to trust Him.  We have to trust that He is our Jehovah-Jireh or our Provider.  We have to trust that He is our Jehovah-Nissi or our Protector.  If we knew what was coming up next, how would we ever be able to focus on what God is teaching us now?  I know that if I had known what was coming in many occasions in my life, I would never have been able to learn what it was that God was teaching me by going through the situation I was so desperately looking past.

For those of you going through one of those times when it seems like all you pray for is to move on to the next season or you just can’t stop looking to what is next, trust Him.  Trust that what it says in Jeremiah is true.

I know what I’m doing.
I have it all planned out—
plans to take care of you, not abandon you,
plans to give you the future you hope for.

- Jeremiah 29:11 (MSG)

Know that in these times, the people that love you are there with you, but more than that, you have a God who is ALWAYS there with you.  Sometimes we just need to be reminded of that.  Put your trust in Him and stop looking for the “TV Guide channel of life” to find out what is coming up next!  He already knows.  Learn from your current situation.  He won’t let you down.

Bad attitudes are very easy to get and often very difficult to change.  If you aren’t careful a tough situation can easily help your attitude change to fit it.  It could be a rough workplace, a neighbor who gets on your nerves, dysfunctional family, a speeding ticket, the DMV, a cancelled flight or so many other things.  So many times we want to sit in the corner by ourselves and just pout, but regardless of what the situation is there is a decision to be made.  Will I have a positive attitude about _____, or will I allow the crappiness of the situation to make my attitude crappy, too? Many times this decision isn’t an easy one.  It is much easier to let the crappy situation affect you negatively.

It doesn’t help that the world around you even expects you to have a bad attitude when bad things happen.  When you go to pay a ticket, the people at the counter seem to expect you to hate them.  When your work environment is rough for you, your friends may not see anything wrong with having a negative attitude toward it all.  When your family is nuts they expect to fight.  But as Christ followers we know better.  Job had a pretty rough life for a long time, but he didn’t let his circumstances get the best of him and stay positive trusting God the whole time.  Paul was beat, imprisoned, hated, shipwrecked and more and he kept his attitude pointing toward God.  Noah had to build an ark in a place it had never rained before.  Moses hiked through a desert for 40 years.  Abraham lived next to Sin City.  Jesus was headed for the cross!

Our lives are filled with opportunities to prove the world right and cut someone off because they cut you off first.  We should be mean to the DMV worker because we had to wait in line for forever, right?  We should desperately work to make the decision to stay positive.  This doesn’t mean that we can’t pray and ask God to change our situation or work things out.  By all means pray on!  Jesus did!  But while you are praying about your rough spot, keep your head up and focus on what you can learn from your current place.

Unfortunately life isn’t always easy and perfect as we all know.  These time are when we are presented with the best opportunities.  Think of the platform that you will have to share Christ with the world around you when you build it up with a good attitude about your hard times!  Why would your neighbor want to live like you in your walk with Christ if all you do is complain?  But if you have a peace that doesn’t make sense, that is something totally different!

Keep your head up.
Be patient.
Pray for strength!
Learn to learn!

What is the Lord trying to teach you while you are here?

Several years ago I went to visit one of my best friends at his church.  It was a great church.  It was not for me, but it was great for him and therefore I am happy.  But at one point in the service everyone recited a saying or couple sentences together.  I had no idea what was going on.  I didn’t know it was coming and while they said it, I had no idea what they were saying.  At the time I thought to myself, “what was that?”  But then I thought about it for a minute and realized that my church at the time did something like that and Christ followers had been reciting things for thousands of years.

For the last several years the church I was a part of said a few phrases almost every Sunday.  The main one is “God is good, all the time.  All the time, God is good.”  Today I kept thinking about that phrase.  God is good all the time.  He is good when we celebrate life.  He is good when we finally see the ones we love.  But the other side is the “all the time” side.  He is still good even when life sucks.  When we have car problems, God is good.  When we get sick, God is good.  When someone we love dies, God is good.

Today was one of those days that I just felt like God was blowing my mind with goodness.  Sometimes that is easy, but there are many times it is not.  Many times we have to find comfort in the fact that despite circumstances, God is always good.  But today, God, thank You for being good in the amazing circumstances!

It’s funny how we hope for the craziest things.  This morning I woke up having hope for a few things like that.  I hope that the surf gets better so I can go surf.  I hope that OU beats Texas Tech and Texas is still left out.  I hope that the weather is as awesome as it is yesterday.  I hope that I will figure out this odd time change and not sleep through too much football on Saturdays.  But sometimes it seems that hope is harder to come by.

When you have hope, the little things don’t seem to be more than little things.  But sometimes it is harder to hang on to that hope.  When something you really want and need continues to elude you.  When something always seems to be just outside your grasp.  When you are at the door you have been led to but it seems to be cracked and not opened enough to get through.  It makes you question things.  It makes you question yourself.  It makes you question what you want.

What do you tell someone in this position?  The right words aren’t always easy to come by.  It reminds me of a song by Charlie Hall.  This is what I would pray for you.

Set this hope in me, Set this hope in me

Though You slay me I will hope
Hope inspires my endurance
Your hope is my anchor
God of hope fill me

It’s funny how sometimes there is so much going on that you can stop and think about things and just realize that there is no way that you are really in control of it all.  That’s when you realize that, yes, there is a God bigger than me that is doing this.  Even when circumstances aren’t what you expected or what you wanted, He still has a plan to take care of you.  I am in that place right now.  So much has happened in the past couple months that I never thought would, but nevertheless, they did.  Now we have to roll with the punches…even when they don’t feel like punches (more like stabs).  But no matter what happens, what is said or what people think, I know that He has a plan for us.  I know that He has us headed somewhere and has a reason for all of it.  I have learned so much about really trusting God in the past year (and no it has nothing to do with being married to KK).  I really feel like I have found that peace…that calmness that He gives.  It’s just weird being calm and not in control.

It’s funny how life gets so crazy sometimes.  Sometimes we just feel like we are going crazy…like homeboy here.  We have literally been on the go for days on end now.  There is so much going it’s not even funny.  But!  I think we are about to turn the corner for some peace and quiet (ish…I can only stand so much) soon.  My wonderful wife and I just returned from Oklahoma where we had a big event for LifeChurch.tv staff and my sister’s wedding!  So we spent most of last week running back and forth like chickens with our heads cut off!  It was fun though.  Getting to see EVERYONE, and I do mean literally everyone, was absolutely great!  We saw and talked to so many LifeChurch.tv staffers as well as several younger cousins of mine that I haven’t seen in 10 years!  They are so grown up now.  It’s scary.

But even amid all the craziness, I believe we have still found some of that peace in the Lord.  That no matter what is going on in our lives and no matter what life throws at us, we can find peace in Him.  That is what we are learning right now.  If you are ready for the next step or not, you can always lean more into Him and He helps/saves/holds/calms/directs.  We have heard it all our lives that He has a better plan for us that we could ever imagine.  I believe this is true with everything that I am.  He keeps showing me that.  There is more for me through Him than the apparently lame plans that I come up with.  

Please keep praying for us.  There is a lot going on.  Life is still craziness.  But even in the midst of all the struggles, hard times, changes, problems, issues, craziness, busyness, pain, hurt, and questions He is still in control and has something much better planned!  I just wanna be a part of that.  That’s what I’m looking forward to.