Author: Nick

 Computers are strange things. Yesterday an old note popped up twice on my iPad.  There is no logical reason for it to do so. It is dated September 2010 and is entitled Five Reasons for Church Attendance. Since I just lost my Pastor and I’m  suppose to be in a 21 day period of focused listening to God, I’m going to assume that this note is from God and not just the work of random electrons. I don’t remember why I took these notes and they are very sketchy so I’m going to have to fill in a bit.  I even googled the topic but didn’t come up with anything as good as the five words in my little note. So here they are: Five reasons for church attendance   Membership, Magnification, Maturity, Ministry, Mission That’s all there was to the note. Now my thoughts. Membership. It’s important to belong. We are meant to practice Christianity as part of a body. I like the part of the body I’m in now. Even without the pastor. More importantly, I feel called to be here. Until I get a different call, I ain’t leaving.  Magnification. The body is suppose to magnify the Lord. Frankly I […]

Yesterday we looked at a period of focused listening to God. In place of “fasting” I suggested that we need to identify distractions, things that keep us from focusing on God, and try to remove those from our lives.Sometimes these distractions are so obvious or so dear to us that God has to remove them. God  may have done that for some of us yesterday when he removed Pastor Terrell and Miss Debbie from our lives.  We have to be so careful to distinguish God and His gifts. Rose and I belong to a dear church many years ago. Through a variety of circumstances the church changed dramatically and many learned that their spiritual life was more dependent on that church than on Jesus. That can never be.We have a love affair with the familiar. Especially as we grow older. We don’t like change, yet change is a fact of life. It is certainly a fact of the Christian life. God will remove anything that we substitute for him. When he took his children out of Egypt, he led them in circles in the desert until they learned to depend on him. When they become too attached to the land […]

 Today at Amana we are starting a fifteen day period of focused listening to God. Some are calling it prayer and fasting; but that’s too confusing. Most people think that means going on a diet and praying God will get you through it. The success of this 15 days won’t be measured by how much weight you lose, how toned up you get, or how much you tell God you need. All that is way too self focused. This is about focusing on God. Why now? 15 days into the year is a good time to do this. You probably have gotten all those self focused resolutions broken. You know the ones: lose weight, exercise more, read my bible more, be nicer to Nick.  We know all those are broken and lying by the way side. Time  to get focused.   Why fifteen days? Because it will probably take that long for most of us to just shut up. We think about prayer and we start talking and asking and thinking about everything we think we need. The problem is we don’t know what we need. That’s why we have a period of listening to God. So He can […]

 What a big day. I am sitting in Waffle House wearing a Drew Brees jersey. This morning I will spend finding a birthday present for Samantha followed by lunch with my wife. At 2:30 I will be in front of my television watching the Saints. I very much hope that they win. As soon as the game is over I will pick up Nick and Samantha and head over to the Cajundome to watch the Cajuns play basketball. It’s “Bring a Kid to the Game” night so I’m bringing two. I will be a bit distracted. I will be listening on the radio and maybe even watching on the ipad to Tim Tebow. It would be really great if the Broncos win; but I’m more concerned about Tim. I want him to have a great day. I want him to handle all the pressure of being an overt Christian in a world that’s watching his every move; many hoping to catch him in a fall.  I very much admire both Brees and Tebow. They both work very hard at what they do. They seem to be genuinely nice guys. I’m pretty sure Brees is a Christian and I know […]

I recall the playgrounds of my youth, not very fondly. I always hated it when it was time to play some kind of team sport. The two best athletes would just naturally be the team captains and they would take turns picking their teams. I was always the last picked. I was an awful klutz and a terrible athlete, really  not an athlete at all.  I read an article this morning calling for the banning of that practice in school. The author commented about how it permanently harms kids, like me. You would think I would be in favor of such a ban, but I don’t think I am. I would be sensitive to the situation for my own kids, grandkids and such, but I think that horrible practice had an overall positive influence on me. I was the first kid in my graduating class to join up. Vietnam was going on. All those other big tough kids ran off and hid in college. Not me I joined the Navy. Not the marines, the team picking experience motivated me. It didn’t make me insane.  Lot of my motivation in life that led me to success in college, and law […]

We are fond of saying that we have “seen the light.” I wonder how often that expression really comes with a true revelation. In fact, the experience of the light doesn’t begin with clarity of vision, but with blindness. Consider Saul of Tarsus, who would become Paul. His encounter with Christ began with being knocked off his horse and experiencing a time of blindness. When a bright light suddenly comes on in a dark room, we shield our eyes. The experience is too much. We have to be accustomed to the light. I believe there is a purpose in that sequence especially in spiritual matters. When we experience Christ, we need to be overwhelmed and blinded for just a bit. In order to see clearly for the rest of our days, we need to experience a time of blindness to all we knew before and become accustomed to seeing things in a new way. Christians, true followers of Christ, see the world completely differently from everyone else. We should be considered “different” by the world; because we should be different. There is a current “christian” philosophy which teaches that we need to be more “acceptable” to the world. The basis […]

Today in south Louisiana we’ll find out who the real LSU Tiger fans are. For someone like me, who is a Florida Gator fan, it’s been a long year. All this talk about the game of the century and the team of the century. Going out everyday to a sea of purple and goal. Well the “team of the century” stunk up the Superdome last night and turned in the worse performance in BCS history. Never before has a team been shut out in a BCS bowl game (national championship or not).  Not only was LSU shut out but they only crossed the 50 yard line once only to be pushed back a few plays later and eventually fumble the ball. I texted my grand daughter who was there throughout the game. I wanted to be there just to give her a hug. She was crushed. This morning I don’t think I’ll face a sea of purple and gold or hear talk of dynasties. But I will run into a few real fans. I think I’ll give them a hug.  A real fan sticks with you when you fall. He loves you when  you stink. You real LSU fans. […]

Sunday was a great day at church. The Spirit was moving and much kingdom business was done on an individual basis. The Spirit was moving so much that the Pastor never got to complete his sermon. This isn’t completely unusual. In fact, it happens quite frequently. That’s often a good thing. I’d rather have the Spirit than a full sermon any day. We did get a hint at the sermon and it seem like it would have been a good one. Pastor proposed these New Year Resolutions. The good thing about New Year Resolutions which are proposed on the 8th day of the year, is that you don’t feel bad that you’ve already broken most of them. I don’t know what Pastor intended, but this is what I would have done with these. Here they are, with my comments, of course:   I will carry my own Bible to church every Sunday. This is a good one. I carry my bible because my iPhone is always with me. Sometimes I even have my iPad. I have bibles on both. But I don’t get much credit for this. Even when I’m diligently following the discussed scripture, people think I’m checking my Facebook page or my […]