Nick’s Walk

March is both my favorite and least favorite month of the year.  I enjoy it because of the college basketball madness that leads up to and includes the NCAA tournament. I enjoy basketball and there’s lots of it this month as Conference Tournaments begin and finally the “Big Dance” itself. For some teams it’s a nail biter as whether they are “in” or “out.” For others its a fight for the best seeding. There is always some Cinderella that makes an unexpected run in March.  When in doubt, I pull for the underdog. It’s fun to see the unexpected prevail and the “big guys” take a fall. On the other hand in the middle of March is my birthday. That stopped being a fun thing a long time ago. When we are young, birthdays are exciting. They signal the opening of exciting new chapters in life. Now I can go to school. Now I can date. Now I can drive. These chapters also signal new responsibilities but the young tend to focus more on the exciting possibilities and less on the new responsibilities.  But at some point birthdays turn into a time of evaluation. There is some small excitement […]

I don’t handle disappointment very well. Something I had been looking forward to, just didn’t work out yesterday. It wasn’t a huge deal, but it ruined my day. Other people also had their day messed up, but they seemed to handle it just fine. Maybe that’s a gift of youth. I guess the word, “disappointment” is interesting. It’s a  “dissed” appointment. Something we arrange, just doesn’t work out. As Christians perhaps we should be disappointed less than other folks. After all, we are not in charge of our lives and we don’t have our hands on the steering wheel. At least, we shouldn’t. We should take pleasure in being “surprised by joy.” I wish I could get to the point of waking up every morning and thinking, “Jee I wonder what will happen today.” I’m just not there yet. I wake up and my mind reviews things. What day of the week is it? What work projects need to be attended to today? What family members will I see? Do we need to pick up the grand kids at school? Are we babysitting? If I have things I really don’t want to do or face, I calculate whether I […]

Jesus came to earth as a man, suffered, died and rose again…one time. There are certainly universal aspects to His saving work. However, each of us is saved individually. We have our own unique relationship and experience with God. Although each of our relationships has the common elements: Jesus, sin, repentance, redemption and sanctification, each of us has our own story. While we have sin in common, our sins are different. While for each of us, Jesus is the answer, we reach Him in different ways. We have different struggles, different challenges and we experience victory through Him in different ways.  This is more than just the differences in our cultures and denominations. God is complex beyond our understandings. We each experience just a sliver of His entirety. This is why it is so important for us to be in intimate fellowship with others who are in fellowship with Him. We learn from our direct experience of Him, but we also learn from the experiences of others. The broader our Christian connections, the greater is our experience of God.  Learning how Jesus has impacted the lives of other Christians, expands our understanding of how much more He can mean […]

My military career ended many years ago. However, I can still remember standing in formation with the company commander’s order of “Eyes Forward” ringing in my ears. There were many rules for formation; but the primary one was to keep looking forward, no looking to the side or, heaven forbid, behind you. This is generally great advice for life. We waste too much time and energy looking back or looking at others. As Christians, we know we should keep our “eyes on Jesus.” That’s a difficult rule to execute.  Do you have trouble looking back? Does your past continue to haunt your present? I have used the analogy of the automobile which has a huge windshield through which we look forward and small rear view mirrors for occasional glances backward. If we spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror, we may crash.  I think some people are haunted by their past because they haven’t dealt with it. It’s usually an issue of forgiveness. We all have things in the past we need to forgive. Primarily we need to forgive ourselves. For those sins we have committed we need to confess them to the Lord and RECEIVE […]

I noticed while watching The Bible on Sunday night that God seems to keep His people at a point of dependency.  Of course, we are always dependent on Him. We just don’t always recognize it. It’s the reason a rich man has such a tough walk in the Kingdom of Heaven. He can easily get the idea that his riches can be relied on. The politician can rest on his power. The famous athlete or actor can sit on his fame.  It makes it easy to forget that on Christ we depend. A parent knows that wonderful feeling when a child looks up to him for his safety, food, and peace of mind. He also knows the difficulty when it becomes time to place his dependency elsewhere. As parents, we often fail in that we don’t teach our kids to depend on God. We make them dependent on us or dependent on something else the world seems to offer.  Where are you in your walk? Are things going to well that you are feeling pretty self-reliant? Be careful. He might have to change your circumstances or send a storm into your life to turn you back to Him.  Does […]

I am always a bit uneasy when the History Channel tackles biblical or church issues. However, The Bible premiered last night and I thought it was great. I recommend it even for older children. There is a bit of violence (you have read your Old Testament right?) so check it out before viewing with real young kids.  If  you missed last night’s premier. The History Channel web site gives these dates and times for repeats: March 4, 2013, 12 to 2 a.m., March 6, 9 to 11 p.m., March 7 1 to 3 a.m. and March 10 6 to 8 pm. The last is right before episode 2. These are Eastern Times. I believe. The acting was very good and the sets and effects were great. There seemed to be a deliberate attempt to stick to the scripture. In reducing any book to film, some things get left out, but it seemed that the story line was kept alive. There was also an attempt to be “real” as characters such as Abraham and Moses seemed to be real people. From episode one I took away the vast difference between God’s eternal nature and our temporal nature. To Him, 500 […]

A Kairos weekend is a great mountain top experience. Because of that the days and weeks after can be a real downer. I was thinking that if I could identify exactly why these weekends are so great; perhaps I could duplicate some of the elements into my daily life and raise the level of those days closer to the mountain top. Well, here goes. 1. Seeing God work. One thing that clearly happens on a Kairos weekend is that God moves. He seems to move like at no other time. Or is it that we are so focused on Him that we notice His moves more than at other times. Isn’t God always moving? Maybe we just need to be more alert and more focused. 2. Focused on the mission. We always talk about the great commission and being used by God. However, it really happens on a Kairos weekend. From Thursday noon to Sunday night, everything we do is about pointing folks to Jesus. It might not be possible to be that focused every day; but certainly we could be more focused that we usually are. 3. Our gifts are used. One of the things I love about […]

I have learned over the years not to expect too much from myself on the Monday after a Kairos weekend. I am usually physically, mentally and spiritually exhausted. I don’t plan important meetings or make big decisions. This is true today. By any reasonable measure Kairos Angola #55 was a great success. It was efficiently handled with good talks. We blessed the participants with great food, letters, and love. We delivered a simple but powerful message about forgiveness and Jesus. By all indications the weekend was well received. The participants seemed deeply moved and expressed new hope for their futures. Our relationship with the camp authority was great and we received great cooperation including requests that our entering and exiting prayers include correction officers.  The chance of making significant long term impact is great. There is only one dorm at Camp J. It houses nearly 100 residents. As of yesterday about 38 of those have been through a Kairos. That may be the highest percent of Kairos graduates in any similar dorm in any prison. Those 100 guys provide food and maintenance to the approximately 400 who are kept in lock down in Camp J. We couldn’t talk to […]