Last summer I was talking to God during worship and I said to him, “I want to love Knoxville the way Bill Johnson loves Redding.”  And he said, “Start with their team.”  The Vols going 4-8 was not the way I wanted to become a Tennessee fan.  But guess what?  He was right.  After living here 25 years, I learned something new about my neighbors and my sense of connection to Knoxville grew along the way.  So how about a few more practical ways you can love our city:

1. Go to work tomorrow, and just do your job with joy.  There is a holiness about work, and it’s not just that someone might “get saved” at your place of business.  When you do what you do, commerce happens, education happens, medicine happens.  People are buying and selling, wages are being paid, which means mortgages are being paid, groceries are being bought, families are being cared for.  And as our whole local economy thrives, that takes care of all of us.  You’re a part of that.
2. Pay your property taxes.  You receive blessing from your local government, give back what’s due and consider it an investment in your community.
3. If you’re not already, find a place to give back.  Here’s a great guide of places you can volunteer in Knoxville.
4. Smile at your neighbors, say hi, learn their names.
5. Next time you see a policeman in a restaurant or gas station, say thank you.

This is your town.  Invest in it, love on people. You matter & you make a difference.

“Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.
Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
Jeremiah 29:7

You made it thru the first week of the New Year (phew! 4 whole days — it’s never easy coming back after taking Christmas break — good for you).

Or maybe it’s been so crazy, you’re not sure you even got time off to reflect and recharge?

Your first weekend for 2018 is here, so if you haven’t taken the time to do so already, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Do you have a word or phrase that God has given you for 2018?  If not, ask him.
2. What’s a 2017 highlight for you?
3. What do you hope for in 2018?

Take this fresh word from God for your life, and soak in it.  Expect that you’ll hear from him this year, expect that the word he’s given you means something.  Consider that all three of these answers are his word alive in your life, an expression of gratitude for what he’s done, or a hope for what he will do in the coming year, all from him and thru him and to him.

After all, in James 1:21b we’re told “humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”  That word “save” is sozo in the Greek, and alternatively in the New Testament sozo is used to  refer to physical healing, deliverance for the soul, or forgiveness for the spirit, salvation as we typically think of it.  However, considering the complete meaning of the word, you might think of it this way — God wants to plant this fresh word in you, to cause it to flourish and grow, and utterly redeem every part of you — body, soul and spirit.

He’s faithful.  He’ll do it.  Lean into it.

I woke up this morning thinking about hope, how much we all need it.  Have a friend in a really tough spot – he’s not sure he can make a difference in his particular situation, part of him wants to quit, shame and anxiety are messing with his head and his heart.  Ever feel like that?

I heard Wendy Backlund speak at Bethel Redding in the summer of 2016.  Describing her own journey into hope, she said God told her, “You have permission to be hopeless about anything I am hopeless about.”  And just what is God hopeless about?

Her husband Steve pointed out “our first instinct is to look at what we are doing wrong, instead of what we are believing.”

Make sure you’re working on the right end of the problem.  Go back to basics.  Breakthru is going to come as you renew your mind, it’s going to come through relational encounter with Jesus.  You start getting your thinking right, and he’ll get your heart right.

Focus on that.  Do the work.  Be who you say you want to be.  Don’t let up.  Don’t quit.  We all have plenty to be thankful for, and your story isn’t over yet.  Ignite your hope.

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.

Psalm 143:8

Dorothea Brande.

I doubt you’ve heard of her (I hadn’t until Brian Buffini mentioned her on his podcast).  Born almost thirty years before women could vote in our country, she published Wake Up and Live in 1936.  That book impacted both Earl Nightingale and Og Mandino, whose legacy lives on in every motivational and self-improvement author you’ve ever read.  She dropped a pebble and was forgotten, but the ripples keep circling wider.

“To guarantee success, act as if it were impossible to fail” – Dorothea Brande

“We are where we are because that is exactly where we really want or feel where we deserve to be, whether we’ll admit that or not.” – Earl Nightingale

“To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.” – Og Mandino

You can get a sample of her work here.

My friend and spiritual father, John Dee, passed away this year.  His impact on my life couldn’t be overstated.  I remember meeting John initially in the middle of absolute brokenness in my life and thinking, “this guy needs to read more of the Bible than Song of Songs.” And yet, over time, he taught me that I was the bride, that God wanted eternal companionship with me and that He wanted it to start right now. That I was seated in the middle of the Trinity and that his love was overwhelming for me.

I remember when my daughter Charis was a toddler, desperately sick and in Children’s Hospital for two weeks, with her skin falling off her body and nothing seeming to work. John came and prayed healing over her, and she began to recover in 24 hours. He came back and I will always remember him saying to God, “and Father, respectfully, we ask for the rest.” We went home the next day.

John radically changed the trajectory of my life with his love for God and his hunger to have all that he could of Jesus, here and now. My view of the Father changed from angry, pissed off, in by the skin of my teeth as I soaked in John’s truth “that God loves you means that he likes you, means that he’s happy with you right now in the middle of your sin and weakness and mess.” He encouraged us to ask God for our name (from Rev 2:17 and other places) and I scoffed until I asked God on the spot and he spoke my name over me. That name was counter to how I saw myself, and as I soaked in this truth of God, over the next 10-20 years of my life God has truly “called things that are not as though they were, and brought life from the dead” (Rom 4:17b) That notion from scripture, too, was a thought that was new for me, from John.

I recall him saying, “what you think about God, who he is and what he’s like, is the single most important influence to change any and every area of your life.” He was so right.

John often said living by faith is the one thing we won’t be able to do when we are with God, and he lived this truth as I watched his life. There are so many ways my life is better from knowing John: the rescue of my marriage, my love for God, the journey and track I am on now – I am deeply grateful that I got to walk a small stretch of the road with him.

If you’re looking for a fresh word in your own life, you might want to get John’s book, God, Do You Like Me? from the website at Ebenezer Ministries.

I hear from people that they’re frustrated with their journey in faith, they’ve lost their passion, their bible seems dry and they frankly don’t want to listen to Christian pop to try to rev themselves back up.

How do you make it work?

My wife Jana, teaching a few months back, mentioned three words: Identity, Affection, Access.

When you know who’s you are and who you are (Identity) it will position you to allow the love of God, his Affection and desire for you, to overflow in your life.  Soon you’ll start showering that love and affection back on him.

As you understand the truth about yourself (how crazy he is about you) and you begin to receive the love of God, you’ll find this opens up your access to hearing from him in a whole new way.  And that Access, driven by worship of him, will lead to encounter with him and revelation.  Access will lead you to his heart, and as it gets personal between you & Jesus, your whole level of desire will change.

If you’ve got lost along the way, go back and start with his heart, how good he truly is, and what he really thinks of you.  The rest will follow in good measure, if you’re willing to hang in there and trust the process.

I remain confident of this:
    I will see the goodness of the Lord
    in the land of the living.
Psalm 27:13 (NIV)

Every summer I start from zero at our community pool with a goal to become a US Olympic swimmer.  I’m faithful to do a few laps, but I don’t think I’m anywhere near mastery.

This past week I started counting my breaths across the pool.  I was hitting 12 to 13 as I splashed and struggled through the water. Then I was intentional about what little I know about form, and suddenly, I had reduced that count to 10 breaths over 25 meters.  I realized swimming could be a whole lot easier, a whole lot more enjoyable for me, if I’ll do a little work to concentrate on doing it right and work on the basics.

Is this just like my work?  Am I struggling in areas where I could have mastery if I’d pay attention to form?  Am I making it harder on myself because I’m content to stay where I am?  I want to be excellent in what I choose to do. It is confronting to see that at times I’m not efficient with my energy when I become stagnant in my thinking about change and improvement.  My comfort zone can make me numb, and I become OK with status quo and current process, even when it’s killing me to do it the same way.

So, here’s to swimming and the lessons learned from bilateral breathing (my only swimming jargon).