Month: September 2009

Dave’s Tweets for 2009-09-29

  • Winners see losing as a part of winning. #
  • There is a big difference between getting married and being married. #
  • I will not tolerate in me what I distain in others. #
  • Worse than being blind, is to
    see and have no vision.
    (Helen Keller) #
  • Who in your life can say no to you and you consider it a favor? #
  • Today I will live in the flow of God’s grace and out of the overflow of his generosity. #
  • What gets dated gets done! #

Dave Rave – 7 Reasons Why I Like My Wife

daveraveI like my wife.  That may seem like a silly pronouncement, but I know an awfully lot of people who are in love with people they don’t like.  Yeah, weird.

Not only do I love my wife, but I like her. I like her as a person.  I like being around her; not because I have to be, not because we are legally bound by a contract, but because she’s just the kind of person I’m attracted to.

So here are seven reasons why I like my wife.

  1. I like my wife because she sees the best in me. That’s often hard to do because sometimes I am very difficult to get along with.  She can see past my self-doubts and my inabilities.  Instead of correcting me and scolding me and nagging me, she always highlights my good qualities.  She sees the best in me and I see that reflected in the way she speaks to me and treats me.
  2. I like my wife because she tells me the truth. It’s not just the truth she tells me, she tells me in a way I can understand it.  She does as the Scriptures teach.  She speaks the truth in love.  She tells me the truth to help me, to be redemptive; not as an angry accusation of my failures.
  3. I like my wife because she’s got my back. Of all the people in the world I totally trust, she’s on the top of the list. I absolutely trust her.  I know she would never do anything to betray my trust.  And I in turn want to guard that sacred honor.
  4. I like my wife because she seeks to excel. We got married when we were 18 years old.  We came from a very average background.  But the one thing that has always been constant in our relationship is the desire to excel, to do the absolute very best we possibly can; not only as a reflection of our love for God, but our contribution that we make to humanity.
  5. I like my wife because she gives me balance. She teaches me how to not just love my work, but to love my family; that there are no contradictions in that, that the tension between working hard and being home is a good thing.  And she helps me seek harmony between those two things.
  6. I like my wife because she makes me want to come home. I’ve talked with hundreds of people, maybe more, over the years, who dread going home.  Home to a family that will nag them and condemn them and make home a living hell. My wife has always made our home a place to want to come home to.  Not only is it clean and neat, but it’s well-decorated.  It feels like us.  That makes me want to come home.  As a matter of fact, there is no other place on the whole planet I’d rather be.
  7. I like my wife most of all because she has made Christianity believable. I was raised in church where religion and pretension seemed to be the only things that we specialized in.  When I met Paula, she made faith incarnational.  She was God with skin on.  She showed me what it was like to trust Jesus, why it was important.  She led me to faith and then nurtured me through my early years.  That’s a great gift, for which I will never be able to repay her.

These are the seven reasons why I like my wife.  I can mention a lot more.  The question in this Dave Rave is, why do you like your spouse? Or, why would you want to be married and what kind of person would you become if you married the person of your dreams, or even the person you’re dating right now?

Sometimes it’s just good to sit down and write, this is what I like about the person I’m married to or want to marry one day.

Dave’s Tweets for 2009-09-28

  • You are only one dumb decision away from tearing down what you’ve spent a lifetime building. #
  • Join the live cast of The Gathering NOW http://ow.ly/rgef #
  • Join the live cast of The Gathering NOW! http://ow.ly/rgdU #
  • God never promised you wouldn’t lose, just that nothing of significance would be lost. #
  • First intro to the gathering 2 years ago http://ow.ly/rgdG #
  • Hurry make smart people dumb and good people greedy! #
  • Here is what to expect at The Gathering http://ow.ly/rgcG #

The Over-Hyping and Over-Selling of God

selling_god_black_lowYesterday was Sunday and in literally tens of thousands of locations, people gathered to worship God, not just in this country but all over the world.  And while I don’t know everything that happened, I am absolutely sure that there were in some places the over-hyping and over-selling of God.

It happens every Sunday of every week of every year and it’s been happening forever I suppose, and that is people standing on stages and pulpits, arenas, gymnasiums, and anyplace people gather feeling as though they have to make God look better and sound better than He really is.  The question is, “How can that be?”  How could any of us use human language to describe how good God is, how big and amazing He is?  And yet, we do.  Here’s how we do it.

1.   We make promises God never made. We tell people if they’ll love God, work hard, stay in their marriages, and keep their nose clean, nothing bad will ever happen to them.  That’s not true and God never promised that.  That’s the over-hyping and over-selling of God.

2.   We tell people if they have enough faith, they can do anything. The truth of the matter is, there are just some things that you’re never going to be able to do.  You’re not equipped, you don’t have the talent, it’s not your calling; ten thousand different reasons.  But we give people false hope when we shouldn’t. That’s the over-hyping and over-selling of God.

3.   We make life with God sound easy and simple; as easy and simple as attending a class, getting a certificate, reading the Bible, throwing up a prayer.  And if you do all of those things, the deep things of God will yield to you easily, effortlessly, and continuously.  The truth is, a relationship with God is difficult.  It’s mysterious.  God sometimes feels very near and at other times feels very far away.  The only constant is the promise of God.  He will never leave us or forsake us.  His love drives Him to do what is the most generous and loving thing for us even though the circumstances seem to betray that truth.

4.   One of the biggest things we tell people, and something that God doesn’t promise, is that there is a place at which we can go where everything in life works. The truth is, everything in life is set up to disappoint us.  Truly, we don’t want to accept this, our dirty little secret.  We tell people that if you do the right things in the right ways, come to our church, tithe, give, volunteer, a thousand other things, then everything will work.  Your marriage will work, your work will work, and your children will work.  And the truth of the matter is, there are disappointments waiting for us all along the road.  And the question is, “Who do we run to when the world promises us one thing and life delivers another thing?” Will we run to the foot of the cross?  Will we run to a relationship with God where there is no need for “why,” just the comfort of knowing that something bigger, better, and more amazing than us guards our soul, our life, and our well-being?

If you’re a speaker for God, stop trying to over-hype and over-sell.  Tell the truth, honestly, that life will not be easy, just worth it; that we will be lonely, just never alone. These are the promises of God and they are more than enough to sustain us.

Today @ The Gathering: Why Can’t I Make You Happy?

bighurryiconI have a confession to make.  I’m a people-pleaser.  And guess what, so are you.  Everyone is to some degree or another,  But it is the degree to which we give into that impulse that we lose our lives and live by impulse and temptation.

Trying to please people may seem like a good thing on the surface, but if we take it too far, we lose our sense of selfhood and identity, our sense of being an individual created by God to be a distinctive person who can make decisions to not just be independent, but to be interdependent.

In the pursuit of people-pleasing, we do really self-destructive things. So her are the 7 reasons why really smart people on the route to trying to please everyone and make everyone happy, often self-destruct.

  1. Smart people self-destruct when they lack boundaries.  Being a Christian isn’t just about a relationship, it is about a set of ethics; a set of standards revealed by God.  We can call them the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule; whatever God prohibits that become our boundaries.  When you fail to have boundaries in your life, ethical standards, places you won’t go, and things you won’t do in the weakest moment of impulse and temptation, you self-destruct.
  2. Smart people self-destruct when they lack margin. Margin is like the white space in a book.  You need financial, emotional, and spiritual margin so that when you get overstressed or overworked you don’t fall off the edge.
  3. Smart people self-destruct when they lack identity. As a Christian my identity is found in my relationship with God, not in my relationship to people, places, or things.
  4. Smart people self-destruct when they lack audacity. Audacity is the power to say “no” when everything else says, “yes,” and to say “yes” when everything else says, “no.”
  5. Smart people self-destruct when they lack an inner life.  God created us separate from the animal world when he gave us the ability to think and have an inner dialogue; to be rooted in truth, beauty and honor rather than just responding to the emotional stimuli around us.  An inner life allows me to say “no” when impulse says “do something” or “say something.”
  6. Smart people self-destruct when they lack a dissenting voice. This is not negative person or someone who just says “no,” but a person who takes our interest at heart and challenges us to think through our actions before we take them.
  7. Smart people self-destruct when they lose hope. When you lose hope, you lose humanity.  When you lose humanity, you lose life.  Without hope, we become nothing more than animals out to get “ours.”  Hope is the ability to trust that God is doing the most loving thing in our lives no matter what the circumstances; that God can be trusted in the future to deliver on what He promised.

Though God never promised that we wouldn’t be lonely, He promised we would never be alone.  Though He never promised we wouldn’t get hurt, He promised that He would get us home safely.  He never promised that we would have all we wanted, but that we would have all we need.  He never promised we would never lose, but that nothing of significance would ever be lost.  He never promised us a life of ease, just a life worth the effort.

Dave’s Tweets for 2009-09-25

  • 98 days to the new decade! #
  • Hurry makes you stupid and robs you of the joy of being fully present. #
  • No character; no joy! #
  • If the work you are doing is not enriching your life; you can’t afford to keep doing it! #
  • Practice W.W.O.N.D.A.: Win win or not deal; always! #
  • RT @byronbledsoe: There are going to be so many… http://tinyurl.com/yd5wfka #
  • When it comes to relationships; One size does not fit all #
  • The best way to create your future is to be nice to the people you meet today! #
  • I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
    Ps 84:10 #

This Weekend @ The Gathering: Why Can’t I Make You Happy?

bighurryiconHow many times have I heard people say that: “Why can’t I make you happy?” or “I can’t make you happy,” or “I can’t make anyone happy,” or “Everyone’s upset with me,” or “It seems like I can never figure out how to please the people in my life.”

This weekend @ The Gathering we’re going to be talking about people-pleasing and how that devastates our life.

One of the reasons why really smart people self-destruct is they lack boundaries, margin, and a sense of identity in their life.  It’s “whoever you want me to be,” and “whatever you want me to do,” and with that mentality that’s driven by fear and self-doubt, we end up living someone else’s life.

You can even be a high-achiever and wake up one day and realize that the ladder you’re climbing is leaning against the wrong wall. And what happens is, we self-destruct.

So this weekend we’re going to be talking about how to avoid doing really dumb things that will end up destroying your life.

Maybe you know someone who is going through a time where they’ve lost something.  Maybe they have a sense of dissatisfaction in their marriage, their job, or maybe it’s just them.  This weekend will be a great time to bring them to The Gathering.  Why?  Because it’s a place where we specialize in God simple; not church complicated.

The Gathering is a place where messy people come together to celebrate life as it can be; not how it has been.

Isn’t it true that you need the love of other people when you deserve it the least?  When we gather around the grace of God in Jesus Christ, really amazing things begin to happen.  If you’re trying to go it alone, if you’re trying to figure out life without connecting to some other fellow travelers, you need to get up and come to one of our two services at 9:00 AM and 10:30 AM this weekend.  It’s a place that you can make the connections you’ve been crying out for: not only a connection to God, but to other people, and a connection that’s most critical – to yourself, to your own sense of self-worth and significance in the world around you.

Gathering to worship God, whether it’s at The Gathering or someplace else is a privilege that’s been bought by the sacrifice of so many. Why not get out this weekend and celebrate this sacrifice.  If you’ve been hurt by church, or life, or someone else, The Gathering is a safe place to come and begin the healing process.

I’m Sick and Tired. I’m Not Going to Take it Anymore

sadness_by_rockthenationsIs it me, or are people hurting more than ever before?  I’m not just talking about the economy and the changes going on in society.  These are simply symptoms of a greater problem.  People are hurting and in deep pain. And it seems as though we’re content to ignore it.

Almost never a day goes by that I don’t have a heartbreaking conversation with some smart, good, intelligent person who’s carrying around a collection of disappointments that’s robbing them of the very life that Jesus created them for.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired.  I’m not going to take it anymore.  So here’s what I’m going to do and I challenge you to do the same thing.

  1. I’m going to look people in the eye when I meet them. I’m going to lean forward, extend my hand and engage them.  I’m going to let them know they are a valuable, important human being; not just another in a long line of faces I’ll forget as soon as they leave my presence.
  2. I’m going to smile.  Yeah, I am.  I’m going to smile.  I’m not going to carry around a sour face that points to a deep wound that I haven’t dealt with.  I’m forgiven.  Period.  I’m free.  I’m loved as I am and not as I ought to be.  And I’m ok with that.  So I am not carrying around any deep wounds, or anger, or bitterness for someone who’s done me wrong.  I’ve been betrayed, lied about, done dirty, just like you have.  But join the human race.  I’m just over it.  Life is too short to waste it nursing a grudge.
  3. I’m going to ask important questions; not just the silly ones we ask each other – “How are you doing? What’s going on?  How are the kids?  What’s the weather?” – but “How are you doing? What’s going on in your life today? What are you excited about?  What gets you up in the morning? What fills you with joy and creates energy? Are you on the road to your life’s calling?” Something better than the tripe that we trade and call deep conversation.
  4. I’m going to take action. When someone bares a pain to me and I can do something about it, I’m going to do something then and there.  Schedule it, call it, use my connections, and get them help.
  5. I’m going to affirm people. I’m going to tell them what I think of them.  I’m going to describe them in terms of how they are and could be.  I’m not going to chide, be upset, mad, and maudlin. I’m going to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said.
  6. I’m going to inspire other people by loving them where they are.
  7. I’m going to write handwritten notes, send them out, and let people have something tangible that reflects my affection and belief in them.
  8. I’m going to make phone calls. I’m going to stop saying, “I hate talking on the phone” and talk on the phone.  I’m going to call people who haven’t called me and I’m going to be the first one to act.
  9. I’m going to point people to Christ; not with sermons or a warning, but with my life and my words.  I’m going to extend acceptance, love, and grace to people, period, no matter what they do or how embarrassing they may become.
  10. I am going to practice W.W.O.N.D.A. with God’s help.  That’s’ win-win-or-no-deal-always.

Bottom line, I’m just sick and tired of seeing people hurt when it’s unnecessary.  I’m sick and tired of religiosity getting in the way of grace.  I’m sick and tired of people being bound up by the shame and guilt and bitterness of the past.  I’m going to do everything I can to lead people out of that dark place into the sunlight of God’s love, His forgiveness, and the joy that every day offers. What are you going to do?

Dave’s Tweets for 2009-09-23

  • Life is too short to waste it nursing a grudge! #
  • Want to be inspired? Go see Love Happens. #
  • Anyone who can be manipulated, has nothing you need. Good people want to be inspired. #
  • @ChrisElrod praying for you bro. in reply to ChrisElrod #
  • Alway motivate. Always never manipulate. #
  • One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. (Helen Keller) #
  • Build a reputation for under promising and over-delivering and you won’t want for work! #
  • @MichaelHyatt don’t! in reply to MichaelHyatt #
  • Remember; there is very little traffic on the extra mile. #
  • RT @RonEdmondson: Just posted “5 Major Reasons Marriages Fail” (Know to guard yours) http://www.RonEdmondson.com #