Time Travel

Let’s talk about time travel.

While I am a Sci-Fi fan, I am not talking about the paradox of going back in time and killing your grandfather. If you were never born, how could you have traveled in time in the first place?

I am talking about how easy it is to get our focus stuck in the past or future.

Like many people, when my focus gets stuck in the past I inevitably end up in a place of regret and shame.

By the way, shame is not the same thing as guilt. Guilt has gotten a bad name in our postmodern age. If you have done something wrong and you feel guilty, GOOD. That is the gift of a conscious and the Spirit of God. It’s like pain – if you burn your hand you feel pain and that pain makes you move your hand from what is burning it. So pain and guilt are gifts to let you know something is wrong and needs to change.

Shame, on the other hand, is about your identity. Guilt says ‘I have done something wrong,’ but Shame says ‘I am wrong. The wrong I did is my identity and I can never be anything but that wrong.’ Shame if the notion that tells me ‘If anyone knew the truth about me they would reject me.’

When we do wrong (Sin) we can be forgiven and move on or get stuck and make it our identity. In the book of James we are offered a solution to our Sin problem. Interestingly enough, Shame also offers a “solution” so we have a choice to make.

Solution to sin: James 5:16 "Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. "

Shame’s solution: Hide your Sin because you will be rejected if anyone knows the truth about you.

The Biblical solution to shame is community, fellowship and prayer - the very opposite solution offered by Shame. After the fall in Genesis 3 Adam and Eve, were filled with shame and followed its plan. They hid from each other by covering themselves; they hid from God and then blamed others.

God has a better plan. Call the feeling of Shame what it is: a lie. Trust God and follow His advice.

Find a trusted fellowship (A Band of Brothers) and enter real community. Tell the truth good and bad; pray for one another and be healed.

The next time you are tempted to “time travel” into the past, say NO, because Shame, your enemy lives there.

Instead live in the moment and enjoy today

Next time thoughts on time travel into the future

For now Carpe diem ~ Seize the Day! Today is the only day you have so live it to the fullest

For the Kingdom and our Glorious King,

John

Living at the Speed of Life

Let's face it. In the English speaking western world we are in a hurry. Your computer is too slow; your microwave oven takes forever especially when you stand in front of it tapping your foot. And don't get me started on the one SLOW guy on the road who is in front of you.

But what is wrong with being in a hurry? Isn't that the American way? Isn't that how we are supposed to succeed?

I would argue that this is less a matter of getting things done and more a matter of the heart.

If you are in a constant hurry, it says two things are true about your heart:

• I don't have what I need.



• I am personally responsible for getting it.

"I don't have what I need" says that I know better than God or anyone else. It also assumes that somehow God is holding out on me.

Do you remember the lie in Genesis 3? The lie spoken by Satan basically said, "God knows that you will be like Him if you eat of this tree." The idea was that God was holding out on Adam and Eve. And the same lie exists today. The enemy says, "God is holding out on you - His heart is NOT for you." Hurry is just another way we believe the same old lie. We put our judgment ahead of God's because we think God's heart is not for us.

"I am personally responsible for getting it" says that I believe I am on my own and that no one, not even God is on my side, looking out for me.

So here is your homework assignment.

1) Get nine hours a sleep daily.

2) Drive the speed limit - I know what you're thinking. But I took a trip from Denver to Wichita and back, 530 miles each way. I drove the speed limit and it was relaxing.

3) Come to a full stop at all stop signs.

4) When in a store with multiple checkout lanes, take the longest line.

Try it for a week and see what happens. Let me know what worked and what didn't work for you.

Remember, this is not about your schedule. It is about your heart!

Heart Matters

Why do I have a ministry to men and why do I call it Tin Men?

For many years I lived thinking I didn’t have what it took to be a real man. I was raised by a single mother who was courageous enough to keep me in spite of overwhelming challenges. Having no father or father figure, and later being the victim of sexual abuse at the hand of a man, left me with the conclusion that I needed to have my questions about my manhood answered by women.

Growing up in a culture that defines the passage into manhood as having sex, I assumed that the answer I needed from a woman to the “Am I a real man?” question was her willingness to remove her clothes. I found many willing women but I discovered thousands of women who would give the same answer with much less work. I found pornography. I became obsessed and eventually addicted to lust. It was the only thing that made me feel “normal” but the whole time the shame made me feel unworthy of real love. I was convinced that if anyone knew the truth about me and my heart they would reject me. But the images never rejected me.

The result was my being stuck in my head living a lie. I had a well practiced act: “The Nice Guy.” The truth was I feared conflict so I was “nice.” I feared that if anyone saw the real me, they would reject me, so I was “nice.” I had so many versions of the truth, it was a full time job trying to keep it all straight. Even when things went well and people loved and accepted me, I knew it was my act they loved and not the real me.

Whenever I experienced pain and discomfort I learned to turn to lust, the one solution that worked. Regardless of the shame and problems it caused, I went back time and again because it worked and never rejected me.

Along came God who wanted to be my solution and live in my heart. But my fear was that a holy God would judge and reject me, so it was difficult to trust that He loved me. After enough pain I was at the end of my rope and was willing to risk being crushed by this angry God for the tiny possibility that He might truly love me and not reject me. Love me He did and beyond that, He healed my heart and launched me on an epic journey to learn to trust Him, walk with Him and to trust and walk with other men.

Today I am free to live from my heart and no longer be “nice.” No longer do I need lust or porn as a solution. And today I am a dangerous man for God, but people are safe around me, not because I am nice, but because I am good through His power.

As I walk through my life and meet other men at work and church I see too much “nice.” I have accepted the calling to take what I have learned about how to have a relationship with God, the healer of my heart, to men who need to be set free to live a dangerous life for God - to live from their heart.

The Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz was on a quest to get a heart from the wizard. We are on a quest to live from the heart God gave us. Join me on this dangerous, crazy adventure!

"Each spiritual journey begins with a step forward—the moment when you realize that there's more to life than you've been living." Vicky Thompson

For the Kingdom and our Glorious King,

John