1. We were exhausted. Donna and I spent last week there with a group of 75 others who did a Vacation Bible School and spent time with the children of Sagrada Familia. There was simply no time or energy to appropriately say what is in our hearts.
2. We want to offer you the opportunity to do more than just learn about this incredible opportunity with great needs, but doing such a powerful ministry with the most forgotten of Jesus’ “little ones”! To do that appropriately, we need to get some things in place.
3. We want to provide you with pictures and video to get more an experience of the event. With the help a friend, we will have both and hopefully will be able to launch an English website that shows you how to help and become involved.

Bottom line, Donna and I will never be the same.

There are hundreds of children in our hearts, but several will be carried in our souls and dreams and prayers and waking thoughts, for as long as we live.

So while the blog promise is delayed, be assured, it is coming. We don’t want you to miss it. In fact, we want you to get caught up in something that is smack dab in the middle of the heart of Jesus.

I will let all of our Heartlight.org community know about the blog pieces on Sagrada Familia as we get closer to the time we go live, but just believe me when I say, “You don’t want to miss it!”

Until we go live, please pray for these precious children in Peru and pray for the work being done to make sure they are housed, fed, educated, and loved! These children have always been precious to Jesus … and now that we have held them and taught them them and played with them, they are more than precious to us!

It is better to be patient than powerful; it is better to have self-control than to conquer a city (Proverbs 16:32 NLT).

I am hoping now that my heart can believe what my head knows is truly valuable.

See also: “Happy Birthday, Coach!”

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:44-47)

Hope you are inspired by the concepts and are reminded of how much of everything important to us hinges on Jesus’ resurrection!

Paul summarizes his ministry this way, and puts an exclamation mark on what is depicted here:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God —  the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David,  and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 1:1-4)

I’ve got more stuff in my garage than most people in the world have in their entire lives.

Having been to Uganda and seen the tens of thousands of “houses” that the non-poor live in — 40-60 square foot houses shared by 7-12 family members of 2 or 3 generations — I know what he says is true. While I’ve been in poor neighborhoods in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and large U.S. cities, the folks in Kampala neighborhoods weren’t the truly poorest of the poor.

So today, I’m trying to take stock of my blessings. As our ministry teams has read through Good and Beautiful God, we have been taking time to thank God for the mundane, the everyday, the often overlooked blessings that are ours. Simply listing these — the touch of a loved one, the smile of baby, the laughter of a child, the humor of repeated stories in older family members (or maybe myself), the feeling of the soft breeze at sunrise, and … the junk in my garage, attic, closets, and pantry.

If you haven’t done it in awhile, pray like a three year old — with your eyes wide open, thanking God for everything you see, especially the stuff you hold as inconsequential. When you do, and if you let yourself get really carried away, I think you will be surprised at how many blessings our gracious Father has poured into your life everyday that you take for granted.

Many years ago, I had an closet in my office that had a small poster of a little boys eyes as they lit up with excitement. It said something like, “See as a child sees: the joy, the laughter, and the wonder!” Today, I would would urge us to thank God as a child does, and be caught up in the laughter and wonder of it all.

Duct Tape is the “Force” … it has a Light side and a Dark side, and it binds the universe together.

At first, I saw this statement as clever — it even gave me a bit of a chuckle. But then another realization set in. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need some of that duct tape for broken things that the world can’t see. I could put the dark side out to seal out the darkness and its painful effects, and I could put the light side in to hold together what is broken, stuff that needs a little light to keep hopes alive.

Down here in Texas, we fix everything with duct tape, superglue, and a sharpie. The first two are used to tape and mend, the sharpie is used to write our name on it so folks know who owns what’s broken. I don’t know why it is so hard for us to own what is broken about ourselves. All I do know is that I’m thankful that when I look at everything of mine that is broken that I signed with my name, given a few days, my signature is transformed into Jesus’ signature. If I let him, he will own my brokenness. He’s my duct tape. He’s faced the dark side and yet darkness could not claim his light and he really does hold the universe together.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,  and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:17-20 tniv)

So, Lord Jesus, please use a little duct tape on me!

Sure, I don’t read one book at a time, but 3 or 4 or 6 or 7 — except on vacation when I read novels in a day. Yes, I have three computers on, all with 3 or 4 programs open, and I’m using all of them, instead of just one. When I clean or straighten up, I don’t check things off neatly in order, but I do everything all at once. Sometimes, OK most of the time, I take quite a bit longer to get finished, but I always get more things done and more thoroughly … when I finally get around to them.

And on those other things I’m supposed to get done, well at the end of the day, or the end of the week, or at the end of the time allotted, I nearly always get more done, more read, and a whole lot more experienced along the way than the average point A to point B person that I drive crazy while I’m doing it!

I’m not sure how it is in your world, but life doesn’t happen in neat little columns and rows in my world. Stuff happens unexpectedly and lists get blown up or made irrelevant by more important things that happen along the way. Sure, lists are necessary. I live by them. If I lose my Droid and can’t get to my Google Calender, I’m hopelessly lost on what to do next and what to do when. Lists are necessary to help me know when I’m finished and to help me to not forget and to help me to have a sense of going somewhere. But lists can’t be straight jackets or detailed maps. They’re more like general itineraries to help me know the main stops along the way, but I get to choose the places I enter, the sites I see, the flowers I smell, and the vendors I share a laugh with. The list, my itinerary, is no more the journey than the snapshot is the experience.

Now I’m sure you may not agree, and if you do not agree, you are in the majority who think people like me are warped, weird, and need to be straightened out — at least when going from point A to point B. And that’s cool if it works for you, but it sure doesn’t ADD up in my world.

Enjoy the journey!

After the post on Lynn Anderson yesterday and while preparing for the funeral message for today, I came across this powerful insight written by Miles Alpern Levin, about a month after he was diagnosed with cancer. His blog on carepages.com inspired many and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate message to share for all of us!

I went to the driving range the other day and I was thinking … I was thinking how you start out with a big bucket full of golf balls, and you just start hitting away carelessly. You have dozens of them, each individual ball means nothing to you so just hit, hit, hit. One ball gone is practically inconsequential when subtracted from the your bottomless bucket. There are no practice swings or technique re-evaluations after a bad shot, because so many more tries remain. Yet eventually you start to have to reach down towards the bottom of the bucket to scavenge for another shot and you realize that tries are running out. Now with just a handful left, each swing becomes more meaningful. The right technique becomes more crucial, so between each shot you take a couple practice swings and a few deep breaths. There is a very strong need to end on a good note, even if every preceding shot was terrible, getting it right at the end means a lot. You know as you tee up your last ball, “This is my final shot, I want to crush this with perfection: I must make this count.” Limited quantities or limited time brings a new, precious value and significance to anything you do. Live every day shooting as if it’s your last shot, I know I have to.”  — Miles Alpern Levin, July 7, 2005.

I know Jackson would have quibbled with Miles — well actually, he would have been much firmer than quibbling — about wasting all those practice shots early in the bucket of balls. “Don’t want to groove that bad swing and ingrain those bad habits!”

Jackson wanted you to loosen up with some short shots, then he wanted you to waste nothing — not one ball in the bucket. But, we all do, don’t we. We all mess up, goober up, stumble, sin, flub up, hit a shank or two, and then we notice the bucket of balls is getting thin on balls. I know Jackson had regrets — times and people he wished he could go back and do better with. But I am most thankful that the years I knew Jackson, he lived life recognizing the preciousness of grace and the opportunity to make a difference.

And yes, Jackson, I still shank one from time-to-time because of that square to square curl the three fingers on the back swing thing that you despised and tried so hard to help me get out of my swing. Blessings, dear brother, I’ll catch you on the back the nine, where our swings will be natural, the iced tea will be sweet, and nobody will ever need to improve their lie.

Don’t you hope that’s something folks say about you? There are certain people that enter our world and they are blessing every moment we are around them. They find ways to be helpful. They offer encouraging words at just the right moment. When something needs to be done, they do it — they don’t wait to be asked. When someone needs assistance, they step up and do it cheerfully. Some people are blessings.

But aren’t we all supposed to be? Isn’t this the heart of our spiritual DNA? In my Heartlight.org article this week on blessing, I talk about the principle of being a blessing as part of our spiritual DNA going all the way back to Abraham. One of the most important ways we can be generous with others is to share our blessings in Jesus. Peter puts it this way:

Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy (1 Peter 3:15 MSG).

This is called (in other translations) sharing our hope.

Why do you think it is so hard for us to be generous?

• Who is someone you know that is generous?
• What do you most appreciate about them?
• How can you be more like them?

Why do we not perceive sharing Jesus as a work of generosity?

• Why not send them a note and thank them for being generous?
• What blessings do you have in your life because of Jesus?
• Who is in your life because of your shared faith in Jesus?
• When is the last time you shared these blessings you have in Jesus with others?

Read 1 Peter 3:15 and notice how sharing good news is about sharing with others the reason we have hope in Jesus.

• Take a few minutes and write a paragraph giving the reason for your hope in Jesus.
• Pray that the Lord will give you an opportunity to share it with someone this week as an act of generosity!

Finally, I’m working with something new that I’d like to incorporate into my blog. I’d love to get you to share in the poll below. Thanks!