Obedience - even when we cannot see the end

I heard this story a long time ago, and it is a very good reminder of a great many things. I could list them, but you're smart - you can figure it out.

There once was a man who was asleep one night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Messiah appeared to him.

The Lord told him He had a work for him to do, and showed him a large rock explaining that he was to push against the rock with all his might. This the man did, and for many days he toiled from sunup to sundown; his shoulder set squarely against the cold massive surface of the rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling his whole day had been spent in vain.

Seeing that the man showed signs of discouragement, Satan decided to enter the picture – placing thoughts in the man’s mind, such as “Why kill yourself over this?, you’re never going to move it!” or “Boy, you’ve been at it a long time and you haven’t even scratched the surface!” etc. giving the man the impression the task was impossible and the man was an unworthy servant because he wasn’t moving the massive stone.

These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man and he started to ease up in his efforts. “Why kill myself?” he thought. “I’ll just put in my time putting forth just the minimum of effort and that will be good enough.” And this he did or at least planned on doing until, one day, he decided to take his troubles to the Lord.

“Lord,” he said, “I have labored hard and long in Your service, putting forth all my strength to do that which You have asked of me. Yet after all this time, I have not even budged that rock even half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”


To this the Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, when long ago I asked you to serve Me and you accepted, I told you to push against the rock with all your strength and that you have done. But never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. At least not by yourself. Your task was to push. And now you come to Me, your strength spent, thinking that you have failed, ready to quit. But is this really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled; your back sinewed and brown. Your hands are calloused from constant pressure and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your ability now far surpasses that which you used to have. Yet still, you haven’t succeeded in moving the rock; and you come to Me now with a heavy heart and your strength spent. I, my friend will move the rock. Your calling was to be obedient and push, and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom, and this you have done.”

We give up because we don't see the results we've expected, or we finish our task and believe we've failed because our expectations were different the end results. Our focus has turned from what the task was to what the result of what we done was. A small, but very important difference.

Can we just continue to follow and/or do what the Lord has asked us to do, even in the midst of our confusion, disappointment, and even heartbreak?

Baby, It's cold outside

I know it's colder in other places. Truly, I do. But when it gets cold enough, cold is just cold.

It's cold enough. Seriously.

I've only been colder one time in my life, and that was a 30 hour foray into midwestern Canada. I would say hats off to you guys, but my head would freeze.

But, sharing my morning with you, I leave my apartment and think it's not that bad. After the first 5 steps, I realize that it really is that bad. It. Is. Cold. The wind is tearing across my face, and my toes went numb. And I still had 5 more blocks to get to the subway. I didn't exactly black out, but I really don't remember a lot of the walk, except for the fact that I suddenly started to feel a little warmer as I approached the subway entrance. Not exactly a good thing - frostbite was coming to mind. In case you are wondering, there is a point where snot freezes, by the way. I know you were curious.

So I descend the subway steps, greatful to be in a warmer place, and as I'm standing there waiting for my train, I realize something odd.

I can still see my breath. A good twenty degrees warmer, and I can still see my breath. It's cold.

So, I get on the train and thaw out, then get off at my stop, and it's cold, but I'm thinking, it's not as bad as I remember. It really can't be. Then I come up to street level and realize that it really is as bad as I thought. I walk two blocks (face and snot frozen), and at the bus stop, I wonder if it's worth waiting for the bus, or if I should walk the 5 blocks. Did I mention a herniated disc? My back said "Bloody no, we are not walking." Okay. Fortunately, a bus comes, but starts to pass the stop. 3 others flag it down, while I'm just thinking "findahappyplace, findahappyplace." I get on the bus, ride to my destination, and waddle to the entrance (my legs have frozen stiff by this point).

And that is what subzero is like in NYC. Baby, it's cold outside

60 Quotes that Will Change the Way You Think - repost

This is from a post that I really enjoyed, so I'm reposting it. Here's the link:

http://www.marcandangel.com/2012/06/08/60-quotes-change-the-way-you-think/

In your quiet moments, what do you think about?  How far you’ve come, or how far you have to go?  Your strengths, or your weaknesses?  The best that might happen, or the worst that might come to be?  In your quiet moments, pay attention to your thoughts.  Because maybe, just maybe, the only thing that needs to shift in order for you to experience more happiness, more love, and more vitality, is your way of thinking.

Here are 60 thought-provoking quotes gathered from our sister site, Everyday Life Lessons, and from our blog archive that will help you adjust your way of thinking.

1. You cannot change what you refuse to confront.
2. Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
3. Don’t think of cost.  Think of value.
4. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
5. Too many people buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t know.  Read Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
6. No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
7. If a person wants to be a part of your life, they will make an obvious effort to do so.  Think twice before reserving a space in your heart for peoplewho do not make an effort to stay.
8. Making one person smile can change the world – maybe not the whole world, but their world.
9. Saying someone is ugly doesn’t make you any prettier.
10. The only normal people you know are the ones you don’t know very well.
11. Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.
12. The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.
13. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.
14. As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones.
15. Making a hundred friends is not a miracle.  The miracle is to make a single friend who will stand by your side even when hundreds are against you.
16. Giving up doesn’t always mean you’re weak, sometimes it means you are strong enough and smart enough to let go and move on.
17. Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, etc…
18. If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
19. Don’t choose the one who is beautiful to the world; choose the one who makes your world beautiful.
20. Falling in love is not a choice.  To stay in love is.
21. True love isn’t about being inseparable; it’s about two people being true to each other even when they are separated.
22. While you’re busy looking for the perfect person, you’ll probably miss the imperfect person who could make you perfectly happy.
23. Never do something permanently foolish just because you are temporarily upset.
24. You can learn great things from your mistakes when you aren’t busy denying them.  Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
25. In life, if you don’t risk anything, you risk everything.
26. When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you.
27. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
28. There isn’t anything noble about being superior to another person.  True nobility is in being superior to the person you once were.
29. Trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
30. You will never become who you want to be if you keep blaming everyone else for who you are now.
31. People are more what they hide than what they show.
32. Sometimes people don’t notice the things others do for them until they stop doing them.
33. Don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do.
34. Being alone does not mean you are lonely, and being lonely does not mean you are alone.
35. Love is not about sex, going on fancy dates, or showing off.  It’s about being with a person who makes you happy in a way nobody else can.
36. Anyone can come into your life and say how much they love you.  It takes someone really special to stay in your life and show how much they love you.
37. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.  Don’t save it for a special occasion; today is special.
38. Love and appreciate your parents.  We are often so busy growing up, we forget they are also growing old.
39. When you have to start compromising yourself and your morals for the people around you, it’s probably time to change the people around you.
40. Learn to love yourself first, instead of loving the idea of other people loving you.
41. When someone tells you, “You’ve changed,” it might simply be because you’ve stopped living your life their way.
42. Someone else doesn’t have to be wrong for you to be right.
43. Be happy.  Be yourself.  If others don’t like it, then let them be.  Happiness is a choice.  Life isn’t about pleasing everybody.
44. When you’re up, your friends know who you are.  When you’re down, you know who your friends are.
45. Don’t look for someone who will solve all your problems; look for someone who will face them with you.
46. If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you’re fooling yourself. That’s like expecting the lion not to eat you because you didn’t eat him.
47. No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life.  Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.
48. The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
49. Many people are so poor because the only thing they have is money.
50. Learn to appreciate the things you have before time forces you appreciate the things you once had.
51. When you choose to see the good in others, you end up finding the good in yourself.
52. You don’t drown by falling in the water.  You drown by staying there.
53. It’s better to know and be disappointed than to never know and always wonder.
54. There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go.
55. Happiness is not determined by what’s happening around you, but rather what’s happening inside you.  Most people depend on others to gain happiness, but the truth is, it always comes from within.
56. If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past.  If you lie, it becomes a part of your future.
57. What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.  Read The Power of Habit.
58. You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
59. Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out.
60. If you don’t like something, change it.  If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.

When Breakers Shut Down - Tyler Perry

This is not my own, but a repost from Tyler Perry. Here's the link to his fan page: Tyler Perry Facebook

Awesome message:

A couple of days ago a storm came through here that was crazy. I’ve never seen that much hail and rain. It reminded me of when I was living in my old house. Every time there was a bad storm I had to go through some major things to get the lights back on in the house. One time there was a storm so bad that lightning hit the house and all the power went out. I looked across the street and my neighbor had power, so I knew the problem was just in my house.

Stay with me, I’m going somewhere here…

I knew I had to get to the circuit breaker to fix what was going on. Now, in my old house, the breaker box was in the attic, and in order to get to it I had to climb a ladder, go up a flight of stairs and then climb over an air conditioning unit, all the while trying to not step through the ceiling joist or I would go straight through the sheet rock. And imagine trying to do all of this in the dark. But I had to do it if I wanted lights on in my house.

I got to the breaker box and started turning the breakers back on. For those of you who are not up on your DIY (do it yourself, LOL), the circuit breakers protect the house from further damage by turning themselves off if they get too much power or pull too much power to them.

As I was thinking about this yesterday I started thinking about us as people, as souls... me, you and any other human on this planet. What is common about us all is that we all, at one time or another, will go through or have been through a storm, and sometimes the storms are so bad that they turn off circuit breakers in our lives. We can look at others who have gone through the same storm and they are fine, like my neighbor across the street. They had power, but I was in the dark. Same storm, but it affected me differently. Many people can have the same experience and get over it but it affects each of us differently. Never let someone tell you to just get over it because they did. It’s not that simple.

When circuit breakers shut down in our lives they usually turn off to protect us from trauma, but just because they turn off doesn’t mean that they are supposed to stay off. A lot of times we leave them off because we don’t want to do all that is necessary to reach the breaker box to turn them back on. So what happens? We begin to live a life that is not as bright and fulfilling as it was originally designed to be. You just stay in the dark because it’s easier to not go through what you need to go through for healing. Trust me, I’ve been there, lived there for a while until I realized that I wanted all the lights on in my soul. I had to get these breakers back on.

Why am I saying this to you? Well I know that God designed all of us to live the fullest life that we can, to live in the light, love and joy. It is my hope and prayer today that you will start to do the work to turn on some of the breakers that may have been turned off in your life by difficult moments. What do I mean by that? If you have a dream and you stopped dreaming because it got too hard, that’s a breaker that went off. Turn it back on. If you decided that you wouldn’t love anyone else because you’ve been hurt, that’s a breaker that’s been turned off. Turn it back on. If you have decided to give up on life because nothing seems to go right, that’s a breaker that went off. Turn it back on. If you have given up on your kids because they won’t do the right thing, that’s a breaker that went off. Turn it back on.

You see what I mean? Go through your life and look at all the people who have hurt you. Look at all the situations that have left you in the dark. Turn those breakers back on. Live in a full house. One of my favorite scriptures says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.” Light up your soul!

That's a good word right there.

Yes, I'm moving to NYC

I do have a newsletter, but after several comments, I realized that there are many folks who don't have any clue what's going on in my life. Probably because I didn't have email address or requests for the same. Sorry about that...

So yes, I am moving to NYC, in August. It's a bit of a drawn out story, so I will summarize, but you should go to my newsletter blog at akpenesadventures.blogspot.com to fill in the gaps. Anyway, here's the skinny.

I work for a collegiate ministry called Campus Renewal Ministries. It was a huge move of God in my life, working to help unite collegiate ministries to be the body of Christ, and to train students on how to share their relationship with Christ where they live, work and play. My role is the Executive Coordinator, and I work with the founder and President of CRM, networking across the nation, planning catalytic events, and making headway to the work in the northeast. For the past year and a half, I've been doing this from Austin, but God has made it clear in multiple ways that I am supposed to relocate.

So I leave August 15th for God knows how long (literally, because I sure don't! (; ). That's the cliff notes version - look on my blog to get a fuller story, or I would love to get together so email or message me to meet up! If you want to get my newsletters (I send them bi monthly - don't worry, I won't flood your inbox!), let me know. Also, this is a 501(c)-3 non-profit ministry where we raise our own support, so if you would be interested in donating to my work with CRM, you can go to www.campusrenewal.org, or contact me directly for more info.

I hope that fills you in, and no more surprises. Well, at least until God springs another one... :D

Find Your Voice

So, everything I've been hearing for the past week - from a leadership conference, to a birthday dinner, to several messages I heard on Sunday, have all had something to do with the theme of finding your voice. I found it very interesting, because I was thinking about some poems I wrote, and I was just wondering about this one I wrote about a year ago, where it was and if I should brush it off and add it to my collection. After last weekend, I was determined, so here it is...

Find Your Voice

Why so silent

My precious one?

You are wonderful

So precious,

Created to sing

To speak

To whisper

To shout

To be heard!

Find your voice

And let your joy find its way

To encourage, to comfort

To love.

Oh, my heart sings

So full of joy

Full of my glorious one.

Find your voice!

What you’ve done so far

All you’ve said

Are simply shadows,

Echoes, really,

Of the glory inside of you.

Touch your heart,

Open it up and pour out

Everything you have!

Find your voice

My intimate lover.

The power and glory and majesty

That is in you,

That IS you

Boiling to come out

To overflow out onto those

Who are starving and thirsty

For who you are.

So open your mouth,

Find your voice

Speak the Word

Sing praises

Shout your love.

My precious, glorious one

My darling among maidens,

My dove, my perfect one.

My Bride.

The Weapon of Rest

I read this in my devotional a while back:

"Remember that from the point of view of the Great Worker, one poor tool, working all the time, but doing bad work, is of small value compared with the sharp, keen, perfect instrument, used only a short time but which turns out perfect work."

It reminded me of a story I heard; I don't remember when or the setting, so if you know this story and I flub it up, forgive me in advance. There were these lumberjacks out on a job cutting trees, and one day, this brash young man challenged one of the others, a slightly older, definitely more experience worker, to see who could turn out more lumber. He had seemingly unfailing energy and was convinced he could cut more wood than anyone around. The other worker agreed, and they began early the next day. The brash young man went full speed, cutting more wood than he remembered ever cutting. After a while, he noticed the other man stopped cutting every hour or so for a short time, and then continued on. He knew at that rate, he would surely have more logs than the older man, and pressed on. They both broke for a mid-day meal, but the boastful man rushed back to his work, leaving the older man behind. At the end of the day, he looked proudly at his pile and went to boast to his competitor. He was shocked, though, to find that his pile was half again as big as his own. He didn't understand how this could have happened! He finally asked the man how he managed to cut more wood, though he stopped more frequently. He answered that the rest restored to him more strength to continue, and while he rested, he was sharpening his ax. Because his ax was always sharp, his strokes were more efficient. It was the times of rest that strengthened him to accomplish more.

Some people say, "Work smarter, not harder." There is a reason for rest, or God wouldn't have made a point to create it into our week. Our bodies know it, and yet sometimes we are convinced that pushing ourselves to the limit all the time will get more work done. What a lie that is. Phrases in Psalm 23 jump out at me: He makes me lie down in green pastures, and You prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies. There is something about taking time to smell the flowers, slowing down, resting a while, eating in the face of obvious threat, that drives the enemy wildly insane. It is at once quite funny and quite serious, because once we know and absorb this truth, it's great to use that particular weapon. But if we are unaware, he will send distractions, and before we know it, we are caught up in a whole lot of busyness, and waiting for rest to find us, instead of making rest our priority.

Rest, like any other weapon, takes skill and discipline to use. Try it out, and see how differently the battle goes...