Humming Birds

I love humming birds, that whole fly forward and backwards thing is amazing, they are one of God’s really neat creations. Anyway I had a hummingbird trapped in my garage. I opened the door wide open and waited for the bird to fly out but nothing doing. I even tried to shoo it out waving my arms (looking much like a crazy man) but that didn’t work either. The bird just stayed on top of the garage door, refusing to move.

Every time the bird would try and fly, its instincts told it to fly upwards, so it would skate all over the ceiling, buzzing its wings furiously against it, chirping all the way until it would tire and come to rest on the door over the wide open area to escape. I left it alone for a while to see if it would eventually discover the open door, but each time it took off to fly, it flew upwards and skated on the ceiling like before. It was frustrating, almost tragic, to watch it sit over the open door, catching its breath, oblivious to the fact that freedom lay only a few inches below. I finally succeeded in freeing it by literally sweeping the hummingbird off the ceiling with a broom. It took a number of tries, and it hit the door jam on the way out, but it flew off unharmed.

Imagine yourself as the bird were that bird…(humor me for a moment) I am trapped, and I am trying to free myself the only way I know how, when this giant comes after me, waving its arms and screaming shoo, shoo. This giant then begins so sweep at me, swatting at me with a broom. I don’t see that what the giant wants is what is best for me; indeed, he is the only one who can set me free. Finally he succeeds and sweeps me off the ceiling and I slam into the wall, and then out through this invisible barrier. It is only then, in my attempt to recover from that trauma, that I find I am suddenly free.

OK you’re no longer a humming bird…..It occurred to me that this kind of parallels our experience with God, he is the giant sometimes. He throws some pretty scary stuff at us, and it’s hard to believe He has our best interests at heart. He may even be telling us to fly down, but we don’t hear Him, so He brings something into our lives that force us down, and only then do we find that down was the way out.

Is that where you are in your life right now, experiencing some scary stuff and not understanding it?

What we have that the bird doesn’t have is a word from God that He is in control.

We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:9)

Wasn't that cool!!!

Talk about fully engaged... Tiffany took the plunge with no prior planning, which is so God honoring, I just love it. Of course, there was no prior planning on her part, she just heard the call and responded. There was prior planning on our part, we had to first be in prayer about the day, be obedient to God's direction and prepare for as many as will respond, and then we needed to celebrate what God did.

So we are celebrating with Tiffany as she continues her walk with God, with this next step of Baptism. And we are celebrating with God, as he moves and rejoices in the obedience of his kids.

God is Good, All the time

coming to grips with being helpless

About 6 months ago, my ongoing back problems began to rise its ugly head. Due to 24 years of jumping, running, hitting, falling, playing tackle football, jumping for a basketball, 4 years of traveling across the country playing ball and then getting into a 15 passenger van sitting in a coccoon shape for another long days drive...do you remember those days, where your body could take all the abuse you could give it and then suddenly you would hit a dead end, in which your body would say "now you will pay".
Well since about May I have been getting cortizone shots, doing stretching exercises, going to physical therapy, and doing my best to stretch back into flexibility. After getting back to what I thought was 100% on Labor Day weekend, I celebrated by swimming with Candry for 2 hours...then sitting on a hard chair and typing out a 5 hr paper. The next morning, my body screamed its loudest-snack, crackle, pop, and 4 days later I laid in the hospital waiting to get the ole' Cariker family special-a lumbar laminectomy...fancy for hiernated/ruptured disc...(I'm now home in recovery...)

The main point today is that before I finally gave in to the horrible back problem, I had to admit one thing: I was helpless~On my own I could not get up, could not crawl, could not sit on my bed, could not even eat...totally helpless! Their was nothing in me but could cure my problem on its own.

This is one of the reasons why Rejoice Church is planning on launching another church campus in January 2009. We are willing to do whatever it takes, to whomever will hear, as many times as possible to reach those who are "helpless". To supply those who realize they can not "do life on earth and life for eternity" without the help of Christ. Who do you know that is helpless? A friend? A neighbor? A family member?

Wrong Questions?

Almost every teacher or professor I have ever had said that there are no wrong questions. Well maybe they said there is no such thing as a stupid question or dumb question....stupid and dumb have become less politically correct in recent years so I imagine most now use wrong...probably not it's still ok to call a question stupid just not a person.....anyway.

I used to think that statement was something they told you to say in "teacher school" because it made your students feel more comfortable. After all, we all knew someone who would ask a stupid question (I think I was that someone most of the time) like "what is the homework assignment" when it was 2 minutes to class ending and the teacher had gotten way off track....

Well here is the deal, when it comes to this whole two campus thing, there really are no wrong, stupid, or dumb questions. Everyone looks at things from their location in their Christian journey, we aren't all in the same location, thus we see things different, which is good. So any question is a good question.

So you may ask, where do I get my questions answered....well the answer is, if you're reading this, you have found the question asking place - just comment on a post, and we will get you an answer.

I can't promise you will like all the answers, but I can promise we will respond to you..

so looks like the teachers are correct, there is no such thing as a wrong, stupid or dumb question...ask away my friends.

In the middle?

So saw this one on God Tube - I hadn't heard this song but it seems to be a bit appropriate for where we are.

You may find yourself in the middle, not knowing if your a south campus person or a north campus person. Could be quite the fight if you and your spouse or kids don't have the same view.

So what are you going to do? The question is real, the answer complicated - you don't want to split the family.....

We may not have all the answers, but rest assured, that as far as weekend services, it really doesn't matter if you go south or north - they will both be the same. The only deciding factiors will be where you meet with your small group, if your on campus then that campus would seem to be the logical choice. If you're off campus then it doesn't matter.

The only time things will get complicated is on Wednesday nights, when the senior high "GZ"service will be on the south campus, and the Junior High "Fusion" service will be on the north.

So how will you handle it?