Inspiring

Seems like so much of what keeps intersecting my life has to do with calling and courage . . . Watch and be inspired . . .

God Dreaming

Someone came into my office yesterday with a dream. A pretty big dream to impact hunger in our world. That excites me!

As we continued to look into Nehemiah's life on Sunday, I presented this truth from his life:

FAITH + COURAGE = ACTION

Nehemiah had a dream to change the trajectory of the situation in Jerusalem. And in verse 11 of chapter 2 it says this: "I went . . ." He did it, He lived His dream! And changed the course of history in the process.

What dream has God given you?

Someone just sent me the Rick Warren email pasted below . . . it reminds me that if God gives us a dream, He will provide the means for it to be accomplished . . .

July 13, 2009 How God Builds Your Faith: Dream by Rick Warren "Now glory be to God, who by His mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes" (Ephesians 3:20 LB).
Faith is like a muscle: it can be strengthened. It can be weak or it can be strong, depending on how much you use it. How does God build your faith? He uses a very predictable pattern that we will look at this week, and, if you understand it, you can cooperate with Him in developing greater faith. It's like when the father, seeking help from Jesus for his son, said, "Have pity on us and help us, if you possibly can!" (Mark 9:22 TEV) Jesus replied, "What do you mean, 'If I can?' . . . Anything is possible if a person believes" (Mark 9:23 NLT). The first thing God does to build your faith is give you a dream. When God wants to work in your life, He'll always gives you a dream—about yourself, about what He wants you to do, about how He's going to use your life to impact the world. There are many examples in the Bible of this. • God gave Noah the dream of building an ark. • God gave Abraham the dream of being the father of a great nation. • God gave Joseph the dream of being a leader that would save his people. • God gave Nehemiah the dream of building the wall around Jerusalem. How do you know when a dream is from God or when it's just something you've thought up yourself? The Bible tells us that God, "by His mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes" (Ephesians 3:20 LB). In other words, if a dream comes from God, it will be so big in your life that you can't do it on your own. If you could do it on your own, you wouldn't need faith. And if you don't have faith you're not pleasing God, because the Bible says whatever is not of faith is sin (Roman 14:23). God starts to build your faith by giving you a dream. He may be speaking to you now, but you just don't recognize it for what it is. That dream you have—the idea, the concept, that thing you've been thinking about doing that would be of real benefit to other people—where do you think that idea came from? God will never tell you to do something that contradicts His truth. In other words, He won't give you a dream of leaving your family and kids and moving to Hollywood to be a movie star. If you've got that dream, then you can know it is not from God. God starts with a dream as He works within your life to build faith.

Will You Live Like They Compete?

Did you hear the US Men's Gymnastics Team mantra last night:

No Fear, No Regrets!

Wow, sounds like something Jesus might say!

Let's do it!

Day 1 at Summit

Leadership Summit was awesome today! A couple of highlights for you to chew on . . .

Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission said:

"Leadership that matters to God is leadership in endeavors and issues that matter to God."

And . . .

"Just because we are leading and others are following - doesn’t mean that we're leading them in ways that matter to the Father."

So a question to ask ourselves is: Are Jesus and I REALLY interested in the same things??

One more by Haugen . . . As he talked about how following Jesus many times leads us into scary places he said:

"Jesus did not come to make us safe, He came to make us brave."

So, is your faith making you more comfortable . . . or more courageous?

Guts!

I'm so proud of our girls King HS Soccer Team . . . we just finished the first half of district undefeated (6-0)! But so much of what we have done is on pure guts/courage (which has been sparked by great coaching by Jorge Garcia).

We beat all three of the other best teams by one goal --- against Victoria we scored with 20 seconds left to win 1-0. Against our rival Carroll we scored early and then held them off to win 1-0.

And then last night against San Antonio Southwest may have been the best.

A little background - in the Victoria game we lost our playmaker forward for the year with a torn acl. Then last night with 10-minutes left in the game (which was more like a war of attrition) we lost our best defender (Megan Escobar who was the Area Defensive Player of the Year last year) with an ankle injury. Then a couple of minutes later we lost another defensive starter to an injury.

Because of the injuries and her skills, Laura has been moving back and forth between offense and defense. When we lost our main defender, Laura came back from forward to play that position and Sarah (who just came out three weeks ago!) was playing beside her on the strong side.

One of our awesome mid-fielders (Gabby Perales . . . FYI, I'm putting these girls names in here just in case some of you know them and want to give them a high five!) broke through their defense and just willed a goal in with 6 minutes left . . . and then for the last 6 minutes our girls gutted out their assault on our goal (with Sarah and Laura both making some awesome plays!) and we won!

Quite honestly, a couple of those teams probably have more overall talent than us (and even more so after the injuries!) . . . BUT life is all about how faithfully and passionately you use what you've been given! And it's so awesome to watch a group of young ladies who have worked so hard and are coached so well, courageously play with all their hearts!