It is true that I am back from vacation, but I ran out of “week” before I could get Jason’s post in.  So I asked him if he would help me out in my transition of returning from vacation and getting “my head back in the game” by writing a post about where he and his family are right now.  Jason lives in Juneau, Alaska for now but will soon be making a transition to Oklahoma.  Talk about night and day!!  Anyway…here’s Jason:

I appreciate Bill and his heart and wisdom. We may have never met in person, but he has demonstrated true friendship.  When Bill asked me if I wanted to write something, I said yes but then got stuck on what to write.   “Write what you know,” they say.

This is where I am.

I’ve heard it said before, “God never shuts a door without opening another, but that hallway is hell.” I certainly seem to be living in the hallway right now.

Not hell as in eternal damnation, of course, just hell in the sense of feeling overwhelmed, finding my place, and trying to get way too many things done at the same time.

God has initiated a cross-country move for me and my family. We’ll drive from Alaska to Oklahoma and in a lot of ways start over (more info here and here). Right now we’re packing up while still leading a church family.

That’s challenging, but soon we’ll face new challenges. New jobs, new school for the kids, new house, new culture in some ways. Really, the transition is just heating up.
We’re leaving the church congregation we helped relaunch just over four years ago and though we tried to plan and get everything settled, we are still without a permanent leader to replace us and they’ll be moving locations for a while.

Transition.

Once Jesus was questioned about why He did things so differently than the Pharisees or even John the Baptist. I have to admit I have been asking Jesus similar questions. Why can’t it just go on this way? Why does it have to change like this?

“Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” –Matthew 9:17
Sometimes Jesus just wants to do something new. Despite all our planning and attempted manipulation (insert your own less harsh word if you like), He wants new wine so He looks for people ready to get uncomfortable and go through the process.

Old wineskins already went through the process and don’t have the elasticity they need. God won’t pour new into those because He has no intention of destroying anyone. Wineskins obviously don’t have feelings as they stretch and pull, but you certainly do. It’s hard to embrace.

Maybe you’re in transition. Maybe it’s really uncomfortable and feels like hell. I’m not saying all that goes away by recognizing what God’s up to, but at least there’s hope.

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” –Revelation 21:5
Maybe, just maybe, you can join me in rejoicing in your transition.

What do you think? Are you experiencing the “new” and the uncomfortable that goes with it? What have you learned about transition?

Jason Stasyszen

EndlessImpact.com

(On Twitter)

I’m back from vacation (came back the 9th), but I had anticipated a little catching up to do.  So I scheduled a post  here to save me from having to get right back into blogging.  I also have scheduled a guest post for you as a carry-over from last week’s special guests. Kari is one of the newest blogs I found (thanks to Melanie Wilson).  She highlighted one of Kari’s posts; I followed the link; and have been following every since.  Kari’s information is at the end of her post.  Here’s Kari:

If all the people in the world were lined up according to material wealth, most Americans (probably everyone reading this blog), would be in the top 10%. (See where you rank!)

Almost 80% of Earth’s population lives on less than $10 a day while almost half the world – over 3 billion people – live on less than $2.50 a day.

When I consider how many people live in poverty and how easily I spend $2.50 or $10 without thinking, I realize the impact of material abundance on my life.

Along with my own habits, my culture seems to scream self-attained abundance too. We should have what we want, when we want it. Many times, I have found myself filling desires I didn’t know I had until I saw them on television or at the store.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-12 describes the impact of material abundance well.

“He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them; so what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep.”

Sleep decreases as we worry about maintaining or increasing abundance. Focus on what matters decreases as we live with too much to do and not enough time to do it. Dissatisfaction increases with love of material abundance.

Matthew 6 provides a proper view of abundance, telling us not to worry about what we’ll eat, drink or wear (v 31), and to instead first seek God and His righteousness (v 33). Between those verses we discover why: God already knows what we need (even if we don’t). Focusing on Him means we not only receive what we need, but we also find truly satisfying abundance as well.

So what does abundance from God – abundance that truly satisfies – look like?

• Thanksgiving flowing from grace (Romans 5:17-20; 2 Corinthians 4:15)
• Generosity out of joy (2 Corinthians 8:2)
• Rejoicing (Philippians 1:25, 26)
• Intense desire to show love for God (2 Peter 1:10, 11)
• Freedom without fear (Leviticus 26:3-13)

God wants us to live in abundance, but it’s not the abundance described in magazines and commercials. In fact, so much of what we think of when we describe abundance involves that which God tells us not to concern ourselves with at all.

Our own efforts to create abundance only result in worry, lack of sleep, and insatiable desires, leaving us loving that which leads to destruction (Psalm 52:7). Abundance from God not only meets our needs and makes us better, it “abundantly exceeds” anything we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

DISCUSSION: How do God’s intentions for abundance affect you?

Kari Scare is a freelance writer from Michigan. Her passions include reading books, magazines and blogs, pursuing a healthy lifestyle through exercise and diet, spending time with her two boys and her husband, and of course, writing. While these passions play a large part in defining who she is, they are guided and directed by her faith in Christ. Everything she does revolves around His will for her life. 

Kari blogs at Struggle to Victory, and her focus lies with showing that victory of any size or significance requires some amount of struggle. By being deliberate, intentional and curious, by pursuing simplicity and balance, and by striving to age gracefully, struggle will lead to victory.

I am on vacation this week. See here. My guest today is Dr. Melanie Wilson (but I don’t know if she likes having that “doctor” part publicized.  Melanie is one of my newer blogs I read.  We have been following each other for about two months.   She actually has two blogs.  You can read about Melanie and her blogs at the end of this post.  Here’s Melanie:

I’ve been a member of the same church for more than twenty years. I’ve been a rush-out-the-door-after-church pew sitter, a staff member, and everything in-between.

I have to be honest and admit that there have been many, many times when I haven’t been happy with my church. In fact, I’ve shed many tears of frustration and disappointment.

At these times of disillusionment, I’ve shared my feelings with Christian friends. The advice given by many of them has been to attend church where I can be fed. In other words, I should go to a church where I can hear the Word preached in a way that helps me grow spiritually.

That sounded so good to me! I wanted to learn the things of God and be inspired the way I was when I read great Christian books and heard sermons on the radio. Why should I be starving for spiritual food in my own church? I had the go-ahead to look for a new church home, didn’t I?

There was a problem with this philosophy other than my husband’s reluctance to change churches and my love for so many of the people I worshiped with: it wasn’t biblical.

Never had Jesus told His disciples to go where they could be fed. In fact, God Himself is named the source of our spiritual food (Deuteronomy 8:3). I didn’t need to go to church to feed on the Word. I could and did do that at home and everywhere I went, courtesy of mobile devices that delivered challenging teaching.

But the truth about God being the source of spiritual nourishment isn’t what bothered me most about my well-meaning friends’ advice. It was what Jesus told Peter: “Feed my sheep.” Not “Go and be fed,” but “feed others.”

If I were a brand-new Christian, I would need spiritual nourishment for sure. But I’m not. I’m a woman God has blessed with a great banquet of spiritual food over the years. I’ve been fed. My calling is to feed the sheep.

And so now I ask the Lord how best to provide spiritual nourishment to His people and I am at peace. There are no more tears of frustration, only gratitude that I am allowed to participate in the Lord’s banquet.

How about you? Do you feel it’s important to find a church where you can be fed? Or are you blessed to be feeding the sheep?

Dr. Melanie Wilson is a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. She shares quick-to-read encouragement at The Inspired Day and sanity-saving ideas for Christians and homeschoolers at Psychowith6.

I am n vacation this week.  See here.  My guest today is Larry “the Deuce.”  He blogs at Deucology. Larry, like Floyd, works in the construction industry and I relish his “take” on things.  Here’s Larry:

It’s an honor to stand in for my good blogging friend, Bill, today.  I hope that I can live up to his lofty standards.

Last week I wrote a post over on my blog where I described the fact that I had developed a type of “laryngitis”.  This laryngitis was one where I had lost my blogging voice.  I could still, and did still, croak out my own required posting schedule each weak, but I could barely speak.  I had lost my mojo.

Somewhere, even after that post, I realized what two things were missing from my blog over the past few months.

Passion and Purpose.

I had lost both of these things in what I had been writing of late.

Your reaction?  It might be, so what?  The thing is that it might have happened to you.  Not necessarily in a blog.  You may not be a blogger.  That doesn’t mean you haven’t developed laryngitis in your life.  You may have lost both your passion and your purpose.

You may have lost your passion and purpose in any area of your life.  Your job?  Happens all the time.

Your marriage?  Unfortunately, much too often.

Your relationship with the Lord?  More often than you think, they disappear.

Somewhere along the way, it has probably happened to you.

The question is can you get it back?  Absolutely.

Don’t ask me how.  That isn’t the purpose of this post.  I only want you to keep trying.

If your job is a little fuzzy, keep going in.  Keep a good attitude.

Your marriage isn’t going the way you hoped it would?  Keep loving your spouse, even when you don’t want to.

Your relationship with the Lord has gone dark and you feel like your prayers are hitting the ceiling?  Keep praying and keep pursuing.

You’ve lost your voice in your blog?  Keep writing.  And writing.  And writing.  Until you get your mojo back.

Whatever it is that you used to be passionate and purposeful about, keep going after it.  Keep going until you regain that passion and purpose.

Like Jim Valvano once said, “Don’t give up.  Don’t ever give up.”

Have you ever lost your purpose and passion?  Did you get it back?  What did you do?