I love Saturdays because I get to read and today was pretty cool because I had a revelation from a small line I read in a book on my Kindle. It was talking about a vitamin called B2+ found in a certain type of food and if it was good for you or not and it had a side remark about what a true Vitamin is; it must be something that is essential to a healthy life. I don’t know why that short statement struck me but it did. I thought about my walk with God and what would I consider “vitamins” in my relationship with Jesus and what are things that are not essential? I also considered all the “things” I have in life, such as regular TV programs DVR’d and ready to watch, a passion for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team, a love for technology (including my iPhone and Apple products), etc. You know…just stuff. I really want the coming fast that I will be starting with my church tomorrow for 21 days to be a time of evaluating what things in my life are “vitamins”, things that are OK for me but not essential, and things that are not good for me and are just time wasters. I truly believe that we need to be mindful of what we physically put in our bodies that are essential for life but also the things that consume our lives and if they have a “vitamin” quality to them or if they are just things that need to be discarded for the good of the whole emotionally and/or physically. I can say that fasting is one of my LEAST favorite disciplines as a Christian but know that it is something that needs to happen in my life and really in the life of every believer. I believe it is a time of evaluating the “vitamins” (or lack of) in your life and if you are as healthy as you think you are. I want to challenge you to really spend time in 2011 taking deliberate pauses to evaluate your life and see just how healthy or unhealthy you really are. To me, regular evaluation of your life is a “vitamin” in itself and critically essential for living the life that you will be proud of this year.
What I learned from my Free Ski Lesson
I had a great day skiing at Copper Mountain yesterday and thought I would write a little blog about what I learned from a free ski lesson I got from a guy I met on the hill.
I would classify myself as a great non-mogul skier. I am not afraid to go down anything but it just may take me a little longer than some. I can ski anything very well as long as it doesn’t include trees or those little white devils known as moguls. I was trying to ski a Black Diamond at Copper (actually, I was more “surviving the run” and not really skiing it) when I came up behind a guy and struck up a conversation about how great the day was the condition of the snow. He noticed I was doing my “survival routine” and asked if I wanted any pointers.
Lesson number one learned: I had the option to be prideful and tell him “no, I’ve got this” when I knew in my mind and the obvious show of my lack of mogul skiing, that I needed all the pointers I could get. I said, “definitely” and he proceeded to help me for about four hours teaching me some of the fundamentals about skiing bumps as well as jump turning and skiing in the trees. Pride is THE #1 obstacle to growth in life. When we think we have it all figured out or don’t want to admit to being insufficient in something, no matter what it is, we have just put a limit on our learning and stunted our growth in life.
The second thing I learned from my ski lesson was that I could hear the instructions being told but if I didn’t apply what was being said to my actions it was pretty much useless information. The same is true with a follower of Christ and the Bible. I can read the Bible, see and even believe what it says but if I don’t apply what it is telling me I am never going to get “better” with my walk with God. Always remember that our walk with God is organic and is either growing or dying. That is an important element of life that we sometimes forget and really is the foundation of a mediocre walk with God. The third thing I learned was that the more comfortable I got with how I was skiing the more adventurous I was willing to be. The same is true with knowing and following Christ. I have heard people say that they think a life following Christ sounds like a bunch of boring rules. Skiing a groomed run and skiing moguls have some “rules” you need to follow but once you learn them the sky is the limit! When I read in the Bible about what the boundaries are for my life and live by those rules set out for me, my relationship with Jesus takes on a whole new level and I can enjoy listening to God and doing what he says. I feel even after a one day lesson that I want to go back up to the hill to practice what I learned so I can get even better and enjoy myself even more on the hill and skiing even more terrain. A life with Christ can be the same thing. A hunger to know God even more so I can go out in the “terrain” of the world and “tear it up” for Christ!
I know my meeting Howard was not a coincidence and I have a new ski buddy and a foundation to hopefully lead him to Christ someday which is super cool and as an added bonus, I feel more confident than ever about my skiing ability and can enjoy my days off when I hit the slopes which is a great feeling as well!
The Day Brian Morris Grew Up
I was wrestling all day whether or not I should write this blog but I feel like it could encourage someone else in their journey with God so I decided it was necessary.
It was my birthday this past Monday and I was blessed to receive money that I was steadily spending in my mind as the checks came in. I have a craigslist app on my phone that was telling me about all the iPads that were for sale. I started getting a picture and idea of how much I wanted to spend on it. I deposited a couple of checks that I had received but had one come in on Friday and wanted everything to be deposited so I could get my money out as soon as possible which was keeping with normal immature Brian fashion. Yolanda was going to make a deposit for me on Saturday so I could have the check processed right away. I called her Saturday and asked if she had made the deposit but she said she hadn’t. I snapped at her and told her I was unhappy about the fact that she didn’t make the deposit. I stayed kind of upset because Brian needed his iPad in a hurry because it was his post-birthday week and he had cash to spend!!
Last night and today God was speaking to me and I was not in the mood to listen. I was thinking about a need the Orphanage in Nepal had of a solar panel that helps give power to the house they are in when the rolling blackouts happen every single day in Kathmandu. They sometimes have twenty two hours with no electricity which stuck in my head when I was there. When we visited in February I thought it would be so awesome if I could afford to pay for that item, but as always humanly happens, when I got home and back in the “race of life” I had forgot about the need. So fast forward to this weekend. I REALLY felt God pulling on my heart to give my birthday money to the orphans and buy this solar panel. I did what any good Christian would do; I questioned whether it was God and tried to make “deals” with Him. I was like, “let me just get my ipad and give the rest to the orphans.” As I tried to do the deal, I felt an even greater pit in my stomach to give away my money. Immature Brian needed to fill a techno need that only an Apple iPad would fill. The funny thing is that I was not trying to sell anything or try and talk Yolanda into giving me money to get something that was beyond our budget. I had the money. I had the resources to get what I wanted, but I didn’t have a peace in my heart and mind. So tomorrow, I am going to have Yolanda write the check from my birthday money for the solar panel. I stepped back and thought, “I want another gadget to add to my current collection when there are orphans on the other side of the world who don’t even have the ability to turn on a light switch to light a room when the town is having blackouts.”
I am not telling you this to feel sorry for me or for you to think I am bragging about what I’m doing. I just wanted people who know me to know that I feel like today I grew up and made a difficult, adult and obedient decision that will be a blessing to someone else.
It’s funny, but I really feel like my decision started being about money but it really ended up being about obedience and that God set me up to see if I would do what He wanted and give me enough money to bless the orphans in a way I would normally not be able to.
My word to you is that if you have an opportunity to bless someone else and you call Jesus the Lord of your life, then please ask the question whether or not you need to do something. Before today, I could say these things as a pastor telling others what to do, but now I can say these things as a man of God who had to ask that question and actually act on it. 🙂 I am not saying that I have arrived as the man God wants me to be, but I sure feel like today I am a little bit closer to who God needs me to be to touch a hurt and dying world around me.
Im glad when my wife leaves town
Today is my sixteenth wedding anniversary and I was thinking about how much I appreciate my wife and what she means to me. She is on a missions trip with our church right now so we will not be able to celebrate tonight together. Someone asked me how I was doing with my wife being gone for sixteen days and I told them that I love it when she leaves. They looked at me kind of funny and then I explained to them why I felt this way. When my wife leaves out of town, I use that time to reflect on what she means to me and not what she does for me. (although it sure would be nice if my clothes washed themselves and hot cooked meals were on the table every night when she’s gone) 🙂
It is always easy to quantify what someone means to you when they are not around if they do a lot for you but its not so easy to really ask yourself why you are married to the person you are with especially on an anniversary when you are not with your spouse. The statement “why you are married” seems to always be used when you are mad at the other person or evaluating the pain they caused you because of a negative situation. You think of what life would be like without them or the responsibility of having them in your life. I want to challenge you to not look at the statement “why am I married to…” as a negative but to start to see it as a positive. Why am I married to Yolanda? She completes me, she laughs at even my stupid jokes, she thinks of me first but loves God more than me, she knows who she is and what her role is in our family and the most important one, she doesn’t hold grudges when she has a right to sometimes when we argue. I love my wife because she makes me WANT to love her and lead our family in a Godly direction that is considerate of her feelings.
I encourage you to make your own list of “why’s” about your spouse today and not just think of what they do FOR you but who they are TO you. Needless to say, I am having a wonderful Anniversary day without my wife…but I will be glad when she gets home on Tuesday. 🙂
This weekend is not about a Fluffy Rabbit
Well there is no time like the present to get my blog going again. Its Easter weekend and I am struck by the importance of this weekend more than ever in my relationship with Jesus. What an amazing time to reflect on the sacrifice and total power over death with the celebration of Easter. I want to encourage you to really take some time this weekend and seek God for what He has for you. This is not to “give him a list of things you need from him” but to ask Him what he has for you for the rest of 2010. As a pastor I am always inundated with people seeking to get as much as they can from God and give as little as necessary. I have talked about this before but I really believe that when we seek God for what he wants to give us instead of what we can get from him it will change our perspective on life. When Jesus died on a cross, which is the celebration of Good Friday, and came back from the dead on Easter Sunday he gave us everything we need in eternity and in this life. He gave us a reason for getting up in the morning and living a life that can change the world around us. I want to honor the sacrifice he made with living a life that people will want to emulate. None of us are perfect but we have the ability to have the perfection of Christ operating inside of us if we will only ask to be in control of our lives. Have a great Easter weekend and never forget that this weekend is not about a fluffy hopping easter bunny or candy or lunch after a religious time together on Sunday. Its about the sacrifice Christ made for all of us and the example that we need to follow which is to die to self and let Christ shine BRIGHT through us.
Update from Nepal – Day 3
I really think I will be a different person after this trip to Nepal. Its like I have been immersed in a world of sights and sounds that are challenging me and what I have always known. I have only been out of the country 4 times in my life and nothing even close to what I am experiencing here. I know that there are things I am learning about selflessness and thinking about people who are not only less fortunate that I am but who have challenges beyond my comprehension. We drive the streets of Kathmandu and I see row after row of people just standing around with nothing to do. No hope, no drive to make a positive difference in the world around them because of so much spiritual oppression but also possibly a lack of a will to change the situation. At the orphanage, we see such hope in eyes and a desire to move past the lifestyles of the other people around them and a chance to escape the trappings of living in a third world country. I have such a great burden in my heart for these people and know that I must do everything I can to see these orphans and this orphanage be a useful tool to getting kids off of the streets and becoming constructive members of society. I talk with Emmanuel and Hannah (the couple running the orphanage) and realize all the things they have given up to answer the call to come and help these kids from probably dying on the streets. I don’t feel like I have time to feel sorry for them or to beat myself mentally because of the many things I have back in the states. I only have time to provide as much prayer and emotional as well as financial support that I can to make a difference in their lives that will last long after I return home the end of this week. Please continue to pray for wisdom and direction for me and Yolanda as we are here and I am changing my perspective on life from the inside out.
We saw the orphans today
Today we got to see the orphans and it was great. We toured the orphanage today and talked about some of the immediate needs including a solar panel so they will have power during the power outages. The said in a couple of weeks they are going to be without power for up to 20 HOURS a day! Dang we have it easy in the states. Our dollar goes so far here too. $1 is worth 75 rupies here and we are really praying about how to help them. I will be helping people be able to connect to CTN (my father in laws TV ministry) to be able to give and support the work they are doing here. I know that I am getting a better perspective on money and the comforts of living in the USA and Yolanda and I will be increasing the amount we give each month to support the orphanage. Please continue to pray for us on the trip. So much to do and so little amount of time.
Update from Nepal
Well, we made it to Nepal!! It is definitely a different world here. As I type this, I am worried that the power will go out (it has been doing blackouts all morning) 🙂 We had a good time in Hong Kong on our 2 day layover. We had a city tour and then went to Hong Kong Disney for a day. It rained all day, but it was so much fun. We got into Kathmandu last night around 11:30p. It was very interesting driving through the streets with no lines and everyone everywhere. There has been a lot of unstable activity in the past few days but we believe that God is in control and ordering our steps. We are going to meet with the kids from the orphanage in a few hours and I am excited. I cannot explain yet what I am feeling while staying here. I know Yolanda and I are here to encourage and to pray over the country while we are here and to be Jesus’ hands a feet.
More fun news to come!!
Nothing like being Thank-FULL
I want my life to be “full” of “thanks.” Thankfulness is a key factor in moving out of difficult situations in life. Thankfulness says something about your life especially when you are a follower of Christ. The most important thing thankfulness does is admit that God is in control and you are not. You are not saying you enjoy pain, but that you trust God enough to say thanks for the opportunity to learn something about yourself that has the potential to make you a better person. Pain, sickness and generally things that feel harmful in life can be seen as one of two things; OPPOSITION you can fight or OPPORTUNITY you can embrace. Thankfulness focuses your thoughts and attitude on being grateful and is a key ingredient in God seeing that you are ready for a change in life. True thankfulness is not being thankful to try and manipulate the situation to get what you want, it’s taking an inventory and appreciating the things in life that help make you the person you need to be. I want to be a thankful person in all situations so people will want to be around me, listen to me and be changed by how I feel about a relationship with Christ. People who complain and are not thankful in life repel others and make a reputation for themselves that is generally negative and not good. When I was really sick with my eye I didn’t know how to be truly thankful for possibly going blind, losing my job and becoming a huge burden on my wife. I really believe this was because I didn’t know the difference between being thankful FOR pain and being thankful IN pain. Thankful FOR pain is not what God asks from us but he does want us to learn to be thankful IN pain. Keeping our eyes on Jesus and not worried about the circumstances that cause us discomfort. On this thanksgiving day don’t just say you are thankful, but really take an inventory of your life, thank the people who have helped you in life and thank God for the oppositions you have in life that can become your greatest opportunities to become stronger in every way.
Evaluation and Correction in life
If you follow me on facebook, I posted a thought that I know was God inspired; The depth that you are willing to be corrected is the height you will be able to grow. I am coming up on a year since I started feeling better after being sick for about 4 years and I feel it is time to evaluate where I am now compared to when i got sick. It has been interesting to reflect back on being sick now that I feel better. At the time, I could not see anything positive in my sickness and what I was going through but now I know that God allowed those things to happen to me so that I would improve my walk with him. The problem is that as I look back and evaluate what I went through, there are some areas that I feel like I have made great strides and some ways I feel like the pastor hiding behind his title and not being a man of God first. Let me give you a couple of examples. I know that I have learned a new level of empathy for people finding it difficult to follow God because of what I went through. I had always been the “do these 3 things” kind of pastor and would have no patience with people who couldnt find the strength to follow God and do what he says. Then when I got sick, I was in a place of not really even liking God. I thought God was mean, cruel, unjust, hateful and wanted to see me suffer just for the sake of suffering. So when I look back at my poor attitude I know it was for me to have patience when working with people who feel trapped in their circumstances and not able to do those “3 simple things” to make their lives better. On the other hand, I feel like i dont really read my Bible more or spend more time with him than before I got sick. The extent of my prayers when I was sick was just wanting him to change my situation because it hurt and not that I really wanted to spend time with him. I am the busiest I have been in my entire life and i find it hard to really spend quality time with God. I still read my Bible and pray, but it is so hard to have quality time with him because I am so busy. I know this sounds like I am being hard on myself, but I dont want to have to relearn anything that God was trying to teach me with my eye situation.
2 Timothy 3:14 talks about how the Bible is good for “teaching, rebuking and correcting”. That verse can often times hurt because even though teaching doesnt feel too bad, I cant remember a time where rebuking or correcting felt good. Even though those things dont feel good, they are important for our development as a person of effectiveness in this world. If I say I am a lover of Jesus, then I need to be praying and reading my Bible to know His will for my life. If I am not evaluating my life and putting myself in a place of correction by Christ then I can never be as effective as Jesus needs me to be. If you think about it, life is made up of correction. When you drive your car you are always correcting to stay on the road and obey the laws of driving. Get up from your seat and walk across the room. Your body has just made amazing and calculated corrections to stay upright and moving forward. The list could go on, but you get my point. The “walk” with Jesus is no different. If I want to go where he needs me to go then I need to be corrected and be able to follow his lead. I am commiting to do the things I need to do to be the man of God I want to be to the people around me. Not just because I am afraid of getting sick again, but because I know it is the best thing for me and my part in this world.
Holy Crap 