7holycrap Holy Crap, Life Lessons

Godliness STARTS with Kindness

Kindness image
I love it when God shows me something AFTER I am obedient and listen to his promptings in my life. It is like the dessert capping off an amazing meal. They are moments that make me want to not just ASK God to give me an opportunity to step out in faith but to actually follow through with promptings from the Holy Spirit. Sadly, this doesn’t happen as often as it should. Something happened to me last week with an outcome that meant more than what I expected. Let me explain.

I was at a shoe store and by the time I got done looking around, didn’t even realize why I was in there. I knew I was in there looking for shoes, but not sure why I had picked that day to go to that particular store. I had found a pair of shoes that I liked, but decided to put them back. This is SUPER unusual for me, as I love to shop and especially if I find a pair of shoes for the right price.

As I was finishing looking around, I walked by a lady and her son who was probably in his early 20’s. They were walking through the aisles and I had walked by them a few times in the course of walking through the store. As I was passing them I overheard the lady mention to another shopper that it was her son’s birthday the following day. I thought that was nice and continued to walk towards the front door to leave. As I was walking out, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me that I needed to get that kid a gift card and give it to him.

At first I thought it was just me and not something that God was putting on my heart. As I continued to walk out of the store, I got almost sick to my stomach that I knew I needed to be obedient and do as the Holy Spirit directed me. As I was standing in line, the thought came to me that I wanted to do this and not share anything about it (like the blog I am typing right now) or say anything to my wife, which THAT thought turned out being just me and not God.

I purchased the gift card and as I was walking up to the mom and her son, I was thinking of all the amazing things that this interaction could do. Maybe they would start crying or maybe they would say that this was a confirmation of something else that they felt was happening in their lives. The possibilities were endless. I walked up them and said, “I overheard that it was your birthday tomorrow and wanted to bless you with a gift card and say happy birthday.” While the mom grinned ear-to-ear and said thanks, the young man gave me a handshake and said, “Thank you very much!” I told him to enjoy his birthday and to have a great night. The interaction was simple, quick and straight to the point.

Now, as I tell that story some in the “church” community would wonder why I didn’t take advantage of the situation because I was giving him something as a stranger and try and share the plan of salvation that God offered as a free gift as this gift card was being given to him. Nope. None of those things came out of my mouth and I think there was a great reason.

I am going to say something, not as a blanket statement about all followers of Christ, but as many who do not have a fundamental truth operating in their life that needs to be addressed. Godliness starts with KINDNESS. Kindness and being a loving and giving member of this earth is not automatically given to people who have maybe the best intentions for introducing people to Jesus without seeing how they can meet a basic need and just be kind.

I had a conversation with an older lady who is a viewer of our programming on CTN here in Denver and she said that someone came up to her and said something derogatory about her love of animals and it offended her so bad that she never went back to church. This statement broke my heart for her because she based the ENTIRE church congregation on the idiotic statement from a member of her church. Also, this church member forgot the first principle of Godliness: KINDNESS.

I think the reason why God impressed on me to be kind to that mom and her son was so that I WOULD be able to share my experience and have each of us take inventory on how we treat our fellow man. If every person who called Jesus the Lord of their lives, would put kindness first and focus on being a part of people’s journey to find God then I think we could actually make a difference in this world we live in. Never forget that even though heaven is the ultimate goal that we have a RESPONSIBILITY to represent God in everything we do and say and that starts with nothing religious.

7holycrap Life Lessons

The FAA And Your Relationship With Jesus

airplane
I did this blog on my business site earlier today but it was so good that I wanted to share it with my “Holy Crap” family as well! Enjoy!

We have flown a bit over the holiday season and it is still amazing to me that anyone can travel anywhere in the world in hours by getting into a giant metal tube that really should be too heavy to fly anyway. Just to think about how far technology has come and how air travel has improved in the last forty years is really astounding.

The one thing that has really never changed, and probably never will, is the reactionary nature of the airline industry. When there is some kind of airline disaster the first thing the FAA does is create some kind of rule that tries to remedy whatever happened. The incidents of 9/11 created a greater scrutiny of anything sharp or what could be conceived as a weapon. The shoe bomber incident created the smaller quantities of fluids that can be in your carry on. The Samsung phones smoking on a flight last year was the genesis of banning the Samsung Note 7 on flights.

I am not saying that any of these rules are bad in and of themselves because the airline industry is just trying to make sure that air travel is safe for everyone, but when safety is thought of as a RESULT of negative actions then it becomes a reactionary response only.

In our relationship with Jesus, we can fall into some of the same traps. We can think of our actions with Jesus only in terms of the negative things that are happening in our lives. Maybe we don’t spend time reading our Bible and learning about his love until we are feeling a lack of love in some way in our lives. We get into some kind of financial trouble and then decide it is a good time to give to God and see if we can get some kind of financial blessing when we are not a consistent giver in the first place. This can become a terrible pattern of only doing things for/with God when we need something or trouble hits our lives.

Today, don’t wait for pain or discouragement to hit your life before you decide to spend time with Jesus. When we make the investment in our relationship with him preemptively, we set the stage for success in life not based on circumstances but in knowing that no matter what happens, our lives are in God’s hands. The things we do to help get through difficult times end up being birthed from our foundation in Christ and not on our surrounding circumstances.