Well, we have had a great time in Nepal and its time to come home! We went around town for a final day of personal shopping finding shoes for the kids for school and buying one more game that is a large board that is played like pool but with small plastic disks. I really feel a connection with the kids here now more than ever. I definitely believe more than ever that us being here consistently will help with making a connection with the kids. We were able to pray over them and then all the guys gave me a big group hug which was awesome. Yolanda tried to hug the girls but they are so painfully shy that only a few wanted to hug her. It feels so good to know that you are making a difference in the lives of children on the other side of the world. I am already exicted to come back in May!! Denver, we will see you in about 31 hours 🙂
Nepal update Day 3
Today was another great day with the kids. Its like I can’t spend enough time with them! Today we went to a field of cows, goats, lots of dirt and hardly any grass which to these kids is a palatial plot of land to play soccer and other field games. I tried to play goalie but was not good at all. My team lost and I owed the winning team 5 bottles of coke which to these kids was like winning the World Cup itself! The more time I spend with them the more comfortable I can sense they are with me. Mina, the little girl I just adore here, held my hand all the way back from playing games. She was repeating everything I said and was laughing and talking with me which was much different than last time. When she smiles my heart just melts. All of them are really good kids and I can see future potential in each one of them. Emmanuel and Hannah, the orphanage managers, do such a great job with them and we can see greatness in their lives.
I was thinking about the greatness that God sees in us if we would give him control of our lives and let him adopt us into his family. When we commit our lives to Jesus we make changes in our lives and choose to live with him and have him take care of us. As we walked back from the field where we were playing games the level of despair and the condition of the city is so apparent and just breaks my heart. I think of each one of our kids and the life they would be leading if they were not in the orphanage. Then I consider the ways my life would be different if I was not under Gods covering and care. Just another reminder here in Kathmandu of what God means to me and what the orphanage and care we can give these kids means to them. God has been so good to the children’s home and we know that the greatest days are yet to come!! See you tomorrow with another Nepal update! Have a great day
Nepal Update day 2
Our second full day in Nepal was all about spending the money we brought on games and food supplies for the picnic we are doing tomorrow. We were so blessed to have people give us supplies as well as money before we left to be able to buy some things for the kids. They are so rough on everything! We bought them a soccer ball in February when we were here and it had all of the leather disks off of it! This is why we are always open to people donating things including money so we can help improve their level of daily living. With them being out of school right now they don’t have bikes or a city park to go play in. They have to stay inside the compound pretty much everyday which can get monotonous.
Also, we apparently had 2 earthquakes last night while we were asleep! Yolanda and I slept right through them but our waiter this am said he felt them last night. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing that we didn’t feel them. 🙂
So for today, I wanted to share something I read in my devotional when we first got here and I have been thinking about it ever since. The city just finished a Hindu holy week and I was listening to our orphanage manager tell us about how confusing it is to be Hindu and the rules that are a part of that religion. Then I read in my Watchman Nee book an interesting concept; God gave man the law in the Bible as an order to live by, but did it with the full knowledge that we would break it! If the law was able to be kept in our own power (or now days, that we would be able to follow Christ if we could just “do the right things”) then we wouldn’t need Christ. This just blew my mind! My success as a Christian doesn’t come from just doing the things that make me a Christian. It comes from me totally surrendering my life to Christ and asking Him what to do next. It is simple from the standpoint of surrender to God but difficult in calming my mind to think like Christ and have my actions be an overflow or reflection of the change that has happened in my heart. So today, think of what motivates your actions? I want Christ to be the light in my life and for my life to be the mirror that reflects his love and power to lost, dark and hurt world. See you tomorrow!!
Going Through Pain is not enough to bring Glory to God
I have had two people I know who were followers of Christ in the past few weeks go home to heaven. I was considering their lives and the immense testimonies they each were to the people around them in the face of imminent death. I was thinking about how everyone, at some point in their life, will go through pain. It really isn’t a question of “if” as much as it is a question of “when” because we live in a world where things don’t seem fair at times. When I went through my eye challenges a couple of years ago I thought that because I went through the “pains of life” that I brought glory to God just for going through them but I don’t think that is true now that I look back. I can remember sitting at home when I was out of work and instead of asking God for strength and to use my situation for HIS good I was wondering what it would be like to go blind and considering all the life adjustments I was going to have to make. (I would actually take showers with my eyes closed to see if I could function without being able to see. That’s how far I had come from faith in God taking care of me. Not good) I had a perfect opportunity to give God glory and instead I complained about the condition of my flesh.
Think about it; if everyone goes through hard times and you are just another person who made it through, how is that a reflection of God’s glory in your life? Maybe you just got lucky and barely survived like everyone else. The only thing that would set you apart is that your attitude lined up with God’s word and example of focusing on His greatness and not your life’s goofiness. There were definitely times where I was giving the example of a selfish person who was only thinking of myself and how the pain I was dealing with was affecting me and not thinking of my wife, my parents, my sister and the other people around me who love me and didn’t want to see me sick.
Appreciating pain leads to being thankful for pain. In other words; if I can appreciate, or value, what God is allowing to happen to me I may not be pleased about it but I can learn to be thankful for it. The degree that I appreciate pain is the degree that God can use pain for my good and not for destruction. The key comes from developing that trust relationship with God so that when pain comes I don’t see it as punishment but an opportunity to let Him shine through me and through the circumstances of life. Pain in life where we don’t see the healing we are expecting are perfect situations for people to watch our lives and see how we deal with pain and be encouraged by it.
So here is the reason for the blog post today: if you are going through pain now in life congratulations! You have the perfect opportunity to give God glory that you could never give him if everything was going well. If you are not going through something in life right now, you have the chance to develop your relationship and trust in Christ to a point that when your day of testing comes you will have a chance to lead others to Christ by a Godly attitude in middle of your storm. This stuff is never easy, but that’s why, as a man of God, I want to learn how to deal with pain so that even in the bad times I can give God glory in my life.
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.
Free will versus The Devil Made Me Do It
I was thinking and meditating today on what causes people to make bad decisions in life so I thought I would share some of my thoughts. In the church, we often say that “satan stole” a persons vision, direction, ministry, etc. but I don’t really believe that satan steals as much as we give. It’s funny how much we see the power of free will until we mess up and say “the devil MADE me do it.” We have choices throughout life. Opportunities to make good decisions or make bad ones and if you think about it, if you made a string of good decisions today they don’t automatically translate into good decisions tomorrow. Since im a pastor i know i must be especially mindful of my actions good or bad and the desire for the devil to trip me up personally and professionally. I was talking with our Senior Pastor and we are both in agreement that there are really only four things that cause someone to get tripped up in ministry: the Gold, the Glory, the Girls or the Guys. I am not above any of the Indiscretions that men and women of God sometimes get caught in and I have an accountability group around me to help keep me honest and focused in life. I think it’s sad how many times communities as well as the entire world has watched while pastors and evangelists have made extemely poor decisons based on their desire for money, fame or an illicit relationship not considering the consequences of those actions.
The Bible says it all in 1 Peter 5:8-9:
8 Be self- controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
Notice that it starts with “Be self-controlled and alert” so it starts with
preparing your mind and heart each day for the attacks of the enemy. The verses end with the fact that there are people everywhere dealing with the same temptations which says to me it’s important for men and women to have accountability in there lives because we all deal with the temptation to do wrong. If it was just the power of the devil to devour it may say something like… “be alert! The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
One last thought for today; there is one word in those scriptures that I find awesome and it’s the word “like” when it reffers to the devil and being “like” a lion. There is only one Lion of Judah and that’s Jesus and His power is in operation in you if you have a relationship with him. Don’t let the king of fakers, the devil, fool you into giving away something that your free will has the power of keeping with the help of God. And pastors, none of us are above falling and making mistakes so we need to stay humble, alert and not judge when we see other ministers fall and make poor decisions. Let’s all ask God to have our free will line up with His will and stay alert for the days ahead.
Some things I learned from my current Techno Time-Out
I have been on a 30 day fast of my iphone, music and PS3. People have asked me why take away these three things and you are still on Twitter, Facebook, read your Kindle etc. I felt that these were the three biggest distractions from me listening to God. I had one of those “if you want something to change in your life then do something different” moments so I decided to do something drastic for me.
I think the hardest thing for me to be without has been my music. I love listening to all kinds of music and at all volumes (although, loud in my truck is my favorite) Music, I have learned, also gets my mind focused when I am doing graphics on my Mac. It wasn’t until I was without my music these past weeks that I realized this fact. l also recognized how much time I was spending on my phone. I have 7 pages of apps and lots of games and distractions but need to curtail these things to a reasonable level and not always have to be checking my Facebook, Twitter or the condition of my Zombie Farm!
This blog was actually motivated out of a breakthrough I felt I had in my fast this morning. I was praying and reading my Bible and God told me that the reason why I, Brian, need “techno time-outs” is that I can get so wrapped up in what I am doing with the gadgets in my life that I forget to just simply sit back and listen to what the Holy Spirit is telling me. I am not saying that any of the gadgets I have are evil in themselves, but I do think they have the potential to steal my time and mess up the priority of Christ in my life. I also had God share with me that it was important for my future that I learn to listen to God in the midst of life. I am a pastor so I am bombarded with the issues of people almost on a daily basis but this was much deeper and broader than just ministry. I am not sure completely what it means but I got the message loud and clear. I preached in DC last week that if I was only known as a funny guy, the iphone/Tech geek, etc. and people didn’t know that Christ was number one to me, then I failed. I don’t want to fail in this life so I will do what I need to do to make sure I am tuned in to the best of my abilities to the Holy Spirit and what he says to me
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.
I am not a Christian anymore…
I am not a Christian anymore. Maybe that sounds odd for a pastor to say something like this, but I had a type of epiphany this morning in my prayer time. I was reviewing and thinking about the meaning of the word “Christian” to people who dont know Christ as their best friend and savior. I am tired of R&B artists dropping F bombs and talking about inappropriate things in their music and then thanking God when they accept some award for a song or video they did. I am tired of celebrities saying they are Christians on national television or wearing Christian t shirts and cursing and not living a witnessing life around others. I am not saying that being a follower of Christ is being perfect, but it is following ONLY Christ and recognizing the sacrifices Jesus has made for my sins. I really dont want people around me who are not Christians to look at me and see perfection because that is not what Christianity is about. It is about loving all people with the love of Christ, constantly becoming more patient when I drive, or talking to God so much that I dont react to a situation but I step back, think about what I am doing and make sure it lines up with the Word of God and considering what Jesus would do in that situation. I want to be known as a follower of Christ. Not a man of perfection, but a human who follows a God that I know has my best interests in mind no matter what I go through. That he is ordering my steps even though, at times, it feels like I am not able to take those steps. I dont want people around me who are pre-believers to think that I take into account confucious’ positive sayings, or motivational speakers/life coaches helpful words for living a more successful life. Being a follower of Christ is treating my wife with respect and love, being patient/loving with people around me and honoring those in authority over me as much as it is praying nice prayers and reading the Word of God on a daily basis. God make me a complete person in the Fruits of the Spirit as much as the Gifts of the Spirit that I have in my life.
Techno fasting
I am typing this blog post from my new iPhone I just got about a week ago. I am tell you this, not just for you to think I’m cool, but to illustrate a point. At this point in my life, I don’t even have to go get my computer to type my thoughts to the world. Now for me, a lover of technology, this can be a great thing and it can be a terrible thing as well. Great because it is fun and something new to play with and learn. Terrible because it can cause me to spend more time being technological and less time being a Christian. I am not saying that I feel we need to do away with technology, but that it can be an amazing tool used in moderation. I can tell you that I spend more time playing with techno things than I do with praying and spending time in the bible. I think this is where I am feeling so strong about a techno fast each week to keep the tools I use to connect and communicate in perspective. I am not sure what day I want to do this fast, but it will start this week. I never want my hunger and thirst for technology to become stronger than my hunger and thirst for God and his presence in my life.
Holy Crap 