Life happens doesn’t it? Last week I was in Ghana and all excited about writing this blog. I posted 4 the first week even with all the Internet challenges. It was great processing my thoughts and chronicling the journey of the week in Ghana. I hope you enjoy reading it. This week is a little different. I have to figure out how to integrate this new discipline I have chosen into the regular full routine I already am committed to doing. Anyway, I know this is something I want to do. I have been reading through the scriptures annually now for three years and now I think the Spirit is leading me to chronicle the thoughts I have from my daily readings. Imagine that, sharing thoughts he may be giving me. What a concept. What is happening though is that my head and my notebooks and my bible margins are filling with notes but I seem to be “bogging” down when it comes to developing and posting some of those things. Someone told me today they have been checking everyday this week but there is nothing new. Sorry. Maybe I need another sabbatical; only for a year this time. I could write everyday. Actually I know that wouldn’t work for me because I don’t work well in a vacuum. It is more about writing from the context of experience than it is just writing for writing sake.

Oh well I can dream can’t I? Anyway I will keep blogging away and be as faithful as I can. I like that….sharing thoughts from God.

What a thought…..

“Run the numbers.” That is what Jesus said to a couple of his followers when he wanted to feed a few, 5,000 – 10,000, of his closest friends. He invited them to gaze out across the hill where he was teaching to get a good estimate of the crowd who had been following him and then he asked. “How much will it take to feed all of these people?”  His assistants went to work; they pulled out their “rockwell” calculators and started figuring. This was their big opportunity; Jesus was asking them for stats and they wouldn’t disappoint him.After a few head scratching moments they finally announced, “It would take more than eight months wages to buy enough food for everyone.” They were so proud of their answer; that is until they realized they didn’t have that much money among them to buy what it would take to feed everyone. Suddenly they realized they had really only identified the problem and not the solution. “It’s okay.” Jesus probably told them, “I just wanted to make sure you knew that it is impossible to do this with present resources.” In fact the story says in John 6:6, “Jesus asked this only to test him, for he already knew what he was going to do.” Sometimes the solution is hidden in the problem. Anyway, Jesus had a plan. He always does. Not only did he have a plan, but he had a plant. Not a vegetation type plant but a person type plant. Kind of like some of those faith healers that travel the circuit. I am not implying all of them by any means. I don’t want to bash faith healing here; I have been miraculously healed on several occasions. I not only believe in it, I depend on it. Really, this whole story is about miracles so I am not knocking the miraculous. But there are those in the religious community who seek to capitalize on the innocence and faith of some by claiming to be faith healers and miracle workers. They hold meetings in which people with various kinds of illnesses are suddenly and miraculously healed. Often, though, it turns out that the ones being “healed” are plants who are in cahoots with the “healer”. They stage their healing to boost the credibility of the healer who then ties his healing gift to some monetary scheme. Oh well I digress. Jesus had a plant. This was no scheme to scam the people and probably the plant didn’t even know about his part in all of it. He was just a boy who had brought his lunch with him when he went to listen to Jesus with his family. This is a kid after my own heart. I never leave the house without some kind of snack. Gives me something to do while I am driving. So, Andrew brings this kid with his lunch to Jesus, right on cue, and announces his contribution to the problem with the caveat, “What is so little in the face of such need.” Are you getting the picture here of a group of guys who are fixated on the problem instead of the problem solver. They are more focused on the lack rather than on the supply.  They are on the verge of panic rather than abiding in peace. I love what Jesus says next. “Have the people sit down.” Ie. there is no need to go foraging for food. We have the answer right here. The next verse describes the attitude and demeanor of God and His word. Almost nonchalantly, it says, “Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.” NO biggie! What’s the worry? I can see Jesus’ friends high fiving and saying, “I knew he was going to do that.” Right! Now there is “enough” for everyone. Where before there were more people than enough supplies, now there is enough supply for all the people. How did that happen? Easy really. Watch.Verse 11 says, “Jesus took what was given…..gave thanks…and distributed as much as….”  Here is the application for experiencing “enough.”

Enough is really more of an attitude than a commodity. It is the attitude of God. When does God not have enough? It is the attitude of abundance. I hope you catch it.

1) Accept, realize what resources God has given you whether they are few or much. God could have had a bread truck pull up. He could have rained bread down from heaven. No…that would have been too easy. He had already used that one before. Instead he used a boy’s lunch. It’s his choice.

2) Give thanks for it. Be grateful for it. It is better to be thankful for a little than ungrateful for much. God can do more with small resources and great gratitude than he can with great resources and ingratitude.

3) Give it away. Share it with those God brings into your life. Recognize that there are people who need what you have more than you need to keep what you have. Exercise your need to give rather than your desire to accumulate. Andrew or Jesus could have said, “Hey look how God has provided for ME.” But they thought in terms of others. 

So, go ahead and run the numbers. Become convinced that there are not enough resources in your life to do what God wants to do. Add up everything you have and compare it to what you want and it will always fall short in human terms. It will never be enough without God. I hear this and see this almost weekly when I invite people to think about going on a Global Outreach team. Almost always those who run the numbers without God give me the same predictable answer. “I don’t have enough……..(insert here)” time and or money or courage or whatever they perceive to be their lack. If I had a dollar for every time I heard a reply like that I would….well I would have a lot more dollars.  Hey, without God, with out faith, who does have enough? Our lives are an endless thirsting, hungering, wanting without God in the equation.So go ahead identify the problems and the impossibilities. Make sure you know how much you lack. It’s okay. Jesus has a plan. He already knows what he is going to do.Are you ready to receive it? Sit down and start trusting. There is enough and enough to share.

Just a thought. I need a snack.

 

Yesterday I spent the day with a Chief. It wasn’t planned or expected. It just happened. I love those kinds of days. I have found that God most often reveals himself to me in those unplanned, unexpected moments and days and events. In fact as I am writing this I am traveling along a highway in Ghana in a vehicle known as a “Tro Tro which is probably short (or long) for trolley. It is a rented van similar to Volkswagen, which is definitely long for VW. Anyway it was completely unexpected. Our normal van broke down which is ironic because yesterday when we traveled to the place where we were going to do a free medical clinic we traveled in two vans. One of those vans was having some slight mechanical problems. Since part of the team was going back to our base yesterday after the clinic I sent them in the van that was having the mechanical problems. I wasn’t being unkind it is just that we needed the more reliable van today because we have to get back and prepare for our flight home. That is why our van broke down. There is an unwritten rule that says when you really need to get to the airport on time with a team your van will break down. I should have known this and taken the other van even though it was the one having problems. That way at least the van with problems would have broken down. Now we have two vans with problems. The van breaking down turned out to be an unexpected joy really. Not only did we get to play with some beautiful Ghanaian kids along the road  and drink some coconut water from their mothers stand but the Tro Tro we are riding in has windows that actually roll down unlike the van that broke down. This is important when the air conditioning doesn’t work which is typical of all the vans we have ever had in Ghana where the temperature is normally about 95.

As I said, we took a team in two vans to the islands of Ada. It is the area of Ghana where the Volta River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. It is National Geographic beautiful. We go there every year with a medical team to do “free clinics” as a part of the holistic ministry approach of Manna Mission. As soon as we got to the island and began setting up for the clinic, a man in a very colorful “dress” came in and sat down in front of me and proudly announced that he was the Chief of the island. That was definitely an unexpected surprise. My spiritual radar went on.  Now, I am learning that there is a custom on the island called “pouring libations” It is a ritual that involves saying incantations while pouring sugar cane alcohol, which is made on the island, into a dish. They do it to summon the spirits of their ancestors so they can inquire of them concerning important decisions. Of course, after the incantations everyone ingests the alcohol which, in my opinion, is why they seek a lot of advice from their ancestors. This ritual is performed by the chief or some kind of priest and as you can imagine it causes a lot of problems in all the churches on the islands. As soon as the Chief announced himself, one of the Ghanaian young men with our team start prompting me to immediately talk to him about the evils of incantations and libations. I am not a confrontational person so I politely agreed with the young man and proceeded to get to know the Chief. We talked about our families and our homes. We shared a Coke. We talked about some of his beliefs and mine. We talked for almost two hours. I learned that he is a member of a multigenerational royal family and leads about 600 people in his tribe. Then he asked me if I would like to see his land. He told me that if he were to show me all of it I would be very tired. Did I mention that we had to walk? So for the next two hours we walked and he told me of his dreams for his people. The school needed desks, they needed a tractor to help with farming; they needed a new cistern for clean water. I listened knowing God was letting me into the Chief’s life. Then we went to his house and I had the ultimate privilege of writing my phone number on his wall in chalk. Maybe he will call me someday. We went back to the clinic where he was seen by one of the doctors and he received the medicine he needed. I prayed for him which is part of the entire clinic process. It was time to go but I could sense he wanted to ask me something else. He asked me to walk back to his house with him, so I did. At his house he began to tell me about the ritual of “pouring libations” and how he was expected to perform it for his people. He said he wanted to lead his people in a way that would please God and that he was troubled by this ritual. He asked me what I thought he should do. I am not sure I can adequately describe the impact of that moment. Here was a member of a multigenerational royal family asking me what he should do about a generations’ old religious ritual on which their culture and to some degree their livelihood was founded.

I am not going to write the answer I gave him because I don’t want to be sidetracked by whether someone might think it was right or wrong. What is more important to me is that for some reason I had been invited into this man’s life and home. God gave me favor with him and allowed me the opportunity to speak into his life something that could transform his tribe.  I watched this man’s heart be transformed as I listened to him, walked with him and served him. This brings me to today’s reading. In John 2 there was a wedding feast where unexpectedly, surprisingly the host ran out of wine. Wow, what an opportunity, not to confront the people who obviously underestimated the wine inventory, but for God to reveal himself. All he needed were some obedient servers. As the servers obeyed and filled the water jars to the brim with water and then took some out and carried it to the master or host of the feast, not knowing by the way what would happen, they saw something no one else saw. They watched as somewhere between their hands and lips of the host the water became wine. I love the phrase in this story that says,

“….the servants knew.”

There are many wonderful thoughts that come to my mind from this story but I will leave with this one.

What ever we obediently serve determines what (or who in this case) we know.

Just a thought

  

Hey all,

I am going to post several today. I wrote and tried to post these from Ghana last week but you know how the internet is over there…or maybe you don’t. Well maybe you should go with sometime and find out. It was a great week, so I tried to capture some of the thoughts from the week and from the readings in these next posts

 

 

 

Ghanafrica. That is one of the phrases of the week. Becky and Steve, our hosts, took bets on how long it would take Cameron, our youngest, team member, to say, “Dude we’re in Africa!” “Not only Africa but Ghana, Africa.” We reminded him. Hence the phrase “Ghanafrica” It is interesting how little phrases get stuck in our minds and adopted as the mindless repetition of the week or sometimes our life. It really has become the fun mantra of our group this week. That is cool too, that our team has our “phrase” for our week in Ghanafrica. I am sure if you meet any of them or see any of them talking and reliving the experiences of the week you will hear the phrase come up in the conversation. It will be one of those pleasant timeless reminders of a once in a lifetime experience (did I mention that most of them were first timers and all were in Ghana for the first time) that transformed a group of perfect strangers into a well oiled, finely tuned …….. well let’s just say we were functional and everyone got along most of the time. But where once we were strangers to each other and to the Ghanaian people, now our worlds, our minds, our experiences, our lifestyles have been expanded and enriched by our spending time together in Ghanafrica.

Another phrase that I heard this week that has stuck with me but not so much the group came up in our inaugural conversation with Dr. Seth Ablorh, the founder of Manna Mission. He was welcoming us to the compound where we stay and I asked him to tell the story of how he came to start Manna Mission and some of the reasons he does what he does here. He told us about a very bright, but at risk young female student who couldn’t afford to be in the school. He recognized her potential and made arrangements for her to finish school at Manna Mission and go on to university. He said, “I didn’t want her to lose her future, so I helped her.” She is now in the medical program at Harvard University. I have to ask the question here, “How many futures will she save?” I am going to resist the urge to get preachy here because this blog is about thoughts. I hope someone will think about what I just wrote. One man saved one girls future who will in turn save other people’s futures who will in turn save others. Jesus had a phrase for this whole synergistic cycle. He called it “Fruit that will last.” He said, “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” That’s why we go. And that is why we continue to be committed long term…to stay if you will, in places all over the planet. Sorry, I am getting preachy. Anyway, I have been thinking about that phrase all week and wondering how many other futures are hanging in the balance here. So I  asked Becky to see if she could find out how many at risk students are enrolled in the school and get their profile and find out how much it would cost monthly to help them have the resources to finish school and have the opportunity to live out the future God has for them. She let me know today that there are 23 students here who need assistance so they can discover their future. I’ll write more about this later, right now I am going to go ask Steve and Becky who won that bet and ask if they would like to use the money to sponsor the first future world changer.

Just a thought

doug

Face to Face

Some people are really good at this techno communication thing. Their emails are like books, they send and receive emails and can text messages rapidly from their cell phones while they are engaged in a multi-party conference call. I am always amazed at new technology and how quickly some people catch on to using it. Honestly, I am still trying to figure out how to create a signature for my email messages. Speaking of email messages: large, involved, detailed ones scare me. I don’t mind reading them, especially if I can tell the sender invested heart and soul in creating it. The reason they scare me is because sometime after reading them I feel like need to send a large, thoughtful, detailed heart and soul response. That is a problem for several reasons.

1. My typing skills stink.

2. My attention span for large, involved, detailed, heart and soul responses is not very long and I usually end up going to the simple yes-no response emails.

3. Most importantly…I really like to look at someone; be present with them when I communicate.

I need or at least want to see their face. Don’t get me wrong I am a strong advocate of the written word but the best communication happens face to face for me.

I think that is what John had in mind when he wrote to his dear friend in one of churches he served. In 2 John he wrote, “I have much to write to you but I don’t want to do it with paper and ink (or email or text messaging). Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you ‘face to face’, so that our joy may be complete.” This is amazing to me because even though John would prove to be a substantive writer there were times when he wanted to communicate in person- face to face. That is how I feel most of the time. And he said that doing so would be a complete joy.

The thing I like to think about from this and other scriptures is that this is not just John writing; this is actually the Holy Spirit communicating the heart of God. It makes me realize and remember that we were created for a face to face relationship with God. There are many things he has communicated with us via paper and ink but there are some things in his heart he is going to wait to tell us face to face. It reminds me that Paul, when he went to heaven, heard words that were not for repeating on this earth. John, during the Revelation, heard things in heaven he was not permitted to write down to be revealed on this earth. Some things that God wants to reveal to us will just have to wait until we see him face to face; when we are like Him and we see him as he is. Then our joy and His will be complete.

 But there are some things on this earth that God has not communicated to us via paper and ink. Who will you marry? What ministry does God have for you? What occupation is best for you? How do we make decisions about things that are not spelled out for us specifically on paper and ink? God has given us His Spirit so that we may in part that face to face relationship with Him now. One of the things that made Moses unique was his face to face relationship to God during this life. I want to experience that uniqueness.

 I am certain God wants us to be committed to listening to and relating to what He has written so that He can speak to us about things that are not written. Just a Thought to GO. What is yours? Looking forward to seeing you face to face. Gotta go; probably some long detailed heart felt emails I need to answer.

doug

   

I’m blogging!!! I’m blogging!!!. One of my favorite movies is What About Bob. I will let you figure out why. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is a close up of Bob seemingly cutting through the air much like Leonardo DeCapprio in The Titanic, which is not one of my favorite movies. Even though Bob has demonstrated that one of his many greatest fears is water he appears to be sailing. And in this scene he is crying out to everyone around, “I’m sailing! I’m sailing! You really connect with the power of his triumph in the scene until the camera pulls back and reveals Bob lashed to the mast of the sail boat, probably against his will. He is probably scared to death and having the time of his life all at the same moment. Have you ever felt like that? That is what I feel like with the start of this blog. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time but something that seems daunting to me if done well and consistently. Consistency, to me seems to be the key, along with simplicity and participation and interesting writing and spell checking and ……See what I mean about daunting. Oh well let’s keep it simple.

Here is the simplest explanation I can give for this blog. I have been using a daily reading guide to keep me disciplined in reading through the scriptures every year. I believe that God spoke to me one morning in Ghana as I was deciding where in the Bible to start reading that day. I had forgotten my bible in my room when I came out and I didn’t want to go back and wake up my roommates. I found a bible in the gathering area of the house where we stayed. In the back of that bible was a very simple reading guide that follows a chronological time line of when the books of the bible were written. It was at that moment that I believe God spoke to me and urged me to commit to reading through the scriptures each year. That was 3 years ago today. I am in Ghana right now writing this first entry of my blog. During the last three years I have encouraged many people to begin this discipline and have given away many reading guides of a very similar nature.

We also use them as a devotional guide during our Outreach Team building sessions and while we are together on the trip. It has been a great unifying feature for our teams because they are all reading and thinking about the same words. In the last 2 years we have had over 250 hundred people participate on a Global outreach Team from my home church, Northview Christian Life Church. All of them have received both the reading guide and the encouragement to make the commitment to reading daily. So, here is my intent for this wonderful technical treasure called the blog:

What it is not is a lot of thoughts about my personal life. I am not really good at that kind of minutia nor do I think that many people would care.

What would like to do is post my thoughts about the daily reading as often as I:

1. Have a thought I consider worth posting

2. Have the time after having the thought to post the thought I thought was worth posting.

What I think would be really cool is for as many of you who read this and who have the reading guide and use it to contribute your thoughts and or comments on my thoughts or what ever else that inspires you to contribute.

If you would like to have one of the reading guides you can email me at doug.ehrgott@nvcl.org