God is moving in CR

Have you ever walked into a room where there were no lights or electricity to speak of? I mean that dark room where you can't even see the front of your hand? It can be a little uneasy, can’t it? Especially if I am the first one home at night after a long day and no one else is home yet. My dogs will start barking at me cause they don't know who has just walked into our home. It isn’t until I start talking and they hear the familiar voice of their master that they begin to come to me to greet me with warm love and lots of wet kisses. :) If you were in a room of darkness and your kids or pets were in there and they could only rely on your voice to steer them toward you, would they recognize you over say a stranger’s voice? Of course they would. Why? Because they know their mother or father's voice. All you would have to do it keep talking to them and letting them know you are "over here, keeping following my voice until you find me". Eventually, if they trust t...

If you look up “Hurting” in the dictionary, one definition you will find is: a blow that inflicts a wound; bodily injury or the cause of such injury. Injury, damage, or harm; the cause of mental pain or offense, as an insult. How are you today? Are you experiencing any part of that definition in your life right now? Have you received a recent blow that has caused you mental, physical or even spiritual injury? Have you received a painful offense or insult from someone close to you? Are you in the middle of a crazy storm in your life? No matter how much you are facing or have faced, we as believers can find hope in knowing He will never abandon us. Ps 9:9-10 Hope is coming my friend! A good friend and pastor challenged me with a thought that I have had for some time. He said, Rodney, we hear people say all the time that “God will never give me more than I can handle”. Often I will use this when things seem to be falling apart in my life or one thing after another seems to be going wron...

Ok, so if you have a weak stomach, this might gross you out a bit but the parallels are just too good for me not to share. This is the part where the announcer voice comes on the screen and says, “Warning, the following information may not be suitable for all stomachs. Parental discretion is advised.  Ok, maybe not that bad but it depends on how you deal with these kinds of things. I recently developed an ingrown finger nail on my right hand. Man, did it ever hurt!!! I couldn’t even type an email without feeling incredible pain. It began to swell up and turn all kinds of interesting colors. This went on for days and it was not a pretty picture at all. Finally I ran into one of my buddies and he told me after looking at it “bro that looks bad! You are going to have to cut that open and let it drain to get the junk out of there that is causing the infection.” Ok, now I need to tell you, this is where I turn my man card in. I am one of the biggest wimps when it comes to this kind of thi...

Have you lost anyone close to you? Do you sometimes feel lost without your loved ones in your life? Do you miss them? Me too! Remember, it is ok to miss them and the fact that you have a heart that hurts so well, means you have a heart that loves so well. Those feelings are God given feelings and He will comfort you in those tough times. This past week at Celebrate Recovery we had our annual “Nail it to the Cross” CR service. This is where we nail anything that might be holding us back in our life of ministry to lead our families effectively, our workplace, neighbors and those who do not know Christ. Removing the things that are preventing us from walking in step with the Father. Maybe a hurt or failure from our past, maybe we are in denial about something in the present or perhaps a fear of the future or even a fear of failure. What an awesome sight to look out from the stage and see a wave of people walking down the aisle toward the Cross to nail whatever it may be to the Cross. It ...

I can remember when I was little saying the catchy saying, "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me" Man was that ever a lie. I am not sure who came up with that but they did not have much wisdom in how powerful the tongue is to others when used in the wrong way. I can remember as a little boy being called stupid cause my grades were not what they needed to be. In fact I can still remember sitting at the kitchen table with my step dad doing homework. I couldn’t figure out my math homework and he only got more and more frustrated with me. The big problem with a step dad that was an alcoholic getting frustrated was the rage and physical abuse that followed the frustration. I can still remember the math problem in one instance. It was rounding up or down. When do we do this? Funny how little things stick in our head huh? But here we were repeating our nightly routine of my step-dad "helping" me with my homework. 99% of the time it would...