*Chad Jarnagin

I’m thankful for friends, family, health, grace, provision, inspiration, my son, my wife, & my God.

I hope that we can all take time to reflect on life with gratitude and thankfulness. If you think you have nothing to be thankful for, you are mistaken. Look again.

Happy Thanksgiving USA.

Now that we have a new President elect in Barack Obama, it is time to all come together and UNITE. No matter where we stand or who we voted for, we must look at the future in the light that God knows all. Let’s celebrate the first african american president of these blessed United States. And if you are a follower of Jesus, let’s begin supporting / praying for our new leaders just as we have prayed for Bush & Cheney. 

After watching some of the Facebook status updates last night, I began to get a little sick of the negative… “oh God come quickly”, “hello communism”, “watching the US go to hell” blurbs. Seriously? However, there were a couple positive comments out there from guys like Rhett. Late last night, I came across this in the Message-“But you, Israel: put your trust in God! —trust your Helper! trust your Ruler! Clan of Aaron, trust in God! —trust your Helper! trust your Ruler! You who fear God, trust in God! —trust your Helper! trust your Ruler!” – Psalm 115:9 

Obviously we are entitled to our own opinion, BUT now it’s time to UNITE. Come together and support each other, and Joe Biden & Barack Obama. Let’s pray that they can unite this great nation. AND let’s trust that God is God.

(BTW- about a month ago, you all voted that Obama would be the next US Pres. 52% to 48% HERE.) ;)

If we step back from this busy life for a moment of reflection, we will start to hear a deafening silence. The ironic thing will be that it is truly the still silence that is so deafening. Everyone in my circles struggle with noisy, crazy, hectic schedules, running from meeting to meeting, coffee to coffee, and service to service.

After you read this JUST TRY to take 5 minutes and sit in silent solitude. This might be hard iPhoners… NO calls, NO texting, NO computer (AIM, Facebook, Twitter, etc), NO music, NO Xbox 360, NO talking. Nothing, but silence. If you haven’t experienced this in awhile, the sound will be loud. You’ll see what I mean.

If you have not seen the Nooma video “Noise”, go check it out. In the book Facedown (Matt Redman), Bill Hybels (WillowCreek) asked, “Is the ambient noise level of my life low enough for me to hear the whispers of the Lord?” A. W. Tozer has said “in some instances, absolute silence might well become our greatest act of worship”. The silence Tozer is talking about doesn’t happen in our worship services. Everything in our culture is screaming at a db level that is dulling our hearing the Creator’s voice, and sometimes His will. I myself continue to struggle with this.

CHURCH LEADERS: When our people come into worship on Sunday, let’s try to remember that life is fast and loud. It can be voluntary or involuntary, but our communities are fast and loud places. If we are living there as well, how can we lead them into the Holy place? When I come into church I NEED the music peeps to help lead me to a place of silencing & yielding my world in order to seek God in everything.

I think we know that God is everywhere AND in everything, but how often do we live acknowledging that? We usually let our little worlds dictate our response to the Almighty. In order to effectively lead people into worship of God, we must be clear to hear where He is leading us. We can’t always be on point with our leadership, let’s keep it real. I stink it up more times than not, but we should step up our game b/c we have a responsibility.

Application of a TRUE “quiet time” or “silent time” is the only means of execution here. He WILL be in the secret silent place. It probably looks different for everyone. I hope to find more frequent time and space to seek, sense, and listen for more of His heart in the middle of my crazy, whack, funky life.

Shalom.

“Man can’t do without God. Just like you’re thirsty, you have to drink water. You just can’t go without God.” -Marley 

“When a human being is mistreated, objectified, or neglected, when they are treated as less than human, these actions are actions against God. Because how you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the Creator. To be a Christian is to work for the new humanity. Jesus commands his followers to feed and clothe and visit, and take care of those who need it. They’re fellow image-bearers, they’re just like us, and when we love them, we’re loving God. A church exists to be a display of the new humanity. A community of people who honor and respect the poor and rich and educated and uneducated and Jews and Gentile and black and white and old and young and powerful and helpless as fully human, created in the image of God.” -Rob Bell (Sex God)