God - The Greatest Believer...

For those who you who have given me the opportunity to speak and to share know that I love speaking words of life, hope and encouragement (Like the one in the clip above). The other day, I found myself feeling overwhelmed at the journey ahead of me… Who am I Lord? What sacrifices must I make? Can a man make it to the finish line without ever seeing the harvest? Do I have what it takes? Feeling downcast, I sensed the voice of God telling me that I am going to have to start believing some of the things that I so boldly declare to others.

I am a child of God (John 1:12). His very creation of this life of mine demonstrates that God believes in me more than I could ever believe in Him. God does not make crap, and did not design me desiring that I should fail or disappoint, but formed me with passionate expectation and intentionality. Before I was born He knew me, and had hopes and purposes to be accomplished in my life and through my life (Jeremiah 1:5). Even though I have failed, He risked the life of His own Son, to redeem me. In hopes that I might turn back and embrace the person He believed I could become.

A person who has been uniquely created by God, with gifting and talents and passions that are waiting to be unleashed. My life is marked by the fingerprints of the creator of the universe Himself. I was created to reflect the awesomeness displayed in Christ - it is the birth right of every child of God. He has given to me more than enough and I will not hold back from who he has crafted me to become. “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness…” (2 Peter 1:3)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” (Marianne Williamson, from her 1992 book, "Return to Love", supposedly incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela n the past.)

Yvonne goes snaphappy!

See what you can do with 15 minutes waiting for friends in Ottawa?

Being Fully Present...

What a fantastic time in Ottawa. I miss living in that simple city. This long weekend consisted of friends, family, BBQ’s, walks along the river, and relaxing good times – the usual in the town of Ottawa.

A good friend once told me that maybe I could impact lives when I was away on campus, and maybe I could make a difference in people while I resided in Ottawa, but Toronto was a totally different scene. As I moved back, I took that challenge with anticipation and excitement.

I’ve been back 2 years now and he was right. The city is bigger and the people are busier. And I’ve become another local. Noises pervade conversations about what colors to paint the walls, where the latest deals are, who the latest celebrity is to trash, where the next event is, and of course what the latest gripes about work are. Nothing wrong with these discourses, but they permeate and press in against our minds. Somewhere lodged deep within the heart of this city is either an inability to move beyond the past or a relentless longing for a future that has yet to come, to avoid a life that awaits us here and now.

Even spirituality needs to be scheduled to fit. I suspect there’s an underlying thought that we suffer as Christians when we have managed to take fifteen minutes out of our busy schedule to pray or read scripture. Or we have suffered when we didn’t do as well on an assignment or a project because we had to be at fellowship or serving in some other capacity. What I read in the bible is that the early Christians suffered ‘for the sake of the gospel’. Not for the things we’ve reduced it down to. Something's drastically wrong with the Christianity that surrounds me.

I listened to a message on the call of Jesus to be “fully present” by Rob Bell, while I drove up to Ottawa. I even had to multi-task this sermon into my life to hear it. This message continues to encourage me to live out the preciousness of life today. Ottawa was the perfect place for me to start practicing this journey of being fully present. I actually stopped myself from thinking other things as people talked to me and listened to them. Yvonne and I actually purposely don't answer the phone sometimes now. I actually listen to myself breathe again from time to time.

In the adult world, ‘busy’ seems to be the new ‘cool’. A feeling wells up inside me when I talk to younger people that say they can’t wait to grow up and be where people like me are at. It’s a feeling of sadness that comes to me that they might not be enjoying every bit of life that they have right where they are. It also saddens me even more to think that at their current trajectory they could just end up filling their lives with walls to paint and bills to pay... becoming just another busy Toronto local. I pray we don’t let that happen.