MK Journal

Seasons are opportunities. The seasons I speak of are not the ones that mark the passage of the year but the opportunities that come before us in our lives to do the good thing. The season can happen at any time and we must always be ready to harvest the fruit.

Each day is a new set of things that will “season” in front of us. The opportunities to be kind and considerate or to help abound. We should take the time make these opportunities a chance to show God’s light shining through us. While we may reap benefits from doing good works, our motivation is to give glory to God.

We are thankful that God gives us the opportunity to glorify him through our choices. But we must be vigilant as they may pass us by.

Mark K

I try to nurture an inner dialogue all day. An ongoing conversation with myself and God. Yes, a conversation with myself and a conversation with God.

I check on myself, check to see my mood, my reactions to things, mistakes and triumphs. In a word, I supervise myself.

This does not result in pit downs or low self-esteem. I’m checking myself against my faulty inner compass.

Then I have to calibrate the compass.

That is where the dialogue with God comes it. That perspective is always “True North” and always points me to where my thoughts and decisions should go. I guess this is prayer.

This prayer, however, is decidedly informal. I conversation, a nudge in the right direction, or even a scream in my ear. For all it’s silence, those are deafening!

The effect of connecting with God is immediate. My mood lifts. I feel “at home” and safe. That I’m on the right track. Such a gift this is, and accessible immediately at all times of the day and in all places.

I’m grateful for this.

Mark K

We pray for God to show us his ways and to teach us his statutes. They are written on our hearts butGod’s teaching is by example.

As we pray for this teaching God surrounds us with examples and with opportunities to act. We read his textbook, He gives examples, and he assesses our performance, like all good teachers!

But the testing might be challenging, it it were not, we would not need the teaching! (And we always need the teaching in God’s statutes!)

So we pray to be led into challenging situations so we can bring glory to God through our actions. We are given the opportunity to be Christians, not just in word but in action.

Mark K.

It is vain to think that we have any power of consequence in our lives. What strength we do have comes directly from God. He strengthens us, removes the barriers, and shuffles the very stars to suit his plan.

Drawing on that power, through obedience, we cannot fail in any true sense. We float along the stream of God’s plan. Our real needs are met and he will even favor the ones that follow him. Even, at times, in this world.

Fortune is ally to the brave. Yet fortune is simply the consequence of being a part of God’s plan. In His ordered universe there is no “chance”. Nothing is random, even if it appears to be. Always, pattern emerge from the chaos consider only your own life and you can know this as truth.

This must set us as humble. When the almighty creator of the universe guides our very steps, how lowly, grateful, and humble we must feel. Despite the fruits of our knowledge, there is still so much we don’t understand.

Long after science has solved many of the mysteries of the universe, without faith we remain ignorant of our most important answers to our most important questions:

Who are we, and why are we here.

Mark K

Today I read the story of Esau who, when famished after a hunting expedition, sold his birthright to his brother Jacob in exchange for some stew.

Is this not the lesson of addictive sin! We are selling our birthright as the children are f God to satisfy a hunger. Just like food, the satisfaction comes into us and then leaves and we are empty again.

The food and water the God promises us if we obey him do not leave us. We will never hunger or thirst again. But so little can tempt us from this everlasting sustenance.

This is the power of the darkness inside of us and the cleverness of the deceiver. “Surely, you will not die!” he says to Eve.

But we do die. We now are expected to know the difference between good and evil and this had burdened us ever since. This is the result of the fall in the garden. Prior to that, our innocence was in our ignorance. Now we are “wise” and must decide for ourselves.

Mark K.

There are some barriers that we do not possess the ability to get through. These require supernatural powers found only with God.

Our will is only so strong and as our souls remain in these bodies we are slaves to it. We pray and practice to be not of the flesh but can a fish live outside of the water? We without air. Such it is with us and the flesh.

Yet we can still deny ourselves the desires. We can still fast and sacrifice our vices to the lord. We can feel the want and pain as he does for the lost each day.

To fast is to remind ourselves of the power of God and our dependence on him for everything.

Mark K.

Every day we come to the crossroads and we are given a choice, do I follow the world or do I follow God? The enemy will make the path of the world very enticing and the choice will often be the difference between the harder and easier road.

Despite this, however, there is a comfort in the heart when you make the right choice. It resonates inside where God’s word has been printed in your soul.

This is the reassurance we get when we make choices, even difficult and painful ones.

The choices we make against sin are particularly impacted this way. As we face these choices we have been promised that a door to escape will always reveal itself. Granted we need to be looking for the door at the time, but the door is there!

One way to see this is that the path to sin often starts very innocently. The first few steps toward sin don’t necessarily cross our hearts as evil, but possibly as simple pleasures of being in the world, the exercise of legitimate power and authority based on your job, or founded in the fact that you alone will be knowledgeable and impacted.

But these innocent steps transform themselves gradually over time. What we may fail to see is that the door that God provided for s appeared early, before we were so tempted and so close to falling.

So we have to be ever watchful for all the doors.

Mark K

I just finished a bible study on my Bible app of this name. It was actually cool and I think it will add to the thoughts I have about PRACTICE.

I just got back from church band practice and that was cool too. Such a nice bunch of people.

Feeling good today. Not too inspired to write because I’m very tired. A full day with racquetball and band practice late. Have to be at church at 7 am tomorrow.

I guess I’m doing things that matter!

Mark K.

What a great line this is! Leaders separate themselves from others by acting differently, by being different. It is not accurate to say that a leader is defined y the number of followers. These situations involve power, not leadership (at least to the leader). Great leaders simply do things differently and may be unaware or indifferent about followers.

Leaders are often alone. Since they do things that are unusual, they can stand out from the crowd. Now, to be an effective Christian leader you don’t stand out simply by doing different things. You stand out by following God and chasing his plan for you.

We can be leaders at every level of our lives. We first can, and must, lead our selves. Self discipline and a willingness to change are keys to self leadership.

The next level is in family. We choose to a different kind of father, a different kind of mother, brother, sister, cousin. In these ways we lead within our families.

Next we lead in our community and at work. We set ourselves aside from others when we chase the will of God in these settings. We are mindful that standing out (notice the relationship that phrase has to “outstanding”) will draw attention of different kinds.

Some may seek to downgrade us. Others will see our leadership. Some, particular insecure leadership may seek to block you. But r rally, if you are chasing God”s will and he is on your side, who can stand before you!

Finally we may be called to lead in larger ways. Public service, politics, in the social structures and institutions around us. All the while we are simply following God. No matter the level of our leadership, we simply follow and seek God’s will.

Mark K.

My reading today talks about the uncontrollable tongue. This tiny part of my body that seems to possess a mind of its own. This is, of course, not true. It is like an instrument in a masters hand. As soon as the melody is constructed there is no barrier between the thought and the production of the music. There is a straight, unhindered connection between the hands and the mind.

Such is as it is with the tongue and the heart. My contrary ways reveal themselves in contrary words. I profess a love of God yet my words can be like poison. Particularly a poison to the spirit of other people.

How to reign in this small muscle? Were it as easy as to place a bit, like a horse and lead it as I will (or as God wills). But no such instrument exists. The tongue has a hand on its own rudder.

This is the command: to remain vigilant in our hearts to the evil ways inside of us. To place a barrier between our hearts and words. Enough that we have evil thought but to spread them in the world is let loose darkness and let engulf the little light we do shine.

Discipline of thoughts can be attained through continual prayer and reading the word. Being “in Christ” is incompatible with sinful sayings. We can still force it but we feel deeply the annoyance of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that provides the door away from sin. The choice to use the door is ours. This God promises us when He said that there would be no temptation we could not handle, none without a door of escape.

If we purpose ourselves to remain in the light of the Holy Spirit and venture not into the shadows, we may claim to be a follower of Christ.

Mark K.