We’ve been given the eyes to see beauty where no one else does… what an incredible gift. Now if we could only effectively help the rest of the world to see that…

“Just as God believes in us more than we believe in Him, we must believe in people more than they may believe in themselves.” - Love it . . . So true - we have to create atmosphere’s of total acceptance; safe places for people to explore themselves and their creator. If this is our mission, and we are intentional about it, we get to shine light and point toward hope.

Thanks for a really great post!

Tommy, not a long reply at all, thanks for sharing where you’ve been with all of this. I’ve went through so many evangelism training classes, and even led some myself… focusing on that same morbid question. I think the similar but more profound question to that is… now what if you didn’t get hit by a car tonight, and lived… 10, 20, 50 more years? what course are we on for our lives? what could we say about how we lived should God grace us with more days on this earth?

I appreciate your thoughts. I struggled with this a bit in the past few years. I would argue with God that the abundant life he offered was not really abundant but boring - church was boring - Bible was boring. I began to become cynical about my life in christ. Simply a means to an end. Understand that I struggled while serving in ministry at the staff level. I thought about exiting ministry altogether, while keeping silent about my struggles. But finally God got through to me. You see i was sold on the idea of “the golden ticket” - I was in, but what was it that I was missing? So began my quest for abundance and hope. God pointed out to me that I was sold on a life without purpose. I was a believer, but knew nothing of following Christ and His mission. He began to really open my eyes - even missional efforts to change the world were based on the ever important question “Do you know what would happen to you today if you died?” Which is the question I was asked when I gave my life to Christ. But I continued to hold out hope that there was something more - like the Bible says. But it was not evident in the lives of those around me. Nobody wants to think about death - people really want to live and they really want that life to count for something meaningful. This is the hope that Christ offers. Alex McManus, laid this bare for me in a phone conversation a couple of years ago - that I could choose to “be a catalyst for change”. I began to truly follow Christ in his purpose a couple of years ago and that following has led me to Miami, where I desire to share that hope and purpose with those who are searching like I was. Thanks again for your comments. Sorry about the long reply.

That might be the most profound thing I’ve heard in 2006.