God | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “God”

02 Apr 2015

Who is In Control?

It’s crazy to think that you really have control over that much. We are all trying to “stay” in control though aren’t we? In control of our family, or finances, our jobs, our own personal sanity sometimes.

So we work very hard at it. To be in control. We take it very seriously, It can mean recognition, financial gain, personal satisfaction. We would pay a lot to be in-control of some things in our lives. In other ways we “wish” we were in control…”if only we ran the government, we would show everyone how it is done!” Or “if that was my child he would know what it was to behave”.

Relish the thought that someone would claim we are “out of control”. That would be a claim that would imply we had no discipline, we were ignorant of how things are done. It would put us on some list that says we don’t care, or lack caution or consideration.

But in reality to me I see that there is little we are actually in control of in the bigger picture. We are going to pass from this earth when it is our time, and we can manage to extend it but in the end we are not in control of the outcome. We are going to have things that happen that regardless of what we do in our daily lives are going to happen anyway. We can spend a ton of energy trying to be in control of things and miss the simple fact that life will go on regardless just as God planned it.

So I am giving up that control to Him. To all things there are a purpose under heaven. I know that not everyone reading this may believe, but the reality of it all is the world turns regardless of your beliefs. Take a moment to understand that your purpose here is to live for the day, and that energy and stress for control can consume you. To those who have faith, let God worry about tomorrow.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Advice, Change, choices, Eternity, Faith, God, Life, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, Truth

17 Nov 2014

It’s Complicated

By now I think it is pretty obvious, everyone is looking for simple answers to complicated world. They are flocking to every outlet they can to find the answer, and hoping that the answer will provide them the calmness they desire to know that “everything will be alright”. But it is also probably no surprise that everything will not be alright. The world around us is complicated.

It always had been, but perhaps we weren’t so aware of the complications before. We had limited information about the complications, so we only knew what was hovering around our consciousness. We got our news from 20 minutes of TV or a half-read newspaper.

We called people on a phone and if they weren’t there we just left a message.No immediate response necessary. We didn’t look for others to provide us our opinion through 24 hours of TV or Internet. we had time to formulate it ourselves.

So the ingredients for complicating our lives is compounded by everything around us. The people who want to propagate all the fear, uncertainty and doubt. The fearful who want to share their fear with others so they can be less alone in their fear. They are all willing to communicate to you in the most immediate ways.

Dissatisfaction compounded by threats that can be enlarged by others who are dissatisfied, compounding fear and turning it into hate and misunderstanding. It is such a circle that it appears that there is no end, it keeps going round and round.

Local strife with the police, government strife with the way things are going – feeling out of control and looking for the only way to manage things in our lives that may be not complicated. But it is complicated.

The answer doesn’t has to be complicated however, there are ways to make change that are within our reach. Counting on our faith, reaching out for our hope, making peace with the world though Him.

In a time when being “dissatisfied” leaves to blaming others, to not look to our own accountability on things. Thinking that if there isn’t a simple answer there must be a conspiracy, or someone else to blame. That leads nowhere.

Don’t like something? Become active in making change. There are peaceful ways to get to the end.

Now back to your regular programming. I will step off my soap-box.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged choices, Complications, Confusion, Definitions, Desire to be heard, Faith, God, Grace, Life, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Searching, Self-Awareness, Simplicity, The "answer"

04 Nov 2014

Remaining In Hope

I will admit it, over the past couple of years posting things to this blog I have addressed hope. It comes to us in many ways but in the end it just comes down to one thing. Our ability to not let things get to the point of hopelessness.

For us Christians ( which many of you may not be) there is a simple passage that I was reminded of the other day.

“Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, and so in him I put my hope” (Lamentations 3: 21-24).

The focus is on hope. Regardless of the circumstances, It is honestly healthy to face your feelings. Share them with others and with God. So many times in the past I have held them in, tried to manage them on my own. Like a “strong” person I was showing my strength by not letting things get to me when in actuality they were.

So I am hopeful that some way God will see to it that the quality of my life with my wife, my family and friends continues to be the treasure it has been. I want to be sure that they have hope. Regardless of the time left ahead in this life, there will be more after that.

In the meantime there is no reason not to have hope. It would be a very rough road if we let hope slip away. It would be hopeless. But that cannot happen with Him. And it is my hope that it will not happen with my friends and family.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, attitude, Cancer, Change, choices, Dealing with Disease, Doubt, Eternity, Faith, God, Hope, mental-health, Postive Thinking, Sprituality, Truth, Without Hope

31 Oct 2014

Future Regrets

We all seem to have regrets. It is so easy to look backward and see where there could have been opportunity to do one thing instead of another, to say one thing instead of another (or nothing at all). Regrets can easily build on themselves and make for a potentially miserably life buried under excuses and alternate scenarios.

There is no way to change what has already happened; but today has not already happened. So the future is ahead of us for what ever time we have. There are somethings we are not going to have a chance to avoid. They will happen as they do by the synchronicity of life I suppose. They may be very simple things that just pass by and we don’t even recognize their profound impact till much later.

“Some” of the future regrets may be avoided. I know that I have worked a mental list of those things ( perhaps writing them down). It is amazing to go through them one day to the next and see what things stick as important or significant in the future. I could surely make a bucket-list of dozens of things that I need to get done (life’s necessities) or of things that I wish I want to get to ( desires, dreams, life milestones).

In the end it is the spiritual things that are important. Everything else may be regrettable, it may be missed because there isnt enough time or money or simply just isn’t possible. It is more likely those things are centered around my own desires or temporary possessions or experiences that make up the time here on Earth.

There are only a very few things I need to assure I don’t miss: it centers on my family, our children are our life. Like my wife, I have invested all of my emotions on them because I love them, I have made decisions because of them that I wouldn’t have, had they not been there. So I struggle with the regret whether I have done my part to instill in them the simple unconditional belief in salvation.

For some of you reading this you may have already tuned-out. I am not trying to be preachy. And if you have children, ask your self that question. Ask your children: Just what do they think will happen at the end of their lives? Pray that it is centered in hope and faith.

I want them to be with me in the next life for eternity. Often I am not sure that they get it. Like most of the parents around me, we work to provide them access- but fall so short in injecting the atmosphere around them to make sure. Sunday schools, Bibles in hand, great moral compass get sideways because life happens. As parents we have never been the best examples in practice, but as our children are all adults now, we hope that we have provided enough direction in His name to get them to understand that Eternity Matters Most.

I regret that I have missed that in someway. Working hard to make that the only thing on my list worth worrying about.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Change, choices, Eternity, Faith, Family, Fighting Disease, God, Grace, Life, life is precious, Love, Raising Children, Reality Check, Regrats, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, tracks in the dust, Who Are You

15 Aug 2014

Being At Peace

To be at peace with yourself takes the effort. It takes a path you are willing to follow to get there.

It takes a resistance to fear, to the evil that comes from every aspect of life it would seem these days.

But with the latest catastrophic thing in our lives right around the corner, we can easily get preoccupied with the notion of not being at peace. At peace with ourselves, at peace with each other. A level set with life that only God can provide I would think.

But it starts with us. We cannot succumb to fear. To our anger. We must conquer it. Our fear of circumstances. Our fear of the world around us.

People do so many things that make me mad but
Angry isn’t how I want to spend what time I have
Cognitive dissonance they call it
I wonder just how small it
Could be made to be in me?

life in the city is so densely packed
fear of each other is an accepted fact
fear soaks into concrete just like grease
fear is the antithesis of peace – “TIme I Have” by David Crosby

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. – Mathew 6:34

It takes effort finding peace in ourselves with the “time we have” and the world around us. The opposite of that is to surrender to fear, to give in to the darkness around us. It will mean we may need help. It is there in many ways, we can help each other… we can look to Him for the help.

Are you prepared to not surrender to fear? To not let worry consume you? Or have you already allowed other things to take over your peace?