Bracket Buster

March Madness is here in full force. If you're a bracket junkie or know a bracket junkie then you know that today has wrecked just about everyone's ideas of how they thought things were going to go. Dayton over Ohio State? Harvard over Cincinnati? Thousands of people all across the nation are in disbelief and scrambling to figure out how to make something out of a broken bracket. 

Busted brackets remind me of our broken plans for life. How many times have you and I mapped out every step of our lives in an effort accurately forecast our own futures? 

• Here's where we'll be in five years. 
• Here's where I'm going to college.
• Here's the person I will spend my life with
• Here's my next step for my career.
• Here's how we're going to plan our family.

We've become really good at filling out our brackets for life without ever stopping to consult God. We've already decided who and what are moving on to the next round. But what happens when we experience a bracket buster? What happens when there's an upset? What happens when an unknown "team" comes out of nowhere and obliterates your plan?  

Suddenly we find ourselves scrambling around trying to make sense out of a busted bracket. What would happen if we allowed God in at the beginning of the bracket process?

Proverbs 3:5-6 says..."Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." 

What if we let God fill out our brackets?

God Speaks (Part #2)

What is prayer?  The correct answer to that question stems from an understanding of the words, "with" and "to".  In reality, prayer is my communication with God.  It's talking and listening. It's giving and receiving. Too often we refer to prayer as, "My communication to God."  Prayer isn't a one way street.  God's not a genie in a bottle. God's not a divine butler.  Often we get confused and assume that prayer is our opportunity to talk and for God to just sit and listen.  We think it’s our opportunity to tell God what we need and where we want His help.  But that's not what prayer is all about.  What prayer is all about, is when we speak to God and God speaks to us.  

I'm reminded of the old story...

Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.  One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. "I closed the door," the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking."

You see, far too often we fill our prayers up with talking and asking and pleading. We spend so much time talking and God is never given an opportunity to speak.  We forget to stop and listen. The question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough, and quiet enough, to hear Him.  

Consider this challenge as you pray: speak less and listen more. Try listening for twice as long as you talk. If you pray for 5 minutes a day, try listening for 10 minutes in addition to your 5 minutes of talked.  Give God the opportunity to speak to you, you won't be disappointed. I'd love to hear your comments as you try this in your prayer life.

God Speaks (Part #1)

“I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama.  The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other little life.  I came, I saw, I conquered, as the first baby in the family always does.  They tell me I walked the day I was one year old.  These happy days did not last long.  One brief spring, musical with the song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit and roses, one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child.  Then in the dreary month of February, came the illness, which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new-born baby.  They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain.”  

Those are a few excerpts from a book that Helen Keller wrote about her life.  At the age of nineteen months Helen Keller was shut off from all sight and all sound and as a result could not speak.  I was at the library a while back when I came across this book. As I read the introduction and part of the first chapter I was so overwhelmed by what happened to her.  Maybe the reason I felt so connected to it was because I'm a parent; to think that one of my own sons could wake up one day and no longer have the ability to see or hear anything really impacted me.

I thought about my sons not being able to hear me say, “I love you”. I thought about my sons not being able to hear the door open and get all excited because they knew that sound meant that dad was home.  I thought about them not being able to speak to tell me what they're feeling.  I thought about the confused look that might be on their face because they could no longer hear sounds or see mom and dad.  I thought about the fear that might overtake them when all they could ever experience was complete and utter darkness.  As I thought about those things I was stuck by something else.  I began to wonder how many of us feel that way every day of our lives?  

Not many of us have experienced what Helen Keller experienced in the physical sense, but I would venture to say that all of us have experienced it in the spiritual sense.  You know if you've experienced this because you've thought things like..

“I don’t feel like God is listening to me.”

“I don’t feel like God can hear me when I pray.”

“I don’t think God even notices me because He has so many other bigger more important things to worry about.”   

“I don’t feel like God ever speaks to me.”

Just like Helen Keller felt cut off from everything around her and probably felt very alone you and I often feel cut off from God and very alone.  But how, how can we possibly feel cut off and not connected to a God that is all-powerful and huge beyond our wildest dreams?  How can we not feel connected to the God who tells us in the book of Deuteronomy that He will never leave us or forsake us.  

How is that we don’t feel connected to God?  Let me tell you something that I hope you never forget, something that I hope you will take with you no matter where you go in life: If you ever feel like you're not connected to God or like He’s not communicating with you, it’s not because He isn’t speaking, it’s because you’re not listening.