Resurrection

Have you ever felt dead? I am not talking about physically dead I'm talking about spiritually dead, emotionally dead. Have you asked yourselves questions like; why am I here? Is this all there is? How does what I do make a difference?

Recently, I have learned that life requires ACTION! I have learned that things like happiness, love, comfort, etc. are feelings and emotions that just come naturally to our hearts. We don't work for them. We don't think about them. They are just there. And, because these feelings and emotions are so readily available to us we have become lazy! Yeah, you heard me...we are L-A-Z-Y!

The greatest things in life are only received through action. They are not just handed over to us on silver platters. They are things that we must dig our heels in and push forward to obtain. We must hit the floor running every single day with determination and perseverance or else we will continue day after day searching for those "feelings."

"But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Galations 5:22-23 (NLT) None of these things are feelings. Every single one of them can only be obtained by an action. We must show love to other people. We must put a smile on our face to show joy. We must stop fighting to have peace. We must breathe and show someone for the millionth time to have patience. We must help someone to show kindness. We must choose right instead of wrong to have goodness. We must never forsake Him to have faithfulness. We must not be harsh to have gentleness and we must calm ourselves to have self-control. All of these things require action. They aren't just given to us!

And, life. Well it isn't given to us either. We must choose to have it! We walk around dead until we have that moment when the Holy Spirit knocks on the door of our heart. We choose to open our heart and accept Jesus as our Savior! We choose to be resurrected! We choose to have eternal life! “...I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die." John 11:25-26 (NLT)

I wonder what would have happened if Lazarus would have just laid there. What if he had chosen not to get up? What if he didn't act on Jesus' call to him? "Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out..." John 11:43-44 (NLT).

How many miracles have we missed because we didn't act on them? How many things have we missed out on because we didn't act on Jesus' call to us?

Happiness? Joy?

Wow...it's been awhile! Things have been spirally up and down and left and right in the Goodwin house lately. I had an epidural block done on my neck/shoulder and Kristina had surgery and before I knew it I had not posted a blog in weeks...nearly a month!

Since this month has been sort of strange in our home I have noticed that I have been feeling alot of different emotions. Some of them are very explainable and others not so much. For example, at the exact same time I have felt anger and anxiety over a medical situation that Kristina is dealing with as well as feeling peace and comfort. How bizarre is that?

I have felt out of breath if that makes any sense to anyone. Not physically but emotionally and the more I try to gasp for air the less air there is to breathe. I'm sure someone out there actually understands exactly what I'm talking about. Okay, at any moment now someone can raise their hand and let me know that I'm not the only pink elephant in the room!

In the midst of my frustration I rode home yesterday afternoon listing out my feelings. I made an imaginary column of what I was feeling and an imaginary column of what I wasn't feeling. With every emotion listed I felt as though a burden was being lifted. It was if someone was writing down the emotions for me and placing them in the correct column. By the time I arrived at church I had released some tension, but had not had some great epiphany or life altering event take place.

As my day has progressed today I have been thinking alot about joy versus happiness. I've been wondering why some days I feel joyous and why others not so much. I've been thinking how you can be happy and sad or cry and laugh at the exact same time. I decided to google it because after all google seems to tell us everything; right? Well, as He always does, God works in wonderful ways (not mysterious but wonderful ways) and googling my question led me straight to a devotional that was written about two years ago. The writer quoted James 1:2 "...when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy." (NLT). What? I thought to myself. Just as I started to click back to find something that was really going to help me (haha) I continued to read. The writer began to explain that so many times in life when we go through trials and storms we seem to justify it by saying that maybe we weren't as close as we needed to be to God and therefore He has allowed this storm or this tragedy in our lives to bring us closer to Him when maybe, just maybe the reality of it is that this storm that we have found ourselves in is just that...a storm. The worry and the anxiety that we feel...well that is an emotion of our surroundings, but yet the peace and the comfort we feel...well that's Him!

God never moves...we do! When our lives are flipped upside down and the wind is swirling around us, He is there. The pressure that we identify as the outside world squeezing us, oh that just Him hugging us!

I have said many, many times to my children that love is not a "feeling" it is an action and I have actually learned today that is the difference between happiness and joy. See, happiness is just a feeling...it is an emotion that we feel, but joy is an action. We can choose to be joyous or not just as we can choose to love, or not. He has given us the options, it's the choice that is ours to make!

Keep Out

My morning drive changes alot. Some days I take the same ole route and others I take an alternate route. Not because of traffic but because I get bored! I can only drive one way so much and then I have to change something. I need a change of scenery, a change of pace! I am not one that could work in a repetitive type job because I would lose my mind! Shane works on an assembly line doing the same thing over and over and I have so much respect for him because I surely couldn't do it!

So, I changed up my routine this morning and came into downtown Birmingham though some back roads. Just sort of took the scenic route I guess you could say. As I crossed over I-65 and rounded this curve to the right I noticed a sign that just struck me odd. A church built a new building up on a hill and since it is in a neighborhood in the North side of Birmingham, all parking seems to be in the rear of the church. Now you have to envision how this neighborhood is set up. You have the street, then the sidewalk and then there is a retaining wall probably waist to shoulder high. All the houses, stores, offices, etc. are sitting up on these hills. Are you following me? Can you see it? So as I'm looking up the wall towards this new church I notice the alley that runs right beside the church leading you towards their parking area. Prominently posted on the alley wall is a sign that read "KEEP OUT." I chuckled to myself and thought Why a Keep Out sign? Why not put a No Trespassing sign...it sounds better?!?!

As I traveled on into downtown Birmingham and made my way to 280 I started really thinking about how many of us post an invisible "Keep Out" sign at our church? We talk about how we want our churches to grow, we sit around and talk about projects and things we can do to bring people in, but we never act on those talks. When a visitor does quietly and timidly make their way into our church do we love them, wrap our arms around them and accept them, or do we push them away with our invisible "Keep Out" sign?

More importantly, as Christians, do we walk around with a "Keep Out" sign posted on us! When others look at us do they see love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, joy, etc. or do they see us pushing people away, wrapped up only in ourselves, looking out for only number one?

Our Sunday School lesson yesterday with our 3 & 4 year old boys was about how Paul told Lydia and her friends about Jesus. Our Bible verse was "Tell others about Jesus." Acts 16:10. I challenged a group of 3 & 4 year old boys to be like Paul...tell someone about Jesus! Today, I challenge myself and I challenge you. Do a self check...do you see a "Keep Out" sign posted on your wall today? If so, take it down and replace it with a "Welcome" sign!