Why were you born? What is your purpose? Do you have a cause? Been reading Matthew Barnett's book "The Cause Within You - finding the one great thing you were created to do in this world. Barnett is the founder of Los Angeles Dream Center - a ministry involving 200 forms of need-centered outreach.

Barnett says, "When you discover and commit to your personal cause, you'll find that God is right there beside you - ready and willing to partner with you in amazing ways."

My cause began as a college basketball coach endeavoring to help young men in character growth. My second career was private practice counseling - helping the wounded heal and providing direction for the lost. What a rewarding cause! Seeing people become free from all sorts of bondage.

Then came retirement - unwanted! I floundered. There was no formal vehicle for a cause. I reminded God of the Proverb that states, "without a vision the people perish," and that I was fresh out of vision - a cause. The ensuing years found me hearing these words - I believe from God: "Just love on and encourage people." NO excitement of winning a basketball game. NO accolades from wounded that have been set free. Just love on and encourage others. That is my cause.

What is yours? Not sure? Barnet says that the simple act of serving people faciliates God's cause within you. "If you have never known your cause, serving flushes it out. If you have been pursuing a cause but life crushed it, serving has the ower to rekindle that flame of passion."

Got a cause?

Comfort vs. Obedience

Went to bed last night with this challenge on my mind: “Would you rather be comfortable or be obedient?” It has been a periodic question when plans were hitting a snag or roadblock since we left a very comfortable situation in Idaho. It was a question I believe God asked us before we made the move. To leave a very loving, caring body of friends and a wonderful pastor and church and much much more didn’t seem reasonable, especially at my age (71). Sensing it was God directing us to make the move, it was “obedience over comfort.” Then the roadblocks: the 4-wheeler accident that is still debilitatinng after nearly 5 months. The tussle with County Zoning to build a house on 10 of 54 acres. Some significant illness, in part stress related. Plus, greater s-s-speech and mobility challenges – all have contributed to some dark times. Anyone looking in from the outside would question our sanity about making the move. And it was again by a significant person. Thus, last night’s “do you want to be comfortable or be obedient” question – round umpteen. I was reminded by one of my favorate devotional writers, Os Hillman, about the value of “darkness.” He quotes Isaiah 45:3 "I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name." “What we perceive as dark periods in our lives are designed to be treasures from God. They are actually riches stored in secret places. We cannot see those times in this light because of the often-accompanying pain or fear that prevents us from accepting these times as treasures. They have a particular purpose from God's viewpoint: "...so that you may know that I am the Lord...who summons you by name." “You see, unless we are cast into times in which we are completely at God's mercy for breakthroughs in our lives, we will never experience God's faithfulness in those areas. We will never know how personal He is, or that He can be trusted to meet the deepest needs in our lives. God wants each of us to know that we are "summoned by name." Every hair of our head is numbered. He knows every activity we are involved in. His love for you and me knows no bounds, and He will take every opportunity to demonstrate this to us.” Treasures we’ve seen thus far, are significant personal growth, some deep inner healing, and the joy of being close to part of our family. Did we make a mistake? At times it feels like it. But we don’t operate on feelings. WE believed it was God’s calling: love on and encourage your children and grandchildren. Obedience over comfort.

Significance of a leg

Two people rattled my cage to get back to posting . My special Montana friend Gary wrote: I am concerned that what with the digging of foundations, depth of hole, you balance issues, you may have fell off the face of the Earth or maybe face into the earth.

The other rattler was Anthony Robles, a 125 pound wrestler from Arizona State who won his weight division for a national championship. He was born with one leg. “Mom told me God made me this way for a reason.” He plans to become a motivational speaker.

I’m still adjusting to doing less amount of physical work because of the extensive nerve damage and loss of strength in my leg. At times I’m saddened by the loss because I love to work – to create with my hands, laying stone or carving diamond willow or creating stuff out of barnwood. Then I see Anthony Robles. WAKE-UP CALL. Be thankaful for what you’ve had in the past, Burwick, and enjoy the present. Tempted to think what I can’t do. Buying into that leads to frustration and depression.

Learning to accept my production restrictions, when it has always played a significant role in self perception is an ongoing challenge. I get caught up in the exuberance of being outside in this beautiful spring weather, creating a stone mail box or laying a floor in our daughters house, that I don’t realize what is happening to my legs until the night and following day. AS we Norwegians say, “I come too late, too smart.”

So the learning to “give thanks in all things” and “rejoice evermore,” is a definite work in progress.

Thanks GAry for the gentle prodding.

We are Approved

Yea! We've been approved to put a house on our property. What a hassel, but lessons learned, growth realized, relationships enhanced. I'm not as excited as Coach Hillsy from NNU, pictured here at his last coaching victory, because as many road blocks as we've experienced, there could be a final. Besides, jumping up and clicking my heels while hanging on to my walker would look rather funny.

Thank you to those who have been praying for the changing of the heart of the county zoning crew.

Stuttering Experiment Results

Wow! What a challenging test. I wrote in yesterday’s post about a connection between Isaiah 57:19 and Philippians 4:8 addressing my stuttering: "I create the fruit of his lips, and I will heal him make his lips blossom anew with speech in thankful praise" and ... “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."

It was my objective to not only think them, but also speak them. Being more careful of the verbiage content, endeavoring to follow this Philippians guide for the day.

The test began with a new sleeping pill that back-fired. Besides triggering a halucination that scared the daylights out of me, the pill didn’t produce sleep til a few hours after taken. Then I fought grogginess for a couple hours.

My injured leg was acting up in a different way, that prompted the little voice in the closet to say: “amputation.” Other inconvienences reminded me of my challenge for the day. “Fix your thoughts and speech on what is true….

The experiement didn’t impact my stuttering, but it was a good reminder of the mental / emotional health that kind of thinking and speaking produces. It reminded me that thoughts can be controlled even when the circumstances can dictate otherwise. I will continue.

And Gary’s encouraging note was so helpful:
Ray,
My prayer for you today is that you think, believe and speak the Words of God at all times, that you have the confidence of what He would say in all situations, that your speech would build up in Him, that you would believe the truth in all things, that all would glorify God, that you may see and hear what God will do through His Word flowing out of His heart in you.

I am so blessed to have Gary as an encouraging friend. That will remain in my email post and be my prayer mantra.

Stuttering Experiment

God through the writer of Isaiah continues to inspire, challenge and encourage me.

Stuttering has really taken off and at times have to spell a word cuz I can’t say it. Thus this morning Isaiah 57:19 Amp leaped off the page at me. "Peace, peace, to him who is far off [both Jew and Gentile] and to him who is near! says the Lord; I create the fruit of his lips, and I will heal him [make his lips blossom anew with speech in thankful praise] "

“You are stretching that one, Burwick, if you are interpreting that to mean God will heal you,” one may say. Well, I may be, but here is my take on it. God could give me fluent speech immediately, if He chose – if not here, for sure in heaven. I believe He is telling me to apply Phillipians 4:8 to my speaking. “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

Not only think them, but speak them. Be more careful of the verbage content. I’m going to endeavor to follow this Philippians guide for today and I’ll see what happens. Let you know tomorrow.

Fear / Insecurity

Loss can significantly reveal how a person views him(her) self. Everyone carries at least a smidgen of insecurity / fear. I know I’m the “chiefest of sinners,” however the loss of my mobility and strength certainly has triggered the “what ifs” and “what will I’s”.

So, when God through Isaiah spoke again to me this morning, addressing the subject of fear/insecurity, I was so grateful. It reminds me again of the importance of being in the Bible consistently.

Listen in to God’s monologue with me an hour ago from Isaiah chapter 46.

3 “Listen to me, descendants of Jacob,
all you who remain in Israel.
I have cared for you since you were born.
Yes, I carried you before you were born.
4 I will be your God throughout your lifetime—
until your hair is white with age. (That is me.)
I made you, and I will care for you.
I will carry you along and save you.
9 Remember the things I have done in the past.
For I alone am God!
I am God, and there is none like me.
10 Only I can tell you the future
before it even happens.
Everything I plan will come to pass,
for I do whatever I wish.

Some may say, “That was written to the Jews of that day. It doesn’t necessarily apply to you in the present.” I do believe we can’t arbitrarily pick a passage and claim that personally. However, as you examine Scripture in totality, God wants to give good gifts to His children. He wants to bless us and wants us to be a blessing. His blessing to me this morning was found in Isaiah 46, which supports my favorate passage:

Romans 15:13 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I don’t mind stopping and asking for directions. It is important to me to know where I am going – especially if I’m lost. That has happened a few times in our new Northern Kentucky travels where the topography is marked by hilly and curvy back roads.

Since leaving Nampa, I’ve been asking God for directions. Where are Theresa and I headed? The plans to love on and encourage our kids and grandkids was thwarted by my accident November 15. After nearly 5 months, I’m getting around somewhat to be with my son’s children. Began driving the car again last week! Yea!!

Plans for building our house have been frustrated, first by a set of plans that projected the cost of construction to be $169,000 that turned out to be in the $400’s; and by the zoning commission that nixed a plan that was a gorgeous building.

It is kind of like flying into Chicago – a long holding pattern. “God, I like to do things. Have an objective in mind. Where am I headed? Can’t do the things I had planned, Build a barn. Do rock work. Leg pain is too severe. (Though it is much better.)

Then this morning in my meditation time with God, I read Isaiah 45. It was like He had drawn me to His side, put His arm around me and said: “I will go before you, Cyrus, (Ray) and level the mountains. I will smash down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness— secret riches.

I will do this so you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name. And why have I called you for this work? Why did I call you by name when you did not know me? It is for the sake of Jacob my servant, Israel my chosen one. I am the LORD; there is no other God. I have equipped you for battle, though you don’t even know me, so all the world from east to west will know there is no other God.

I am the LORD, and there is no other. I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times. I, the LORD, am the one who does these things.”

Still don’t know where I am headed, but one of the benefits of staying in the Word is to place oneself in a position to hear from Him. I needed that communication from Him today. Hidden treasure in darkness. Patience, Ray

Prayer and Community

Without silence the Spirit will die in us and the creative energy of our life will float away and leave us alone, cold and tired. Without silence we will lose our center and become victims of the many who constantly demand our attention.

Although the disciplne of solitude asks us to set aside time and space, what finally matters is that our hearts become like quiet cells where God can dwell, where ever we go and whatever we do. The more we train ourselves to spend time with God and God alone, the more we will discover that God is with us at all times and in all places. Then we will be able to recognize God even in the midst of a busy and active life.

IN solitude fear and anger can slowly be unmasked …they can lose their power in the embrace of God’s love. Solitude is a place of conversion… converted from people who want to show each other what we have and what we can do into people who raise our open and empty hands to God in the recogntion that all we are is a free gift from God.

Thus, in solitude we encounter not only God but also our true self. In fact, it is precisely in the light of God ‘s presence that we can see who we really are.

Solitude without community leads us to loneliness and despair, but community without solitude hurls us into a void of words and feelings. Solitude is essential to community life because in solitude we grow closer to each other. When we pray alone, study, read, write or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we intereact with each other directly, we are in fact particpaing fully in the growth of community.

Those who live prayerfully are constantly ready to receive the breath of God and to let their lives be renewed and expanded. Those who never pray, on the contrary, are like children with asthma: because they are short of breath, the whole world shrivels up before them.

Prayer continued

No direct answer to yesterday's prayer ... yet. Continuing the topic of prayer, I don't recall if I shared with you some notes I took from Henri Nouwen's "The Only Necessary Thing – Living a Prayerful Life."

Prayer is the act of dying to all that we consider to be our own and of being born to a new experience which is not of this world. Prayer is a death to the world so that we can live for God.

The great mystery of prayer is that even now it leads us into a new heaven and a new earth and thus is an anticipation of life in the divine kingdom.

Loneliness to solitude. All people are alone. No one in the world is like me. I’m alone. Out of the aloneness comes either loneliness or solitude. Alonenes can be seen as a wound. It hurts and is one of the greatest sources of suffering today. However aloneness can be a gift. In our aloneness we can discover solitude when God tells us how deeply He loves us. Aloneness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be misunderstood and be destructive or filled with promises for those who can tolerate the pain. When alone with no distractions the chaos can be so disturbing we get busy again.

Plan 5-10 minutes per day to begin. It may feel like wasted time bombarded by a mirade of thoughts and feelings. The discipline of solitude allows us to gradually come in touch with the presence of God in our lives…leading to joy and peace.

In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friend to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to enterain, no books to distract, just me – naked vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken – nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadul that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions to that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something.

But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies and wierd associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces… Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory. The task is to persevere in my soliude to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone… The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unnconditinnally to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer Time

Would you join me in my prayer time this morning?

“Father, is it possible to be exhausted and grateful at the same time? I have so much for which to be grateful. But I’m bushed trying to find where you want us to live. OH, we have the 10 acres right beside our daughter’s 45 that is just gorgeous. But we need a building.

“Plans were to build what I thought was my dream home – advertised cost to build: $!69000 (stick built). Bids came in from $375 to 500,000. That was hard to give up. So we checked other builders and other options. Building in Northern Kentucky seemed out of reach.Then we saw what we thought was a modular home that we fell in love with. 2500 square feet. Turned down at the last minute by the county. Not enough road frontage for a mobile home.Makes no sense. 10 acres and can’t put the building on it we want.

“Options, Father, seem to be apply for a variance, which would take 6 to 8 weeks and who knows if it will be accepted. Or, start all over and keep looking. What are we missing? Or is this just time for buildng forbearance, patience? Learning to trust You, Abba Papa, even in exhaustion?
Guide our steps today."

Thanks for praying with us.