What is that thing that makes you run? Or shut down. Or rage. You know that feeling, when everything is going well and then it hits. And the rest of your day is in a landslide. It’s not you anymore in the drivers seat. It’s fight or flight mode or maybe lights out.
You may wake up and shake it off hours later, or a week. Reality has escaped you, you’ve been in a spin. Then you struggle to get back to normalcy.

It’s amazing how the enemy hits you. Those personalized self guided missiles made just for you. It knows just where those crack are. Those personal wounds that only you own. It steals our joy. Robs our vision. And leaves us doubting ourselves or cleaning up the mess we’ve made.

Didn’t we see it coming? Why do we never see it coming?

Why don’t we realize it’s an attack? How do we go blind so fast?

Life wasn’t meant to be a series of patterns or cycles… it was meant to be a journey. Are we stumbling towards glory or are we just walking in circles.

Keeping our heart central and our vision clear is what is important. If we lose that in the course of the day, we’re toast. If busyness blinds us what are we to do?

We can’t forget who we are. Our identity is central, if we lose that we’ve lost everything.

I’m not really into following the herd (if you haven’t noticed already) so I don’t really do well with commercial holidays. But I’ll look past that because there’s always good reason to pause and meditate on how blessed and thankful we are.

I’m thankful for:

- a big and merciful God

- a loving and supportive wife

- brilliant and amazing kids

- steadfast and encouraging friends

God has really blessed me by surrounding me with such amazing people. I love the fact that get to follow Him (and share His love with others) as my career.

Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.  For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. Psalm 95:2-3

So today is a good day.
What are you thankful for? 

I preached in church on Sunday on the Death of the American Dream.

[audio http://www.mypodcast.com/cached/stuartdelony_20071018_1928-113007-50262-2-25.mp3]
If anyone wants a missionary speaker for church or youth group…

I have mic, will travel.

[Painting by Carol Aust]

I’ve been feeling bogged down lately. Partly it’s from stresses and burdens I’m carrying. I know that I shouldn’t be carrying them, but here I find myself again with an aching back feeling weighted down and restless. There’s those things in our livesthat seem to plague us. At times we forget they exist, then we get hit again. I let the worries of the world begin to get to me and before I know it, I’ve forgotten who I am. I let myself become defined by my burdens.  Ha! They’re not even my burdens, they’re things like worry, and a lack of faith. They haunt me, they stalk my every move.

Yet I am reminded in Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” How often to I find myself feeling like a Bond martini - shaken, not stirred. You’d think I’d get it right every once in a while. I think I need a tattoo: “rely less upon self and more on God, stupid!” Or maybe I’ll just settle for it on a t-shirt.

I find myself asking, “Why oh why God, do I think I can handle life on my own?“ Then I am reminded that we’re all taught to never show weakness. We must always project excellence and competence. The only problem is I’m so often not excellent or barely competent and just hoping no one else notices.

Then 2 Corinthians 2:10 hits me with, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” So what now, I’m choosing to be weak? Oh great, feeling weak is what got me here in the first place. So I’m tired, weary, weak, worrisome and faithless. I’m also lacking in excellence and competence. So where do I go now God? And that’s the question I should have been asking in the first place.