Tinted

Who could complain?

I’m not gripping, but it is a state of reality for me. Even after having what some might consider a “normal” nights sleep, I’m still exhausted. I just paid $4 for a piece of pound cake! Freshman error! I saw it, it looked good and I gave in. It’s not a sin, but it is 1/3 of a bag of good coffee beans, and when your pinching your pennies…
I mean she is a beautiful girl and I have a wonderful family. It is definitely worth it!
Hopefully, in the next few days I will adjust to a more “normal” routine and have wonderful insights to espouse upon, but until then…

Lil sis is watching

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Well…She’s here!
I would love to say that I have some very deep and philosophical thoughts for tonight’s blog, but …No! Actually, I feel like my brain is mush! It’s bad enough having all of the stress of last week, then the high emotions of joy and relief and the desperate roller coaster of contradictory feelings of adoption. Then to top it all off are the night time feedings.

If you’ve been there, then you know. If you haven’t then trust me when I tell you I’m drained. If you’d like to see more pictures of our new family you can check me out on Face book. I’ll try to be more coherent later, but until then …….

Signs, Signs, everywhere are signs!

Saw this “sign” in the bathroom of a theater.

We took a mini vacation to “find ourselves”/reconnect pamper ourselves selfishly, et. al.

We took in a movie and finally saw “wolverine” it was action packed, very dark! Had dinner at P.F. Changs, which will probably be the first of many! WOW! that’s what chinese is suppose to taste like! Then we headed back to the hotel with memories of old friends swimming in our heads! We had several years of teachers conferences in the same conference center. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to ride those elevators without thinking of our former principal …

After a wonderful evening of selfish indulgence, we retreated to the hot tub and pool area. Ah, blissfully empty except for a dad and two daughters who are definitely Indian. We have kept to “the rules” pretty well. We only mentioned Jackson or the adoption in passing. We briefly flirted with the topic of church & personal financial concerns, but only briefly. I admit those things are on my mind a fair amount. Not to the point of worry or obsession, but ever present as an object of prayer. After realizing that “heated pool” was a relative term we joined the trio in the hot tub.

They were gracious and it was one of those thirty something size tubs so there was plenty of room. Suspicions were soon confirmed that our fellow guests were not only of Indian decent, but from India! It turns out that father and children were recently reacquainted. The girls had been in the states with their mother who was recovering from a complicated pregnancy. Dad was here to bring his wife, three children and new addition home to India! After we found out this information it became readily apparent that this chance meeting was not as random as we thought. Here is an excerpt from the conversation that followed:

Indian Gentleman: “Are you familiar with The Church of God?”
Me: “Uhm, yes we attend a Church of God…”
Indian Brother: “How are things going in your church?”
Me: “We’re kinda small and the economy is hitting us pretty hard. Our area outside of Martinsville, VA has been struggling with out sourcing and closing plants for years. This economy is just making things worst. How are things in India?”
Indian Brother: “I am the state overseer of one state in India. We are suffering under persecution. Many of our pastors have been beaten and arrested. One of them was cut (he shows me a line along the full length of his torso) from here to here. We run an orphanage / school where many of their children live and attend, because of the troubles and also there are no schools where these men preach.”
Me: “We will pray for you and your pastors!”

It reminded me. Shook me, may be a better word. My “struggles” are real. Many churches and many more families are having difficulties. But it reminded me of the writers exhortation/correction/rebuke in Hebrews (paraphrased) “You haven’t suffered to the point of pouring out your blood like Christ, yet! Have you?”

None of this takes away from the troubles and struggles that we all face in life, but I needed mine placed in perspective. Better yet, I needed my perspective changed.

This brother was not only struggling through the absence of his family and being separated from them in a possibly life threatening birth situation with his newest child. He was also ministering to men and women who were literally being beaten and tortured. He was ministering to and keeping safe the children of other men, all the while his own family and life were just as at risk. He was doing it joyfully and with great purpose. He was taking his family back to India. Yes there had been struggles, trials, but he hadn’t suffered to the degree that Christ had, had he? There was still work to be done. Still lost souls to reach. Still time until the Master returns, before an accounting of time and talents must be given.

Yep, some signs are easier to read. This one was pretty clear. I hope it speaks just as loudly to you!

(pardon grammatical errors, I don’t have time to proof today!)

We had an awesome time Sunday and Monday on our little get-a-way! We figured it up and to our shame it had been over a year since Kristen and I had had anytime just to ourselves. We needed it! The BIG RULE … don’t talk about kids, church or work! For the most part we succeeded except where discussing one or the other helped debrief and refocus on the Lord.

Kristen asked me on the way home what I enjoyed most, although my answer was cheeky then, when I look back I realized that I was able to laugh! Don’t get me wrong, I have a good sense of humor. With some of the friends we have I wouldn’t survive without it. But what was most special was that we found ourselves laughing sometimes at the silliest stuff. It was nice and I really needed that!

Today, the schedule is still here. As I reflect back and write my phone has been buzzing and beeping with messages and reminders. I still have to prepare notes for a meeting later in the week that is really intimidating! I have to hit the road this afternoon to go get a load of food from the Food Bank and pick up my son. We still have to finish prepping and painting the babies room!

Did I mention that the “little rascal” has been trying to make an early exit? There may not be any Hays’ blood, but the kid already can’t stand to be late and likes to be in control! If that ain’t a sign!

So Sunday and Monday were not about escaping … but reconnecting, reaffirming, reestablishing the best/most important and critical friendship/relationship that I have except for the Lord. It was about reminding each other who we love, depend on and cherish! With the Lord and my wife by my side, none of the “opportunities” above seem daunting! Anything and everything is possible!

If you will allow me to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong (or maybe it does) for just a minute. To my friends and family. Many of you are focused on your jobs, ministry, church or children. You believe that these things are important maybe even MOST important because they allow you to be. They allow you to have the family you do, the home you do, the life you do, but I have news for you. If you focus on the job and work and work and work, but loose your family what do you have? If you focus on the kids and give to them, support them and spend all your energy on them, but loose your spouse what do you really have? If you focus all your time and energies on your ministry or church work (after all it’s for God isn’t it?), and loose your spouse and children what have you gained?

The bible says that we are to be one flesh with our wife/husband. It also says what do you have if you gain the whole world but loose your soul? If you loose your spouse, if you don’t invest in that relationship that came first, if you don’t love, cherish and support the first relationship that HE entrusted you with …

there will be no family,
there will be no job,
there will be no ministry,
there will be no church,
there will be no life,
there won’t even be a complete you!

Quit being selfish! Invest in your husband/wife, rekindle that love! Learn to be a giver and not just a taker in your marriage! Quit thanking that doing for the kids is the same as doing for your spouse! Put first things, first! Remember your wedding vows and then live up to them on your part! If you live up to your part I can promise the Lord will honor it!

In the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I got to say about that!”
Amen!

It's time to FIGHT!

It’s funny to me that it has been a week since the last post. It has been one of THOSE weeks, in a good way. My calendar this week and next was/is just totally booked. And that is part of the problem and part of the solution! Sometimes there is too much distraction or “noise” like I said last week. Then there are other times when it’s busy, but it’s a productive refreshing sort of busy. One of the things I am determined to do is to be purposeful in all that I do and all that we do as a church. That is part of the Fight that we are in. A fight to wrestle spiritually, while being effective in this “flesh and blood” world.

One way I am fighting is by taking two days and and night away in the near future with just my wife and me. Honestly, I can’t remember the last “real” date we have had. That alone condemns me! We have a baby coming, Lord willing, on June 3rd via adoption. It dawned on me that it is “now or never” or at least not for a long while. My wife deserves it! My son and church deserve it! If I don’t nurture this relationship with my wife/best friend than I will loose it at some point down the road. We are a team and if we are not walking in step together than everything and everyone in our life suffers!

We are fighting in other ways too, but not like someone who just beats the air. We are determined to be purposeful, sensitive, attentive to the divine breathing. The victory really is assured, but the fights can get long and nasty, if we don’t learn to wait, listen, lean, follow and obey…

It’s a process, it’s a fight!

It is a walk of faith, it is a life style and an adventure!

I’ve been chewing on what the Lord has been speaking into me this week. It’s been powerful. There has been a lot of noise lately and that often can keep me from hearing that “still small voice”. So I’ve been chewing and trying to take what I’ve been fed so that it can strengthen. Here is a quote that I’m chewing on as well as some very direct words received from a friend. Henri Nouwen said…

“When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope”

God has been answering some of our prayers very directly. For instance, our church could not make the mortgage payment last week. There was no money. We are trimming back and things are very tight, and we already know that next month one of our families is moving! So things will be getting tighter! Then the Lord spoke and someone outside our church wrote us a check for what we were short so that we could pay the mortgage! That was God!

This has also been a very productive week. I have personally seen a lot of loose ends tied up and my family has seen the Lord’s favor. My son needs new glasses, but money is tight and we are trying desperately to get the last $1,000 for our adoption. Someone wrote a check for my family and in an hour I leave to take my son to see the eye Dr. That was God!

Not all of our challenges as a family or a church have been met. But God is faithful, He has a plan of good for me/us and not for evil and He will bring us/me to the end that He has ordained for us/me!

My friend shannon asked for folks to tell their storries of times of transition when there was no plan B. Here is mine, (names and key facts have been left out. I have ministered in several states in two different denominations and one independent work).

Once upon a time, when we were in youth ministry at a church for less than a year of a 5 year commitment the Lord began to stir our hearts toward being senior pastors. We had never considered being senior pastors before, ever!. We were confused because we didn’t really think that it was time for another transition so soon. But the fact that this “stirring” was in an area of ministry we had never pursued really gave us pause. So we sought out counsel.

I attempted to contact a friend who the Lord had used in the past to help us find direction, it just so happened that he was the pastor of my parents church. So I placed a call, but I found out it was to no avail because he was out of town. So I called my parents to see if they knew when he was due to return. It was at that point that one of my parents mentioned some one else who they knew was a friend to their pastor. This gentleman was known to me, but mainly because he was in charge of church planting for our state. I made the appointment and went to meet him. I sat down and told him how my wife and I had been struggling with this unusual stirring to senior pastor. It was at that point he looked at me and asked, “Jack, do you know what I do here?” “Yes sir”, I said. “Your in charge of church planting, but that’s really not what this is about.” It was at this point that he informed me (remember you guys, youth pastors don’t always keep up on things outside of the youth ministry in general) that he was also responsible for helping the bishop find pastors for churches.

I was floored and a little embarrassed. Anyway, he suggested that I go back and tell my pastor what we felt like the Lord was telling us and ask for his prayer and advise. Neither my wife or I felt like this call was a “go now or your going to get zapped call.” Our pastor at the time was relatively new to the state he had planted a successful church in the past and now was the pastor of a good size church. So we felt like he might allow us to begin “training” of sorts and look toward a future of ministry as a senior pastor down the road as we continued the youth ministry. After all we had not been at the church long and we were not looking to go anywhere. We just had these promptings by the Lord that we couldn’t ignore nor did we fully understand.

So I left the meeting and decided to tell our pastor the next day. I mainly wanted to ask him for prayer to help us find direction in this matter. I wasn’t sure of any clear direction, but I knew we needed prayer. That was plan A. Pray! It was a good plan we thought.

Plan A blew up in my face, literally! We didn’t know how unhinged this pastor was. He yelled at me for 45 minutes straight. I’m a big guy and he had former military experience that he liked to bring up often in conversations, to the point that he kept a weapon in the office. I mention that only to explain why I say unhinged, because at one point he made a very aggressive move toward me and I had to jump up and get into a position to defend myself. It was crazy! There was no resolution at the end of the tirade. I stood there dumbfounded and amazed that a simple request like “Hey pastor I’m confused will you help me pray about something?” turned into hysterics and threats.

I dreaded work the next morning, but hoped and prayed that over the evening something would have happened to help calm things down. I was wrong. He came in and began by telling me that I had lied and mislead him when I agreed to come to the church with a 5 year commitment. He said he had “heard from God and God said I had 30 days to change my mind and never mention being a senior pastor again, or my resignation would be expected immediately!” He ranted and raved for another 30 minutes. He told me I was totally wrong, and that I had not heard from God at all. Again I reminded him that all I did was ask for him for prayer and counsel, but the days of talking were over. For the next 30 days he did not speak hardly a word to me. Oh, did I forget to mention that I was forbidden to talk to anyone in the church or outside the church about this?

Plan B, uh, there wasn’t one because I was just asking for prayer. I had no ideas or intentions beyond, “hey what does this mean? Will someone help me figure this out?”. The only thing I could do was call the gentleman I had talked to and prayed with at our state office and explain what had happened. I knew that regardless of what happened I could not continue to work with a man that was so obviously volatile and off in left field. I may have failed to mention that this pastor also believed that as the pastor God would speak to him about his staff and his congregation. If God did not confirm whatever it was with him personally then they had apparently missed God. Seriously, he had chapter and verse too!

No plan B, I was told secretly that there were possibilities of churches in the state maybe opening, but nothing definite. All we could do was pray. We did tell a few people in our church because we were scared and wanted people we loved and trusted to pray with us. But for 30 days we waited. We didn’t pack. We didn’t send out resume’s. We tried not to be bitter or under mind the pastor (luckily I had read, A tale of three kings!) At the end of the 30 days God did open a door for us to take a small church as our first pastorate. But all of that was beyond our control. And maybe, just maybe that was for the best, scary yes, absolutely, but for the best!

@jackhays

I don’t have long so you will have to listen fast! I have started hearing “stirrings” from people I follow, people who follow me and “others”, about the appropriate protocols for twitter. So here’s my view/understanding:

When I first signed up I understood that the general idea for twitter was basically built on the premise of sending short (140 characters or less) texts that answer the question, “what are you doing?” Most of the folks I follow do just that. Some folks have taken a different slant. I have one friend (and you know who you are) that sends out funny antidotes each day and usually nothing personal. That’s OK. It is actually refreshing. Others use twitter as a link to update facebook at the same time. I do this as well. Some send pictures or links to their blogs. Some even carry on personal conversations that seem to go on and on. To each his/her own!

Here is my personal philosophy on twitter!

Twitter, like the rest of America (at least as of this writing) is free. Not only do you not pay for it, you are not forced to follow or be followed. The whole thing is purely within your control. So I tweet when I feel like it, about what I feel like. Some may choose to follow my tweets or not. Others may have them sent to their phone or not. You may read them at twitter.com or not. On the other hand, I will follow whoever I want and I will respond when I want. I rarely block anyone, except those who seem to be marketing stuff or total strangers who seem to have no connection. But by all means, block whom ever you wish, including yours truly. That is one of the things I like better about twitter than facebook, the control.

I choose to not be offended and I choose to take control. There are some folks that I like, but will not follow. Some I will follow via my phone and others just on my Mac. If you think that I tweet too much then you probably haven’t spoken to me in person or you would have expected that from me to begin with. Please feel free to do as you wish and know that I will support you. If you choose not to follow me I won’t be bothered. If you choose to follow me then you decide not to, then that is fine as well. No hard feelings.

It is suppose to be fun or at least interesting and engaging. For me it has been so far and I hope it continues. When it becomes a bore or a pain I will follow the lead of one of my friends earlier this week who simply stopped! Until then …

I wanna go deeper!

I told Kristen yesterday, “Hearing from God is not where most people struggle. The Bible says that His sheep know his voice. It is the way that we interpret what we hear.”

I’m struggling to interpret what I’m hearing mainly because there is a lot of noise.

Our country is in a recession possibly heading toward a depression. The powers to be are, I believe, attempting to reshape the entire fabric of our country and even our constitution. All the while people are suffering. Those that work are struggling to hold on to jobs. Many have already lost their jobs and in turn their benefits and their security. All the while those that are employed are told they will have to bare even a heavier tax burden for “bail outs” that are ineffective and “social” programs that benefit many who will not or can not bare their own weight.

All of this is effecting the Church and our church, maybe even your church. That is a heavy burden to carry. You don’t want to be alarmist or show a lack of faith or trust in the Lord. However, as a good steward and leader you have to prepare for not only what is happening, but what could very well be coming. All of this is stressful, confusing at times and difficult to balance.

In the midst of that I feel like the Lord has shown me a vision of revival coming to our church through a spirit of intercession that is in its infancy and/or is lead by our children and youth. Last Sunday I preached what could very well be the “toughest” message of responsibility and accountability in my ministry. I was even concerned afterward that I had “beat up” on the “flock” something I have vowed never to do. Only to hear a report yesterday from someone in the community that it was timely and necessary. To top it all off, a trusted friend called Kristen with “a word from the Lord”. Those of you that know me, also know that I don’t receive “words from the Lord” usually.

Let me clarify. I am confident enough in God and my relationship with him to know that He can and will speak to me directly. I believe and have taught for years that any “word from the Lord” should meet certain criteria.
1) “A word from the Lord” should only be received from someone that you know whose life is consistent and accountable to the Word of God and to others in leadership or ministry.
2) “A word from the Lord” should usually only come as a confirmation of what the Lord has already been speaking to you personally.
3) “A word from the Lord” will stand the test of time and is open for interpretation. God doesn’t make mistakes, but everyone else does. Arrogance and pride are tools that the enemy will use to derail you even if the word of the Lord was and is real. Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

(To those who are totally alarmed my anyone attempting to put criteria on the Holy Spirit, please take a moment to actually read the Bible! Paul put criteria on the manifestations of the Holy Spirit and insisted that every thing be done “decently and in order”. 1 Corinthians 14 makes it clear that their is a right time and way for spiritual manifestations. And the real kicker is that your gift ought to be evaluated by the others present!)

With all that being said, we received a spiritual message from a friend and fellow minister yesterday afternoon that spoke deeply to us about what is coming to our church. It is enough to say that the Lord is in Control, but the enemy is fighting. We will choose to “wait upon the Lord”! His timing will be perfect and He is fully capable to do what he said he would do. We will be continue to pray, prepare and persist in all he has called us to.

I will not fall into the trap of trying to define, interpret or “create” the future. What I know is that if it is God is will result in a place of salvation, healing and hope for unbelievers and believers in Jesus. If it is God it will not result in a spa of self indulgence and spiritual blessings for “fat babies” in Christ. If it is God it will result in renewed compassion and action in the body of Christ for those who are hungry, poor and lonely!

So how about you? Are you living in fear? Have you given up? Or is it possible that the fight you are in is exactly what is needed to prepare you and position you for the fulfillment of God’s promises in your life?

3/35

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It’s amazing that those pictures were only a few days apart. The differences in the atmosphere and feel of both is so tangible. They were both real days and yet vastly different …

Today it barely 8:30 a.m. and already almost 70 degrees on my deck! It will be close to 95 degrees (almost 100) and it’s still April. It’s sunny, the birds are singing (the humming birds are already back!) and the day is filled with so much hope and light! It reminds me of one of my favorite Jamie Cullum songs, “What a difference a day makes”, click on the title to see that blog entry.

Which brings me to this next thought, it is always blue and clear above the heavy clouds of despair that settle on our lives. The difference is perspective. My prayers for today go out to all of those who are underneath the oppression of their circumstances. I pray that the Lord of Hope, Mercy and Peace will be with you until you can see and feel the light of His presence in your heart and life. I pray that you will know his presence through the storm of your life.

He is faithful, He is present, He is in control … He is in control!

I know this may not change your already frazzled emotions and feelings right now and that is OK. Above the clouds it is already a new day and it day is coming your way!