Today’s a new day! I hope you know God is always with you. You never need to walk alone. God always goes before you. He stands with you. Whatever you might be walking through today, be confident God is with you. ~OC
Prayer
Today’s a new day! Prayer has been a major part of my life. Especially, as I have walked through this crazy beautiful health journey. I have learned a lot about prayer during this time. I thought I would share a few things I have learned about prayer over the years.
I believe prayer is an act of listening to God, not just talking. Prayer begins with listening, or being still as the Psalmist says. Without this, I believe prayer can be downgraded to transactional communication.
Prayer was not designed to be transactional. Prayer is relational. I believe we must learn to listen to God before prayer will have the true meaning He desires for each of us to experience.
During this crazy beautiful health journey, I have learned a lot about just listening to God. Being still.
As I shared earlier, I believe prayer begins with listening. But it eventually becomes a way of life. I believe prayer is a divine attentiveness to the things of God in our everyday lives. It’s an increased awareness of God’s movement in the world. I believe this explains why Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17)
Over the years as I have learned to sit still and just listen to God, I have found peace in my health journey and in every area of my life. What a beautiful gift.
When prayer truly becomes a way of life, nothing happens by chance. No moment stands alone. Everything is connected. Good or bad, nothing is wasted. Every circumstance is an opportunity to see God, a realization of his movement in the world.
Prayer, the transformative kind, cannot be rushed. Short little pop up prayers are not wrong. God can use those prayers in powerful ways. There is also nothing wrong with scheduling a time for prayer. But I believe to truly experience God and the Spirit’s fruits (love, joy, peace, etc.), prayer must become something our day revolves around rather than something crammed into an already busy schedule.
I encourage everyone not to hurry through prayer. You just can’t. In America, everything is built on speed. We’re an on-demand, right this minute culture. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it’s toxic when we try to impose these cultural values onto prayer.
A few more thing I believe we sometimes miss about prayer.
Prayer is intensely personal and extremely intimate. When it comes to intimacy, how you approach it with God is how you approach it with everything in your life. If you struggle to find intimacy with God, it will impact intimacy with your spouse, family, friends, and everyone else you connect with in life.
Prayer shapes our capacity for relational intimacy. It’s hard to be intimate with another divinely-created person when you’re not intimate with the divine Creator.
My health issues continue to be a battle, but I strive to be still and listen to God throughout my day. By doing this, I feel more connected to God and I am more grateful for my life and relationships. I am also more concerned about the wellbeing of others. This journey is not all about me.
Coincidence? No. I believe my increased intimacy with God has given me a different lens in the way I look at people and the world.
So, as I continue to walk out this health journey, focused and intimate prayer will continue to be a major part of my life. I pray as you walk out your own journey, prayer will guide your steps and become a special and life changing time in your daily life. ~OC
A Different View
Today’s a new day! I have several friends who do not like going to church, but they think Jesus is really cool. When Jesus was walking on earth, thousands of people flocked to hear him teach. He had something worth saying and his message was life changing. If you are a Christian how do you live? If a non-Christian spent the day with you, would they change the way they viewed Christians?
Some people believe that the Church is a place that is only for people who are good enough. Nothing could be further from the truth. The faith lived out by Jesus was one that was taken up by people who were the wrong sort according to the religious people of the day. They did not have it all together. People came to Jesus with their imperfections and some turned to him and called on him for forgiveness and he forgave them and he led them in a new life. Jesus never sent anyone away who was imperfect and he never sent people away who didn’t agree with him or who didn’t want to follow his teaching. One of his disciples Peter, cut off the ear of one of the people who had come to arrest Jesus (John 18:10), Peter also denied knowing Jesus three times (Mark 14:66-72). In Matthew 16:18, Jesus shares these powerful words, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” In Peter we see the worst and best of the Christian faith, but Jesus loved him and still chose to work with and through him.
Where some Christians go wrong is that they try to portray themselves as perfect rather than the truth which is that we are all broken and thankfully have been forgiven. That as Christians, we are all on a journey of change. I’ve heard it said that: God loves us as we are, but he also loves us too much to leave us that way.
When we make the choice to follow Jesus we are born again, spiritually beginning a new life. The Bible also talks about us reflecting the glory of God as he changes us (2 Corinthians 3:18). The apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament talks about a battle going on in every Christian between the Spirit (God in us) and our sinful nature (Romans 7:9). Who will we listen to? Will we live for ourselves only or do we want to live for God?
I pray every Christian will walk securely in God’s love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace and all of His beautiful gifts. I pray as God’s children, we will be guided by the Holy Spirit living in us to keep on striving to become more like Jesus. ~OC
The Gift of Grace Part 1
Today’s a new day! The beautiful gift of Grace is not freedom to sin; rather, grace is freedom from sin. Jesus did not die for our sins so we could continue to live in them. No, He died for our sins so that we could go and sin no more. Will we always deal with sin in our lives? Absolutely. Does our struggle with sin separate us from the love of Christ? Absolutely not. But our attitude as one truly saved by grace should not be to continue wallowing in the very behavior that Jesus died to deliver us from. Rather, a person redeemed by the love of Jesus will strive to trust in the work He did on the Cross and desire to become more like Him each day. When the Apostle Paul explained salvation by grace, he anticipated the replies of those who would seek to abuse it. That’s why he asked, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2). The Apostle John shared this warning, “No one who abides in [Jesus] keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him” (1 John 3:6). Jesus Himself warned that we “will recognize [people] by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20). As believers in Christ, we must not offer the world a cheap grace that allows us to proclaim devotion to Jesus with our lips while having a love affair with sin on the side. Our daily lives should reflect a real and life changing encounter with Jesus. That is what a broken and unbelieving world is looking to experience. Do our lives reflect the love, forgiveness, hope, grace and freedom of Jesus? The world is watching and wanting to experience that true freedom and grace. ~OC
My Home in Heaven
Today’s a new day! This body and world are just temporary. Life is but a vapor. I will not let the struggles in life become my identity. My God-given purpose in life is to love and serve. Not to hate or judge. My home is in Heaven. I am just passing through on my way home. ~OC
Catch It!
Today’s a new day! Our senses can become numbed in the aftermath of life storms, and the presence of suffering. But if the declaration of God’s love begins with awe, I can think of nothing more effective in helping to restore our wonder than by reminding ourselves through scripture, of just how much God loves us. So much so, that he sent His one and only son to die for us. (1 John 4:9-10)
One of my favorite scripture verses is found in Zephaniah 3:17:
“The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love, and rejoice over you in singing.”
Did you catch that? God will rejoice over us with singing. What a beautiful thought. God delights in us. When we have an accurate view of God’s amazing love for us, we can process our suffering through a lens of hope. And hope can turn our thoughts from being inward focused, to being upward focused. This change in perspective can make all the difference, in the presence of suffering. ~OC
The Potter’s Hand
Today’s a new day! This crazy beautiful health journey has taken me from who I was to the person God created me to be. This is not a path I would have willingly chosen for myself or for Laura and our loved ones. Each day this journey gets a little more painful. My body aches almost as much as my heart. I do not get caught up in whether or not this journey was chosen for me. I will leave that debate for others to figure out. I do know I am being shaped by the Potter’s hand. He continues to dig his hands in and squeezes out all the imperfections…. placing me into the fire to seal his skilled handiwork. All the while I continue to put my faith and hope in my Savior’s loving hands… trusting him with my very life. ~OC
Word for 2024
Today’s a new day! We have officially entered 2024. Happy New Year! As we celebrate a new year, I have been praying about what word God would give me for 2024.
While many are uneasy about the year ahead — whether that anxiety stems from family, health, finances issues or the political climate, I am going into the new year with anticipating and excitement. The word God has given me for 2024 is Passion.
As I reflect back on my running days, I attribute much of my success to being passionate about running. Putting in the daily training to be a successful runner was a grind. Most of my runs were filled with pain and discomfort. It would have been easy to give into the pain and give up. But running was not just a hobby for me. No, it was a passion and calling from God. As some of you know, God gave me a vision during surgery in 2003 to remove a cancerous tumor that He wanted me to start running marathons and sharing his love. As I shared earlier, the marathons and training were a grind, but the passion to share all God had done and was doing in my life gave me the desire to push through the pain.
I wholeheartedly believe to be successful in running and more importantly to be successful in life, we need to approach everything with a sense of passion.
I believe it’s difficult to be successful in this journey called life without enthusiasm, energy, dedication and a passion to achieve.
I pray in this new year, we choose to run after the things that are important in life with devotion and a sense of passion to help others and to make planet earth a better place for everyone.
As I continue to run this crazy beautiful health journey, I will stay the course and spread hope, love and encouragement to everyone God brings my way. I pray your 2024 is filled with peace, joy and passion. ~OC
Growing In God
Today’s a new day! As I continue to walk through this crazy beautiful health journey, God continues to share amazing lessons with me. I wanted to share some of those lessons with you.
During times of pain, aches, fear and the brokenness, God has been and continues to stay near (Psalm 34:18).
God continues to teach me the value of slowing down. The importance of saying no. The importance of patience. The importance of truly being present.
The importance of doing one thing at a time. (Because I used to pride myself in multi-tasking, something I am not great at these days).
The importance of being okay with not being okay.
God continues to teach me the importance of being silent.
The importance of excepting help from others. The importance of caring and unselfish family and friends. The importance of genuine friendships. The importance of embracing the miracles of daily courage.
God continues to teach me the importance of pausing long enough to have meaningful and life-giving conversations. The beauty of observing life at a slower pace. The importance of just laughing with loved ones and sometimes shedding some tears.The blessing of having a bride who shows kindness and demonstrates what in sickness and in health really looks like.
God continues to teach me how to be kind and compassionate to others and myself.
Do I want to continue struggling with the effects of my health issues? Absolutely not! Do I want to continue experiencing the goodness of God as I take refuge in Him? Absolutely! (Psalm 34:8)
As we prepare to say goodbye to 2023 and say hello to a New Year, I have no idea what 2024 will bring. None of us do. I want to continue encouraging and serving others. I want to be a better husband and friend. I want to continue to grow. What I do know is that my heart desires to continue praising God at all times; His praise will continually be on my lips this new year. (Psalm 34:1). ~OC
Memories Along the Journey
Today’s a new day! As I have traveled this crazy beautiful health journey, I see things differently than I used to. Some life experiences and hopefully a little wisdom. My physical memory can be a bit tricky with the neurological issues and Long Covid issues, but my heart memory is in great condition. While I often forget day to day things, I am constantly remembering things that are far more important.
I remember the day I met my bride and how life has never been the same since. So many amazing memories.
I remember the beautiful friends God has blessed me with since childhood. So many amazing memories.
I remember that I need to be… want to be…. a man of honor and integrity. Hopefully a man of compassion and generosity. Because one day, I will become a memory in the lives of those that I love and I want those memories to be ones they will cherish.
I remember that the pursuits of this world… fame, fortune, power, position, success (whatever that means)… are not at all important. They’re just not.
I remember that I need to tell Laura and other loved ones every day that I love them. Not just tell them but show them because life is short. I never want to miss an opportunity to let my family and friends know what they mean to me.
This health journey is not an easy one. People often tell me how well I handle all that has been thrown at me, but the journey has not been easy. This journey has been and continues to be filled with tough moments. My health journey has definitely been an inconvenience in so many ways. It is something I would never wish on anyone. But while I continue to walk through the challenges of this health crisis, there are good things that can be taken from it. Lessons learned and hopefully more lessons to come. Some amazing memories made and hopefully many more memories to be made.
As I continue to walk this journey, I will never allow it to consume me. It will never become my identity.
I love the words in Genesis 50:20:
You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now – life for many people.
I have an opportunity in front of me that most people rarely get. I have had the opportunity to reclaim life from a place where there is usually death.
That makes me one of the most blessed individuals on earth. ~OC
The Blessed Overcomer 