Sitting at Starbucks

Tonight I am sitting outside of Starbucks in Fort Worth.  My friends who know me personally would be shocked that I am here (not really - I come to Starbucks a couple of times a day for Earl Grey tea).  As I sit here tonight, the weather is beautiful.  It's in the mid 70s and we got a little rain earlier.  People are walking around and talking and generally enjoying the night.  So tonight I want to talk about love.

I harp on this subject a lot because I see so much hatred in the world.  Tonight, everyone around me seems to be having a good time but we all know that hate is around here somewhere.  Now my girlfriend D and I had a discussion last night about politics and some of the more hot topic issues that always seem to come up.  Now as I said in one of my very first blogs, I know that there are definitely issues that need to be addressed and they are serious.  Whether or not you are for or against same sex marriages or abortion or flag burning or you fill in the blank.  I want to challenge you to love people.  I sat at lunch with my good friend J to day and this is one of the things he and I discussed.  Not love specifically but allowing others to have a different opinion and still being able to love and appreciate the person.

Regardless of whether you are a die hard Republican or die hard Democrat, God calls us to love people.  Did you know that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and yet He gives each of us the free will to go to Hell if that's what we chose?  Guess what, He will love you all the way there.  He will hate that you chose to go but He will love you and respect your decision and opinion on the subject.  Did you know that when they nailed Him to that cross He said, forgive them Father for they no not what they do.  He could have called 10,000 angels to get him off that cross and destroy the world but He chose not to do it.  He chose to love those who were putting Him to death.

Now I know a lot of us would like to walk around in the same power that Jesus walked the earth.  I think the reason that it doesn't happen is that we wouldn't say forgive them.  We would call the 10,000 angels to wipe out anyone who doesn't agree with our position, political party or choice of snow cone flavor.  Folks, this isn't the right way to run a railroad.

Now I am not saying that you shouldn't have an opinion and I do believe that you should stand up for who you are.  Guess what I have seen both sides of the isle work to run the other one over.  What I am telling you is stop the hate.  If you can't express your opinion in love, then don't express it until you can.   Quit making fun of or speaking badly of people who don't share the same opinion as you and start walking in love.

That's Another Opinion of the Minion

Faith

Today I want to talk about faith.  Did you know you have faith?  "Well, wait a minute," I can hear you say, "I'm not even a Christian.  I don't believe in that faith stuff."  My friend I beg to differ with you.  You do have faith.  What you have faith in is a totally different question.  While I was working out at the gym today, my trainer showed me a video of the guy who recently jumped out of that balloon from the edge of space.  Did you know he had faith?  In what?  Gravity.  He believed that he would return to earth when he jumped out of that capsule.  If he hadn't believed it, he would never have jumped out.

See we operate in faith all the time.  When you get out of bed, you have faith that you will be able to stay on the floor (gravity again).  You have faith that you are breathing air.  You have faith that the round ball in the sky providing light is the sun.  We have faith in all kinds of things.  Yes some of us have faith in God and that's a very good thing.  According to the bible, the opposite of faith is fear.

Fear is faith that something bad is going to happen.  If you have fear that you are going to die in a car accident, you are really saying that you have faith that this will come to pass in your life.  That's not a good thing.  Now I know some people will say that they had faith in God for this to happen or that and it didn't.  Why didn't your faith work?  I can't say for sure.  There are a lot of reasons that you may not have received what you wanted.  But let's look at the other side, there are many times when we fear something will happen and it doesn't.

I am amazed sometimes at how much fear and faith we see everyday.  Some fear is stronger than others but some faith is stronger than others as well.  I want you to know that fear and faith are not equal even though they are opposites.  Faith in God will always beat fear.  So let me ask you what you are afraid of today?  In the last couple of weeks I have been afraid of a certain thing.  But here's what I learned, when I started trusting God and putting my faith in him, that fear had to shrink away.  So let me ask you this?  Where is your faith?

Is it in something bad or something good?  The answer is something you have to decide but know this - you will operate in faith in many things today.  You only get to chose what you have faith in.

That's another Opinion of the Minion