U R Made

"I am an accident." I cannot tell you how many times I have heard those words and every time it breaks my heart because U R Made. Each and every one of us is custom, tailor made by the hand of God. In fact there are three things we need to know about how we were made.

First God thought about you before He made you. In fact, you were thought of long before He even said, "let there be light." Think about it. God is creating the earth, speaking things into existence and when He gets to the creation of man He stops and thinks about how He's going to do it. He says, "Let us make man in Our image." He thought about it, He pondered how He was going to create you. He thought about the eyes, the nose, the ears, the smile, the personality, the family and the location you would be born. He even thought about the time period you would be born. You were and are thought about. If God thought about you so intricately how then could you be an accident? You couldn’t be, accidents are unplanned, and you were planned by the God of all creation. God thought about you and still thinks about you.

Second, God didn't just think about you He made you... with His own hands. Everything else in creation was created by the Word of God, but man was made with the hands of God in the image of God. You are hand crafted by God. He intricately wove you and made you in your mother’s womb. He made you! U R made. He gave you that smile, don't hide it or hate it. He gave you that family, love them. He gave you your personality, be who you are. You are made by the hands of God.

Third, you have the breath of God in you. Mankind is the only part of creation that God breathed His life into. The very first breath man ever took was the breath of God. Mankind is the centerpiece of creation because the breath of God resides in all of us. This is why no matter what you have done you can still accomplish what God has for you as long as there is breath in your lungs because that breath is God's and He designed you with a purpose in His image.

You were thought of, made by God's hands and you have His breath inside of you. He is the designer and you are His design. We have got to get to know our designer, so that we can live according to the design He set forth for us. You are not an accident, you have a design and the designer, God, has a plan for you!

Pugs!

My wife loves pugs! She has wanted one since I first met here and on Monday we had to go to the pet store to get food for our cat. On our way there as I am about to pull out onto the road, she screamed. With adrenaline pumping through my veins and eyes as big as saucers I looked at her and with an elevated voice asked her what was wrong. With joy and delight she said back, "they have pugs at the pet store." We got there and for 15 minutes she watched with delight as they laid on one another. They were pretty cute and after having to say no about 30 times to the question, "can we get one?" It is safe to say that in the near future there will be a puppy pug in the Warren household.

The ditches of prayer and the Word

I don’t know about you but I can tend to be an extremist. When I find a hobby I like I go to the extreme in that hobby and pursue only that hobby leaving my previous hobbies left to mourn my absence. When it comes to my times with God I have found the same to be true. I go through seasons where I am very Word focused and all of my time is spent reading the Word and times where I am prayer focused and all of my time is spent in prayer and recently God has been showing me that a balance is necessary.

Picture with me if you will that you are walking down a road. This road represents your spiritual journey. The easiest and quickest route is in the middle of the road. This is because it is the healthiest place for you to be. On either side of the road are two ditches. One ditch is the Word the other is prayer. (I cannot believe I am referring to the Word and prayer as a ditch, but go with me). It is extremely easy to find yourself only focusing on one and ending up in a ditch. While it may be the best ditch you’ve ever been in it still slows you down spiritually and creates an unbalanced spiritual diet.

In John 7:37-39 Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Water we drink when we find ourselves thirsting. The Holy Spirit is the water. Psalms 16:11 says that in God’s presence is fullness of Joy and Nehemiah 8:10 says the joy of the Lord is our strength. This means when we are weak we get into God’s presence, drink of the water, and get filled with joy and that joy becomes strength to us.

In John 6:35 and 48 Jesus says that He is the bread of life. Earlier in the book of John in the first chapter it says that Jesus is the word in flesh. Matthew 4:4 tells us not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (the Bible). All this tells us that the Word is our bread. When we read the word we stand in authority. Jesus used the Word to repel the devils temptation. When we read the Word we also receive faith Romans 10:17.

What does all this mean? Our natural bodies need both bread (food) and water to survive. If we only drink water we will become weak and eventually die and if we only eat bread the same fate awaits us. Spiritually if we only read the bible and leave no time for prayer or vice versa we will become spiritually weak and struggle to survive spiritually. Reading only the Word and not taking the time to pray leaves you in a thirsty place with little or no joy and grace. Praying only and not reading the Word leaves you in a place with little or no faith and authority. We need both. If you find yourself in a place lacking strength, joy, authority, faith, grace, evaluate your water and bread intake, get in the middle of the road and run faster than you’ve ever run before.

Tire Trouble

As I was lounging around on my day off enjoying the football highlights on Sports Center and praying that the Yankee's would lose that night I got a call from my beautiful and incredibly talented wife. As she used the ever troubling, "you'll never guess what happened line," my mind ran through a gambit of thoughts and potential horror until she revealed the purpose for the call. "Um babe, my tire blew up and I'm on I-5 near Mountlake Terrace." She revealed that her friends husband was on the way and would fix the problem. Unfortunately I was relived that I wouldn't have to leave the comfort of my lay-z boy and Sports Center.

After a failed attempt to remove the tire, I was called out of the bullpen to retire the side. Annoyed I hoped into my car toting a hammer and some other tools, showed up onto the scene and pounded the tire off the car. Before this the gentleman helping proclaimed that I would be his hero if I could get the tire off. About 10 Seconds later the tire was off and I was another persons hero. We ended up a Les Schwab in Lynnwood and $270 later she had some new tires and I had new (badly needed) windshield wipers.

After we got home and I had a chance to process my reaction and emotions to the whole situation I realized something. I had changed. When we were dating if she had the littlest hang nail she couldn't fix, I would mount my trusty stead and don my shinning armor and come to her rescue. Now after two years of marriage she's in a real crisis and I'm annoyed. God began to confront me on this issue. Often serving others is not difficult, but serving those closest to you and who you love the most is. It's as if you get so comfortable being around them all the time you forget they need help too. It's often more difficult to serve a parent, a spouse, a sibling or a close friend than a total stranger and yet we should serve all regardless of how much they love us.

It's funny this happened because a week ago I preached on picking up a towel and serving others. We cannot sit at the table of life and just wait to be loved and serve, but rather we must get up from the table, pick up the towel, as Jesus did and serve. Where was my towel yesterday? It shows all of us need to keep growing even after we think we have it down. I learned a valuable lesson yesterday and died to self a little more. I will note however that I redeemed myself by vacuuming and doing laundry when we got home. :-)

My blog, my blog where for art my blog?

To be totally honest, I struggle to blog on a consistent basis. If you've ever visited this page you can observe that I have not blogged in nearly five months. This makes me a bloser or blog poser. I have decide however that from here on out I will post on my blog about something every week. My goal is to work up to every day, but for now it will be every week. Sorry to those who have waited in patient anticipation for me post. I vow to thee that I will blog or my name is not TRAVIS LEE WARREN. Sorry got a little dramatic and theatric there.

Halo 3

Last Tuesday at 10:30pm I walked into Wal-Mart to purchase my very own copy of this years hottest game. The last time they released a Halo game I was there. Needless to say I am a fan and thoroughly enjoy the first person shooter. As we walked to the electronics section we discovered that a store open 24 hours was forcing us to wait outside in the cold to buy the game. Quickly I found myself an $8 fleece blanket purchased it and waited outside. Come midnight they began to let us in, in groups of twenty. I saw several people attempt to sneak in line and were met with contempt as the gaming community or nerd herd looked out for it's fellowman by protecting those who waited. At around 12:30 I purchased my copy and left with fellow gamers Pastor Rory and Shaun my brother. I took the following day off to play the game with the brotherhood of Halo fans. While have barely played the game it has lived up to the hype and continues to be a great avenue for fun!