Faith. What is Faith? I love acronyms. Acronyms are one of the things that makes writing fun. Here are some acronyms for Faith. Fact Accepted In The Heart. For Answers I Trust Him. Forsaking All I Trust Him. But here’s one of my all time favorite acronyms, Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him!
The last month or so has been a pretty big adventure in Faith. The enemy has been throwing all kind of stuff at us financially. My wife and I have just stood in Faith and trusted in the Lord to provide our needs. Right now I really have no idea how the Lord is going to turn our financial situation around but by what I see in God’s word has caused me to have Faith that the Lord will provide for us.
I know this that in the past when times like this have come and we failed miserably because we did not have any Faith that the Lord would provide and because of that we tried to do it in our own strength. When you try to do it in your own strength you do it without the Lord and you do it without Faith. Jesus addressed this in Luke 12:28-30 “And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he more surely care for you? You have so little faith! And don't worry about food--what to eat and drink. Don't worry whether God will provide it for you. These things dominate the thoughts of most people, but your Father already knows your needs”
Kind of on a side note here, my wife and I met with our Pastor last week and we sat down and discussed in depth the call on my life to preach the Gospel. Two things that were readily apparent were first that we need to push on until we have the victory over our finances so I can be released to preach. The other thing that our Pastor whole heartedly agreed with me on is that I do have the call of evangelism on my life and in fact it is in the area of encouragement.
The one thing however that our Pastor shared with us that I somehow overlooked is that as the Lord is taking us through the times of struggle and growth that when we complete this journey we will have a testimony to share that reaches into the realms of the impossible, the realm where the Lord loves to work! Two things that our Pastor admonished to do, which we are doing already, is to have Faith and to stay the course. As soon as our Pastor told us that I felt the Holy Spirit reminding me in my heart once again what the prophet Samuel said in 1 Samuel 15;22. “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams.” I shared this verse the other day and I guess I’ll keep repeating this verse here in my blog as long as the Holy Spirit keeps prompting me.
Let me leave you with this simple equation:
FAITH + OBEDIENCE = VICTORY!
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
A Hero In My Life
Sometimes when you write you have the great privilege of telling the story the story of a person who is not only an extraordinary person but a person that some would even call a hero. This story is about a person in my life who became one of my heroes. Many have heard this story before but many more have not. This is a story that I will be glad to tell until the end of time.
I was born into a small family. My parents only had one other child besides myself, my brother Lonnie who is about fourteen years older then I am. When your brother is that much older then you it doesn’t matter what happens he’s the ultimate in big brothers, the ultimate in kewl! I was blessed to have my brother around for the first five years or so of my life. I knew he was not only popular with his friends and in school but I knew that he thought the world of me and this made me just all the more proud of him.
When I was about seven my brother enlisted in the Army and it wasn’t long after that it came time for my brother to ship off to Vietnam. I never did question why as I was always told that it was something that he had to do, I was told that it was his duty. All I knew was that my brother doing his duty and I was proud of him.
Fast forward now to February 11, 1974. My brother had taken emergency leave from the Army and this day my brother once again had to do a duty that I know that inside was tearing him up but never the less he held his head up and did it. This day he had to come to school to pick me up and inform me that our Father had just passed away. As he told me this I started to cry for lack of anything better to do. I was glad to have my brother there to be a rock for me.
Fast forward now again a couple of years. Once again my brother was on leave and it was just my brother and myself that were sitting at our dining room table. As we were talking I asked my brother why he did what he did and why he chose to be a soldier. What my brother said made one of the greatest impacts on my life that has ever been made. What he said pierced me to the core and it is something that I will never forget. My brother told me “I do it to give you the freedom to race or to do any other thing that you choose.”
To this day whenever I think about this John 15:13 (KJV) come to mind. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
To my brother and all of the Veterans who have given me the freedom to write this I very humbly say “Thank You.”
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
I was born into a small family. My parents only had one other child besides myself, my brother Lonnie who is about fourteen years older then I am. When your brother is that much older then you it doesn’t matter what happens he’s the ultimate in big brothers, the ultimate in kewl! I was blessed to have my brother around for the first five years or so of my life. I knew he was not only popular with his friends and in school but I knew that he thought the world of me and this made me just all the more proud of him.
When I was about seven my brother enlisted in the Army and it wasn’t long after that it came time for my brother to ship off to Vietnam. I never did question why as I was always told that it was something that he had to do, I was told that it was his duty. All I knew was that my brother doing his duty and I was proud of him.
Fast forward now to February 11, 1974. My brother had taken emergency leave from the Army and this day my brother once again had to do a duty that I know that inside was tearing him up but never the less he held his head up and did it. This day he had to come to school to pick me up and inform me that our Father had just passed away. As he told me this I started to cry for lack of anything better to do. I was glad to have my brother there to be a rock for me.
Fast forward now again a couple of years. Once again my brother was on leave and it was just my brother and myself that were sitting at our dining room table. As we were talking I asked my brother why he did what he did and why he chose to be a soldier. What my brother said made one of the greatest impacts on my life that has ever been made. What he said pierced me to the core and it is something that I will never forget. My brother told me “I do it to give you the freedom to race or to do any other thing that you choose.”
To this day whenever I think about this John 15:13 (KJV) come to mind. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
To my brother and all of the Veterans who have given me the freedom to write this I very humbly say “Thank You.”
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
Monday, May 22, 2006
I Was So Proud Of My Daughter
I wrote this blog in the hospital a couple of months ago while my daughter was in for surgery. In a way I wish that I would have got it posted sooner but for some reason I believe that now is the time that the Lord wanted me to post it.
One of the toughest things that a parent has to do is sit and wait while their child is in surgery. I was so proud of my daughter today. She didn’t cry a drop. I did find out however that during the past couple of days she did however run off to her room and cry a couple of times. What really moved me however was when I found out that she cried in her room because she didn’t want her Daddy see her cry. Apparently she didn’t want to hurt her Daddy’s heart.
One thing that the Lord has showed me through all of this is the “Father’s Heart.” In realizing how much I love my child and how much my heart aches for my child as she goes through this pain made me realize a little bit more just how much my Father loves me. I’ve also come to understand a little bit better how my Father’s heart breaks when I am hurting. I realize that my Father’s love is even deeper then I had realized before and I really don’t have an understanding of just how deep His love is for me.
Looking into my daughter’s eyes in pre-op as the sedation meds were taking effect really pushed my heart to its breaking point. All I could do was stand there stroking her head and tell her that I love her. She tried to keep a light sense of humor as the nurses were working over her and the doctors were asking questions but it was pretty easy to tell that she was pretty nervous. The one thing that I tried to keep reminding myself of is the fact that while she may be suffering some pain now that this pain will only last a short time and that in the long run her pain will be gone.
To me that sounds like a lot how my Father deals with me. My past has been filled with a lot of pains and hurts. Many of those pains and hurts need to be dealt with so I can feel better and be made whole. My Father who is the Great Physician knows how to best deal with my hurts and my pains. When he says its time for surgery it’s time to get rid of some hurts and pain. I know that in the short run it’s going to hurt to deal with whatever it is that He wants to deal with but in the long run it will bring healing to me and make me whole.
Just as I want the best for my children and as I want my children to be happy and healthy I know that my Father wants the same for me. Just as some pain must come into my children's lives so that they will be made whole and healthy the same must come into my life. But yet I am reminded that "with His stripes we are healed" (ASV)
One of the toughest things that a parent has to do is sit and wait while their child is in surgery. I was so proud of my daughter today. She didn’t cry a drop. I did find out however that during the past couple of days she did however run off to her room and cry a couple of times. What really moved me however was when I found out that she cried in her room because she didn’t want her Daddy see her cry. Apparently she didn’t want to hurt her Daddy’s heart.
One thing that the Lord has showed me through all of this is the “Father’s Heart.” In realizing how much I love my child and how much my heart aches for my child as she goes through this pain made me realize a little bit more just how much my Father loves me. I’ve also come to understand a little bit better how my Father’s heart breaks when I am hurting. I realize that my Father’s love is even deeper then I had realized before and I really don’t have an understanding of just how deep His love is for me.
Looking into my daughter’s eyes in pre-op as the sedation meds were taking effect really pushed my heart to its breaking point. All I could do was stand there stroking her head and tell her that I love her. She tried to keep a light sense of humor as the nurses were working over her and the doctors were asking questions but it was pretty easy to tell that she was pretty nervous. The one thing that I tried to keep reminding myself of is the fact that while she may be suffering some pain now that this pain will only last a short time and that in the long run her pain will be gone.
To me that sounds like a lot how my Father deals with me. My past has been filled with a lot of pains and hurts. Many of those pains and hurts need to be dealt with so I can feel better and be made whole. My Father who is the Great Physician knows how to best deal with my hurts and my pains. When he says its time for surgery it’s time to get rid of some hurts and pain. I know that in the short run it’s going to hurt to deal with whatever it is that He wants to deal with but in the long run it will bring healing to me and make me whole.
Just as I want the best for my children and as I want my children to be happy and healthy I know that my Father wants the same for me. Just as some pain must come into my children's lives so that they will be made whole and healthy the same must come into my life. But yet I am reminded that "with His stripes we are healed" (ASV)
Monday, May 15, 2006
Obedience Is Far Better Than Sacrifice
It’s finally quit raining! I guess I should be careful how I say that though. Here in Kansas we gripe and complain how it’s always too dry or it’s too wet. For some reason it seems that we can’t find a happy medium anywhere. For example we were about eight inches of moisture short for what our average should have been for this time of the year up until about three weeks ago. The all of a sudden here come the rain and we are right back to our average rain year to date rain totals. The problem is that we got our moisture all in a three week period. That also meant that I didn’t get to work very during those three weeks.
However all is not lost though…
Since it quit raining I umpired 14 games last week! Some days I was scheduled at two different fields on the same day just so the schedulers could get there rainout dates made up. I decided that this week I’m just going to take a break from baseball and as long as the weather holds the 50 or so hours I’ll work at my regular job driving truck will be enough work for me this week. I really felt that I needed to give my body some time to heal up after working so much baseball last week. Umpiring that much baseball and bending over that much behind the plate puts quite a bit of strain on my not so young knees. Saturday and Sunday nights my knees and ankles were informing me that I’m not as young as I used to be and that they were not happy campers!
Lest I should sound that I’m griping I’m really not though. The good news is that we desperately needed for me to be working as much as I can to get caught back up on our bills and the Lord opened the door for us to give me the opportunity to work as much as I did. I also truly believe that the Lord gave me the strength and the healing to get through last week to get the extra money in. The reason that I say that is since we made a change in our spiritual lives a couple of months ago and put God first with our money and setting tithing above all else we’ve seen miraculous things happen with our finances. Without fail since we made the change God has opened the financial door to give us the money we need to get our bills paid.
Granted, not everything has been coming up daisies money wise since we started tithing as I still have to get out there and work to bring the money in what I am saying is that God has made sure the work is there to bring the money in and then God has also been moving with our creditors to have favor upon us. In addition we’ve been blessed with a miracle a couple of weeks ago that enabled us to keep our electricity on. This reminds me of something that I’ve heard over and over again but it hasn’t hit home until now. “If I would have known that tithing works this well I would have started doing it a long time ago!”
Even though we are reaping the rewards of our tithing the Lord keeps reminding me of what the prophet Samuel told King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:22 "What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams.” Knowing that I truly don’t believe we would be reaping the rewards that we are now if we were not both seeking to obey the Lord and give the Lord our sacrifice through our tithing.
I’ll close with this. If you really want to see the rewards that the Lord has for you come upon you first seek to obey the Lord and to do His will and then give him your sacrifice through your tithes and giving. If you do this I guarantee you that you will start to see miracle after miracle happen in your life. I tell you this for two reasons. First this is what God’s word tells us and secondly because I see it happening in our lives!
Be Blessed!!!
BIG SCOTT
However all is not lost though…
Since it quit raining I umpired 14 games last week! Some days I was scheduled at two different fields on the same day just so the schedulers could get there rainout dates made up. I decided that this week I’m just going to take a break from baseball and as long as the weather holds the 50 or so hours I’ll work at my regular job driving truck will be enough work for me this week. I really felt that I needed to give my body some time to heal up after working so much baseball last week. Umpiring that much baseball and bending over that much behind the plate puts quite a bit of strain on my not so young knees. Saturday and Sunday nights my knees and ankles were informing me that I’m not as young as I used to be and that they were not happy campers!
Lest I should sound that I’m griping I’m really not though. The good news is that we desperately needed for me to be working as much as I can to get caught back up on our bills and the Lord opened the door for us to give me the opportunity to work as much as I did. I also truly believe that the Lord gave me the strength and the healing to get through last week to get the extra money in. The reason that I say that is since we made a change in our spiritual lives a couple of months ago and put God first with our money and setting tithing above all else we’ve seen miraculous things happen with our finances. Without fail since we made the change God has opened the financial door to give us the money we need to get our bills paid.
Granted, not everything has been coming up daisies money wise since we started tithing as I still have to get out there and work to bring the money in what I am saying is that God has made sure the work is there to bring the money in and then God has also been moving with our creditors to have favor upon us. In addition we’ve been blessed with a miracle a couple of weeks ago that enabled us to keep our electricity on. This reminds me of something that I’ve heard over and over again but it hasn’t hit home until now. “If I would have known that tithing works this well I would have started doing it a long time ago!”
Even though we are reaping the rewards of our tithing the Lord keeps reminding me of what the prophet Samuel told King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:22 "What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams.” Knowing that I truly don’t believe we would be reaping the rewards that we are now if we were not both seeking to obey the Lord and give the Lord our sacrifice through our tithing.
I’ll close with this. If you really want to see the rewards that the Lord has for you come upon you first seek to obey the Lord and to do His will and then give him your sacrifice through your tithes and giving. If you do this I guarantee you that you will start to see miracle after miracle happen in your life. I tell you this for two reasons. First this is what God’s word tells us and secondly because I see it happening in our lives!
Be Blessed!!!
BIG SCOTT
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
RAIN! RAIN! RAIN!
That was weird! I don’t know what happened but somehow I had four postings of the same blog and some of them had weird endings from others blogs. I’ve got it all straightened out now.
If you’re reading this and you live somewhere other then the middle of Kansas there is a good chance that you’ve not had to deal the rain that we’ve been having to deal with here. In the last two weeks or so we’ve had well over a foot of rain! We were in a terrible drought for the last six months or so and now all of a sudden we’ve got more rain then we know what to do with. I know we needed the rain and I really hate to gripe about the moisture but it would be nice if it would just let up some so I can get back to work!
School is winding down for both my kids and for me. I’ve got just one final to take Monday night & I’ll be through with this semester. It sure feels good to finally get through a whole semester again! I’m still not sure what the future holds for me as far as college goes. I know that I would like to try to finish up my Associates degree this fall.
Speaking of school, the other night in my Speech class I gave my final speech of the year. This was a “persuasion speech” or maybe more aptly named a “sales speech”. This speech was designed to persuade people to my way of thinking on a topic. As soon as the speech assignment was given I felt the Lord leading me to give the speech on “Why you need Jesus.”
I have to admit I was pretty nervous going into the speech. I wasn’t sure if my instructor would approve a speech on a religious topic but she did. I pretty much followed the outline given in “The Way of The Master Series” where you show people that all of sinned first and follow that with the Good News of the Saving Grace. The speech was to be between seven and nine minutes in length and mine came out to just over eight minutes. Like I said I was pretty nervous at the start but the Holy Spirit came upon me and by mid-speech I was flowing very smoothly in the Holy Spirit. When it was all said and done I received an A- on the speech but more importantly the whole class had heard the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I fell now that by following the Lord’s leading in this one endeavor that I will be more equipped, more confident, and less nervous or scared the next time the Lord calls me to preach the Good News. In fact I’m looking forward to the next time the Lord calls me to share. One thing that I’m doing now is writing my own Gospel sharing tracts and I am starting to work with others to take Jesus to the street. Stay tuned as I’m sure this will get exciting!
If anyone is interested in receiving some copies of the new sharing tract that I’m working on please let me know and I’ll be sure to get you some when they come back from the printer. Please keep us in prayer on this as we’re also looking to develop a new website to go along with this.
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
If you’re reading this and you live somewhere other then the middle of Kansas there is a good chance that you’ve not had to deal the rain that we’ve been having to deal with here. In the last two weeks or so we’ve had well over a foot of rain! We were in a terrible drought for the last six months or so and now all of a sudden we’ve got more rain then we know what to do with. I know we needed the rain and I really hate to gripe about the moisture but it would be nice if it would just let up some so I can get back to work!
School is winding down for both my kids and for me. I’ve got just one final to take Monday night & I’ll be through with this semester. It sure feels good to finally get through a whole semester again! I’m still not sure what the future holds for me as far as college goes. I know that I would like to try to finish up my Associates degree this fall.
Speaking of school, the other night in my Speech class I gave my final speech of the year. This was a “persuasion speech” or maybe more aptly named a “sales speech”. This speech was designed to persuade people to my way of thinking on a topic. As soon as the speech assignment was given I felt the Lord leading me to give the speech on “Why you need Jesus.”
I have to admit I was pretty nervous going into the speech. I wasn’t sure if my instructor would approve a speech on a religious topic but she did. I pretty much followed the outline given in “The Way of The Master Series” where you show people that all of sinned first and follow that with the Good News of the Saving Grace. The speech was to be between seven and nine minutes in length and mine came out to just over eight minutes. Like I said I was pretty nervous at the start but the Holy Spirit came upon me and by mid-speech I was flowing very smoothly in the Holy Spirit. When it was all said and done I received an A- on the speech but more importantly the whole class had heard the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I fell now that by following the Lord’s leading in this one endeavor that I will be more equipped, more confident, and less nervous or scared the next time the Lord calls me to preach the Good News. In fact I’m looking forward to the next time the Lord calls me to share. One thing that I’m doing now is writing my own Gospel sharing tracts and I am starting to work with others to take Jesus to the street. Stay tuned as I’m sure this will get exciting!
If anyone is interested in receiving some copies of the new sharing tract that I’m working on please let me know and I’ll be sure to get you some when they come back from the printer. Please keep us in prayer on this as we’re also looking to develop a new website to go along with this.
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
Monday, May 08, 2006
Obeying God Works!
Once again it’s been a bit since I last posted here on my blog. I’ve been pretty busy with work and school and then add in to that the fact of our internet being down here at the house has made it kind of tough to post. Let's me see if I can’t get back into the groove and post a little bit more often.
Even thought it’s been raining a bunch and work has been sporadic due to the rain it does feel good to be back to work full-time. I’m driving a truck during the day delivering grass sod and I’m umpiring baseball most every evening except Sundays. On a normal week I’ll umpire 10-12 games. That’s a lot of baseball!
Being off work as long as I was drawing unemployment every week put a real bind on our finances. My wife and I decided that the only way that we’re going to get out of this financial hole that I got us in to is to tithe our way out of it. Since we started tithing diligently every week we’ve really started to see God’s mighty hand move in our finances. Miraculously the money has been there to pay our basic bills and needs.
A couple of days ago we needed about $625 to pay our electric bill or they were going to shut our electricity off. I really felt my heart sink when the Westar Energy rep showed up on our doorstep and said pay up or get turned off. I got the rep to give me an hour to get the money. Miraculously god made the money available and I paid the bill!
This is not the only miracle that we’ve seen since we’ve started tithing. About a week ago I was taking a load of sod from the farm out at Burton which is 45 miles northwest of Wichita to Winfield which is 40 southeast of Wichita. Apparently when I climbed up in the truck at Burton my wallet found out of my pocket and must have landed on the truck’s running board. Another truck driver found my wallet laying in the highway down by Mulvane which is about 15 miles southeast of Wichita and turned my wallet over to the Highway Patrol who then brought it back to our home here in Wichita and gave it to my wife. I had a substantial amount of cash in my wallet and the only thing missing was my pictures and some other unimportant stuff. All of my money was still in there! That’s a miracle, praise God!
It’s amazing what God can do when you follow His directions. When we started tithing and following in His will He started moving in our lives! When we tithe and give now we pray over our giving and now we expect the hundred fold blessing back! In fact when we go the Altar to give we pray specifically for what we need and what we are trusting God for. Right now we are praying and trusting God for the money to get our financial house in order specifically to get all of our bills caught up and for the first time in a long, long time have a balanced or better budget.
Like I mentioned in earlier blogs I know the call of God is on my life to preach the Good News. I have been at a loss of how I would be able to do that with us being in such a deep financial hole but now I see how God is getting us out of that hole so we can push on to heed the call that God has given us. I expect by mid-summer through God’s moving in our finances to have us back in decent shape! Now that we have a plan to get out of our financial hole I can start seeking God on what he has in store for me in ministry. For once I have a doable vision to reach my first love which is preaching the Good news of Jesus Christ!
One last thing…
A great big shout out to Timmy Mac and his new bride as they were united in Holy Matrimony Saturday! May Jesus richly bless you and your new bride Timmy Mac!!!
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
Even thought it’s been raining a bunch and work has been sporadic due to the rain it does feel good to be back to work full-time. I’m driving a truck during the day delivering grass sod and I’m umpiring baseball most every evening except Sundays. On a normal week I’ll umpire 10-12 games. That’s a lot of baseball!
Being off work as long as I was drawing unemployment every week put a real bind on our finances. My wife and I decided that the only way that we’re going to get out of this financial hole that I got us in to is to tithe our way out of it. Since we started tithing diligently every week we’ve really started to see God’s mighty hand move in our finances. Miraculously the money has been there to pay our basic bills and needs.
A couple of days ago we needed about $625 to pay our electric bill or they were going to shut our electricity off. I really felt my heart sink when the Westar Energy rep showed up on our doorstep and said pay up or get turned off. I got the rep to give me an hour to get the money. Miraculously god made the money available and I paid the bill!
This is not the only miracle that we’ve seen since we’ve started tithing. About a week ago I was taking a load of sod from the farm out at Burton which is 45 miles northwest of Wichita to Winfield which is 40 southeast of Wichita. Apparently when I climbed up in the truck at Burton my wallet found out of my pocket and must have landed on the truck’s running board. Another truck driver found my wallet laying in the highway down by Mulvane which is about 15 miles southeast of Wichita and turned my wallet over to the Highway Patrol who then brought it back to our home here in Wichita and gave it to my wife. I had a substantial amount of cash in my wallet and the only thing missing was my pictures and some other unimportant stuff. All of my money was still in there! That’s a miracle, praise God!
It’s amazing what God can do when you follow His directions. When we started tithing and following in His will He started moving in our lives! When we tithe and give now we pray over our giving and now we expect the hundred fold blessing back! In fact when we go the Altar to give we pray specifically for what we need and what we are trusting God for. Right now we are praying and trusting God for the money to get our financial house in order specifically to get all of our bills caught up and for the first time in a long, long time have a balanced or better budget.
Like I mentioned in earlier blogs I know the call of God is on my life to preach the Good News. I have been at a loss of how I would be able to do that with us being in such a deep financial hole but now I see how God is getting us out of that hole so we can push on to heed the call that God has given us. I expect by mid-summer through God’s moving in our finances to have us back in decent shape! Now that we have a plan to get out of our financial hole I can start seeking God on what he has in store for me in ministry. For once I have a doable vision to reach my first love which is preaching the Good news of Jesus Christ!
One last thing…
A great big shout out to Timmy Mac and his new bride as they were united in Holy Matrimony Saturday! May Jesus richly bless you and your new bride Timmy Mac!!!
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
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