Bobby Lepinay

Real Joy

I am of the persuasion that it is not healthy to be too serious all the time. Proverbs says, "a merry heart does one good like a medicine." In other words, God is saying "lighten up!"

Click on this 30 second video I caught this past week of my girls. They didn't know dad was filming, which made it even better. As I filmed, the sky was getting dark and threatening, but there they were, jumping and laughing away. No self-consiousness.  No sky-consiousness.

Then it occurred to me: That is what real joy is all about. To be like a child. Yes, it may be about to rain. Yes, the sky is real dark. Yes my life may sometimes look like a mess.  But nontheless, life is too short not to just jump and play and enjoy.

Nontheless.

Laugh. Play.

Yes, life is hard at times. But, nontheless......enjoy.

Have a great weekend and see you Monday. PB


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Spiritual Parents

 This coming Sunday we have Francis and Babs Martin coming to share with us at Harvest.  Br. Francis and Ms. Babs (as Deb and I call them) are truly 'spiritual parents' to us.

Back in 1981 when I first came to Christ as a young cajun boy, Br. Francis had just started Family Life church.  I was 18, raw, fresh out of the world, knowing nothing but the Catholicism I had grown up with.  My natural parents loved me, but I was strong-willed, got what I wanted when I wanted it, and basically didn't have a whole lot going for me.  I walked into Family Life, the first non-Catholic church I had ever walked into, and my spiritual destiny was set because of the two people you see in the picture above.  Debbie soon came to the Lord, and they were and are to this day our 'parents in Christ', our characters having been formed in those early years at Family Life.  Though I am now a pastor myself, I still call Br. Francis, now retired, for advice and wisdom.

The things that were ingrained in me so long ago form the person I am as well as the church we have built.  Here are just a few of those things:

1.  Be a 'straight-shooter'.  I can remember times when discontentment would rise up in the ranks at Family Life.  Br. Francis would never try to hide anything, but instead gave the parties a choice: Either you come before the congregation and tell the truth as to why you are going to start your own 'work' (codeword for 'church'), or I will tell them the truth.  Either way, the truth will be told.  Then, whoever wants to go with you can, at that time, leave with my blessing. But you will then be responsible for their souls. 

I remember that happening a few times. Funny thing is that though some people would trickle out with whoever the party was, there was a deep sense of security in the church.  Br. Francis turned over the reigns to Todd a few years ago and the church has thrived, never having suffered a split of any kind.  Being a straight-shooter is risky at times and at times may cost you some pain, but I think in the end, it's the only way to fly.  I am glad that was passed on the me and to us.

2. Church can be done sane, sound and spiritual.  People come to Harvest and after being here awhile always comment that our church seems so well-balanced.  That is because of what Deb and I came up under.  Br. Francis and Ms. Babs and Family Life were just plain solid.  Nothing fancy.  Nothing goofy.  Fads and new 'waves' come and go through the Body of Christ seasonally, new emphases, words for the year (why do they always seem to rhyme..ie, Thrive in 2005...Soar in 2004...I wonder what 2006 will be...?), but I learned to just stick to the basics of building a solid church and solid life.  I will never forget Br. Francis telling me, "You just stick to staying low and staying simple and when the smoke clears, much of the playing field will be cleared, but you will still be standing."  I have applied that to church, family and everything else I have done.  Great wisdom, period.

3. Relax, enjoy life.  Love God and people. Know people will always be people.  Br. Francis and Ms. Babs were and are always the same.  They stay happy no matter what others do.  I can remember people not liking this or that about something the church was or was not doing right (why can't people stop putting so much pressure on the church to be perfect?  I guess discontentment is just human nature, eh? ) or being disgruntled about something Br. Francis had said or not said, was teaching or not teaching.  He always took it in stride.  Never let himself feel pressured to do this or that outside of what the Holy Spirit was telling him.  He listened, but to the right people.  Smart. 

4.  Be a long-termer.  I don't know how else to put this.  It's the combination of living out a few quality commitments that are sound and healthy for a very long time.  It's staying put.  It's not being moved by every wave and every voice.  It's being settled and secure.  It's being content. It's bearing fruit in the long-term.  Building deep, building strong, building for legacy.  Everything they have built, from their family (kids, grand-kids, great-grand-kids) to their their marriage to church, all are solid, secure, and blessed.  There are too few people like that nowadays.  I hope we raise up a whole generation of them at our church.   

Just writing this makes me very glad that God so mercifully led me to Family Life when I first got saved.  I am glad Br. Francis and Ms. Babs have been in our lives as well all these years.  I am likewise glad that Harvest has benefitted from who they are and their deposit in Deb's and my own life. 

Don't miss this Sunday with Francis and Babs Martin.  They are a real Father and Mother in the faith.  PB

Anger Management

After spending considerable time writing a really heart-felt post earlier today, I clicked "enter" and... "blink"...the computer decided to shut my program down.  Quick as that.  Everything gone.

The picture here describes pretty well the various devices of destruction I wished to have in that moment.  Not being real tech savy, I desparately called for my wife to come in and try to find it somewhere, anywhere.  As she walked in to my office, calm as usual, she took the mouse in hand and said, "That's why you always click 'save.'"

Now, a season or two ago, my High D (or A, depending on the personality test) temperament would have triggered something you would not have heard about on Sundays.  Combine that with French blood flowing through my veins, and you had atomic capabilities/possibilities. 

Sadly, for many years after becoming a Christian, I was still a very angry person.  It didn't take much to set me off.  I was impatient with my kids, my wife, and everyone else by and large. 

Looking back, I see that my anger had its roots all the way back to my childhood (sounds like a movie already, doesn't it?).  I grew up in an alcoholic home, never feeling in control.  It continued after salvation in knowing that I should be like Jesus, but failing miserably again and again.  Then I had expectectations of others.  They should act the way I wanted them to.  Whether my kids, my wife, whoever.  But worst of all, I had these expectations of myself.  I just couldn't control me. 

And I was an angry person.

Well, thankfully, somewhere along the way, the Holy Spirit gained ground in this area of my life.  I don't really think we can "manage" our anger.  I think we surrender control.  Again.  And again. And again.  And again. A thousand little surrenders over plenty of years. One day we look back and realize, "Wow, I am no longer controlled by anger. Holy Spirit, you really are changing me."  We surrender our anger to Him and little by little He replaces it with the character of Christ: self-control, patience, peace and all the rest of the fruit of the Spirit we so deeply want. 

I'm glad I'm not that angry person anymore.  Oh, and by the way, my computer is fine....

Grace to you, PB

Birds In The Eye of A Hurricane

 Last night, I was watching an interview on CNN with a storm-chaser (you know, one of those insane people who like seeing how close they can get to death???).   He drove to the TX/LA coastline, then positioned his truck as close to the beach as he could in order to get right in the hurricane's eye.  Then, as the eye moved, he would drive with it (if he survived, that is...!).  I know, crazy.

Well, the guy did it. When asked what was the one thing he will most remember about his Rita experience, he replied, "The birds."

"The birds?" the interviewer asked back. 

"Yes, the birds", he replied.  "There were thousands of birds trapped in the eye, obviously from the time Rita first formed, that were not able to escape and had been flying wildly, trying to get out.  It was unbelievable and something I have never seen," he continued. "They couldn't go under, they couldn't go over. So they were flying everywhere, erratically, trying to avoid the violent winds of the inner eye walls that we could see.  Many would suddenly nose-dive down, striking the road, my car, whatever.  It was crazy.  Kamikaze birds. I've never seen anything like it before in my life."

As I pondered this, I thought about how sometimes we can be just like those birds in that hurricane.  We feel surrounded, circled-in, trapped by our circumstances, in deep inward pain of heart and soul.  Job was here.  Blinded by pain, he cursed the day he was born.  Any way he turned, more pain.  Loss in every direction.  Pain.  More pain. David was here. Pursued, on the run, trapped in caves, over-whelmed, in pain of heart , pain soul.  In Ps 55:6, he even goes so far as to say, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove (bird)! I would fly away and be at rest; yes I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; I would hurry to find shelter from the raging wind and tempest (hurricane!)."

But you know something?  The hurricane eventually fizzled out.  Hurricanes, like the painful circumstances Job faced, David faced, we face, don't last forever.  They end.  Mercifully. 

And the birds that endure the storm... keep flying, keep flying, keep flying,...endure the (I am sure) intense weariness of just keeping those wings flapping....these birds that just keep going, eventually make it out of the hurricane. 

I know of no better definition of "Perseverance."
 

May your heart be encouraged today.  PB

The Cloak of Humility

I had a great conversation this morning with a dear friend and leader from our church.   As we talked, I felt I needed to bring up something that I knew this person was not aware of, but that nonetheless, was potentially harming them, giving the devil an opportunity to take a pot shot at their reputation, and taking away from their ability to have a voice with others.

 

What a refreshing conversation. When I brought up the area that they clearly didn't see, (their 'blindspot'....by the way, we all have blindspots.  That's why we need to deal gently with each other and need to cover each other's blindspots.  "Love always protects" (I Cor 13)...)  I was so blessed by the openness of this person and thankfulness for me in love bringing it up to them.  They were committed to disciplining themselves in this area, submitting to the Holy Spirit to help them make the needed adjustment.  There was no defensiveness, self-pity or rejection.  They took the correction as an opportunity to grow.

 

Wow.  I hung up the phone proud to be side-by-side with them, as well as all of our leaders at Harvest. 

 

The Apostle Peter in I Peter 5:5 tells us to "clothe (cloak) yourselves with humility."  It's refreshing to see it really happen when it counts most, when we are corrected,  when someone brings an honest concern about our behavior.  May we all take to heart this person's great example.  Kings and Queens with the Great King, King Jesus, but, lowly of heart, robed, cloaked, with this wonderful virtue called humility.

How open am I to correction?  Let that one sit awhile.........PB

PS. For a preview of our next series starting October 16, click here.

Cats

Until I got married, never was there a cat under a roof I lived in.  Well, little by little that changed as not only did I marry a cat lover, but all 3 of my kids seem to have been born as cat-lovers as well!  I now live with 3 cats and actually am ok with it.  Boomer, the last to move in, is actually a pretty cool cat as far as cats go. 

 

I have decided to go with the flow and keep my Friday posts fun and light.  Click here if you want a good cat laugh...

 

http://www.StupidVideos.com/?VideoID=598

The 3 Stooges and Personality

This Sunday I am doing the final message on our Money Matters series.  Its called "How Not To Be A Blind Stooge 97 Stories Up."  Don't even try to figure it out.  Just come at 5pm and you'll get it then.

 

All that to say, in preparation, I have been watching old 3 Stooges videos and finding myself cracking up all over again.  Funny.....even after seeing the same thing hundreds of times since my childhood, I still laugh every time I see my ol' fav of the bunch, Curly.  My youngest daughter and I just love watching the Stooges together.  We laugh out loud, while my wife and eldest daughter just stare, nod their heads, usually give a groan of some kind, then get up and walk out while she and I lay together on the floor, laughing, oblivious to all else.

 

After years of trying to explain to my wife and eldest daughter just why the Stooges are so funny and never getting anywhere, I have come to this conclusion:  Those who love the Stooges, whether male or female, are almost always extrovert types: impulsive, not quiet (dare I say "loud"?), usually in-your-face, more confrontative personalities.  On the other hand, those who hate the Stooges are usually just the opposite: more introvert than extrovert, think long before you act kind of people, intentional, less confrontative types.  Neither is bad or good.  It's just the way it is.  The world really is made up of those who love or hate the 3 Stooges.

 

Hey, maybe we should add this to our Marriage Compatibility test, or at least Personality Profiles???  See you Sunday.

What To Make Of Rita......?

As I post this, hurricane Rita is churning its way toward the Texas coast.  No doubt since 9/11 there has been an escalation of calamity in our nation, starting with how many hurricanes now??? The big question in most Christian's minds is, Is this God's judgment on America? 

 

Good question.  I am not an oracle nor do I play one.  All I can speak from is biblical and historical precedence.  As we peer down through history's corridors we see nation after nation that at one time were super-powers.  That (usually) never lasted.  The lethal combination of pride, self-indulgence and complacency sets in within a few hundred years of the rise to world prominence.  Moral decay sets in, and it seems that where once a given society was secure and its borders seemingly invincible, that no longer was the case.  Invaders came in.  Calamities (great fires, volcano's and the rest) took place.  The once mighty were humbled.  Think Roman, Greek, British, Persian and any other Empire that ever was.

 

The point being that yes, maybe, just maybe, God could in fact be allowing our nation in particular to experience hits of a magnitude we've never experienced before.  His Hand of Providential protection may, I say, may have been lifted a little now.  Why?  So that like Nineveh of old (remember Jonah in the Bible?) we would awaken and turn to Him, realizing we are indeed in deep need of once again, as our Founding Fathers stated so long ago, being "One Nation, Under God...."

 

It's time to wake up.