Woman's bold witness thwarts robber's plans

She might be only 20 years old, but Pompano Beach, Fla., store manager Nayara Goncalves has the heart of a lion.

A man walked into her store and pulled out a gun. Instead of screaming, she calmly said, "I'm going to talk to you about the Jesus I have."

(Watch the ABC News video here)

The man reasoned that he need money for his rent, as he faced evicition. But Nayara continued to share her faith with the masked man.

Nayara Goncalves, ABC News

"Jesus helps you, he can change your life. Go back to church. Find a job. Get real friends in church. Talk to a pastor, they can pray for you. You don't need to do this, Jesus is coming soon," she told him.

Defeated by the truth of her words, he turned around and left the store empty-handed.

No doubt, the experts will come out of the woodwork. "Just comply with their demands. Just do what they want. Losing your life isn't worth the money."

But there is something inspirational in the boldness of this young woman.

She is a vivid example of Jer 1:8.

"Don't be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord"

"I really hope I planted a little seed in his heart," she told ABC news.

Nayara. You planted  a seed of boldness in my heart.

What do you think? Comment here

Florida Store Clerk Invokes Jesus to Foil Robbery (foxnews.com)

Ditch the Safety Talk: Work Dangerously

You can’t have that out in plain sight,” the woman said to me. Her hair was pulled so tight it tugged on her eyes. “Someone might get offended.”

She then whirled around and walked away, her clackety-clack shoes echoing against the tile floor.

What offended her was the book with an obviously Christian title in my hand on the way out to lunch. Shocked as much by her bold intrusion into my reading habits as I was by her pronouncement, it brought to reality a decision that I needed to make: Would I live the life of working safely, tucking my beliefs away? Or would I be God’s man, comfortable in the new skin he had put me in?

Considering what was at stake, it wasn’t an easy decision. As a newly hired manager, I had fought through the thicket of at least two dozen applicants for this job. I was entrusted with a big responsibility, a budget and a supervisory position. Plus I had a family that was counting on my paycheck.

What else would I have to hide?

What would it hurt to hide that little book? But to do so, I would have to hide a thousand other things.

Read the rest of this post over at High Calling Blogs.

What unwritten rules in the workplace should we keep, and which ones should we ignore?
Have you ever made a “dangerous choice” at work ? What happened?

Comment here

Take your pastor to work day

Justin David Buzzard is a pastor in the San Francisco Bay Area. He wrote an interesting post about how he has built his ministry by doing to the places where the men of his church work.

He calls it “the most important thing he has done in his ministry.”

“It showed them that I care about their callings, how they spend 50+ hours of their week, and the people they work with,” he writes.

Pastor Buzzard admits that it he saw a world bigger than the church and gave him different priorities.

God bless the professional, full-time ministers among us. Their job is at the same time eternally rewarding and thankless, fulfilling and frustrating, rich and poor.

But many pastors seem to be disconnected to the workplace. This is where we spend the majority of our lives. Within the workplace a daily drama plays out and our faith needs to be part of it. We need help.

While teaching series on the gifts of the Spirit, how to raise a family, finances and relationships are all important, why does there seem to be a vacuum when it comes to the workplace.

My pastor has been to my workplace and it was a blessing. He honors my labor and understands the challenges. But many others don’t get it.

Buzzard has some suggestions for pastors visiting men in the workplace. This doesn’t discount women in the workplace, but men are his focus. Here’s a few of them:

- Schedule a visit with a man in your church at his workplace. Ask lots of questions. Learn about his world.

- Introduce yourself to his co-workers. Don’t tell people you’re a pastor, unless asked or introduced that way. They will find out eventually and they’ll be incredibly surprised that a pastor looks and talks like a normal person

- Let the man talk to you at length about his work. You’ll quickly discover how you can best encourage and empower the man in his calling.

Some of the workplaces Pastor Buzzard has visited include a Secret Service office, a flower shop, an architectural firm, a trucking office, Google headquarters, a venture capital office, and others.

So, what do you think? Should your pastor come to your workplace? What would he learn?

Comment here.

Crock Pot Christianity

We live in the generation of Right Now.

We want everything quickly -- Instant credit, fast food, instant news. We’ve been raised on 30 second commercials and 140-character status updates.

We simply don't have attention for anything that takes a long time. Watch how people fidget in the grocery store line, at the Post Office, or at a red light.

We are an impatient people.

But discipleship is a long endeavor, not a quick fix. Character growth with God is like an oak tree that takes years to mature.

Eugene Peterson in his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, speaks to this:

"Everyone is in a hurry. Everyone wants shortcuts. They want help to fill out the form that will get them instant credit (in eternity). They are impatient for results. They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness. Growth, or discipleship, is more like cooking with a crock pot, instead of a microwave. It can be slow, long, and difficult, but is always the best way."

Is your faith on simmer, or on boil? Comment here. 

God's megaphone

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”

C.S. Lewis

Fertile soil: The secret ingredient

In this life, we are all really fellow farmers, working toward producing good crops. We might not be in the fields, but we are in the factories and office buildings, retail stores and homes, putting out a product. Metaphorically, none of us wants bad fruit. Nobody wants the bad produce of a harvest gone wrong.

I have spent a lifetime building my character, disciplining my thoughts and trying to make the right choices, but still, I don’t always turn out the best harvest. In fact, many of my best efforts are just rotten.

There’s something else I’ve never really considered, and leave it to my friend Tim to point it out. Although he isn’t a farmer, he’s had his share of both good and bad harvests in his life. He’s honest about his failures, and humble about his victories.

‘I have found the only way to produce a good crop is to have fertile soil,” he said, “and the only way to get that is to constantly turn over the soil and add lots of crap.”

You might cringe at the word choice or turn away from the thought, but you cannot dispute the truth.

So, maybe next time, when my life gets turned over, I’ll remember the coming fruit. Maybe next time when someone shovels a smelly load into my life, I’ll thank them for helping me out with the final product.

Fertile soil. It’s not as easy as I thought.

Get up and go

Like you, I've been knocked down many times in the past. With the wind pulled out of my sails, all progress just stopped. So I floundered. Wondering. Waiting. Wasting days, months and years. It seems like I've spent half my life, sitting around, waiting for instructions. I've called it "recovery mode," but really I was just feeling sorry for myself.

That's no way to live.

I read about Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. He had been furiously opposed to Jesus and those who followed him. Giving a free pass to the rock throwers, he himself took to persecuting early followers of the way.

And then he was hit with a blinding light. What followed was blindness. All of his past was suddenly thrown into disarray. His future was uncertain. And because of his lack of sight, he wasn't even sure where he was.

But then God reach down, restored his eyes with new sight, and gave him an injunction:
"Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do", Acts 9:6

I have been struck down. Life has thrown fiery darts my way and some have stuck. I lost my sight. I lost my vision. I lost my way. But that's not my final landing spot. There is a voice calling.

"Get up and go!"

We all like to feel sorry for ourselves. We pine about what could have been, what should have been, what might have been. We blame our past. We blame our present. We blame others. We might even blame God. But there comes a time.

"Get up and go!"

I will never know the plans He has for me if I never dust off my pants, lace up my shoes and set on the road before me.

"Get up and go!"

Comment here.

I heard God

We all hear voices. That’s why therapists, counselors and clergy have no shortage of work.

We hear voices from our past: Teachers, preachers, and parents told us what to do. They weren’t always nice about it.

Then there are the voices from cynics, critics and doubters whose disbelief in us still rings in our ears.

And then there are the voices calling out our names today.

Somewhere in the din is the voice of God. I heard it. Not just once, but all throughout my life. Most of the time I ignored it, because I didn’t believe or was just too stubborn to listen.

But like a distant whisper, I know it’s Him.

Photo by David Rupert, Emerald Bay, CA

“You are my beloved.”

I haven’t always felt beloved. In fact, I was a misfit. And you probably were too.

I can relate to David. When Samuel came to anoint one of Jesse’s sons, David was sent out to tend the sheep because he was called “the little one.”

And later, when the boys of the family were sent out to take on the Philistines, David was sent not with a sword or armor, but with bread and cheese.

Some warrior. Some king. What an introduction. “Here comes dinky with the cheese plate.”

But David, the beloved one, was chosen and honored as a “man after God’s heart.”

He kept on, despite rejection,  because he heard God. And if you listen hard enough, so will you.

"The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the  heart."
Comment here.

The antidote to a lonely life

One of my favorite bloggers is Jennifer Dukes-Lee, who blogs over at Getting Down Jesus. Her writing is full of keen observations into the world around her and the work of God within her. She and I decided to swap blog posts this morning on the subject of "loneliness."  Find her blog here, but first, read her lovely words below.

The antidote to a lonely life
by Jennifer Dukes-Lee
"The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved." -- Mother Teresa

We had built the house, stacked dishes in new cupboards, found places for our books and our toys and our chairs and all our things.

And yes, it was all beautiful and shiny, and it smelled like fresh paint and lumber and new carpet.

And I was miserable.

I remember sitting on the floor of my daughter's bedroom that first week in our new home on an Iowa farm. I was reading the lilting words of "Goodnight Moon" to our daughter, who was almost one year old. Her pudgy finger found the mouse, and the stars, and the moon, and the bunny ... and the one tear trailing down this mama's cheek.

I was lonely.

We were living in the community where my husband grew up. We knew people. They waved and small-talked and smiled and shook our hands. And everyone was friendly and welcoming. But they all seemed to have settled comfortably into established friendships -- long-standing since childhood, and often linked by blood. And I couldn't find my way past the small-talk.

It was after the birth of our second child a couple years later when the neighbors asked: Would you like to come over for supper? And that started an abiding friendship that has endured to this day.

I know that Jesus is the antidote to loneliness. I know that God wants us to seek communion with Him first. I understand that He can fill any emptiness. But I also know that He created us with hearts that yearn for community. We come out of the womb aching to be held and loved. We want to matter to someone.

We long to belong.

Today, living on the other side of loneliness, I ask God to keep my eyes open for the lonely people whose hearts yearn for true friendship. I need not look far. For they are in the grocery aisles, the post office, the church pews ... and just up the road.

Let us pray ...Lord, Let me not forget the pain of loneliness, for it helps me to see more clearly. Give me Your eyes so I can see the lonely hearts. In the name of Jesus, who never leaves us alone, Amen.

Comment here.

Am I a Pharisee?

Read the Red Letters and you'll see some startling revelations.

Some think that Jesus' ministry was to call out sinners -- to pin their deeds against them and exact some sort of forced change. But, in reality, he reserved his harshest words for the religious folks -- those who lived by rules and thrived on the judgement of others without any heart change.

Jesus embraced the sinner, the prostitute and the tax collector. He dined with the most sordid lot, drinking from their cup, reveling in their company. He did so because these were the people were the ones could understand grace -- because they needed it the most.

And all the while, one group of men in white robes stood with their arms crossed in disapproval -- The Pharisees.

I have Pharisees in my life -- those that want to make my faith and witness feel small. They want to steal my joy. They proudly quote Scripture and strut their own righteousness. And I'll bet you have them in yours, too.

Perhaps you are reading this, looking for some kind of offense, looking for a rock to throw. Your white robe might just be hiding a dirty heart. Here's a simple summary posed by Christ Life Ministries.

You might be a Pharisee if....

*Your memory is excellent when it comes to remembering your good works and other's faults.
* You routinely dismiss anyone who would dare to point out a “blind spot.”
* You verbally challenge the people who disagree with you.
* You rarely say, "I'm wrong" or "I'm sorry."
* You find it difficult to fellowship with those different from yourself.
* You build up yourself and your group by tearing others down.
* You despise people who do not hold your convictions.
* You excuse your arrogant behavior because you hold to “the correct position.”
* You call your uncanny ability to catalog the faults of others “discernment.”
* Your sense of self-importance blinds you to the fact of how repulsive you are to others.
* You feel the trail of broken relationships in your past is due to some fault in the other parties.
* You visually and intellectually comply in order to gain acceptance and approval.
* You are so caught up in your own circle that you will do anything to maintain your reputation.
* You are dominated by the fear of man.
* You are insulted by the notion you may be a Pharisee.

read the full list here

Reading this, I have to ask the question. Am I a Pharisee? Are you?
Comment here.

God’s Refrigerator

The following is featured today over at High Calling Blogs.

I remember coming home from work and there was my son James, lying on his stomach in the living room. He was surrounded by crayons and pieces of paper.

“What are you doing, son?”

“I’m working,” he said resolutely, his tongue pushed toward his cheek with a look of intensity that meant business. “Really hard.”

Twenty minutes later he produced an elaborately colored picture. “I used every crayon,” he announced. “Do you like it?”

“Of course I do,” I said, surveying the elaborate details of the labor of love. “It’s the best!

“Do you see Josh?” referring to his baby brother. The little oblong circle with four sticks coming out of him looked like a turtle, but I could see the impressionist artist within.

“And I drew you and mommy, too,” he said proudly.

In the picture, my wife had flowing blue hair that reached to the ground with a radiant wardrobe, rich in color and detail.

But I didn’t get the same grand treatment. I looked more like the family pet, standing on his hind legs. I even had floppy ears.

But none of that mattered. It was a work of art and it was going on the refrigerator.....
Read the rest of this post over at High Calling Blogs.
Comment here.

Who's got the worst boss?

The AFL-CIO recently announced it's annual "My Bad Boss" contest.

Once you start to sort through the 640 stories, you'll realize that maybe your boss isn't so bad. After reading about this, I knew that I just couldn't pass up the High Calling group writing project to blog about bosses.

Here's a few of the best (or worst) stories.

• An employee was demoted because it rained on the day of the company outing that she had planned. The boss later asked her to plan the company picnic. “Um. No.”
• The story about a boss who questioned a employee's request to visit a  grandparent at his death bed defies reality. The boss said this, “I don't know why you are worried about him, he is JUST your Grandfather and he is going to die anyway.”
• Another crazy story is about a fast food worker whose wife called, telling him to rush home because their house was fully engulfed in flames. The boss said that he couldn’t leave immediately, but could leave 15 minutes before the shift was done, “if it was slow.”
• I was amazed to read about the toy store owner, who stole from the “Toys for Tots” collection box at Christmas and restocked the shelves.
• How about the tyrant who threw away the disability paperwork for a man who had cancer and wouldn't allow him to take his personal vacation time.
• The other was a boss who had employees vacate a smoke-filled workroom floor by seniority, ensuring that there was someone to answer the phone until the very end.
• One man says the office was kept so cold that the ink in his pen stopped flowing – and the boss suggested a pencil. 
• Every time another supervisor wanted to get the attention of his workers, he would throw a tool at them.
• Another boss offered to buy everyone in the office lunch – and instead pulled up to Costco and allowed them to ‘dine’ on the free samples.
• A pizzeria manager ordered a pregnant waitress to complete her shift even after she had gone into labor. She stayed and waited on customers and even made pizzas between contractions.

 There are hundreds of other stories that would make your hair stand on end.

The web is blossoming with supervisor angst. One site even allows you to post a warning about your boss – ebosswatch.com encourages feedback where you anonymously complete a survey about your boss – and then post it for the world to see.

Some of us are blessed with a great boss who understands, who gives freedom, and who is quick with praise. But the reality is that this could change at a moment’s notice

So, what is our response? How should a Christian react to a bad boss?

How would Jesus react to a tyrant?

Who was your worst boss?

Comment here.