“When Thomas Edison was interviewed by a young reporter who boldly asked Mr. Edison if he felt like a failure and if he thought he should just give up by now. Perplexed, Edison replied, ‘Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.’ And shortly after that, and over 10,000 attempts, Edison invented the light bulb.”

I’ve always heard this story of Thomas Edison and how it took him over 10,000 before he got the light bulb.  There are so many things in life that take what seems like 100s of failures before we finally get it right.  Learning how to ride a bike, figure out that first algebra problem, cooking your first meal, and the list can go on forever in things that we may need a few times to get it right.  Everyone has something  in their life that they needed more than one try for it to finally “click”.

I can remember as a young boy sitting in the car with my mom listening to a, now old, Ray Boltz tape.  She would listen to it all the time.  I must have heard that tape hundreds of times.  One particular night the song “feel the nails” was playing and I found myself crying.  I couldn’t quite understand why I was crying.  My mother noticed, and her first reaction was that one of my siblings had thrown something at me, but no object was to be found around me.  The realization that the words of the song were the source of the emotion, struck me as crazy.  After all, I’ve heard the song hundreds of times, and never before did it do anything to me.  The chorus of:

“Does he still feel the nails
Every time I fail
Can he hear the crowd cry “Crucify” again
Am I causing him pain
Then I know I’ve got to change
I just can’t bear the thought of hurting him.”

Just finally hit me…  It was one of those “God” moments you hear people talk about.

So what’s the point?  Maybe you have been praying for someone in your life to finally see the light.  Maybe you’ve been trying to help someone, but they keep messing up over and over again.  Maybe there’s someone who keeps trying to do the right thing, but just can’t seem to get it.  Remember that sometimes it takes a while for people to finally grasp something and there is still hope for everyone.  God has a huge plan for each and ever one of us.  There isn’t anyone whom God takes delight in their failure to live a righteous and good life.  It just takes some people longer than others to realize the greatest life is one led by God.

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

All around us is a world that is hurting.  There are so many people that need saving.  The problem is that so many of us see ourselves as just another person.  How can I save someone?  How can I, one person, make a difference?  That’s where our child like longings kick in, and we think of what a hero is to us – super strong, flying, super powers – Captain America, Mr. Perfect.  This is where our inner child is wrong.  A hero doesn’t need to have any kind of super powers.  A hero is simple one thing – sacrificial.

When we give up our time to help someone, when we give up that coffee to buy someone lunch, when we are there for those in need – these are all heroic acts.  Sacrifice is the one key component to every hero.  It’s one of the reasons one of my favorite shows right now is NBC’s Chuck.  Chuck is just a normal guy, with a normal job, thrown into extraordinary circumstances.  He sacrifices relationships, time, and much more just to help those in need.  It is a character that makes you think you could very easily be put in the same place.  In fact, we are everyday.  If we can just open our eyes, and see those around us that need help, and be willing to make a sacrifice of our time, money, and give of ourselves, each and every one of us can be a hero to some extent.  Let your inner child unleash the hero in you!

The greatest hero of all time isn’t Superman, or the Flash, but Jesus, God’s son.  He loved us so much that he gave his very life – the ultimate sacrifice.  He gave his life to redeem a lost world.  To become a hero we need to be willing to give something up in order to help those in need.  The greatest heroes are willing to dedicate and sometimes even give their lives for others.

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

No idea what the title of this blog means. Just wanted to give a quick thought in order to try and have a post up everyday!

Anyone ever notice how hard it is to live in the moment!?

I started reading “Every Day Deserves a Chance” by Max Lucado. It is pretty good so far. He puts forth some great ideas about how we pretty much destroy today by looking at yesterday and worrying about tomorrow.

So forget about yesterday, don’t think about tomorrow, and try to just enjoy today!

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

So as I sit here at my desk on Monday morning I look to my left and see some new mic cords. They will replace some of the mic cords that have gone bad in the youth room. With the whole emphasis on prayer this month a mic cord is the perfect thing to see. Mic cords allow us to communicate. When there is a break in the cord either there is no communication or there is a lot of static and possible feedback. In our lives sometimes we allow busyness and forgetfulness cause breaks and shorts in our communication with God.

Check your mic cord with God today, and see if it needs some repairs!

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

Well it is a new year… 2009. 2008 is gone forever. Its hard to imagine that we are already 9 years away from the year 2000. In 1999 people were freaking out about Y2K and all that meant. It just goes to show you that there really isn’t too many things in life worth getting worried about. Especially things beyond our control. We just need to leave it up to God and work on the things we can control.

With the New Year rolling in and people making all sorts of resolutions, I am going to try and get back to blogging on a consistent basis. All the Christmas parties really took up my time!

So for now, good luck on those resolutions!

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

Cowbells are there to make lots of noise. Noise is really fun and exciting when in the right circumstance. When I got this cowbell I rang it as hard and loud as I could every time the Panthers scored! When the opposing team scored I wasn’t very loud at all.

When trying to grow in our relationship with God, we should rejoice when we are with Him. Too often we do not make noise at all when glorifying our heavenly father. We put our cowbells away. We let our passion dissipate. Life has its ups and downs, but the one constant should be our savior and king. When things are going good and we find ourselves on the mountain top, we should be going crazy for God and stockpiling his joy, strength, love, and peace for the next time we find ourselves in a valley. If we use the mountain tops to remind us of how glorious our savior is, then we can still ring our cowbell for Jesus when we are in the valley!

Don’t ever hold back your passion for Christ! Ring that cowbell everywhere and all the time!

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

So I look over and I see my business card. It has a nifty logo, some contact information, my name, and all that other stuff that most business cards have. It is something I give out to people if they want to contact me or I want them to contact me.

Now how much do you really know about someone from their business card? Nothing really. Just some general information. Most people are satisfied with that. Of course this won’t always work. Friends and family want more than just general information about your life. They want to be involved, and know the real you.

The question I have for you is what do you hand God? Do you give God your business card? God wants so much more of a relationship with you then just general information, and yet that’s all we offer Him most of the time. A relationship is two ways, but how many Christians only communicate with God one way. We ask God for all the things we want, and feel we need. We spend praise and worship time by reading God our grocery list. We never let God speak to us. We never let our relationship with Him grow. We lack passion… we only give God our business card and then ask Him for favors.

Give God more than a business card…

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

So in the next couple of days I’m going to try and come up with short devotionals from things I see on my desk. This could be lots of fun!

Today, the first thing I see on my desk is a bottle of white out…

Our life is a novel that we write everyday. We go through life and do as much as we can, some of it good and some of it bad. We all write our stories with the choices we make and things that we do. So what happens when we mess up? What happens when a typo is made and we are on an old school typewriter with no backspace key? Well, back in the day a good bottle of white out had to be on hand in order to fix the mistakes. If done well, the mistake could pretty much be erased, the mistake is still there, but doesn’t hurt the rest of the paper.

In our lives, we mess up everyday. We have typos all through out the story of our lives. God wants to make us clean and white out those mistakes though, but we have to let Him. The greatest thing about this is that God, once we ask for forgiveness, doesn’t see the mistakes any more. We may still remember the mistakes and imperfections on the paper, but God doesn’t.

Once God white outs the sin, once He forgives the sin, we are forgiven and made clean!

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

Have you ever had something be there every time you turn around? Whether it be a person, object, or saying? I can remember the first car I had when I was a teenager. I had searched all over the place looking for the perfect car, and found a cool looking one that I had never seen before. It was a 2000 Saturn sports coup. It was a great car! It was one of those 3 door cars, where the third door is like 6 inches wide and opens backwards! Anyways, I had never seen one of those cars before until I actually owned one. Then the next day I saw like 30 of them! But that is how it goes.

Lately, God has been hitting me with a subject and it seems to show up everywhere I go. It is the idea of slowing down and being where I am. I need to enjoy the place I am and not look too far ahead. Sometimes I am looking so forward to things in the future that I forget to have fun, and remember the present. The problem is that when that big event in the future becomes the present I’m already looking forward to something else. It is a vicious cycle of complacency. This can be a good thing of course, but not if I can’t enjoy the moment. I need to be able to be where I am.

Jesus always was where He was. He was so effective in people’s lives because he was always there with them both physically and mentally. His mind didn’t wonder, He wasn’t thinking about what to do next, he was just there, and He changed lives because of it!

I want to be like that!

Just something to ponder on…

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.

We need to be real, we need to be our true selves!

Be different! Be real!

-until next time…

©2010 Become A Hero. All Rights Reserved.