Pete Wilson | Kyle Chowning

What if you weren’t afraid?

I started my first Sunday of 2010 at Cross Point church here in Nashville. The title of the teaching was “My Prayer for You” by pastor Pete Wilson.

The title didn’t immediately hit me, so as he started to talk, admittedly, my mind wasn’t fully present until he said, “You may not want me to pray this for you, but I’m going to anyway.”

What? Why would he say it that way?

His message was simple:

Faith
Purpose
Wisdom

But what he said wasn’t.

He spoke about faith, and fear, and limitations, and lack of faith. He said things like…

“Fears establish the limits on your life…”

and

“The reason why you’re paralyzed by fear is not because of fear, it’s because of “little” faith.”

All of these were fine to listen to, but I didn’t really hear them, like I hear a harp, until he started talking about money (of course). Basically the story went like this…

A man commits to giving $600, because it was doable. God asks him to step out in faith and commit to $2000. Man does. Questions his commitment. Man get’s a $2080 raise three days after.

But provision is not the point of the story.

A man commits to give what he knew he could. God asks him to commit to a number that wasn’t possible. Man’s heart was turned and expectant upon God. God surprises him. Man is overwhelmed. Man’s faith increases.

I wondered what $ amount I would have to commit to see my faith exercised? Then I wondered, “if God can do all things, what stops him from sending $100,000 my way, to commit and giveaway?”

My faith.

Honestly, I don’t believe that I have the faith to commit to that kind of faith. That’s just scary faith…like stupid scary faith. It would surely end up in failure? Right? I mean, how in the world could I dare to believe that God could do that?

And there you have it. My own “little faith,” rooted in fear, has already established the limits that I put on God’s ability to use me like that. This, my friends, is messing with me in ways that have only just begun.

For Discussion: Imagine if I/you really did believe that God could, would and will use me, you, us, like that? What then, could be possible? What’s stopping you/us from believing like that?

Five Blogs I Recommend

Lately, I’ve been uninspired to write here due to a variety of reasons. So rather than trying to come up with something creative, I thought I would take advantage of the Google Reader Trend statistics and share with you the top five blogs that I’ve been reading over the past 30 days.

If you’re a Google Reader user as well, you can access this same data by clicking on the “Trends” link in your navigation area.

Okay, here we go:

#1 Macworld – I am a Mac enthusiast and I find that Macworld offers one of the most comprehensive feeds for Mac related news, software and products. I read 25% of their posts.

#2 Advertising Age – Makes sense…I’m a marketing guy at heart and this is one of the ways that I stay tuned into what’s happening in my market. However, just tonight, I found Mediaweek which is a promising read as well. I read 25% of their posts.

#3 FlowerDust.net (Anne Jackson) – Anne’s blog is a new favorite. She is the author of Mad Church Disease, a book dedicated to helping those in ministry, vocational or volunteer, steer clear from burnout—which is a MAJOR problem. One of the reasons that I, and many others, enjoy reading her blog is that she is one of the most honest bloggers out there. Seriously, it stretches even me. Check it out. I read 100% of her posts.

#4 Nielsen Wire – I just recently found this blog. It’s written by the fine folks at Nielsen and it is FULL of great articles about what’s going on in our culture. Topics include, but aren’t limited to: TV, technology, trends, economy, and much more. Did you know that just over 1/3 of American’s have an HDTV and the average person watches 153 hours of TV a month? Yeah, that kind of stuff. It’s a must-read for me. I read 19% of their posts.

#5 Without Wax (Pete Wilson) – Pete is also a new favorite. He is the senior pastor at Cross Point church here in Nashville and is one of the more forward thinking pastors I know when it comes to how to use media, technology and the Bible, all in one blog post. He’s building a great community of thinkers, believers and activists at Cross Point and on his blog. I read 94% of his posts.

So there you have it. Five blogs that I read regularly that I think you might enjoy. Feel free to share with me some of your favs in the comment section. I’m always looking to expand my horizons.