Good For What?

April 8, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

There is a power in what we say. This is probably most true in what we say to ourselves.

Far too many people are so quick to beat themselves up and run themselves down. Do you ever do that?

  • How could I have missed that? I’m so stupid!
  • Grrr! I forgot my wallet again. I’m so forgetful!
  • I can’t believe I said that! I’m so insensitive!
  • I could never paint like that. I’m so uncreative!
  • I really messed that one up. I’m such an idiot!
  • I can’t seem to do anything right. I’m just a good-for-nothing!

If you talked to your friends the same way you talk to yourself, would you have any friends left?

The things you say to yourself have got to change. The way you think about yourself has got to change.

God made you the way He made you on purpose. In all of human history, there has never been another you. Right now among the nearly 7 billion people on earth, there isn’t anyone like you.

You are you because God made you. He loves what He made. He loves you!

Perfect? No way! None of us are. That’s one of the few things you and I have in common with everyone else.

Unique? You better believe it!

One of a kind? You sure are!

Good for something? Yep! You have the talents and abilities and personality and temperament that God intended for you to have.

STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP!

Look into God’s mirror and let Him reflect back to you just how wonderful you are! Spend quiet time with your Creator, with your Lover. Hear Him whisper to your heart how special you are.

Then be you. The world needs you to be you. The world is a better place with you in it.

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Just Be Yourself

January 26, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

How many times have you ever made one of these statements:

  • “If I could only sing like her.”
  • “I wish I could draw like you.”
  • “Wow, I wish I could write like that!”
  • “You have way more Facebook friends than I do.”
  • “I could never stand up in front of an audience like that pastor.”

If you’ve ever said something like this, what you’re really saying is, “I want to be someone else.”

But God made you you. He didn’t make anyone else you. No one can be you but you.

When you get to heaven, God isn’t going to say:

  • “Why didn’t you learn to sing like her?”
  • “You should have taken art lessons.”
  • “Your blog wasn’t as popular as his.”
  • “You had fewer friends than anyone else.”
  • “Why didn’t you become a pastor/missionary/evangelist…”

All God is going to ask is this: “Were you the best you that you could be? Did you use the talents, personality, passions, gifting, and opportunities that I gave to you and to no one else?”

On Wednesday nights in our Impact! youth service we’re exploring this topic in a series called Be You. That’s all God wants you to be. Come join us at 7pm on Wednesdays. In the meantime, listen to the Holy Spirit teaching you to be the best you you can be.

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Simply Profound

November 20, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

This morning I went to “Donuts With Dad” with my youngest son. It’s a time for Dads to bring their kids to school, grab a donut, and then walk around the school with their child. It was so cool seeing how excited my son was for me to be there with him!

We sat in his classroom to eat our donut, then he gave me the grand tour: the library, the computer lab, the lunchroom, the art room, and the gym. So simple, yet so important to him.

Earlier in the morning on my way to drop off my older children at their school, we were reading this passage in Colossians:

It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.

So I’ve been thinking: if the simple things are the joy-filled things, why do we insist on making things so complicated in our Christian faith? We tell God’s children, “To be in a relationship with God you must do thus-and-so, and you must do it this many times each week, and you must do it this way.”

Must, must, must.

Complex rule after convoluted rule after antiquated rule. Why not simply say, “Love God will all that you’ve got. Just love Him in the unique way He made you to love Him”?

There’s great joy in simplicity. There is a profoundness in simplicity.

Here’s to a simpler walk with Christ!

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Treating People Like Pesticides

September 18, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

So I spent all day yesterday studying for my exam which is required in my new tentmaking position. I was reading all about pesticide laws, protective equipment, governmental oversight, properly-formatted labels, and the like. I’m trying to remember it all for my exam with the Department of Agriculture in a couple of weeks.

I was deeply engrossed in the chapter on “Pesticides and the Environment,” sorting out all of the terms I needed to keep in mind…

  • Solubility
  • Adsorption
  • Persistence
  • Degradation
  • Volatility
  • Vapor drift
  • Toxicity
  • Particle drift
  • Permeability

…and all of sudden it hit me how specifically each pesticide is treated. When you take into account the active and inactive ingredients, the concentrations, the particle sizes, the atmospheric conditions at the time of application, along with all of the factors I just listed above, it’s almost as though each pesticide application is unique.

We consider all of these factors for a chemical, yet we are so quick to put people into well-defined boxes with nice, neat labels:

  • “Well, you know, his parents were…”
  • “Of course she’s a…”
  • “I wouldn’t trust him because he…”
  • “Didn’t you know? She once was a…”

Neat labels that keep people in their place. Yet God says every person is unique. What if we took enough time to get to know people—I mean really get to know them. I think the more we know about others, the less likely it is we’ll put them in one of our convenient boxes.

Here’s what I’m thinking about today: Do I want others to neatly label me? Or do I want to be treated as a unique individual? What if I treated people as carefully and with as much attention to the fine details as I must with my pesticides? Hmm, treating people like pesticides: not a bad idea.

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Uniquely You

August 5, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

Thanks to Mr. Cochrane, my 10th grade English teacher, I have become somewhat of a literalist when it comes to the use of words. For instance, it bothers me when writers confuse your and you’re, or its and it’s, or their, there, and they’re.

Another vocabulary use that bothers me is when someone uses a qualifier with the word unique. It’s incorrect to say, “You’re very unique” or “It’s an unusually unique situation.” Unique, by its very definition, means there is nothing else like it.

Unique is defined as “existing as the only one or as the sole example; having no like or equal; unparalleled; incomparable.”

Do you know another great definition of unique: YOU.

Really, you are unique. You are the only one like you; you are the sole example of you; there is no one like you; you are unparalleled and incomparable. That’s you!

In one of his most intimate prayers, David says to God, “I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” The Hebrew word for wonderfully means someone who is one-of-a-kind… unique.

You are uniquely you.

You were created in God’s image—uniquely.

You were created unlike anyone else who has ever lived—uniquely.

You are endowed by your Creator with a set of talents, strengths, and abilities (a gift package) that has never been seen before in the history of mankind, nor will it ever be seen again—uniquely.

You will cross paths with particular people at particular times in your life and their lives that can never be duplicated or recreated—uniquely.

In order to seize unique opportunities, you have to be uniquely you. In order to be uniquely you, you have to become more like Jesus. He embodied every godly attribute perfectly; He lived every moment perfectly; He handled every situation perfectly. “The more I become like Jesus the more uniquely I become myself” (Dr. George O. Wood).

How might you live your life differently today knowing that no one can do what you do the way you do it? The more you become like Jesus, the more uniquely you you will be. Try it!

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Apples To Apples

May 11, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

As I was packing some sliced apples in school lunches I was contemplating the cliché about comparing apples-to-apples. We use this cliché when things are similar, or at least in the same category. If things are dissimilar or in different categories we might say we’re comparing apples-to-oranges.

If your life was in the “apple” category, to what other “apple” would you compare? Interesting question!

You are a unique individual. God has not made—ever—anyone like you, nor will He ever—in all of the future—make another “apple” like you. You are a one-of-a-kind, completely distinct from the 7 billion human beings on Earth right now. No one who has ever lived or ever will live is an “apple” like you.

So comparing yourself to anyone else is always an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Again I ask you to consider: to what other “apple” would you compare?

I believe the only other apple to which you can honestly and realistically compare yourself is: YOU! You can only compare yourself to the God-given potential in you. You are your own apple-to-apple comparison because no one else is in your category. God doesn’t expect you to be an Albert Einstein or a Winston Churchill or a Madam Curie—He just expects you to be you. To be the best you He created you to be.

Earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (1 Corinthians 12:31 AMP).

When you expect nothing less than your very best from yourself, you will help bring out the very best in others too. If your apples-to-apples comparison is just a you-to-you comparison, it relieves the pressure from others to compare their apple to your orange.

Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out (1 Thessalonians 5:15, The Message).

Check out these great quotes about doing your personal-apple-best—

  • “Doing your best is more important than being the best.” —John Wooden
  • “It was ever Alexander The Great’s nature, if he had no rival, to strive to better his best.” —Arrian
  • “From day to day I do the best I can and will continue to do so till the end.” —Abraham Lincoln
  • “One of satan’s wiliest tricks is to destroy the best by the good.” —E.M. Bounds
  • “To find the best in others, and to give of oneself; to leave the world a better place whether by a healthy child, a redeemed social condition, or a garden patch; to have lived your life with enthusiasm and to have sung with exaltation; and finally to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have been successful.” —Emerson

Do your personal-apple-best today, and stop comparing yourself to another’s orange. When you can do this you will find it easier to encourage others to do their personal-apple-best too.

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God’s Originality

May 1, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

Have you ever noticed all of the different ways that God reveals Himself to people? He is original with every original person.

I love looking at the Aha! moments that people have. You know, the moments when the light comes on and they understand Who God is to them?

  • When Jethro heard how God delivered Moses and the Israelites from Egypt he said, “Now I know that the true God is greater than all other gods.”
  • When Elijah raised a dead boy back to life the boy’s mother said, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that you only speak His words.”
  • When Naaman was healed of leprosy he said to Elisha, “Now I know that there is only one true God.”
  • When David recalled all the ways God has delivered him from certain disaster he sang, “Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed.”
  • When Peter was delivered from prison by an angel he said, “Now I know that God did this.”

(check out the references for these examples by clicking here)

God reveals Himself uniquely to everyone because we’re all unique originals.

“Let God be as original with other people as He is with you.” —Oswald Chambers

Here’s the problem with God’s originality: We try to make our unique experience with God a universal experience for everyone else. We think that because He did it such-and-such a way for us that everyone ought to experience it the same way.

Wrong!

Think about the deliverance from lions in the Bible. In Samson’s case, God gave him supernatural strength to kill a lion with his bare hands; Benaiah went into a pit to kill a lion with his club; Daniel never even touched the lions, and they couldn’t touch him either.

Imagine if Samson was there with Benaiah: “Hey, brother, if you’re going to go after that lion, just wait on God to give you supernatural strength. If you really had faith, you would lose that club!”

Imagine if Benaiah and Samson were giving lion-killing advice to Daniel: “My friend,” Benaiah might say, “Please use my club.” And Samson would interrupt, “How many times do I have to tell you? No clubs!” Yet in Daniel’s case, God wanted the lions alive.

Perhaps you had your “Now I know” moment after a prolonged struggle in a particular area. Your tendency would be to tell others, “Get on your knees and pray and pray and pray. Pray really hard! It might take years, but God will eventually help you breakthrough.” Perhaps God wants to deliver someone else instantly.

Perhaps your “Now I know moment” came while reading from the King James Version of the Bible. Your tendency is going to be to hand out KJVs to everyone. Perhaps God is going to speak to someone through the New Century Version.

Let God be original with you. Let Him uniquely work with others too. Don’t make your “Now I know” experience the theology which rules everyone around you.

I’m so glad God is unique with every unique individual because each of us is a one-of-a-kind original!

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