Against all odds (More than just the autobiography from Chuck Norris)

I love the underdog. I love teams and people that aren’t expected to do anything and they surprise the world. Kurt Warner was a minor league quarterback, a backup quarterback, at one point worked at a grocery store, but after the starting quarterback went down he stepped in and the rest is history.

Being a Michigan State, Lions, Tigers and Chris Kaman (He played for the Clippers a lot of years and then had to go to the Hornets) fan I get used to being the underdog. It builds character and courage to fight through the bad moments.

This happens outside the sports realm and into all aspects of life.

Paul was traveling as a prisoner to Rome. They were on a boat and things took a turn for the worst. A huge storm hit them and they were basically goners. They didn’t see the sun for three days and lost hope. They threw over cargo and almost everything including the ships tackle. Many thought they would die.

This wasn’t the case as Paul talks in Acts 27:23-25…

“Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you. So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.”

The people would be safe. There was less than a glimmer of hope, yet God took care of Paul and took care of the people. Keep up your courage. What do you need courage in? Courage goes beyond being an underdog is sports. The people on the boat lacked courage, yet God came through for them. Take courage even through the worst of times.

Some people that have amazing courage to me…

Single parents – For whatever reason, this is nearly impossible to go through.  Hailee and I were teaming up to feed Nolan, change and get Nolan back to sleep.  We both said the same thing, I couldn’t do this alone.

Those coming from poor situations – It’s hard to have nothing and to make something with your life, it takes a tremendous amount of hard work.

Those with physical or mental disabilities – the strength of what some people have to go throw everyday is beautiful.  When you see people overcoming and not being a slave to a disability and do something awesome it’s a masterpiece.

Kids of divorced families – Stats of shown that the kids of divorced families don’t usually fair as well kids with parents that don’t divorce.  If you are a child of divorced parents you can overcome and do so much with your life.

Paul was able to keep the men’s courage. If you are struggling through life right now, take courage.

Know that through much pain can come much joy. God is there for you even when you don’t feel like it. Take courage. What do you need courage in?

Stay strong, fight the good fight, do everything in your power to make things better and when you come up short, you can always rely on God and Jesus. If things are going good for you….encourage!

Help someone else out. Lift them up with your words, make this world a better place with how you treat other people. Life can get better. Take courage!

Have a great day!

The ending to the twilight series

It was 1999 and a girl and I were going to see a suspenseful movie.

It was a shocking movie with a surprise at the end nobody saw coming.

Guess what movie it was?

Wrong, it was Titanic.

Just kidding.

We saw the Sixth Sense, a very good movie and if you went to the movie without ever hearing about it, you would have a shock at the end of the movie.

It was a good movie.

There was something that ruined the shock value for me, I already found out about the ending.

So my girlfriend and I at the time just ended up making fun of Bruce Willis’s career.

“I used to star in action movies like Die Hard and spend the movie fight people after stepping on broken glass, I was beast, now I’m a psychologist, what happened?”

We were joking and almost in tears laughing.

It changed to atmosphere of the movie when we knew it was going to happen.

Sometimes you have to see it to believe it.

Is that always the case?

How do I know someone wasn’t tell me a lie?

My status on Facebook today is the supposed ending to the Twilight Series, or is it?

Can you trust what I wrote down as being the actual ending or not?

Sometimes we can trust what other people say and other times we do not.

Do you trust me when I tell you every year Michigan State, The Lions, Tigers and Red Wings will win the championship?

What can you trust and what can you not trust?

Jesus appeared to his disciples except Thomas.

In simple words the other disciples told him, “Dude, we saw Jesus.”

He didn’t believe them and said this in John 20:25…

“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

Certain Circles started using the saying doubting Thomas.

It was a week later when Thomas did actually see Jesus and Thomas was in shock.

Jesus told him this in verse 29…

“Because you have seen me, you have believed’ blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I used to be hard headed with faith.

“I am not going to believe until I see Jesus or witness a miracle that only he could perform.”

I was thickheaded.

If you wait to see an amazing miracle to believe in Jesus you could be waiting a while.

Faith takes trust.

You trust in what you don’t always see.

It took time but I believe in Jesus because of what I have learned about him.

I was taught that people gave up their lives for what they witnessed with Jesus.

They could have lied and lived, but they suffered painful deaths because they couldn’t lie.

With movies, we could be told the ending and might believe or not.

The decision is ours.

Just like with faith.

We can believe in Jesus without seeing him.

If you can believe the ending of a movie because a friend told what happened, could you do the same with faith and Jesus?

Have a great day.