By Jason Glaze

It was day one of our vacation and Sea World was on the agenda.  We arrived at the park early to avoid the long line at the gates.  When we got inside the park we asked the kids what they wanted to see first and their answer was unanimous, Shamu!  So we found out when the first show was and hurried to get good seats.

As we settled into our seats I could see the excitement building in my kids.  As the whales began to come out the constant question from the kids was, “Is that one Shamu?  Is that one Shamu?”  They were impressed with all the younger whales and their performances but they were not going to be satisfied until they saw Shamu herself.

Finally it was time.  The dramatic music began to build as this enormous black object slowly glided around the bottom of the deep pool.  I was sitting in the row behind Kim and the kids hoping to catch some good video footage of my kids reaction as Shamu came up out of the water.  Shamu came racing to the surface.  My kids were on the edge of their seats and as she exploded up out of the water everyone erupted in a loud cheer.  That is everyone except my youngest son Will.

Will was sitting in Kim’s lap and when he got a good look at Shamu he immediately wrapped his arms around Kim’s neck, laid his head on her shoulder and began to cry.  At first I was confused.  I thought perhaps the sheer size of Shamu had startled Will and he was scared.  However the more I looked at Will’s face the more I could see that Will was not scared, Will was sad.  So I got Kim’s attention and asked her what was wrong and she whispered, Shamu’s fin.

When a Killer Whale is taken out of it’s natural environment, over time it’s dorsal fin begins to flop over to one side instead of standing straight up.  Some people say this happens because whales in captivity spend so much time at the surface that there is not enough water to hold the fin up, others say it has something to do with the change in the whale’s diet.  While there are many opinions on why a whale’s fin flops the only opinion that mattered to me was Will’s, and in his heart Shamu’s fin was flopped over because she was being held captive and she was sad.  It broke my heart to see my six year old boy hurting like that, however, I was also very proud of him.

We can look in someone’s eyes and see pain, and if we look in the mirror long enough, we may see our own pain.  Find a mirror and look into your own eyes until you see your soul and ask yourself, Has my fin flopped?  Am I being held captive by pain, pride, or addiction?  If so please know that there are people in this world with hearts like Will’s, people who will not judge you rather with a compassionate heart help you encounter the One who can set you free from what hold’s you captive.  You are not alone.

Peace,

Jason

New Name Blog

By Jason Glaze

I wrote this poem during a season of life when God was wanting me to deal with some things I was avoiding.  Give it a read and see if you’ve ever been there, or maybe you are there now.

Leave me alone

You are constantly wanting to talk about the things that I’m trying my best to ignore, so leave me alone.

I dread the mornings because you are in my ear as quick as my feet hit the floor, so leave me alone.

When the stillness of the night comes your invitation into the conversation is like torture on my brain, so leave me alone.

I’m sick to death of the confusion, the pressure, the stress, and the pain, so once and for all, leave me alone.

Wait a minute.  If you quit talking to me I will surely stay the way I am.  Please don’t leave me alone.

The more I think about it, if you become silent I’m left with my pitiful plan.  I beg you, please don’t leave me alone.

If you leave me to myself my greatest fear will become my reality, I will truly be on my own.  So please Father never, ever, leave me alone.

Jason

New Name Blog

By Jason Glaze

It really doesn’t matter if you read the creation story and take everything literally, or believe the story was written in poetic form, we all must admit that things were done in somewhat of an order.  Having said that, I believe there is much to learn as we ponder on the order in which God created everything.

God created man on the sixth day which means that man’s first full day on earth was the seventh which we all know is a day of rest.  So man’s first full day on earth was a day of rest.

When we think of resting we usually think of resting from something.  This is how we live our lives.  We work all day, run ourselves crazy from here to there, then catch ourselves saying something like, “I need a rest from all this business.“  For most people rest seems to be an after thought that hits them upside the head after exhaustion has kicked their butt. 

What if we have it backwards?  Is it possible that rest needs to come first so we can live our lives from a position of rest?  Or should wear ourselves out until we collapse into a position of rest?  How different would our lives be if we lived our lives in the order of creation?

Peace,

Jason

New Name Blog

By Jeremy Glaze

“What is the plan for my life?”

This is a question that I have asked myself a million times. We all want a plan for our life to make sure we are going to get from point A to point B without wasting a moment. If you are anything like me, you spend way too much time thinking about this plan.

As a Christ follower, I have realized that my plan is not the best plan. So I ask God what is His plan for my life. I usually change the word “plan” to “will”. So instead of asking myself a million times, I am now asking God a million times, “What is your will for my life?” Basically, I am asking God “where am I going and how am I going to get there?”

I am constantly trying to figure out His answer. Am I living in the right area, do I have the right job, am I going to the right church, am I giving to the right organization, am I volunteering at the right places, etc…? In every major part of life I am asking “is this God’s will?”

I know that I should always seek God’s will, but I believe I have been going about it in the wrong way.

Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3: 1-4).

I have been making it way too difficult. When in reality, this is how the conversation goes:

Me: “God, what is your plan for my life?”
God: “I am your life.”

What’s left to figure out?

I had been setting my mind on earthly things while trying to incorporate God in these things. When instead, I should set my mind on things above, and incoorperate the earthly things in this mind set. Where ever I live, work, and play, my mind needs to be set on God as my life. Then let these other things fall into place.

So now saying “your will be done” is the exact same thing as saying “be my life”. Be my all, be my every thing.

New Name Blog

By Eric Abney

value |ˈvalyoō|

noun

1 the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something

Value is from the french word: valoir which means: ‘be worth’

“I like strawberry ice cream better than chocolate.”  “No I like chocolate better than strawberry.”

We value things, many things, right down to ice cream flavors.  What is precious to you?  Things that are not of the food nature, but of the nature of life.  What is it that fulfills you?  Chances are that thing or list of things hold great value to you.

I worked a job one time that I had to leave because we valued different things.  I kept wondering why I couldn’t do what it was they wanted me to do.  I also wondered why they didn’t seem to bother as much with the things that bothered me.  We would continually bump heads, until finally one day I realized, we have two different value systems.  In this particular case it wasn’t that one was right and one was wrong.  They were only different.  This difference made all the difference.  I couldn’t continue the job I was performing because it was not as precious to me as it was to my employers.

This job helped me to understand the importance of values.  You live your life based on certain values.  I encourage you to write them down.  When making decisions it is easier when you see your values, see your situation, and you can know if they line up.

How you find out your values is a whole other blog itself.  Let’s just start with the prayer, “Father, show me what is important to you and what is important to me.”

Be Encouraged and Live Adventurously,

-Eric

By Jason Glaze

This one goes out to all the caretakers out there.  You know who you are.  Cheap Trick sings your theme song, I want you to want me, I need you to need me. Your need to be needed has created tension in almost every relationship you have ever had and you still think everything would have been better if the other person would have simply changed.   You live a cycle that leaves you exhausted and bitter.  Here is what the cycle looks like.

You need a needy person in your life because helping needy people makes you feel valuable.  So you focus on this needy person and begin to try to fix their emotions, solve their problems, and anticipate their needs.  You do things for them that they should be doing for themselves and without realizing it you end up helping them stay in the condition they are in.

When the person you are trying to help fails to change in the manner that validates your efforts you then become angry.  You begin to punish the needy person in subtle ways.  You give them the silent treatment, you use guilt hoping they will see that they are not changing in the way you want them to change.  You may even throw God’s name in from time to time to make it sound spiritual.

You eventually become the victim.  You feel trapped, hopeless, and helpless.  You have conversations in your head that sounds something like this, “ I can’t believe after everything I’ve done for him/her they still refuse to change.”

At this point you either double up on your efforts to try harder with this person, or you escape the relationship vowing that you will never try to help anyone ever again.  However, like a moth to a flame, you are drawn to needy people and needy people are drawn to you.  Before you know it you are right back in the cycle with someone else promising yourself that it’s going to be different this time.

Sound familiar?

Here is the good news.  God has given you an authentic heart to help others and He has a calling on your life.  However, somewhere along the way the motivation of your heart to help others has been twisted.  Somewhere along the way you began to feel responsible for other people and guilt became a backdrop to your life.  Somewhere along the way you began to try to feel valuable by helping others.  Somewhere along the way, you lost your way.

It’s time to find your way again, or maybe for the first time.  You can’t do this alone, you need some help, you need some support.  No matter what your head tells you, you are worth it.  You are worth finding the freedom that comes when you are finding your identity in God and God alone.  It may be tough for someone like you to ask for help because you have grown accustom to helping everyone else, but ask for it.  Take that step and find your way.

Peace,

Jason

New Name Blog

By Eric Abney

I get caught up in the American dream.  Having a nice car, owning a home, and making lots of money.  To these ends I can find myself laboring, and as of lately I have asked myself, “for what?”

What need do I have of a nice car when it’s only purpose is to carry me from point a to point b?  What need do I have to own a home knowing that I really don’t like to clean it or keep it up?  Why make a lot of money?  So I can buy more stuff to store in my garage so that I can show it off to my friends with the exclamation of, “look at this!”

I’m not saying that it is wrong to have any of the things I listed above.  I am saying that I think my priorities are changing, and within that change I am finding that I believe my life may boil down to only two things:  Loving God and Loving Others.

I had to attend the memorial service of a dear friend this past Saturday and I began to think about the end of our lives, the end of my life.  What matters on that day?  It’s not the fact that I raked enough money together to buy a home or collect a bunch of stuff.

In the movie Kingdom of Heaven there is a Latin phrase carved in a post at Balian’s blacksmith shop, “Nemo vir est qui mundum non reddat meliorem” “What man is a man who does not make the world better?”  I think the real question lies in what did I do for my neighbor, what did I do for my community, was the world a better place because I lived in it?  How will those questions be answered?  How are they answered right now?

By Jeremy Glaze

I believe the most detrimental after-effect of sin is guilt and shame.  In most cases, the burden of the guilt and shame outweighs and outlasts any practical consequence we have to bear.  After everything is said and done, the debt has been paid, time served, justice given, relationship has been addressed, or all parties move on, the guilt and shame remain.  I still struggle with the guilt of things I did 15 years ago.   I am sure everyone involved has moved on, there are no consequences I’m still facing, everything has been restored, but I still tend to carry the guilt of my past.

In Philippians 3:13, Paul stated “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead”

Most of us are familiar with Paul.  We can all agree he was a great man.  He lead the first century Christians, traveled afar to bring the church to the known world, wrote half of the New Testament Bible.  Paul seemed to have it all together.   But still there is a reason he needed to say “you know, there is this one thing I am doing, I am forgetting the past”.

We do not know all the details of Paul’s past, but we do know that before his conversion, his goal was to persecute Christians and destroy the church (Acts 8:3).  There is one incident that we know about that must have caused Paul a great amount of guilt and shame.   Stephen was captured for preaching Jesus, dragged outside the city, and stoned to death.  These men gave their jackets to Paul (at the time his name was Saul) to hold while they threw the stones at Stephen.   Paul approved and supported the murder of Stephen, just because he was spreading the Gospel.  After they killed Stephen, Saul (Paul) went from door to door dragging Christians out of their homes and throwing them in prison. (Acts 7:57 – 8:3)

Now imagine Paul a few years later.  He has changed.  He has been spoken to by Jesus Himself, converted, and called to spread the exact same message that he had Stephen killed for spreading.  He was basically now representing everything that Stephen was murdered for.   So when Paul, now an apostle, thought back to standing their watching in agreement as his guys stoned Stephen to death, I cannot imagine the guilt he felt.   Can you imagine the shame that stirred up in Paul when He was talking about Jesus and somebody said “hey, didn’t you have a guy killed for talking about the same thing that you are now talking about?”  So Paul knew about guilt and shame.

But Paul also had an understanding of Jesus and the redemption that occurred on the Cross.   Paul realized that Jesus took these sins upon himself and died to pay for these sins.  Jesus took the blame for everything Paul did, even the murder of Stephen.  So he could move on, forget the past, and press forward to what lies ahead.  Jesus paid it all.  Paul’s sins, my sins, and your sins.  So why do we still carry the burden of a debt that has already been paid for?

I am not trying to  diminish the wrong I have done, or the wrong you may have done.  That is not it at all.  I am trying to express the power of the amazing love and mercy that God showed to us on that day at the Cross of Jesus.

As Jason stated in the previous post, a sacrifice was made, blood was spilled, and God covered our shame.

Let’s put the past behind us, and reach forward to what lies ahead.

New Name Blog

By Jason Glaze

They had it good, really good.  They felt loved, accepted, valuable, safe, and free.  Their union with God was experienced at a level that you and I can’t imagine.  Then it happened.  Adam was passive, Eve was deceived, and they decided to try to be their own gods.

They instantly felt shame so they ran and hid.  The shame was too much to bear so they went to work sewing fig leaves to try to deal with it.  They worked hard trying to make the feeling of shame disappear.  They wanted it to go away as quickly as it came.

Then… He came walking in the cool of the day.  The One that made them came.  He was pursuing them.  He knew their efforts to cover their own shame would never work.  He knew they needed to hear from Him.  He said many things that day.  He addressed the one that deceived them.  He told them that He was adding conflict to all of the things that He knew they would turn to instead of Him.  He drove them far away from the tree of life because He was not going to risk them eating of it and eternally living in their fallen state, never being rescued by death.  However, when it came to their shame He really didn’t use words, He used imagery to communicate His message, and His message was not only for them, it is for you, it is for me.

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.  He was telling them that no matter how hard they worked on their own fig leaves, their work would never be enough to cover their shame.  He had to do it.  A sacrifice must be made, blood must be spilled, and it’s by His work that they would feel loved and safe again.  I can only imagine what Adam and Eve must have felt as their Father wrapped them up with the work of His own hands.

How are you trying to cover your shame?  Are you trying to be the best husband, mom, or Christian that you can possibly be, hoping that you will feel less shame?  I can tell you this, your fig leaves will never bring you to that place you are searching for.  The One that made you loves you too much to ever let that happen.  He has a message for you.  A sacrifice has been made, blood has been spilled, and He has done all that it takes for your shame to be dealt with, once and for all.

Listen to Him as He tells you that He has arranged things so that everything you are turning to other than Him will always leave you feeling undone.  Then let Him wrap you up with what He has done.  Snuggle up with the one who has clothed you with Himself, inside and out.

Peace

Jason

New Name Blog

By Jason Glaze

Anyone who really knows me is well aware that I have screwed my life up more than once.  I’ve made many mistakes that have caused myself and others pain.  It’s not something I’m proud of and I don’t wear my sin on my sleeve like a badge.  However as I experience life with God, from time to time I feel like sharing things I experience with Him hoping that what I’m going through can bring hope to someone else.

I recently experienced something that created a huge shift in my heart.  It may sound simple, but for me it was life changing.  I recently realized that I had back problems.  When I say I had back problems, what I mean is without even really realizing it I had been trying to get back some things I’ve lost around five years ago.  Things such as peace, love, stillness, rest, connection with God, etc.

Now don’t get me wrong, over the past five years I have had peace with God but I had been trying to get back the type of peace I used to have.  I have experienced God’s love but I had been trying to get back the feeling of love that I use to have.  I have experienced stillness and rest but I had been trying to duplicate the type of stillness and rest that I use to have.  In the past five years I have been connected with God but I had been trying to get back the particular type of connection that I use to have.  Do you get what I’m saying? Back problems.

A couple of months ago I felt myself beginning to feel tired and a bit hopeless as I struggled to re-create the things I use to experience with God.  Then one day I believe Jesus whispered to my heart, “Jason, I don’t want you to try to get back what you think you have lost, I have been making all things new.”  The freedom that those words has brought to me is indescribable.  I had been all bound up because I had been trying to give CPR to a life that God wanted dead.   I knew what I had to do, I had to let it die.  I even had a funeral, I even grieved a little.

Today my back problems are gone and I’m resting in the reality that Jesus has made, and is making all things new.  The daily freshness of God’s presence is like a new vase full of beautiful flowers that is at my bed side every morning, and I can enjoy Him because I know that new flowers will be there the next day.  He is making all things new.

Have you grown tired of trying to get back what you’ve lost?  Maybe it’s time to let it die as Jesus makes all things new.

Peace,

 Jason

New Name Blog