Problems To Opportunities

Posted on October 25, 2013 by James Gorton

What happens for you when you are confronted with a problem of life?  Do you stuff it and hope that it goes away?  Do you run from your problems and let someone else handle the problem?  Do you find ways to blame others for the problem and minimize your contribution to the problem?  Do you question God when problems come your way and ask “Why me, Lord?”?  Do you quickly try to solve the problem so that you and others won’t feel stressed or uneasy?  What do you do when you are confronted with a problem of life?

In John 6, we are handed a situation in which Jesus creates a problem for his disciples and in particular Philip.  “When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. (John 6:5, 6 NIV)  Jesus saw a situation–a great crowd who were physically hungry coming to him.  The problem became defined when He asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”

I wonder what was going through Philip’s mind?  “This problem is not my problem.”  “Let them find their own food.”  “They should have thought out their trip and planned better.” We don’t know what Philip was thinking, but when Jesus said “Where shall we buy. . .” he was putting the problem in the lap of Philip and the disciples.  I wonder how often do our problems of life come from the Lord so that we have to seek Him for the answer.  He knew how He was going to solve the problem of hungry crowds, “He asked this only to test him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do.”  What would happen in our lives if we saw problems we encounter as opportunities for God to manifest His power in solving ALL the problems we face?  Would our responses to problems remove the “blame game,” “the running away game,” or “trying to fix it game” we so often fall into?

James tells us that we need to be joyful when we encounter various trials, problems, and difficulties of life because every problem we encounter is designed by God to build our faith in Him and strengthen our endurance in one another so that ultimately we would be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 12-4).  James is writing to tell us that every problem is designed by God for developing growth in Him and with one another.  The ultimate purpose of the problems and situations we face in life is designed to help us become more perfect and complete, not that we will achieve it here in this life.

When you encounter problems in the next days ahead or are already encountering one, it might be good to think of the problem as an opportunity to see His power and solutions manifest as Philip and the other disciples saw.  Not only were the 5000+ fed, but there were baskets of food left over.

How might our journey be different if we had the perspective of turning our problems into opportunities for personal and corporate growth.

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The Little Things of Life

Posted on October 24, 2013 by James Gorton

I was out on the patio having my devotional and Nadine came up to me on the muted orange love seat I was sitting on, reached out her hand and urged me to come with her. I was done with my quiet time and after a couple of pulls with her hand, I reluctantly got up.  We began a tour of each flowering plant she had planted last week. We looked at the variegated pansies,

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the purple petunias with white edging,

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the red geraniums bulging with color,

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yellow zinnias,

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and the Mexican roses or more commonly known as hens and chicks.

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As I walked around and looked at the plants, an interesting thing began to happen.  I started seeing the flowers through the eyes of someone who truly appreciated flowers. We looked at the tiny growth taking place.  We picked the white aphids off the plants that were no bigger than the tip of a pen.  She taught me how to gently remove the old buds  from the Mexican roses so that new growth could emerge and new flowers could blossom.  Before I would have seen the wilted Mexican rose and moved on, but now I saw something more.  New buds.  New growth.  Life poking through death.

For the first time I looked at flowers from a new perspective.  Imagine, being 64 and seeing God’s creation with a new pair of eyes.  I will never see flowers the way I had viewed them from the past.  My eyes were transformed when looking at flowers.

It reminds me of God wanting to take our hand and show us His creation and plan for our lives, and help us see life and relationships from His vantage point.  The only way that can happen is to get up off the love seat, take His hand, and allow Him to direct our lives and open our senses to what He wants to show us.  The small things of life can teach us so much of what the Master Creator and Director wants to do in our experiences.

So get off the couch and take His hand as you journey down life’s path.  Who knows what little things are just around the corner of life that can transform your perspective.

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Taking Ownership: Part II

Posted on October 23, 2013 by James Gorton

What does it mean to take ownership for having a personal interactive relationship with the Lord?  This was a question posed by one of my readers as they meditated on my earlier jlog entitled “Ownership To Transformation”.  In this jlog I will seek to identify some ways in which that ownership can happen in your life.  This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor the only means by which you begin to experience transformation.  These are just suggestions if you are interested in pursuing this topic further in your personal journey with the Lord.

One of the first exercises I might suggest is to find a 1/2 day where you are free to go into the desert and create a time for the Lord to speak to you.  If you are new to this exercise, you might want to cut the time down a bit–it’s not the amount of time you set aside but the fact that you are setting time aside.  You will find your mind wandering from subject to subject in the beginning of your time.  Take your bible and begin to read the book of Psalm starting with chapter 1.  Begin to ask yourself what the Lord is saying in this passage to you.  What He wants to say to you often times will be different for each person.  Take a pen and paper and begin to jot your thoughts down as you read.  Journaling your impressions and thoughts can help keep your mind from wandering.  You may want to read a book from the New Testament and as you read, journal your thoughts down.  As you read try to put yourself in the shoes of the author to get a better understanding of what you are reading.  The more often you do this exercise, the more you will begin to hear what the Lord is telling you.

Another suggestion is to have a time every day to open the bible and allow the Lord to speak to you.  I started out my journey with “Seven minutes a day with the Lord.”  I prayed for two minutes to start my time with Him, praying for understanding of what I was about to read, along with praying for needs that I had.  The next four minutes were spent in taking a passage of scripture and reading that passage.  I asked myself one question, “What is the one thing that I want to take away from my reading?”  The last-minute was to pray and thank the Lord for what I had read and asked Him to help me apply the knowledge to my everyday life experience.  A great app for your iPhone or iPad is YouVersion. It has many versions of the bible and has reading plans for giving you some structure to your daily devotionals.

Meditation has been another exercise that has helped me to take ownership for my walk with the Lord.  In this exercise, I have developed the discipline of reading through the bible once a year.  Each day I start where I left off and read the bible from Genesis to Revelation each year.  Meditation comes in during my reading where I find an interesting passage and begin to think about that passage.  “Whom was the writer referring to in the passage?”  “What would it feel like to be there and hear the writer speak to me about this passage?”  “How does this passage confirm my actions in a positive way or condemn my actions that are destructive?”  “What would my life look like if I applied this passage to my life?”  Questions like these help you to more fully wrap your life around the Word  and incorporate it into your daily experience.

Prayer is an obvious exercise that can draw our hearts and minds closer to the Master.  There are various kinds of prayer we can express.  Praise for what the Lord is doing.  Seeking God’s guidance and wisdom for problems in our lives.  Confession for areas that need to be cleansed within us.  Thankfulness for who God is.  Prayers don’t need to be long and drawn out.  The shortest prayers with sincerity are heard by the Master.  Honesty is an important ingredient when we come before our Maker.  Humbleness is essential for God to come close and give guidance and direction to our lives.

These are only a few exercises that can turn vicarious living the Christian life into lives that experience ownership of a relationship with the Lord that is vibrant and alive.  Enjoy the transformed journey with Him.

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Ownership To Transformation

Posted on October 22, 2013 by James Gorton

Today more so than any other time in history we are living vicariously through the lives of others.  We watch “The Bachelor”, “Bachelorette”, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”, “Jersey Shore”, “The Real World”, “The Amazing Race”, “Real Housewives of Atlanta, (Orange County, or any other town)”, “Project Runway”, “Basketball Wives”, “The Last Alaskan Frontier”, “Ghost Hunters”, “Deadliest Catch”, “Dirty Jobs”, “Pimp My Ride”, “Miami Ink”, “LA Ink”, “Top Chef Masters”, “Biggest Loser”, “Cake Boss”, “Storm Chasers”, “Top Chef”, “Ice Road Truckers”, “Survivor”,and my favorite “Duck Dynasty”.  It goes on and on.  You name it, there is a reality show for what interests you.

We don’t have to live any of these shows personally because we can watch the show on TV and subconsciously put ourselves in these shows, never experiencing it ourselves.  I came across a passage of scripture that communicates this very lifestyle experience.  In John 4, John writes, “Many of the Samaritans from the town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. . . .They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the World.” (John 4:39-42NIV)

They believed vicariously because of the experience of the Samaritan woman but hadn’t heard it themselves.  When they “came to him” and began to hear it for themselves, they no longer believed because of the woman because they “Heard for ourselves.”    Sometimes we can experience this same situation going on in present day Christendom.  We hear what others are saying about Jesus in church and on TV or on the radio, but we are not opening up the scriptures ourselves to hear personally from the Lord himself.  Rather than taking ownership for personal interaction with the Lord, we are seeking to live vicariously through others who have experienced the Lord as in the case of the Samaritan woman.  The people of Samaria needed to go and hear from the Lord which brought transformation to their lives because they were owning what they were hearing.

Today on our journey isn’t it time that we get up off our reality couches and get in touch with the One who can bring transformation to our attitudes, actions and relationships. It starts by opening up the bible and beginning to hear directly from the Lord as the Samaritans did.  Enjoy your own personal journey

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What Does Autumn and Thankfulness Have In Common

Posted on October 21, 2013 by James Gorton

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Fall is here.  On Friday Nadine, Tyler, and I decided to pull down the attic ladder and pull the dust incrusted plastic that encased our scare crows and begin the process of decorating our front entrance. Tyler did the dirty work of getting up in the attic (it’s nice to have your kids do the dirty work). The more we pulled our fall stuff down, the more fun it became to work together in putting symbols of our fall season.

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Our front door was highlighted with an autumn wreath replete with a small scare crow, autumn leaves and a basket of fake fruit.  For us in Arizona it is new phase of opening our doors to let the cool breezes in or sitting on our patio in the morning and drinking coffee by our pools, not going in the pools as the temperature in the pools have dipped to a cold 78 degrees.

It begins the season where we can start to meditate on the things that we are thankful for, culminating with a thanksgiving feast at the end of November.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had the attitude of thankfulness that Paul describes in I Thessalonians 5:18, “Thank God in everything no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks, for this is the will of God for you who are in Christ Jesus.” (Amplified Bible)

In EVERYTHING!!!  The good things.  The bad things.  The times when we are depressed.  The times when others are rejoicing over our problems.  It’s easy to be thankful when things are going well, but when the circumstances of life take a turn for the worse, how do we (or might I apply it to myself) respond to the adversities of life.  This is a tough one to apply, but I am reminded of John the Baptist who was having many follow him.  Thousands were going out and being baptized by John, but when Jesus came along, even some of his disciples left him and began to follow Jesus.  John says in John 3:30, “He must increase and I must decrease.

I believe the secret of being thankful for all things is embedded in John the Baptist’s phrase, “He must increase and I must decrease.  Often when we are thankful it is because something positive has happened to us and we find it difficult to be thankful when something bad has happened to us.  If we were to have the attitude of having Jesus increase and us decreasing, the focus would be on Christ becoming more and more apart of me so that no matter what happens, He is gaining the glory, so that we can truly be thankful always.

This new season of the year, on my journey, I am going to seek to apply this principle in my life so that when Thanksgiving comes I will not just celebrate thankfulness for the weekend, but it can become a pattern every day for the rest of my life.  Thankfulness makes the journey so much more enriching.

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Desert Mountain Lacrosse Fundraiser (100 holes of golf)

Posted on October 17, 2013 by James Gorton

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Carter, Desert Mountain H.S. defensemen

Two weeks ago Carter tried out for an all star team of high school lacrosse players across the valley and only 22 were chosen for this elite travel team.  One of those players that was chosen was Carter.  Now he really has to work, but I am really proud of him.  His team will travel to Tucson and Las Vegas for tournaments in November and December.

His own team will begin to practice in a month or so and the high school schedule will begin in February 2014.  I am on the Desert Mountain Lacrosse board and we are participating in a fund raiser to help with the expenses of the teams travel and other needed expenses.  I am asking you to consider supporting me as I am about to play 100 holes of golf to raise funds for the Desert Mountain High School Lacrosse team on October 25, 2013.  I am looking for individuals who are willing to pledge $.50/hole, $1.00/hole, $3.00/hole or any other pledge that will all go to support Carter’s Lacrosse team in 2014.

If you are willing to help Carter’s team this coming year, I would urge you to go to the website 100holes.scottsdalesunriserotaryclub.org and click the button Desert Mountain Lacrosse.  The next screen will take you to the place where you can pledge your support of the lacrosse team.  Click on the golfer which will have my name (James Gorton) that you can click on and then put in the amount you are willing to pledge.  You can use your credit card to pledge your amount.  It’s that simple.

I do appreciate your interest in reading this blog and thank you for those of you who are willing to pledge to Carter’s lacrosse team.

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Monty!!!! Monty!!!!

Posted on October 15, 2013 by James Gorton

Monty is our cavalier king Charles spaniel that is truly a king of the house. He loves to go out of the house when we go out. He wants to come in when we come in. He loves to sit on the inside furniture when we sit (but he’s not allowed).  He loves to go to his bed in our bedroom when we go to bed. He cries when he is in his bed and we are not ready to go to bed. He loves to be close to the dinner table when we are eating (he is not permitted to be around the table per Nadine’s rules). When we go places he wants to come. He is for all practical purposes Nadine’s shadow as she has truly spoiled our once male dog.

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Yesterday was a hilarious experience that all of us experience . Nadine was going in and out of the house and Monty was doing his thing of going in and coming out. Going in and coming out. On one occasion during their excursions, Nadine assumed that Monty had gone out with her to water the flowers. After being there for a while, she called, “Monty. . .Monty” to no avail. “Monty. . . Monty” but he was nowhere to be found. She became somewhat anxious and started thinking about getting in the car to look for him. As she went into the garage, she heard a whimpering inside the house and opened it to find that he was in the house all the time.

This is not unlike us sometimes when we make assumptions in our lives. We assume what others are thinking or feeling. We assume what God must be thinking or feeling. As we go down a wrong road, we begin to assume the worst.

True confession time.  When I was 5 years old my dad and I went to Flagler to the grocery store.  In the process of checking out I saw the candy bars next to the check out lane.  Rather than asking dad for a Seven-up candy bar that cost $.10, I stole the candy bar and put it in my pocket.  On the 10 minute drive home I felt so guilty for what I had done.  The candy bar was burning a hole in my conscience.  As soon as I got home I ran over the neighbor lady and gave the candy bar to her and told her to give it to her children.  My point in telling this story is that I assumed the worst punishment possible–jail time for my crime.  Major whipping from my dad.  For three weeks I had a piece of paper and pencil on my desk and prayed to God to write on the paper what I should do.  As time passed, my assumptions of what would happen to me got worse.

Yet when we find out the truth, the assumptions in our head are rarely true and often aren’t nearly as bad as we supposed. It’s often like that with the Lord. When we do something wrong and are convicted by His Spirit, we begin to think the worst when all He wants us to do is remove the assumptions in our life and understand the truth. The prodigal son had that problem as he thought that his father would be so upset that he had squandered his inheritance.  When he came back, his father ran to meet him and threw him a big welcome party.  The son assumed the worst in his father and got the best. (Luke 15:11-32)

On our journey it’s essential to cut away assumptions in our life and begin basing our lives, actions, and attitudes on the truth. “Monty was in the house.”

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It’s That Time Of Year

Posted on October 15, 2013 by James Gorton

It's That Time Of Year

Nadine, the dog whisperer

It is so crazy that in some parts of the world people are preparing for winter, putting on winter windows, getting the snow blower greased up, putting away the patio furniture, and pulling out the winter clothes including the gloves, coats, and hats with ear muffs.

It is just the opposite from most of the U. S here in Scottsdale. We are coming out of our dens where the air conditioning has been blasting non stop for 5 plus months. We are coming into our summer where we can come outside and enjoy warm (not hot) weather. The convertible tops are coming off and gardens are being planted replete with pansies and petunias.

It’s like The Lord in many respects.  There times of winter where it seems that nothing is growing and we are imprisoned in the coldness of our circumstances with little hope of emerging from the darkness of life.  As we seek Him, he comes to us and begins to show us hope for the future and for our lives and spring begins to break through like the daffodils and tulips.  What is important to remember about the Lord is that there will always be spring and summer with hope and color if we only keep our focus on Him.

So today as we got all the flowers planted in the rich miracle grow soil, Rejoice no matter what circumstances you are experiencing because God has something special in store for those who seek him.

Read James 1:2-4 and II Chronicles 16:9 for words of encouragement.  BLOOM where you are planted today.

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Like Starting Over

Posted on October 14, 2013 by James Gorton

It has been a long time since I got into my blog that was started a few years ago. In fact, it took me several minutes to get into my blog because I forgot my password. A lot has happened since I last wrote on my jlog and do apologize to those that were following me for going dark. But I am back and want to take the rust off my skills and clean the dirt and scales off my musings and get back to work.

To update you on my journey, I did get married to the most wonderful person, Nadine,as we have been married for almost two years. It has not been totally smooth as no marriage is, but there is no question that God picked her out for me and my family and I thank God often for His gift to me.

I look forward to future times where I report on what God is doing in my life and catch up on the things that have happened in my life. It’s never too late to start over, no matter the circumstances or the mistakes you have made. The bible is a book of do overs. For me I dropped something that I loved to do and that is write in my blog of His journey with Him and I dropped the ball. But this morning He pressed upon me to pick it up and start over.

Welcome to the journey

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Family Bonding

Posted on October 31, 2011 by James Gorton

Monday October 31, 2011

Something happened this weekend that I wanted to write about that truly touched my life. I was left alone with my son and future son as my fiancee Nadine flew to New York to be with her daughter Ashley who lives in New York and my two daughters who flew into New York from Virginia for a weekend of wedding dress shopping and women bonding.

Molding two families has it’s challenges, but this was truly a bonding experience. Mind you I am only getting a glimpse of what happened this weekend as I got skimpy reports over the weekend. What I did hear was so encouraging as the quantity time that they spent time together caused a true connection between the three girls and a real connection happened between Nadine and my daughters. They experienced snow together on Saturday. They had to deal with a tooth ache that caused them to spend an hour or so in the dentist chair to take away some pain. They laughed late at night in one anothers rooms. They walked from store to store seeking to find just the right wedding dress and corresponding maids dresses. They ate sushi and shared French fries together. Those are the snip pits that I am aware of, but from a dad’s perspective and a future husband’s perspective, it truly was a bonding experience.

God has been directing this journey in two families becoming one. This is just another piece on the journey of what He is doing in bringing the Grobmeier family together with the Gorton family.

Sometimes on this journey, it is healthy to set back and rejoice in what He is doing in front of your eyes.

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