Myself at a Glance

Wednesdays

chrisharbert — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:20:26 +0000

I’m excited for what is coming in the next few weeks. Change is definitely in the air in my life and I feel a hunger rising up inside of me. I want to hope in the promises of God again… or more intentionally maybe. I feel a sense of anticipation for something that God has been prompting me towards for over a year now. Yet I feel like I have been purposefully under preparing.

I’m starting something new on Wednesday nights at my church. I am partnering with Mike Banks and am going to see God move through the people I care about. My wife is going to be my co-laborer along with some dear friends and I get to see what God has in His heart for Horizon.

To make this whole thing truly profound, I am calling it “Wednesdays at Horizon”

It will be an opportunity to come together to establish an environment of faith in God so that he can answer our needs. I believe it is His desire to pour into us the anwers to our deepest needs so that we can establish His truth in our lives. It’s a chance to let God be God and contend for each other’s Miracles, Healings, Prophecies, Jobs, families, Friendships, Finances, etc. It’s going to be a place where we can corporately minister to one another so that we can experience loving God and loving others. I think it is going to be a hoot.

Each time I think about these evening I see multiple opportunities for people I care about to grow. I see opportunities for hope to develop in friendships and answers to prayer. My whole premise is wrapped around this, “Our faith is simple and God’s love is extravagant.”

Jesus tried repeatedly to hammer into the disciples hearts that God wants to interact with us. He wants to partner with us. The walks in the cool of the day can be reinstated because of what Jesus did. God desires to fulfill every need. In fact the greatest excitement I have is a feeling that God is longing for us to need Him. He wants our hearts conditioned into expecting Him to move in restorative order bringing us back to Him.

Like I said, a desire to experience each of us contending for God to move in our lives is bubbling inside of me. I know I don’t get it and I am excited that I want to.

Oh My! I have earned my merit badge!!

chrisharbert — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:44:05 +0000

As you can see I have 0 count it 0 emails in my inbox. I would like to brag that it is with 6 email accounts filtering in. I only archive an email if I have finished whatever the purpose was. Now the real question. Am I working hard or not hard enough?

Check it in all of its completion

Emotions from nowhere

chrisharbert — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:14:04 +0000

Life is an amazing thing. When I look back on the past decade I am amazed that I am now living in Seattle, married to a beautiful woman, and in love with God. So much of the past seems vague and like a bad episode of a reality show I was forced to watch. Not really interested in the main character but yet compelled to watch him make some painful choices that brought him to the here and now.

Today I felt nostalgic and went on Facebook and looked at a lot of the friends from the past that I have none to nil contact. I see their lives and remember loving the part I was in their life. I miss them but I don’t feel a desire to reconnect.

The biggest truth I feel is that we have all moved on and are happy without the relationship. We are all involved in stories that wrap up our lives and do not recognize a missing piece from a relationship now gone. Makes me a little sad but at the same time content. I don’t need them in my lives as I did to remain happy. I don’t need my talents, feelings, or personality validated to find meaning.

I am currently involved in some amazing things and have people in my life that I cherish and who I know love me. I have a family made up of friends and loved ones who I do not need to prove myself to. I love them and they love me because of a bond that is not tethered to performance. In fact I am finding these same people the one safe place to consistently underperfom when needed.

Life is an amazing thing.

So I went to Korea

chrisharbert — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:40:12 +0000

Last month I got a chance to finally visit the land of South Korea. I went as a ministry team with Doug and Jay and it was a blast. I fell in love with the city almost immediately and now I want to go back.

The best part of the entire trip was the ability to connect with so many amazing people and also to experience Seoul with Jay. He took me around to his old neighborhood and we went to a musical and museum. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same from the trip and that excites me.

Product of a weekend

chrisharbert — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:54:40 +0000

I had an amazing time with spring cleaning last weekend. It’s rare that I feel so productive and accomplished. Perfect timing before I have to get back into the middle of a stress filled quarter.

Humanity Vs. Position and Annointing

chrisharbert — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 04:33:18 +0000

I have found that I will love, respect, and admire someone who is genuine and open of their faults as well as their strengths. There is a part of me that can never get close to people who only show their “A” game and not allow true relationship to begin.

Relationships are extremely messy and prone to dysfunction. They require more than they can give and give more than you can expect. But something about genuine hearts open and expressive to one another makes me excited for the world. There is something latent in me that comes alive when I have open conversation with someone. There is a sense of freedom for untold ability to create and solve whatever is amiss.

When a leader is genuine and shares strengths and also the weaknesses of life I remember that they are human. I remember that life is not about our abilities but about our humanity. I am in the pursuit of genuine life and freedom to be who I want to be. This freedom brings tha baggage of my limitations with the expectant hope that I can do anything I am passionately aligned to.

God is amazing that he reminds us of the power of brokenness. That the most powerful act ever made was also the most painfully human and demoralizing for a movement. Jesus embraced humanity in all its strength and weakness and gave us a way to forever remember that we are humans first and designed to be passionate, complicated, and full of potential. Potential towards perfection and potential towards brokenness. All of it ours for the making and empowered by a God who wants us to pursue our potential with him with all that we have.

It makes me love that I have the potential to burn with truth, then fall into brokenness and in all of it know that I am in pursuit of a relationship with God that provides grace to overcome and the freedom to burn again with love and knowledge. That I can never fall far enough to lose my connection to the God who loves me. Freedom to love, fail, be broken, be deceived. Freedom for glory and grace and to be truly free. Life is amazing.

Change is stirring the air bringing sweet relief

chrisharbert — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 04:16:01 +0000

I enjoy movement in life and what can be discerned as progress. I can’t say I love change because it turns out that it is neither for me nor against me. Change is my companion because of my interest and I see him seek out by new things in me and I find that without him I forget who I am. Change brings his bag of effects and I discover the doors of my soul that remain open only through process of receiving them.

I described it to Laura as an opportunity to recognize that I have grown from a month, year, or season ago. I am different and I am no longer stagnant to things that eluded my hope before. Life is meant to be abundant and right now that stirs in me as truth like a fresh breeze in a desert of stagnant dreams.

My world has brought change into its proximity and change has released the inner design of what it creates. Now I get to enjoy the aftermath because change isn’t someone I choose but it is someone I can embrace. Because my life is meant for this moment. Right where change likes to be.

When its out there

chrisharbert — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:14:35 +0000

I wonder what makes us interested in people when we find out there lives are more complicated than we think they are. I’ve been plodding along doing my thing for a couple of years now and just doing what it takes for that. My wife has recently shared some of the things I do and because of that people have been surprised and impressed with me.

What was I before now? Unimpressive? Why is it what I do that makes me impressive. If you ask me the mountains are impressive but they just stand there and allow their friends to clothe them in beauty. I bet the snow gets jealous.

I’ll be impressive when I can throw them puppies into the sea.

A Whole New Level

chrisharbert — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:08:23 +0000

I realize there are opportunities thrown our way to ascend into a new level of maturity and depth. Sometimes it comes through tragedy, some times through lifestyle choices, sometimes by additions to your family. I think the beauty of these opportunities is the life opportunity seeded inside of the choice.

Given an opportunity to grow, I usually will grab hold. I like to think I want to see new levels of depth and growth in my life. I’d like to think I am on a pursuit to be in love with this process. But when my situation changes and I face opportunities to grow, I really hit walls of anxiousness.

Case in point is my month of October. For the first time in my life I get to enjoy the splendor of being a home owner and paying my bi-annual taxes. So I get to pay my mortgage and my taxes this month. I’m not scared of paying the money and I have the money to pay, but the sum is what blows my mind. Between normal bills, school, mortgage, and now taxes, the amount is higher than what use to constitute 3 of my months just a year or two ago.

I see this amount and panic because I feel like somehow I’ve entered into this unaware and have been trapped into some kind of money pit. But then I realize that the reality is that I have grown to a new level of stewardship and responsibility. I realize that I am privileged with an opportunity to own a beautiful home and care for it. I get to pay “the man” taxes for something that is bigger than my life prior to now.

That’s where I find my life and hope. When I think of where I was two years ago I realize that by the healthy choices I have made I am given blessings that allow me to prosper. The fruit of my actions are making themselves evident and I want to invest more into future harvests. I want this sense of healthy stewardship to grow in me and see the benefit of being a good and faithful servant.

If so then…

chrisharbert — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:36:29 +0000

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work ~ 2Timothy 3:16-17

That makes me excited when I read stuff like this:

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it ~John 14: 11-14