How big is your DVD rack?

So last night I sat down and started to watch a DVD with my girlfriend, for all those interested it was Juno, which brought a series of thoughts to me as well. However the first thought that stood out to me was when I looked at our slightly oversized DVD stack.

As I looked at a pile of DVDs that were about three foot tall and three stacks wide I realised something. Firstly my family own a lot of DVDs, secondly when we watch a DVD it only takes the first watch for it to almost stick in your mind and finally that all those DVDs were peoples stories. Some of them stories may be real, most made up but that doesn’t matter. I wondered to myself how long it would take me to watch all of those DVDs. It would take days if not weeks, amongst the sore eyes that I would receive, I would also experience laughter, tears, joy and probably more emotional feelings than a human should experience all at once.

We as humans go to the cinema and pay money to go see people’s stories, like in Juno we watch how she gets pregnant and then eventually realises she’s in love. Let me ask you this, would someone pay to see your story? I know that so many people I know have ordeals that they struggle to cope with, days that never seem to end, and unless you’ve rescued a trapped family from a car wreck, no one really wants to know. What about all those times you’ve made someone feel so welcome when they walk into your church? What happens if your story is better told by someone else? Sometimes we don’t realise how much we affect others. Let’s face it, the best advantage of a DVD is that it beings a series of peoples thought and actions into one video. We however can only see with two eyes, we can’t hear others think, we may look at a pregnant teenager and laugh or say “oh my word”. And that’s before we ever know what happened or how they feel.

I guess my thought this week is we should all make an effort to listen to others stories, there free, they may cost you a cup of coffee, but I guarantee you that the person telling you there story will walk away feeling special, that someone actually cares about what they did, about how they helped someone or someone helped them. These stories may not be the ones that you pass around the world; however they are ones that will stick in your mind for a long time.
Secondly, how big is your DVD rack? Just like every DVD rack there will be stories you don’t want to watch again, but so many that you do. Don’t throw your DVDs away in the corner and forget about them. You never know some of those stories might help others in life.

The First Captured Thought

Do you ever sit in a car or maybe a cinema and have an abundance of
thoughts that overtake your mind? Well I'm that kind of person, but
the problem with me is that my thoughts disappear after I leave the
car or cinema. But sometimes these thoughts are revolutionary to me. I
feel like Gods trying to speak to me through simple things, like a
scene in a movie or something I drive past in my car. It's these things
that I want the world to know, maybe someday the world will change in
some way because of these thoughts and yet there's the chance that
nothing will ever happen. I guess if you don't voice your thoughts and
opinions we’ll never know what will happen.

So I've had a busy weekend, a weekend that has flew past. On Friday I
went to help a friend out by attending her fundraiser. She's going to
India for six months then bringing the people she meets with in India
to the UK for six months. At the fundraiser she had local artists play
music, the first thing that I noticed was the amazing talent that my
friends had. I knew most of the acts but never thought anything of
them. This one guy always sings away during set up at my church, and
as I mix the different channels of the desk together I almost blank
him out, but the other night I saw a completely different side to his
voice, he sang with a passion that made me tingle inside, his smile
brought warmth to the room, his laughter reminded me of all times I've
smiled with him. I turned round to my girlfriend and I said 'he's
really good.’ She didn't have to say any words, her smile just
said it all. The guy was just doing a selection of covers, but you
could just see his passion for Christ through his actions!

One of the other artists that got up said the he and the other two
guys with him were really happy to be there to help out because they
had spent two weeks with this girl in Africa and if she acted the way
she did in Africa in India then a lot of change will come.

Then it clicked with me, this one girl was going away, out of her
comfort zone with the vision of making a difference to people’s lives.
From this one girl’s trip, six acts gave up their time to perform and
help her out. I guess I was stuck by the passion for God that all
these people had.

The girl who organised the fundraiser told me "on Wednesday I had
nothing arranged, then I prayed to God that everything would fall into
place, and it did" the smile on her face was unbelievable.

Our amazing God had managed to put this whole evening together; God
gave all these people their talents. I guess what I'm trying to say is
on Friday night while I sat there I thought to myself... Our God is
awesome, he's all powerfully and when we pray he answers if we listen.
We all have our gifts in life that God gave us. Let's use them in
life. If you’re an encourager, encourage. If you’re a singer, sing. If
you’re a helper, help. Let's not lose our gifts; it's almost like a big
family circle when it comes to gifts. The helpers help, then the
encouragers encourage then and thank them for their effort.

I once said at a talk I gave to a few people...
No one will fail, unless we fail to encourage