Push

^{Proverbs 3:5-6
5} Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶ in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight

Why is it that people are always trying to do something, whether it's going out with friends, heading to a job, grabbing a bite to eat, trying to convince one another, looking for adventure or looking for fate. Maybe trying to see what direction they are pushing towards and how they want to be pushed?

Being pushed.... Sometimes it can be interesting, some times it can be annoying, or some times it may be for the better but in the end you usually land where the push leads. Some times you may try to push back if being pushed, sometimes you let it just knock you over, other times you stand strong until there is nothing else to do but let yourself be moved, but yet still it is a push to where you are GOING.

I took the liberty of just looking up some definitions of the word push and these seemed to be the best ones to cover the area we are headed too

1. The act of applying force in order to move something away

2. The force used in pushing

3. Strive and make an effort to reach a goal

4. Enterprising or Ambitious drive

5. A press, drive, or impel (someone) to action or completion of an action


Do you know when you're being pushed?

I mean common yes it's obvious when a person is there and literally pushing you or you know when you are pushing someone else, but do you know when YOU are being pushed?

For the majority of the time people usually know when they are but if I lost you somewhere along the way I'll tell you the kind of push I m talking about. It's a real push. Call me crazy or stupid but I'm sure a person can push themselves very easily. We see it daily. People striving to do better, make themselves a better person. Increase their standard of living so that they can be where they want, prove how they pushed through their struggles.

So what would one call this push? Is it a push from God? A push from ourselves? A push towards something better or worse? what is the push

Now in my last writing I wrote about having faith having a feeling, and we all have the feeling and this feeling is in the heart. Now we have this feeling we know it's there we can address it but why do we not just go off having faith in this feeling. In all honesty I am going to say that this feeling causes a desire and it's a desire to PUSH forward.

Now this push comes from the heart, and faith comes from the heart, and are faith comes from are hearts, and it has been placed into our hearts to create a desire,

A desire to push us away from the ways of the world,

A push to help reach and maintain are faiths goal.

It's drive to to move us forward, and have us finish an action that has already been started

A push to go out and be lights in the darkness.

It's funny how a push works because most of the time we either see what happens instantly and other times we just never know.

One day I was driving home from college, I had just finished going through my grouling english class with a teacher who was off in her own little world and I'm sure at times she took enjoyment in stumping us but I was tired and all i wanted to do is go home eat dinner and work on my assignments.

Now on my way home i couldn't help but notice a woman on the side of the road and she was trying to push her jeep into a driveway out of the flow of traffic. She had her daughter in the front seat steering the car and she kept trying to push and push while the daughter was telling her just how close she was(i know this cuz i was right next to them at a red light) so i sat and thought to myself on how that is terrible but they'll be okay. it was still daylight and they had about another good hour of daylight so by then they would be able to get it out of the way and walk to a gas station.

So as the light turned green i drove past them and was okay with the idea, but then something happened. I was about two signals down now, and i was slowly turning onto the next when when i had a feeling. Now this feeling wasn't just at my core it was in the depths of my gut, it was in my head, in my heart, and it felt like something was telling me to turn around. Now i don't know why but at first i was like blah i want to go home but then the feeling just got stronger. So when i got to the next stop sign i went past turned around and came back only to see that the woman was still trying to push the car, and that her child was still sitting there in the front seat telling her the same thing.

I went past them again, turned around, and parked my jeep. then i walked over and asked the woman if i could be of any help to her and the look on her face was just happiness, like she had been praying for someone to come and just move the car. and she told me "YES!"

So we pushed her car out of the way and i figured i was done doing my deed but then she asked me if i had any gas? Her car had run out and she was wondering if i could spare her some but that's when my problem came into play beacuse i don't carry extra gas on me.

Now she had a small bit of gas in a worn out container but wouldn't help in the long run, and we had no way to get it into her tank because the tip was broken. So we tried to make a funnel out of paper which worked horribly so then i told her that there was a gas station down the road and that i'd be more than willing to give her a lift to it. Then out of the blue a man walked up....

He looked at me, then at the woman.

In his hand he had something.

That something was a small can of gas.

He looked at the woman and said

"I was working in my shop across the street, and i couldn't help but notice what you two were trying to do. I want you to take this, and it should be enough to get you home or to a gas station depending on where you are goin."

the woman asked if she could pay him or if she could do anything and he just replied

"It's free of charge"

then he walked back to his shop.... I was in awe.

It went from me being pushed to go back, to me helping the woman, then when the next problem revealed itself it already had an answer waiting across the street, and what puts me into such AWE is the fact that it all just started with a little PUSH.

You know in the bible there are countless stories of people being pushed. You see them either trying to push their way into a different direction or you see God just push them into the way he sees fit

Normally I'd try to find a real light hearted piece of scripture but one kept coming back to me that is far more than light hearted at all, and that is the Story of Jonah.

Now I know what you're thinking, Jonah and the whale?

Isn't that more of a childrens story?

But to be honest I believe this story is far more relevant to be left as just a mere childrens story.


Jonah a prophet from Galilee, is told by God to go to the Nineveh, and tell them to repent because if they do not they will surely pay for their wickedness. So the biggest problem would be this. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and at the time this was going on Assyria was Isreal's main enemy at the time. So basically God is saying hey Jonah go over to a land where they are more than willing to kill you and tell them about me.

Now for Jonah he heard this but he wanted to go in a whole different direction For starters Jonah did not like the Nineveites and he knew that if they did not repent God would surely punish them. So with that in mind and the fact that if we would be going to a land that hated him he figured it would be best for him to push in a different direction and he left for Tarshish.

So Jonah a PROPHET of God, decided to go against him in his own way but with every action comes a reaction, or in his case a bigger push from God. just read it<sup>!

4</sup> Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵ All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. ⁶ The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish."

⁷ Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.

⁸ So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?"

⁹ He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land."

¹⁰ This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)

¹¹ The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"

¹² "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."

! Jonah had to throw himself into the sea. Now there is one thing i would like to point out really quick about this, back those times, the sea, was not like the place where all the fish were hiding, the sea was aplce to where no one knew anything about. It was mysterious, it was dark, it was terrifying but here Jonah is being willing, and letting himself be thrown into the see. I'd like that think that chossing to do an act like this shows that the man pushed himself but it also shows an even great deal of him having fatih to push himself to do that.

Now as we all know after he jumped he got eaten by the whale, and was spit up after three days of being in the belly, then he went out after and did what he told to do. Now I know this story is mainly focused on ohh Jonah disobeyed God but i see it more as Jonah being a human, and not knowing what he only knew, saw where he would be if he had been pushed by God to go do so.

He was Afraid

He was Hateful

He went his own Way

but yet He was still a man of God....

now despite the fact that he tried to go where he wanted to it is clearly shown that God gave him a push, and even though he pushed back, he still landed where he was pushed to go.

Now i'm not saying in the long run God is going to make every choice for you and have you swallowed up by a whale or the earth will open and you'll land on the other side of the world just because he wants you to do it. He is going to see the outcome of every situation no matter what the deal is it just depends on what way you are willing to be pushed

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶ in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight

Trust with all your HEART

lean on not YOUR own understanding

ackknowlede him in ALL ways

and he will make your PATHS straight

because the kind of push he is going to give us, is the best possible place to land, I can promise you that, and it is going to be somewhere where we thought we'd never see ourselves.


Gods Blessings
Tommy Burkhardt

Faith in the Faithless

Everyone has a feeling. Now when I say this I don't mean like people feel something I mean that people FEEL something inside. It's a feeling inside their heart, a feeling that needs to be acknowledged. Sometimes people dont trust this feeling so they let it be and other emotions start to slowly engulf this feeling. Most of the time people say oh it's love that I need or if they just did the right thing instead of the other that this feeling would be complete. Sometimes they try to satisfy this feeling with other things but they're just not doing it right. So eventually they feel alone. Well I know this may sound weird but at times I think it's interesting how people can honestly wonder why it feels like they're alone. Sometimes could it just be the business of life, the lose of someone important, maybe they isolate themselves because of certain situations going on that they think no one needs to know about, or maybe they just feel alone.


I think how many times have I felt this and countless others have as well. We wonder why at times does it seem like I am the only one trying to do something myself. Why at times do I have this drive? Why do I have this feeling? Why do I have faith in this feeling? Why do I have FAITH?


Recently in my life I have been struggling to no ends because I have suffered some serious damages that have been brought upon myself and my family, and for part of it knowing I was the cause as well. To start it off simple and for most people who know and didn't, I was kicked out of my house for a short period of time because I choose to be unfaithful to my father and mother. Their wishes were that I get one tattoo and that was it. I agreed happily then low and behold about 8 months down the road after the first I asked to get a second and if you guessed right they said no. So somehow with me being a teenager/young adult and in my oh so genious brain I conjured up a plan, so that I would never get caught. Now this plan consisted of me getting my 2nd tattoos while keeping them hidden from my parents. It was the middle of winter so my shirt was never going to becoming off for a while so if I got them in a place where they couldn't see I would be safe. But the one thing I didn't end up thinking about is getting sunburned when spring came around, and then most people know but if you didn't I was kicked out of my home.

In all honesty I think it was ironic on when I got kicked out because 4 days after I left for Ecuador on a mission trip and that helped me do some soul searching, and while I was doing it I came to a point to where I had to ask myself.

Why am I doing this?

Why do I have this Feeling?

Why do I have this Faith?

In Matthew chapter 6 you have a section called Treasures in Heaven now Jesus is talking about how we store things that are pointless to us now on earth and we should focus on the real treasure. But I think besides earthly matters he was talking about something on a deeper level than just gold. It says in the 21 verse "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

My treasure? What is my treasure? Is my treasure this feeling? Could this treasure be my faith?

Now if you look up the definition of the word faith the normal translation you get is it's a belief in something that cannot be proven. Yet countless people believe in faith Christian and non Christians alike. So in this world the word faith has grown to have many different translations, some of which a person would think it's complete nonsense. While others make it seem like the simplest of things one could do but I find one translation a bit more interesting than the rest. So this different definition for the word Faith when translated into 'Poly' is the word 'Sada' and the literal meaning of the word "is to place the heart upon" (this is Buddhist translation I believe)

Now scriptures says for where your treasure is there your heart will be also, and if we look at Sada (aka faith) we are to place upon the heart. We have a faith and it's to be place upon our hearts, our heart holds our treasures, and our treasure is this faith.

We have this faith. It's in our hearts. Why it's there we don't know, but if we are to place faith upon our hearts and make it our treasure, make it our desire, make it our passion. Then what would this faith really be?

Would we be capable of finding a love that no one can comprehend? Would we finally be capable of finding a treasure that will bring us eternal fulfillment that one can only dream of?

So we know of this Faith, we can address it and start to see why it's there but then one must ask.

What is the faithless?.

Is the faithless feeling alone? Is it that we feel that we are not good enough for this, that maybe this just isn't us our that we could never reach this standard.

Once again I have to admit I find it very interesting when people think this way, and I say this because of my life really. I have grown up in a christian home, I went to a christian school, and I went to a christian church. Now I honestly don't know how my life could of been even more filled with a christian influence unless my parents gave me away to a church but back to my point.
I was SURROUNDED by Christ, yet I had this feeling. A feeling of lonliness, a feeling that I had wanted to be filled. A feeling that had been slowly building up over the years, and I was just yearning to know what it was.

At first I figured it was just me, that I was the oddball of the so called "Christians" and that this feeling would just remain forever. Now this really bugged me because if anyone should know a thing about Love it should of been me. Like I said before I was raised in a Jesus enviroment and one of the big things he promoted was Love, yet all I could do was feel alone.

So did this mean I was faithless? Was I to be one of the seeds who was tossed into the thornes only to be choked out? Wasn't this faith in God supposed to be enough? Soon what was the object of my affection became the target of my frustration, and just having a faith in God was not enough...

God not enough?

He's everlasting

Alpha and Omega

The well spring of life

The King of Kings and Lord of Lords

yet I somehow thought I wasn't getting enough?


Was it that I had taken this word for granted? Have I left myself so open to God that I was to be only crushed by him? But then I read something. It was later in matthew there is another story, now this story is different and it's in chapter 14. Jesus had dismissed his disicples onto a boat, and he was dismissing the crowd. Afterwards he went to a mountain to pray. After he came back and the boat had already been moved out because of the waves. So on the disciples fourth watch Jesus comes out to them on the water and it says

26When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.

27But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

28"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."

29"Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

30But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"

31Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"


Now this is very interesting in itself because you have Peter the "Rock" a man of faith, and here Jesus is saying

"You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Now we're pretty sure that Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ because before he even got out of the boat he yells "Lord, if it's you" looking at this it would seem to be pretty hard for Peter not to have the faith in the Lord but then one should ask

What about the faith in his heart?

What about the feeling he has?

What about the drive he has to get out of the boat and walk to the Lord.


Jesus knew Peter had faith in him, but what Peter didn't know was Jesus had faith in him. When you look at it Jesus had faith in us all, otherwise he would have never come, and I'd have to say this feeling in our hearts. This Faith is not only to believe in something not proven but to place in ones heart the faith in the assurance of themselves, to know that this drive is a drive given by God to let us know...

That we are not alone. That we are capable of anything through Christ if we can have Faith in him and in ourselves

in John 15:16 it says "16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name."

This is Faith, a Faith that God has, and he has passed it down into his image, as he breathed life into the dirt he filled it with Faith. A faith placed upon our hearts to go and bear fruit in his name. To go be his image and show that with faith we can do all things through Christ. That with faith we could move mountains.

So as you go out today, please I ask you to just take a second and wonder, what am I going to be placing upon my heart today? beacuse as said in James 2:18

18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

Now with this assurance knowing that even though we have faith, we know that God has faith in the faithless and that we may realize it's time that we should as well. So let it be shown by our hearts that your faith is shown by what you do.

Gods Blessings
Tommy Burkhardt