My kids are singing At the BWA Youth Conference on stage. Here’s the link to the live feed.

http://www.bgct.org/texasbaptists/Page.aspx?pid=5078&srcid=1832

Read about it on the blog

Cool!!! Wish I could be there!!

Wishing,

Robin Bryce

"Success is an illusion."

I heard it said and thought of the profoundness. All we have is given us. God provides even our ability to breathe. Without his love we are nothing. Success is given us as a blessing of his love only, not our merit.

Vonda Skelton my friend, author and speaker, placed in her blog an article I wrote about attaining a successful life and leadership. Though I worked on the article, the ability to do the work was given me and I must pass the credit along to God who gave it.

If success is an illusion and love is the substance, then I am successfully loving in my longing. My two oldest children, Jonathan and Christa, have landed in Germany today to sing in four concerts in Berlin and Leipzig. They went with Texas Baptist All-State Choir on invitation to lead worship at the Baptist World Youth Conference. They will be back August 5th. As teens, they’re a long way from Mom. I’m excited for their opportunity, but I’ve got the Mom thing going on emotionally. Dad’s told them as a souvenir he wanted the Whittenburg Door where Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis.

Sure wish we were with them!

Robin Bryce, Speaker
October 24-25, 2008

God has been so amazing in the work First Baptist Church Navasota lately. What a joy to join them!

For tips to successful leadership and life, check out the article in Women of Grace e-zine.

Now that you’ve seen who wrote it, you may be surprised and wonder how I know anything at all about life or leadership especially when linked with the word successful. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Cruise Deadline Quickly Approaching!

Calling all cruisers! Please join me and lots of other Christian entertainers, authors, and speakers for a cruise to the Bahamas! But you must act now! The deadline to take part in the special Spring in the Son Cruise activities is August 27th and we want you with us! Family-friendly Christian comedians, music groups, authors, and speakers are looking forward to spending some time with you as we sail from Jacksonville, FL to the Bahamas aboard the Carnival Fascination. Please note: only those booking through Hightower Cruises will be able to take part in these special activities.

If you register by July 27th, prices start at less than $599 (includes all taxes, port fees, fuel charges, and program fees). After July 27th, there will be a Carnival Cruise fuel charge of $42. Grab some friends and bring a group and you can save even more money!

So what are you waiting for? Register today!

I miss them. The weird spiky ridges on their backs and pointy things on their heads were so cool, prehistoric looking. I remember as a kid finding horny toads in my uncle’s potato patch and watching them instead of digging potatoes. (I was being a kid. I didn’t know anything about digging potatoes anyway.)

They must have gone the way of the dinosaur. I haven’t seen any in years, no decades. Maybe because it’s been that long since I’ve been in a potato patch. Sure would like to show my kids what fascinated me as a kid.

Betcha can’t quit looking at the picture. They’re cool looking, aren’t they?

I was reminded of horny toads last evening when I found another weird looking creature in my yard. Rudyard Kipling wrote a satire of how this weird creature came to be so weird. It was titled “The Beginning of the Armadillos” They are funny looking and even funnier behaving.

Many wild creatures make messes of yards and domestic feed stores. We usually off them, especially the nasty rat-looking possums. (And I live on Possum Walk Possum Ranch.) But this guy was cute, so we helped him out of the back yard. The crazy thing must be blind. He ran full speed into poles and fences knocking himself nearly loopy. Once he got out of the yard he hightailed it to the woods like a little armored truck speeding down a freeway. (We kept the dogs penned.)

I found another pole climbing creature in my camera phone. This one is wild too—a daring (and dashing if a mother might add)He man working at a Christian camp and a worship leader-servant of the Most High God. He’s a wild man and the greatest son!

Another wild thing: Why is it if you plan a sabbatical, a rest from some ministry demands, other ministry demands fill the spot? Nevertheless, it has been good to have the change of pace so far during this month’s sabbatical from pastoring the church. Soon I’ll get back to Acts with the ladies and other stuff. July is nearly over and so will be the sabbatical.

Quick, do you know where I can find a horny toad?

Searching for wild things,

Robin

Quote from Master Dogway of Kung Fu Panda movie: “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why they call it the present.”

Do you ever suffer with the weight of God’s calling? The heavy responsibility? The great opportunity to be misunderstood, to stain the glory of God? It makes me want to crawl under a rock and hide whatever non-talent I have. I really can’t do this. I’ll screw up, because I am a screw-up. God will have to dig me out, dust me off and present this big chicken-hearted screwball as something of value, someone to listen to. What in the world must he be thinking!!!!

Trying to hide,
Robin

Pierced: I didn’t mean to

Pierced (vs. 37) “Really, I didn’t mean to do that.” Doing or saying something that comes across differently than we meant it pierces us. It could have been an accident or maybe, like me, you didn’t think things through before doing it and the results were not what you expected. Ouch. I really didn’t mean it. We are pierced, cut to the core.

When those gathered in Jerusalem heard the wonders of God explained and their wrongs pointed out to them from Peter’s previous sermon. They were pierced to the heart—a cutting pain to the center of their being. They had screwed up. They begged, “What must we do?” They wanted to correct it, to somehow make it right.

Penance (vs. 38) How do you desire people to respond when they hurt you? A wordy apology isn’t enough without a sincere seeking to change a behavior. An “I’m sorry I got caught” doesn’t cut it. But a true turning around, repentant sorrow is desirable. Peter calls for this kind of repentance, a change of behavior, a seeking forgiveness of sins.

Purify (vs. 38) Miriam Webster defines baptize as “to purify or cleanse spiritually esp. by a purging experience or ordeal.” Relationally, we are to seek spiritual cleansing in Jesus’ name, becoming a Christ Follower, a believer. The water baptism is only a picture of what has taken place on the inside relationally with Jesus.

Promise (vs. 38-39) God gives us a promise when we respond to our piercing with penance and purification—believing him for salvation. The promise is the Holy Spirit (Ep. 1:13) We are marked by God with the Holy Spirit, and it is a down payment of the future eternal life in the presence of God. The promise is for any who will believe.

Picked (vs. 39) This promise is for “as many as the Lord our God will call.”

If one has a personal relationship with Jesus, it is because God chose them. He first showed his love toward them, drew them unto himself using any number of means—his word lived out, spoken out by his people. Believers are picked.

Picking (vs. 40) This promise is for those that chose to believe. If one has a relationship with Jesus it is because they chose to believe. Like a coin with two sides, on one side we are picked and on the other we pick. Peter understood this duality. In the same breath that he said “God will call” he begged “strongly urged them, saying, ‘Be saved from this corrupt generation!’”

A two-fold question applies. Have we been pierced, picked the promise through penance and purification? If so, are we sharing God’s wonders with the same fervency as Peter, being used by God to pierce and bring promise to others? It’s as simple as telling about the last God moment you had.

Blessings,