Driving down the rutted alleys that pass for streets in the barrios of Managua is a surreal experience. It takes me back to that fundamental question: Who am I and why am I here? And the follow-up question: What in the heck am I doing in Nicaragua.

I’m jolted back to reality by the mission staffer who whispers in my ear, “You are the public face of Project Hope” as we wait for the mayor of this little enclave to appear. In comes a woman. She’s the mayor. No. Wait. She’s the Vice Mayor. No. Wait…….she’s the assistant to the Vice Mayor. OK. Whoever she is, she’s the lady whose son is in jailed on a murder charge and who will either be released tomorrow or sentenced to 30 years in prison. She’s not a believer in Jesus, but she was most happy to pray today!

We toured her little community of 38,000 people called Metaire and she showed me the land that had been set aside for Project Hope to build 60 homes on later this year. We stood where the well would be drilled and I talked with her about why PJH is involved. Did she understand? She kept pointing to the sky. So yes, at some level she understood PJH’s efforts are about our following Jesus, blessing people because we’ve been blessed, about helping them physically in order to gain a hearing for the One who can help them in every way.

So, Kim, today, I was the face of Project Hope in Metaire. I don’t know what the Mayor (or Dogcatcher, or whatever she was) was saying as she and a cluster of people excitingly gestured to accent their staccato Spanish. But I did catch myself nodding my head and saying “Si” occasionally, so who knows what I may have committed you to? At one point I thought maybe I’d agreed that PJH would build a new international airport, but then they assured me I hadn’t committed to anything quite that grand.

Whatever it is, just send the bill to Jay Vigneaux at Greater Springfield Realtors.

Reaching way down deep inside to see if I can find the energy to tell you about the first full day in Nicaragua.

I’m teaching Introduction to Abundant Living to a group of mission staffers and pastors. We started the day comparing and contrasting “religion” with “Jesus” and discovered that religion is often about rules men make to exercise control over one another, while Jesus invites those of us who are tired and burdened to slip into His yoke and let Him do the heavy lifting. It seems that in Nicaragua the church is very legalistic—not unlike parts of the U.S. My emphasis was that Jesus invites (not commands) us to a life of freedom from religious tyranny that ultimately ends in “soul rest” where all our striving ceases and we are content to “be still and know” that He is God. That quietness where the striving has stopped, is a signpost on the road to Abundant Living.

Teaching that one paragraph concept took two hours (with interruption—–er, interpretation).

We then dissected Jeremiah 29:11 built around a God who knows, a God who acts, a God who is never late, and a God who has a plan for a prosperous future of hope. The word prosperity is the Hebrew “shalom” which means peace. Prosperity then, much like when all striving has ceased and we are still, comes when we are at a place that we are whole, complete, and lacking in nothing. We spent quite a bit of time on the issue of Isolation—feeling alone—(“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen) coming back around an hammering the fact that God knows and we are not alone. Engaging with God as he unveils His plan for our prosperous future of hope fuels our acceleration onto the Abundant Living highway.

As I write about what I taught, it doesn’t seem all that compelling to me now, but the attention of the group this morning was rapt. From the after-comments I’m supposing it must have spoken to them. I was asked if I’d come present the same topic to one of the larger Assembly of God congregations in Managua tomorrow night, so………….Abundant Living is already spreading. One of the other pastors is already laying out the Abundant Living conference tour throughout Nicaragua—-we’ll see where that goes.

Just an observation: Being interrupted by the interpreter may be  a good thing. I think it gives people time to think. While I’m loading the next phrase in English, they are downloading the last one into their hearts and minds. The slowness of the teaching method may actually be helpful.

All in all it was a productive morning. I taught for four straight hours with only a ten minute break. The original plan was to do a two hour session in the morning and a two hour session in the afternoon, but scheduling issues caused them to put all my stuff into one longer session. By noon my dogs were barkin’, and while I can hold my own as a speaker, even I wouldn’t want to listen to me for four straight hours. I was impressed their backsides could stand it and that they stayed awake and seemed appreciative, enough so that they wanted to ask questions when I was finished.

Tomorrow we dive into Waiting on Abundance, and Preparing Yourself to Live Abundantly.

I’m headed to Managua, Nicaragua for a few days. For those who are interested, what follows is the “why” and the “what’s been going on” that takes me to a place that’s livable, but certainly less so than the Ozarks in Springtime.

My trip to Managua is a confluence of three streams.

Those who know me very well know that I am a follower of Jesus—the one from Nazareth, not the Hispanic guy from Houston. For all of my adult life I’ve been captivated by one thing Jesus said, “The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy, but I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.” Abundant life! That’s compelling. I don’t fully understand what it entails, but it sounds appealing. Abundant—–all I could want. Life——speaks for itself. Abundant life is what Jesus said he came to give us. Yet in all my years of following Jesus—-which numbers nearly 40—-I’ve rarely lived abundantly, and never consistently. And, I’ve watched many Jesus followers who don’t seem to live abundantly either. That’s incongruous. We follow a man we accept as God. He explicitly says He came to give us abundant life. We don’t have it. Something’s wrong with that picture!

So off and on for years, and more recently with greater intensity, I’ve been pursuing this thing called Abundant Living. That’s the first stream.

The second stream is wisdom. For a couple of years now I have been explicitly praying that God would make me wise. The scripture says “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask of God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to Him.” So I’ve been praying for wisdom and have most days read a chapter of Proverbs, the book of Wisdom authored by the man who the Bible calls the wisest to ever live. I’ve torn through the Proverbs, Bible in one hand and notecards in another categorizing the principles of Wisdom in  way that helps me to better understand what it means to be wise and how to apply Wisdom principles to my life.

Then there is the third stream: right thinking. Normal conversations around our company often sort thoughts and ideas into “right thinking” and “wrong thinking.” We focus intently on managing our thoughts and directing our thinking in right ways. We know that you produce what you think about—thoughts become things—so we want to be sure we are thinking the right thoughts.

All of these three streams operate in the context of making a difference. At the beginning of 2010 I challenged our team with the notion that our success wasn’t just so we could enjoy and ever expanding life, but so we could make a difference in the lives of others. We even renamed our holding company Difference Makers in effort to keep ourselves focused on impacting the lives of others: clients, residents, team-members, investors, our larger community, and the world in which we live.

A little over a year ago I was driving between Tulsa, OK and Springfield, MO. Somewhere around Joplin, MO as I drove and talked with my business partner Jay a structure for teaching right thinking just flooded my mind. It was a gift from God. Not quite stone tablets or a burning bush, but it was definitely over my head, and it just came pouring out as I talked with Jay. I kicked on the memo recorder on my phone and captured what we were talking about. The concept involves a wheel with God at the hub, and spokes of self, purpose, bigger future, relationships & team work as the spokes. It’s a wheel that rolls forward to an experience of Abundant Living. (We’re on a roll……..bada bing!) I called it WORTh (Wheel Of Right THinking). And a book/teaching/seminar/tape series is conceived.

Fast forward to February, 2011 when I am sitting in Panera and Kim Bradley, Executive Director of Project Hope walks by my table. I quickly sketched him a copy of the wheel and he said “We need that taught to our mission staff in Nicaragua.” I immediately agreed to do it, and thus……I’m on a plane headed there now to unveil the  Abundant Living Through Right Thinking to its first public audience. I wouldn’t have picked a Spanish audience as the first place to teach this material, but it belongs to God and if that’s what He chooses to do, so be it. I’m just excited to get to share.

In the few days that are ahead, I won’t really get to unveil the wheel, because as I’ve written the material I’ve discovered that getting yourself in position to where you can think right and can live abundantly is necessary before you can implement the principles imbedded in the wheel. So this week I’ll be teaching An Introduction to Abundant Living. Our sessions will include Getting Rid of Religion, God’s Plan for your Future, While You Wait on Your Future, Preparing Yourself to Live Abundantly, The Equal Opportunity Brain, and Thoughts Become Things.

I’m excited! This is going to be much fun! I think in Spanish they’d say “Mucho Fiesta!” And when you think about it, that’s appropriate. Abundant Living would indeed have components of a Big Party!

That’s what I’m doing in Nicaragua this week. Pray for me. Pray for the mission staff and the national pastors who’ll hear what I’ve come to teach.

I’ll keep you posted as the week unfolds.

My associate John Peterson says “Stupid is not knowing. Evil is knowing that it will hurt someone, but you go ahead and do it anyway.”

I like that.

Apparently there is a difference between stupid and evil.

A few years ago the idea of “Just in Time Delivery” was all the rage. It was all about reducing inventories and tightening the manufacturing and delivery process in order to minimize the time the product sat in warehouses or on the shelf in the store by taking up the slack between manufacture and delivery to the end user.

I’m continually amazed at how God continues to deliver just in time for me. I’d prefer He deliver in advance. But it seems He’s chosen, at least during this period of my life, to deliver just in time for me.

I have a running joke with a friend of mine who only seems to call when something bad happens. When there is some whif of pain in the air I can usually predict that within about two hours, Max will call and say “I was just thinking about you. What’s going on.” It’s gotten to be kind a funny. He called recently and all was well, but two hours later………

As I recently struggled with a personal difficulty, God sent encouragement through something my New Testament professor from seminary days, Dr. Wayne Stacey, wrote on his blog.

I was terribly upset by a bizarre encounter with a close, personal friend this week that had left me feeling shell-shocked. Along comes a blog post from Michael Hyatt about overlooking offenses.

Another, different, totally unrelated challenge arose, and this week—just in the nick of time—came a call from a friend that resolved the problem.

This is proving to me that sometimes, God is a “Just In Time” provider. Sometimes He delivers very deliberately, methodically, and well in advance. Sometimes He slides across the finish line at the last second. I am supposing that His decision regarding timing has something to do with what He is doing in my life to conform and shape me to His image. Sometimes, so that I can learn or develop in some way, He needs to help me at the last second. What is important is that He helps. When He helps, isn’t relevant.

I’ve always heard it said that God’s timing is perfect, and that God is never late. That didn’t mean much to me. I always found it platitudinous, like many things Christians say. But I think I am beginning to understand.

I wonder how often God has something in store for us at the 11th hour that He is prevented from delivering to us because we got discouraged, lost hope, gave up, and abandoned faith in the 10th hour? Maybe “You’ve must be present to win” and we leave too soon. As I reflect back on my life I shudder to think what God may someday show me that I missed out on because I quit too soon when my faith fizzled in the fire.

Don’t give up. Don’t lose faith. Keep praying, and working, and being faithful, and being dutiful. Intentionally seek out encouragement.  Consider the tension that builds as you move toward the last minute an escalating drum-roll crescendo leading up to when God is going to show Himself strong—just in time.