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    Napkin Sense: Stuff That Matters
    Napkin Sense: Stuff That Matters
    Napkin Sense: Stuff That Matters
    Ebook172 pages2 hours

    Napkin Sense: Stuff That Matters

    By Eric Whitaker

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    About this ebook

    Divine perspective, raw, real, and impacting all might describe the authors gift. Imagery through his storytelling allows Bible characters to come alive. Perhaps some of these descriptions, if not all, describe author, Eric Whitaker. He explores twelve life issues about stuff that matters. In Napkin 1, he begins with getting real. Travel with him on this fourteen-year journey as he delves into these relevant issues. Our dreams, identity, legacy, wounds, worship, ministry, grace, and the journey are explored. In Napkin 12, he revisits the topic of love. Be challenged in this unique workbook to become a world changer, in which we are admonished as common people to do uncommon things. The author believes a God-breathed truth with a simple yet revealing catchphrase will simplify our ability to be a world changer as we give glory to God, not man and we will change our world!

    taggnapkinsense.info

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateMay 26, 2015
    ISBN9781490879062
    Napkin Sense: Stuff That Matters
    Author

    Eric Whitaker

    A former pastor once steeped in legalism, he is currently retired. He is a former Bible school graduate. His previous sales background was three times the normal market share. In 1990, he founded and directed the Wyoming Walleye Circuit, which became “the best of the best” according to a major sponsor. He loves the West where he enjoys the out of doors with his two-year-old twins, Trinity and Tristan.

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      Book preview

      Napkin Sense - Eric Whitaker

      Copyright © 2015 Eric Whitaker.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      All Scripture quotations in this publications are from The Message. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

      Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      WestBow Press

      A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.westbowpress.com

      1 (866) 928-1240

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4908-7905-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4908-7907-9 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4908-7906-2 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2015907077

      WestBow Press rev. date: 5/8/2015

      CONTENTS

      Prologue: The Genesis of Napkin Sense

      Napkin 1 Like begets like Building on real

      Napkin 2 Jehovah Jireh never shows up until the knife is raised. Surrendering our dreams

      Napkin 3 Jesus never carried a daily planner. Living in the moment

      Napkin 4 How tall or short you are does not determine how God looks at you. Seeing ourselves as God does—redefining our self-esteem

      Napkin 5 God’s epitaph is not what is written on your tombstone, but the legacy that He writes on the hearts of your loved ones left behind. Leaving a legacy

      Napkin 6 Never give a legalist a shovel in the Garden of Eden. Redefining grace

      Napkin 7 Bareness is the place from which God paradoxically creates our greatest fruitfulness. Redefining miracles

      Napkin 8 Dialogue is the truest platform of ministry. Redefining ministry

      Napkin 9 True worship is birthed in the pain of the offering. Redefining worship

      Napkin 10 On our journey to adulthood, God will detour us to our childhood. Revisiting and redefining our wounds.

      Napkin 11 As a map is not a journey, neither is a picture the person.

      Napkin 12 The deeper we dig into the depths of God’s unfathomable love, the nearer we get to understanding His inmeasurable and unfathomable affection and Person…Who is Love. Revisiting Love

      Epilogue

      T. A.G.G. Workbook

      Acknowledgements

      Trinity Anne

      and

      Tristan Eric

      To my God-sent twins… if I had to choose between loving you or breathing,

      I would use my last breath to tell you,

      I love you.

      Twinsresizedpic.jpg

      Eric, that is beautiful, you paint wonderful pictures of how the scene could have been, and relate with so much feeling of the love and redemption of our Lord. Beautiful indeed! You have a gift for touching the heart.

      - Elaine Beachy, author of Biff and Becka’s Springtime Adventures and Biff and Becka’s Stupendous Vacation

      PROLOGUE

      The Genesis of Napkin Sense

      My geography won’t change my heart; my heart will change my geography.

      I n a quaint café, Katie’s Country Kitchen in Oakhurst, California two days prior to my daughter’s wedding, I sipped coffee while I reflected and meditated. It was November 2, 2000.

      The past year had been one of extreme highs and lows emotionally.

      Bethany’s mom would not be here in body but in spirit. Brother Jason would be here with Bethany’s new niece, little Jerrah. She came into the world on March 30, 2000. Grandma had been birthed into eternity on Sunday, March 26. Until one has been there, no one can fully appreciate the profoundness of the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

      I will never forget the phone call that Thursday from my son, Jason. Rushing his pregnant wife into the hospital two weeks earlier than anticipated, Jason related how his sister had held one leg of his wife, and he held the other to bring little Jerah into the world. Bethany’s first comment was, Dad, you won’t believe how tiny her fingernails are.

      The Lord gives.

      A month earlier, my sweet sister—back home in Indiana—informed me that our mother had passed away one day prior to her next birthday.

      The Lord takes.

      One month later, my daughter was about to fulfill a dream. Wedding bells would ring and Bethany and Johnny would kiss for the first time. Angels filled the sanctuary as she walked the aisle while Our God Is an Awesome God replaced the traditional "Here Comes the Bride" march. I recall looking up into the ceiling to get a glimpse of angels.

      I reflected back to April when the groom-to-be, Johnny had been diagnosed with hereditary colon cancer. His dad, Big John had driven straight through from California to Wyoming to Life Flight his son back home where surgeons would operate. The treatments were nearly completed except for one chemotherapy session. I recall the midnight call that fall from Bethany. Usually, Bethany is as level as a calm sea. Now she was bursting with joy. Johnny had taken her high to the mountains above Oakhurst, California to Fresno Dome and proposed. Without any assurances of Johnny’s clean bill of health, Bethany had accepted.

      Such was the backdrop of my meditations. It was one of those experiences where a slide-show-of-your-life-plays-in-front-of-you. Legalism had epitomized our ministry. Performance, performance, then there was … more performance. Blinded by the illusion of peer pressure, my wife, Elaine and I had struck out … to save the world. Church life and home life teetered out of balance. As one of my favorite authors says, I was being set up for the fall. The fall came with devastating consequences.

      What does one do?

      I sipped coffee. Then I recalled my Brother in the Lord, Brian whose loving and wise counsel was, You don’t go down in Wisconsin and come up in Michigan. Seek your Father—not an office.

      What did we do? Move!

      There I sat when that still, small voice whispered over the bustling of the café. Grab a napkin and write this down. I reached for a napkin. I listened, then wrote.

      Your geography won’t change your heart, but your heart will change your geography.

      The genesis of Napkin Sense had unwittingly begun.

      Have you moved geographically to fix the inner, heart condition? We often think that new scenery, a new job, or a new relationship will change us. What good is it to start a journey toward a new geographical location when the true journey is within?

      Now Jesus’ words about the Kingdom of God become both amplified and clarified from Luke’s account. The Kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20 – 21). The Kingdom does not come with observation, a place we can view, or see. It is not a physical place someone points out and says, see here or see there (some sort of building, i. e. a church building or edifice). No! It is not discernible with the naked eye, since it is that place within us where God takes dominion in our hearts.

      If a person’s geography shaped their heart, then how could Adam and Eve have fallen in such a glorious place as Eden? A deeper realization filled my heart. As Christians, we are called to be the thermostats not thermometers. We should affect our atmosphere as does the thermostat. By contrast, theremometers simply respond to their enviorments. So I ask myself, What am I, a thermostat or thermometer?

      I invite you to sip with me. Drink in these one-liners. Some of these Napkin Senses I trust will make you smile, perhaps even laugh out loud. Some are ridiculously simple yet profound. The birthing room of these proverbs came in many places. All of them came in times of meditation. Some came at the foot of my bed in a puddle of tears, some on a lonely highway in Wyoming, yet others on prayer walks in my neighborhood where I listened more than talked, and others in a steaming bathtub as I lost track of time in sweet communion with God.

      Come on in. Don’t just open the book but your heart. Welcome to the café world of Napkin Sense. Grab a cup of your favorite Java and join me, won’t you? And my simple prayer is that one or a few of these leaves of silver from the pen of a ready writer will strum a chord of your heart. Meandering is a treasured thing in this hectic world. Slow down. My desire for you is not that you can’t put this book down, but rather, you have to put the book down after a truth has impacted you. Learn to Selah, the spiritual pause where some sense of order seems to flow (in the midst of a chaotic world) through your spirit as you meditate (chew). If we ate as fast as we sometimes read, we would literally choke to death, don’t you think?

      These truths are timeless and irrevocable. Your hunger and thirst will change with the seasons of your life. Visit these one-liners often as you feel God leading you. After all, a good book is like an artesian well. We want to return frequently to quench our deep thirst.

      As a postscript, the story of the newlyweds, John and Bethany doesn’t end there.

      About a year after their marriage, Bethany related how she had taken an EPT test, and how they both had closed their eyes for the time specified in the test. They agreed to open their eyes after the elapsed time to see the results. Mom and dad rolled on the floor with laughter when the EPT test showed positive and determined to call the new one Isaac should it be a boy.

      Today, there is an eight-month-old Isaac with big blue eyes and a double-dimpled grin (like dad’s) that will stop you alive in your tracks.

      The Lord gives.

      Isaac: laughter.

      With warm tears of joy filling my eyes, I can join the throng of Psalms 126 who gladly sing,

      When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us and we are glad. (Psalms 126:1 – 3)

      ~~~

      We will look at 12 issues that I believe really matter—really matter! As you read, I pray God fill your heart with hope, comfort, and encouragement. That is my heart. Look inside. That is where our homeward journey begins into the Kingdom of God.

      (Okay, so the introduction to the book could 27502.png have been chapter one. Smiles)

      NAPKIN 1

      Like begets like

      Building on real

      Change my heart Oh God, make it ever true. ~ "Touching the Father’s Heart" Vineyard Music

      The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame. ~ Genesis 2:25

      We chitchat. We spend our days at a level of conversation that is as substantive as smoke.

      ~ John Eldridge

      I know. I felt the same way when I heard these three words—like begets like.

      I simply responded, If that’s You Lord, I don’t get it. I know all the living things in creation brought forth after their own kind. Frankly, I felt insulted.

      Then He responded, "You don’t get it. As like begets like in

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