Merry Christmas, everyone! There’s been a bit of trouble with getting the automatic email notifications out to those who have subscribed to this blog. Hopefully the bugs are out now. Part of the difficulty was confusion about the necessity of responding to the confirmation email sent to those who subscribed. This is a typical safety step to ensure that the subscription is intentional and not accidental.
God bless you as we all celebrate this season of grace and giving.
We see a miracle each week in our Christian scouting club. Two fast friends- separate, they are energetic, but able to be channeled in positive directions. Together, they are a whirlwind! They kick, punch and shove each other, creating distracting mayhem wherever they fall. Friends can be a powerful influence in our lives. Good friends will be a powerful influence for good in our lives! We can struggle sticking to a diet that becomes much easier when a friend joins us in the struggle. Someone struggling to make it to church regularly can find additional incentive when a friend is expecting to meet them in the pew.
Our Father knows that we are social creatures. He created us that way! He knows that if we ally ourselves with good friends, those who are focused in a positive direction in their lives, we will be much stronger and more resistant to failure. Think of those with whom you spend the most time- at work, at church, socially. Do they lift you up by their influence? Or do they drag you down with negative words and actions? Make a choice today, not only to choose good friends wisely, but to be a friend who consistently points your friends to a joyful life in Jesus!
shared at home 3/26/10.
Recently, I shared an experience from a campout weekend with our christian scouting club. I haven’t found a challenge facing teens that we don’t face as adults.
We were breaking camp Sunday, trying to get our kids back home in time to chill out, decompress, do homework, or whatever else they needed to do to have a successful Monday school day. Packing gear, drying tent flies, cleaning bathrooms, the list of activities required to get a large group of campers packed up is long!
All of the teens had their work to do. The campsite was a flurry of activity. We always find it difficult to keep track of the kids as moving targets, ensuring that all are pulling together toward our common goal. We finally realized that a couple of our unit members were missing.
Two of our adult unit staff started searching the camp. After almost an hour of increasingly frantic searching, they were found canoeing on the lake! They were in the wrong place at the wrong time!
Those two got themselves in serious trouble. They walked down a path, literally, that let them in the wrong direction. Had they stayed in camp, working to finish breaking camp with the rest of us, they wouldn’t have been tempted to do wrong. As adults, responsible for them, we were concerned about their disobedience and the character building opportunity they needed. In addition, we were concerned about their physical safety in an unsupervised watersport.
If you find yourself in jeopardy, in danger of making bad choices, consider the path you are on. Are friends or coworkers influencing you, and not for the good? Are you permitting habits in your life that leave you vulnerable to temptation? Maybe it is time to change something in your environment. Surround yourself with things, people, habits that keep you on a healthy path.
shared in the workplace 11/16/09
Shaking hands is a habit that began hundreds of years ago. When traveling, most carried weapons for protection, a sword, a spear, a club. Typically these were carried in the right hand. When a stranger approached, potential danger was assumed. To clasp right hands with someone meant that neither of you were armed. It was a measure of trust.
My 16 year old and I took a long walk one night recently. She was too restless to sleep. As we walked, I grabbed her hand and we walked for a long time hand in hand. Talking, laughing, sharing things from her day. Every once in a while, one of us would release the other’s hands to point at something or make a gesture. Always, her hand would seek mine again as we continued our walk.
In Psalm 73, the writer is complaining to God about his enemies. Finally, he comes to his senses and realizes what he has been doing.
-he says. What a jerk I’ve been! One version says “I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox…” What was I thinking!
Then he continues,
Did you notice? He said his RIGHT hand! God wants us to rely solely on Him. He wants to be the protector. He wants us to trust Him enough to lay down our weapons and quit fighting on our own.
Are you ready to trust Him with your RIGHT hand this morning?
shared in the workplace 10/8/09
My daughter is taking an online computer class that sometimes proves confusing and difficult. I often team up with her to work through difficult assignments. This Thanksgiving, she was planning to complete the last two assignments in preparation for taking the final exam. We were wrestling with the first one on Thanksgiving day.I watched the hours go by, knowing that I had a trip planned for Friday, the next day. We struggled through the afternoon, trying to finish the first lesson. Late that night, we finally finished it, exhausted. Seeing her frustration during the afternoon, I had already decided to cancel my trip. I finally shared my change in plans with her. She sagged against me in relief, comforted that she wouldn’t suffer through the final assignment alone.
Dads are supposed to do things like that. When we are observant and alert enough to notice needs around us, even projecting future ones, it is our duty and privilege to meet that need! Even as a faulty and human dad, I knew what my daughter’s next day might be like, struggling alone with the last assignment.
Our Heavenly Father is not surprised by what happens in our lives. David says,
A friend at work is struggling with a puzzling and frustrating health condition that is exhausting her. Neither she, nor the physician may know the diagnosis or the treatment yet, but God does. Will it be an instant dramatic cure from finding the right miracle drug? Or will it be a process that takes longer than anyone expects? Will God show his power over disease? Or will He show his power over discouragement, anger, and pain by flooding her life with faith and peace and joy?
God knows every day of your life and has plans laid out for each one of them. He has had these plans since before you were born! As I say to my daughters, “before you were a twinkle in my eye!” Some plans just to make us happy, some to help us trust Him more, some to grow us to look more like His Son. What has He planned for you today?
shared in the workplace 12/10/09
Moses had boldly asked for more assurance of God’s continual presence. But apparently that was not enough for him. I keep thinking of Peter here- always pushing, getting into people’s faces, demanding. Moses says to God,
Wow! Pushy, huh? Can God handle it when we ask for more of Him? Uh, Yeah!
Have you ever seen pure goodness, pure holiness? I don’t think we would be able to stand it. Have you every looked through an arc welding helmet glass? It is so dark that you can hardly see even in broad daylight. But the arc is so bright that it is easily seen through the dark glass.
God makes an appointment with Moses for the following morning.
Wow! That is how our God describes Himself! Moses stayed with Him for 40 days without food or water. What an experience! Do you want more of God in your life? Do I recognize all the shortcomings in me that can only be remedied in Him? Ask. ASK! Say, ” Show me your glory in my life, Father!” Sometimes I wonder why some ministry endeavors in my life are not as visibly successful as I want them to be. Maybe I need to leave the results up to God. But maybe it is because I have not asked for more of Him!
When Moses finally came down the mountain after 40 days, his face shone so brightly that no one could look at him. In fact, they were afraid and ran away! Can those around me tell that I have been spending time with God? Do I reflect Him? Maybe my goal in life should be to simply reflect God’s love to everyone around me. How about you?
Part 2 of what was shared in the workiplace 11/23/09
Last time, we talked about how Moses learned more about God’s kind of love as he interceded with God for the lives of his people. the kind of love that made him offer his own life, his eternal life, for his people. However, the story doesn’t end there! God had more experiences in store for Moses.
Remember that this was just after the people of Israel had turned away from God and worshiped a golden calf. Moses and God continue to have a conversation about Israel’s future. God tells Moses to get the people moving toward their destination,
Moses shares this message with the people and this seems to get their attention and they are grief-stricken.
Moses presses God for more assurance. He tells God, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.” He says to God, “If You won’t go with us, we don’t want to do either!” Wow, Moses is continuing to push God for more and more. Did you know that our God can handle that? Don’t ever think that all God wants is a distant, somewhat positive, respectful relationship from you.
God reassures Moses by saying,
God wants to know you personally. He wants us to interact with him closely and without fear. Hebrews 4 says,
But we’re used to the kind and loving God we see in Jesus in the New Testament, you say. No, God is the same as He’s always been and this story about Moses proves it. God pushes and challenges Moses and Moses responds the way God wants him to respond. Pushing, asking for more, wanting a deeper relationship, needing a closer friendship.
Today, right now, God wants that from me, and from you. He is all about mending broken relationships, bridging widening gaps, healing wounded friendships. He wants nothing more in the universe than to have a close and loving relationship with you right here, right now. Where you are in life, what you’ve done, how you’ve hurt, are beside the point. He just wants you.
shared in the workplace 11/23/09
Last Wednesday I had planned a special meeting for our 8th grade unit within our church’s christian scouting club. We had been working toward each one of them taking personal responsibility for making space in their day for TAG time, Time Alone with God. Teens are so busy these days that it is difficult to help them prioritize and focus. I decided that we would spend most of our meeting time helping them to choose a special place and time as well as choosing partners to voluntarily keep themselves accountable to each other. I planned a special video to help set the tone. While many of the kids were receptive and cooperative, there were several who were repeatedly disruptive and disrespectful. By the end of the night, I was very frustrated. I went home thinking that it was a waste of time and that I would never be able to connect with them in a way that would help them grow.
The next morning, during my long commute to work, I prayed and grumbled to God about the trouble I had the previous night. I asked God if there was something I was doing that was in the way. I was struggling with whether I could effectively continue this ministry. As I continued to drive, I felt God impressing me to review a story I heard at church the week before. One that had been told for a very different purpose then, but one that He wanted to use for me that morning:
Moses was on the top of Mt. Sinai, receiving the Ten Commandments from God’s own hand. God told him that the people of Israel were committing sin in the camp. He said to Moses,
Moses could have proudly accepted this great honor. Instead, he pled for mercy and went down to the camp, already hearing the sounds of the idol worship filling the camp below. When he reached the camp, he saw the people worshipping a golden calf they had made! After confronting them with their great sin, he went back up the mountain to talk to God about it.
This story seems to support the common view of the stern, judgmental God of the Old Testament. However, a few verses later, God says otherwise. No, God didn’t need Moses to plead for the lives of the people. God needed Moses to love his people like God loves them. Unconditionally, without strings, without limit, no matter what. God had even told Moses that He would make his descendants the chosen people! What an honor! Even so, Moses still persisted in interceding for the Israelites.
God’s message for me that morning on the road was this: Bob, Know me! Love like I love! Those 21 teens are my chosen ones. Can you love them unconditionally, without strings, without limit, no matter what? I need to teach you how to love like Me. I need to teach you to love like My Son lived. Can you love them like that?
How humbling that was. We each have opportunities to love like Jesus every day. Can we let God grow us so that we can love regardless of the outcome? Love no matter what the response?
And yes, teens, I don’t mind a bit if you read this!
shared in the workplace 11/19/09
When my oldest daughter was a toddler, she was petrified of the vacuum cleaner. I would be vacuuming the [yes, I did use the vacuum cleaner occasionally!] house and whenever the vacuum would get close to her, she would start screaming and run from the room! In a moment of dadly creativity, I knelt down on the floor next to her and told her to roar back at the offending vacuum cleaner whenver it scared her. Bless her heart, she actually did it and it worked!
Two conflicting emotions: Humor. The sight of a pewee-sized little girl roaring like a lion at the vacuum cleaner. Satisfaction. The fact that my fatherly advice actually worked!
Do you have storms in your life? Do they seem beyond your ability to handle? What do you do when that happens? Whimper complaints to God? Make demands for meteorological intervention?
Of course, the famous miracle when Jesus calms the storm! I’ve heard that story since I was a toddler. The main point of the story is that God has power over nature! Or is it? When Jesus said “Where is your faith?”, was He suggesting that the disciples should have calmed the storm?
Maybe the larger truth is that we too can rest calmly because we know who our God is and that we can trust Him to work for our good whether He calms our storm or not.
A contemporary Christian song recorded by Scott Krippayne includes the following lyrics-
What was more satifsying to me as a dad? Turning the vacuum cleaner off so that my daughter wouldn’t be frightened? Or was it giving her the power to rise above her fear? Is God more interested in proving to me His anti-storm power? Or is He more interested in using His power in me by growing me from the inside out so that I will look more like His Son?
11/5/09 shared at work.
Chemistry. Sodium. Na. A silvery, soft metal that you could cut with a knife. Sodium reacts exothermically with water. It’s more fun to say that it BLOWS UP!
Chlorine. Cl. A greenish gas. Smells like bleach. No wonder, bleach has chlorine in it! We use it to disinfect things. Why? it’s kinda POISONOUS! Which leads me to oatmeal. I mixed a little of both of these into my oatmeal the other day, hoping for a bacteria-killing explosion! Just kidding. I was hoping that in it’s NaCl, sodium chloride, salt form, it would add flavor to my too bland oatmeal. That morning, I mixed some with the water in my cup and dumped in some oatmeal. After waiting for it to settle down, or in the case of oatmeal, to set up, I took a bite. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! I added more salt and tried to mix it in.
As I worked my way further down, the oatmeal became salty, saltier, saltiest! The last bite cured my tongue like a piece of meat. What happened? In my haste, I didn’t get the first salt mixed well and it settled to the bottom of the cup. It was saltier than the Dead Sea! What good did that salt do?
What good do I do? Jesus said:
Apparently I’m salt. If I’m a Christian who carefully sits in the church pew, holding my Bible tightly, hoping that no sin will rub off on me from touching others, I’m like salt that never gets out of the shaker. If I’m a Christian who barges through life like a bull in a china shop, smashing my beliefs into whoever I meet, I’m like the unmixed salt in the bottom of the oatmeal. disgusting and worthless. If I’m a Christian who becomes so like the world around me that I cause no flavor change, I’m like salt after water runs through it. Dissolved and without flavor. All that’s left is a little dirt, ready to be discarded and walked on.
God, help me to be salt today, mixing thoroughly through my world, blessing it with the flavor that only Your love can bring!
shared 10/29/09