730 Days

I was surprised to learn that today marks the two-year anniversary of my last day serving the church I started ministry in. It is a great church in Colorado Springs, and I loved that church. My wife and I attended that church for many years before going on staff there, so it is like our “home” church. I read in my journal today that on this day in 2005 this was my last day as children’s pastor in that church, it kind of caught me off guard. I like to see what was going on in my life from years back, so I look at what I have previously written from past years. I was not expecting to see this particular note, and it brought back a lot of memories and allowed me to see huge lessons I have learned over the past 730 days. I was leaving my first church ministry job because I had taken a job at a large church in Texas. It was big and prestigious, and I just knew God was rewarding me for all my hard work and faithfulness. I was wrong. Here is a great summary of what I learned…

“We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, it may be so in the initial stages; but we do not earn anything by faith. Faith brings us into right relationship with God and gives God His opportunity. God has frequently to knock the bottom board out of your experience to get you into contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of His blessings. Your earlier life of faith was narrow and intense, settled around a little sun-spot of experience that had as much of sense as of faith in it, full of light and sweetness; then God withdrew His conscious blessings in order to teach you to walk by faith. You are worth far more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony. Faith by its very nature must be tried.” Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest.

I believed that God was rewarding my faith. God knocked the bottom board out of me in Texas by showing me He could care less about size and prestige, He wanted a deeper relationship with me. He wanted me to trust Him more, He wanted my faith to grow deeper, and He knew how to get my attention and grow these things in me. It was a very hard time, but I am so thankful now that He did. I have a depth of understanding now that I never had before about trusting God and about having Faith. I am worth more to Him now than I was before… and He finds all of us incredibly valuable, and has no problem leading any of us through similar times of difficulty to get us focused on Him.

I have learned so much in 730 days, so much more than I thought I ever could in such a short amount of time. I have learned so much about God, and have so much more to go. I have learned so much about me, and fear I have so much more to learn…. It is an interesting thing when you think about what God leads you through in such a short amount of time so that we learn more about Him and ourselves. He engineers all these circumstances in our lives for us, the good and the bad, to help us see Him more clearly…

My prayer for you, is that through whatever experiences God moves you through, that in the end you would have a deeper understanding of Him and that your Faith would be able to move mountains on the other side. No matter how many boards He breaks, find Him in it. No matter how many blessings He sends, find Him in it. He wants you, in all your brokenness and all your happiness… He wants you, and He has been seeking you every day of your life, and will continue to seek you, are you looking for Him in your day? He is there…

New Idea

I have taken more personality and skills assessments that most certified committed mental patients. Church staff’s seem to have a propensity to these kinds of tools that help categorize people so they are sure to be in the “right” spot on a staff… And I have always wondered why I have scored so high in certain areas and so low in others. I usually score really high in the “ideas” categories. Anything that has to do with innovations, ideas, creative thinking, thought, and problem solving seem to get my highest marks. I always had an issue with my scores, especially early on because I could never figure out how working with ideas would make any difference in the world. The people I saw succeeding were people that could make things happen. Ideas don’t make things happen, they just float around until you can convince someone that knows how to get things done to run with the idea, and sometimes someone like that takes a while to find, and convince that the idea is worth pursuing.

Yesterday I was sitting down with the pastor of my church; he is retiring in a few months and is preparing me to take over for him. He said something very interesting to me about where I will be in 20 years, and where this church will be in 20 years. I hadn’t thought that far ahead in a long time… in twenty years I would be 58. What will I be doing then? What will I be like? What will the church look like in 2028? It really got me thinking. I have always heard that if you have a personal mission statement it helps answer questions like that. If I know my values and the things that make me tick, then what keeps me motivated today should still be motivating me then. So after thinking about all those assessment results, and seeing what I really enjoy doing I came to an “a ha” moment last night. Here it is… are you sitting down?

I am here to set captives free.

Now, I do not necessarily mean I should be working in the criminal justice system; but we are all prisoner to some idea or thought. I have blogged about addictions and thoughts that may keep us stuck in certain behaviors and actions. I have talked about financial issues, consumerism, ideas that we believe and don’t even question… and one of the things I enjoy doing the most is talking to someone one on one and revealing to them how something, or some thought is keeping them from being or becoming what they really want to do or be. I love showing people how to shed the things that are holding them in bondage. Spiritually too; I love to show people about God and how He loves and cares for them and has a great plan for their life! I love sharing ideas with people that can change their lives for the better… or showing them that the thoughts in their head is hurting them. This is where the working with ideas actually pays off and I go from feeling useless to useful! I am no longer bound to the idea that ideas are useless unless someone can implement them! I now see that setting people free by showing them new ideas or new ways to think about old ideas actually is a great thing! And I love doing it! So I set captives free, and look forward to setting people free for at least the next 20 years!

So here is to freedom: freedom from bondage, from oppression, from bad ideas and thoughts. Freedom from things that started out good but turned out owning us; Freedom from addiction, from obsession, and from the past that haunts us. Here is to living as new creations, free from the past and looking forward to the future!

Broken

I screwed up yesterday! I am so frustrated with myself about it too. You know how you find yourself in a weird situation and you don’t have any idea what to do, but afterward you armchair quarterback it to death? This is me today!

Let me start out by saying that I have never been outside of the Continental United States since I was two years old. So when I look at all the need worldwide and encourage other people to get out there and help, I feel a little hypocritical. I am waiting for an opportunity to do something like that, but so far nothing has ever worked out for my family and myself. I would love to take the kids some foreign city sometime to rebuild something or work with kids, but making that happen just hasn’t worked. So I am waiting… and hoping that some kind of service project would come along that we could jump into. I am hoping the church that we are building will become a church that is really active in helping people in the community through serving projects, but it is really small right now and it is taking a lot of energy to get it through this time. But we are building it with the future in mind so I know there will be opportunities to help people soon. So I don’t currently have tons of opportunities to help people, until yesterday.

After church yesterday a group of us went to a burrito place for lunch. It can get quite crazy because with all of our kids we kind of take over a place. With the usual lunch rush and our group it can be downright chaotic. I was the last in line, and as I was walking back to the table after filling up my drink, I passed a man standing in the middle of the restaurant. He was just standing there, and if I would have paid a little more attention instead of being all about my Diet Coke maybe I would have noticed how disoriented he was. Maybe had I noticed how disoriented he was I would also have thought, “this blind man may need help.” I knew he was blind because I saw his cane was a fold up kind that was in his backpack –I remember thinking if I was blind I would want to be using my cane not keeping it in some sort of storage bag. Maybe the fact that it was up helped him fit in better with all the other people in the place, maybe I thought he was with someone. Maybe I was so absorbed with myself that I just didn’t care. Regardless I walked right past him and sat down with my friends and my back towards the rest of the restaurant.

Apparently this man wandered around a little more, went over to our kids who were sitting on the other side of the place from us and he asked them for help. A mother from another table saw what was happening and went up to the man, who then explained to her that his cane was broken and he was trying to make it to work at another restaurant up the road but was lost. (Without the use of his cane I cant imagine how in the world he could get anywhere – and the disorientation begins to make sense.) This kind person pointed him in the right direction, (literally which made the kids laugh,) and sent him on his way.

I saw him walk by the window we were sitting in front of, as the woman came over and told us what had happened… “His cane was broken and he was trying to find his workplace.” At which time I realized I missed out on the opportunity to help this person obviously needing it. By the time I remembered we had heavy masking tape in our car, and that there is no possible way for him to make it across busy streets to his job without a working cane or a guide, he was long gone. My mind was reeling at that point – here is a disabled man with a broken cane trying to walk to work! What do you do? Do you offer to drive him? What crazy blind person would take a lift from a stranger in this day? I could have offered to call someone for him, but I am too slow and dense for that. I could have run after him and tried to find him with the masking tape we had, at least then I could have patched together his cane, the tool he needs to navigate this world safely…

Then I realized I am as broken as his cane is. What good am I to my fellow man if I am so caught up in doing my own thing and not looking at those around me with mercy, love and compassion? I am as useless as a broken cane to a blind man. I won’t let that happen again.

Review

What a week! When I look back and review it, it seems so random!

The car repair place has resurrected our car, so it is driving again, but this time with no guarantees of how much longer it will last. My son’s first Lacrosse game is tonight, that will be fun. (did I mention he has three games at 7 am on Saturdays?) And the blog had some very interesting comments this week. I found that if you talk about cream filled donuts and sappy songs about raising up kids you get all kinds of comments! I am not sure what that says about you readers, but it was fun anyway.

It is funny to see all the stuff that happens in a week. I don’t often get all-introspective about this kind of stuff, but it is cool to look back on. Donuts, cars, music, lost stuff… all of it would mean nothing if I couldn’t share it with friends and family. Dealing with the stuff life throws at you can be fun, and painful, and sometimes both at the same time! It is so good to have people around you to share these ups and downs with.

Go spend some time with the people you love and have a great weekend, see ya Monday!

Sweep It Up

I have had my car longer than I have had my wife. That is a pretty big feat considering we (my wife and I) are coming up on our 14th anniversary. That makes my car about old enough to drive itself – 16! That is pretty typical for me, I don’t like to make payments on anything, and although I love cars, especially fast ones, I don’t spend a lot on them and keep them until there is not much left of them… In fact, talking with my dad yesterday he said, “you drive them till their dust, then you sweep them up!” I thought that was a great image for how I think about cars.

If I had a ton of money, I would probably buy a new car every few years, but in the scheme of priorities, I would much rather spend money on other things than new cars – housing, food, and kids. But we have two very old cars. One is big to carry the family and pull our trailer when we go camping, and the other is a little kick around town car. Neither are good for winters in Colorado because they are older and both rear wheel drive. (You may remember we just put snow tires on the little one.) So yesterday morning my wife and I are going over our finances, because we do need a newer family vehicle. We figured our how much we were going to spend and after we get through a full month of bills in this house we will have a much better feel for what our expensed are and will probably replace the family vehicle.

So here is the rub. We went to run an errand yesterday morning. Before we went a mile in the little car it started blowing a ton of white smoke out the back. Then it started getting really hot, and running really rough. We turned right around and went back to the house. Called a tow truck and had it hauled to a repair shop. (Thankfully my wife’s family owns a couple great tire stores that do really good repair work – they are so good they have kept this car on the road for over 130,000 miles! Much to their dismay) I watched this car, that took us to our honeymoon, brought our babies home from the hospital, and provided great transportation for years and years, get loaded on a tow truck and head off. I knew this could be the fatal blow, and I was sad to see it go.

It is time. It is time to replace both cars. Not what we were hoping for, but necessary unless we want to turn Amish. Letting go of something you have had so long can be really hard. Spending money you were hoping to save for retirement on something so necessary is disappointing, but what else can we do? Our plans were to keep this car for a long time yet, but our plans don’t always work out. We have never made a ton of money. My wife has never worked outside the home, and we have four kids. So saving has always been difficult for us. The good news is if you put a little away every month, it can add up quite a bit over time. Sometimes it did mean we didn’t have something we wanted, or couldn’t do something we wanted to do. But I am sure glad we saved! I am always amazed at how making small steps toward saving can make a big difference over the long run. I was out of work for three months this summer, and without savings we would have had a big problem. And now with the cars turning to dust, I am sure thankful we have been determined, frugal and blessed so that we could save money so long for a rainy day, it looks like it has started to cloud over, and wait, is that a drop?

Cinderella Dance

Months ago, wow – last year even – I put this post up because it meant so much to me and my family.  I Have three girls, and they grow so fast.  As you know now, Maria, the little girl this was written about, has died.  We morn with the Chapman family from miles away, not even knowing them except through the music they bless us with.  The words below, and the lyrics to the song mean so much, and even more months later after this one’s life was cut so short.

 

I have a favorite artist named Steven Curtis Chapman. He just released a new project (this Moment) the day before yesterday, and I downloaded it as soon as I could. (I love itunes!) Anyway, there is a song on the project called Cinderella that I have to share with you. You can go to itunes and type his name or the title in and listen to the first 30 seconds for free, but I will type in the words for you below…

Cinderella

She spins and she sways
To whatever song plays
Without a care in the world
And I’m sitting here wearing
The weight of the world on my shoulders

It’s been a long day
And there’s still work to do
She’s pulling at me saying, “dad I need you
There’s a ball at the castle and I’ve been invited
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh please, daddy please

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
‘cause I know something
the prince never knew
oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
‘cause all too soon the
clock will strike midnight
and she’ll be gone…

she says he’s a nice guy
and I’d be impressed
she wants to know if I approve of the dress
she says, “dad the prom is just one week away
and I need to practice my dancing
oh please, daddy please

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
‘cause I know something
the prince never knew
oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
‘cause all too soon the
clock will strike midnight
and she’ll be gone

Well, she came home today
With a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us
All they had planned
She says, “dad the wedding’s still six months away
But in need to practice my dancing
Oh please, daddy please

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
‘cause I know something
the prince never knew
oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
‘cause all too soon the
clock will strike midnight
and she’ll be gone (SCC 2007 Sparrow Song)

If you have daughters you are probably all teary eyed at this point, so make sure before midnight you dance with your Cinderella… I know I will dance with mine!

Cream Filled Impulses

My wife has complained for many years now that I am impulsive. Sometimes I agree with her, sometimes I don’t. I guess it all depends on what the circumstances are. I can be a sucker at the check out isle at Target or the grocery stores we go to depending on what they are selling there. I like to look at all the cool stuff they display there… from electric toothbrushes to every kind of breath mint you can imagine. I am an only child, so I am sure it comes from many years of saying, “Come on mom, PLEASE!!!!” I didn’t get everything I wanted, but I did learn to work the system. Watch out if you ever get me into a bookstore!

Then I try to cut sweets out of my diet. I did well a few years ago and lost a lot of weight, started exercising and all that. I was about twenty pounds lighter before we went to Texas. But over the years I have gotten out of the discipline of not eating sugar and unnecessary carbs. I am a sucker for cream filled donuts, chicken chimichangas, Red Robin French fries, and hand scooped milkshakes! And guess what, over the years it has caught back up to me. This summer especially because I quit working out. My Bowflex was in storage and I got lazy and quit running. Now with the added weight it is really hard to get back into the swing of exercising! what started as a quick indulgence has added up to a big problem!

What is worse is I am working from home! My kids have all kinds of snacks for school lunches, all carbs, and they have sweets for deserts, all high in sugar… and to top it all off there is a cream filled donut on the table under one of those glass covers that just highlights the fact that it needs to be eaten!!! My impulse control is way out of whack!

I don’t know about you, but I have to keep discipline in my life or everything falls apart… and it is really hard to put back in after I have neglected it for a while. I let my guard down, and things come streaming in! Just one little candy bar, it is Halloween after all! I can study later… put off one workout, I’ll do it later… or my favorite lately, just one more half hour of sleep, I can catch up on all the other stuff later in the day… and it never happens!!! (I used to get up at 5 AM everyday, now 6:30 is normal! And if you note the timestamp on this post – it is really late!) Lack of impulse control is like cracks in a foundation, eventually they can cause big problems and take a lot of work to correct. They mess with the essence of who we are as people. Lots of bigger problems started out as impulses… a sale at a store leads to a spending problem, a quick look at a pretty woman leads to an affair, an online game leads to a gambling problem, one little drink after work leads to an alcohol problem, taking a few bucks from the company leads to stealing thousands of dollars, a credit card purchase leads to unpayable debt. I am not saying that in every occasion this happens, but without restraint we can quickly fall into bad habits and worse, big problems.

Here is to minimizing impulses… we all have to deal with them – they start small and add up quick. Fight them off with all your might, a little crack in the wall, and you are on your way to bigger problems! If you have any good advice, I could use it. I think I will use Daylight Savings to jump back to the 5 am wakeups. But I have a donut here is someone wants it… you could really do me a favor by eating it – did I mention it has cream filling?

Looking

I hate moving… everything in your life winds up someplace different. You get so used to everything having its place, when you move it has to start all over again. Nine times out of ten you cant find the little things, so when I come across something that I know I will need later I put it someplace I will “remember” when I need it. The problem is I don’t always remember where I put it when I need it, so it doesn’t do me any good. I spent two hours this weekend looking for a wire I needed for my audio equipment. I remember seeing it in the garage when I was unloading boxes. I remember it was all wrapped up in the bag it came in, because I hadn’t used this particular wire yet. (It is a specialty wire, not one you find everywhere, and so I couldn’t use anything but this one) I remember thinking, “put this someplace special, you might need it soon.” And sure enough I was right – I did need it. But as is life I couldn’t find it anywhere. I looked and looked, and at one point even stopped looking, laid down on the floor and thought long and hard about where I had put it. “Remember that special place you put it so you wouldn’t forget where it is?!!” I kept saying to myself… to know avail. I couldn’t find the stupid wire to save my life. I would have given up on it all together, but once I get something in my head like that, it doesn’t stop. I couldn’t stop looking for it if I tried.
So I spent at least two hours looking, probably more, and couldn’t rest until I found it.

I read a parable about lost stuff a little while ago. It was a story about a kid that left home with his inheritance and went off to “discover” himself. He must have been gone for quite a while, because he came from a wealthy family. The story goes on to say that he spent every last cent he had, squandering it on partying and women. He eventually went to work for someone feeding their livestock, a big stretch for a rich kid! Eventually he decided that he could go back home and ask his dad for a job. He knew his dad treated his employees better than he was being treated. So he headed home working up the courage to apologize to his dad for being so selfish and irresponsible. He didn’t call ahead, or send any word that he was returning, and yet when he came to the street his dad’s house was on, his dad was waiting for him at the gate!

I love this story, because I imagine that every day this guys dad heads out to the gate to look for his son. He keeps at it day after day, looking, watching, and waiting. Not just a couple hours on a weekend, but day after day, weeks turn to months, months maybe to years… again we don’t know how long the son was gone… yet here is this dad looking for his son for a long time, that is love! And when the son arrives home, instead of getting a job from his dad, his dad brings him right back into the family like he was never gone… he even throws a huge banquet for his son’s return! What a cool dad!

I think we have all been there at some point, who am I kidding, we can get there daily – out chasing our own desires, dreams, or ideas, and someone, somewhere, every day is going out to the gate looking for us to return, hoping and waiting, wishing that at any moment He would see us turn the corner to the drive… Just waiting, looking, watching… maybe today is the day He can through the banquet, have the party, celebrate our return. I hope so.

I eventually found the wire I was looking for. It was on the downstairs stereo – plugged in and working, I had forgotten that I had already used it! I need to write this stuff down.

Here it Comes!

Snow. Snow is in the forecast for Colorado Springs this weekend! It comes with mixed reviews in my home. We have not seen snow in a couple years. Well, not significant snow anyway. It did snow when we were in Texas, but if you can still see the grass poking up through the white, that is not really snow. So this weekend they are expecting accumulating snow in the Springs. It should be exciting to watch.

Except… my cars need tires. They are not great cars for winter in Colorado. They are both older and rear wheel drive, so keeping them going straight on snow is tricky. And that is with snow tires! Which we don’t have right now… they are not really needed in Texas! In fact we have very thin tires on both cars right now, I should probably do something about it this weekend – before the snow!

That is just like us as humans sometimes isn’t it? We know something is coming that could cause a problem, and we have to choose to prepare for it, or worry about it. I worry a lot about driving on snow. It is one of my hang ups – so the anticipation of the event is often worse than the event. I just imagine trying to drive my kids to school Monday morning up all the snow covered streets that always go uphill in the Springs, and sliding this way and that to get there… it is like a scary risk your life rollercoaster that I have no control over. I hate that! I need to prepare my cars for snow. (or go buy a Hummer!)

The good news is that my Father-in-law owns a couple Goodyear stores in the Springs, so I can easily go get good snow tires for the cars… with studs – big studs and really aggressive tread that will allow me to take on snow covered roads with confidence! (well at least a little more confidence than I have at this moment, I still don’t like the idea! One thing I didn’t miss in Texas was driving on snowy roads!)

The point… be prepared. Even if it is just a little bit more than you are right now, when you know something that you dread is coming, take a little time and prepare as much as you can for it. If it is a conversation you need to have, think it through; if it is a debt that needs paid, save up for it; if it is a difficult decision you have to make, get all the info you can before hand… you get the idea… if it is snow, buy good tires…

Procrastination can make the event much worse than it is, and that just makes your concern and unease that much worse! So do what you can to get ready for whatever it is… but you probably know all this already… I need to go buy a Hummer…

See ya Monday!

Light

Today I get to participate on a committee representing our church’s affiliation to determine how to meet needs in the community. I am pretty excited about it, because in my opinion the Church has forgotten what it was founded for in the beginning; a place for community and relationship, meeting people’s needs and being compassionate to those in need, and learning more about Christ. Any time one of these things gets out of balance, the Church loses its way. For too long, we have forgotten the people that need mercy and compassion in our own backyard. It is time to refocus on the needs in our communities and make a difference. We need to turn on some light in dark places… places that we have pretended didn’t exist – right in our own backyard.

I read a book recently that suggested that people have a dream of what their city should be… Mayors, city officials, public servants, all have an idea of what they want their city to look like… even you and I have a “ideal” of what we want our current city of residence to become… have you ever thought about it? What is your dream for the city you live in? What kind of difference could you make trying to achieve that dream? I know you are only one person… so am I, but if we all begin to work towards what that dream is we might actually make some progress! That is the exciting part of my meeting today. The church affiliation I belong to now is rather large so there are many churches represented in the county I live in… if we can all work together we can make a huge difference!

If you could direct 4,000 people (or so) to do one thing to help the city you lived in become a better place, what would it be? If you could shed some light in a dark place what would you shine on? Please comment; your ideas could be very helpful in this endeavor! There are no bad answers and no bad ideas!

(PS check out the link on the right side for “Actions to Change the World,” maybe it will give you some ideas to live out personally!)