Three things

There are things that have to happen today that I cannot make happen. I can shape my life to be ready and available. There will be things that I cannot control. Here are 3 things that I need to do today.

Cast Vision
Bring people together to align them with the vision
Act as a cheerleader

It really reminds me that I have a responsibility to listen to God because He is the one in control. God’s sovereignty is comforting.

Strength Zones

“Attempt something so large that it will fail unless God is in it”
- Hermano Pablo

I subscribe to the idea that there are strength zones in my life that give me greater productivity than my weakness zones. I have a much better chance of reaching my potential when I operate in my strength zone. It really doesn’t make much sense to stay near the ground when soaring is an option. It’s kind of like the story of the rabbit that was terrible at flying so he was forced to stay in flying class most of the time. The Eagle on the other hand could fly and soar easily but he was terrible at running . He was forced to spend his time in running class. He was mediocre at best. The problem of settling for mediocrity is that very little gets accomplished. I think that we all know what we should be doing. The problem for me is that I try to do it all at the same time. It’s a time management issue. I need a plan. Today I choose to accomplish something I can and to attempt something that requires God’s help for it to happen. I guess that means I will need to operate in faith. That’s an age-old concept of believing without seeing. It is on my agenda today. I have started consciously updating my prayer list of people I am praying for. I know of some people going through the hardest trials they have ever gone through and I know people who are so filled with joy right now that they could handle no more. In the midst of all that I have that real need to listen to God. After all, He knows everything and I know very little. Why am I doing all the talking? I think I’ll take my advice from above and do what I should be doing. Prayer is the most formidable weapon in the arsenal of spiritual warfare

Compelled to ponder

As I approach the end of February every year, I come to a major intersection in my Bible reading schedule. Yesterday I completed the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are not light easy reading. The two months I spend on them every year, I consider time well spent. I am so glad that we have this written record of the trek of man from the garden of Eden to the entrance to the promised land. Having arrived at this point I feel the call to ponder some of the great (?) odd questions of life. To give my mind a rest from the common stress and find new things to stress about.

For example, I may find myself pondering a compelling question such as whether I am supposed to throw away the top cotton ball in the jar of cotton balls, or whether a turtle is naked or homeless if he loses his shell. I guess as long as I just ask those questions as a break for my mind, they can be healthy. If I stress out over finding the answers, I need counseling. Language is an amazing thing. Jibberish can tell a story. The mind has the ability to sort the nonsense into something that makes sense. In the book “Through the looking glass and what Alice found there” by Lewis Carroll, we find the most famous of nonsense poems: “Jabberwocky”. In the paragraph following the poem, Alice makes the following statement:
"... It seems to fill my head with ideas -- only I don't know exactly what they are."
I have always enjoyed classical nonsense literature from Lewis Carroll such as “The Walrus and the Carpenter” and “Jabberwocky.” Most people just roll their eyes and pass it by but I find some good mind exercise in finding a way to apply it all to basic biblical truth. Here is Jabberwocky:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"


He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought


And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!


One, two! One, two! and through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.


"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

It’s later in this book that Alice meets Humpty Dumpty. Now there’s the guy to explain this. A terrible fall like Humpty had could cause all kinds of jumbled thinking. What was he doing on the dangerous wall anyway? What could the horses possibly do to put him together? Perhaps by tonight I’ll have the answers to all these questions.

Third Wednesday

It’s the third Wednesday of this short February Month. Tonight is out monthly SPAW ( service of praise and worship ) at church. It is wonderful way to re-focus and re-enlist for our mission in life. Here are some ingredients to a successful life mission:

Start with yourself- this does not mean to be self centered but rather to be removing ourselves from the throne so that God can have His rightful place.
Being “others” centered is the biblical standard.

2. Have life-changing convictions- these convictions are things that you will not compromise on. These are things that you are convinced of and no threat or enticement from the outside or inside will change them.

Be bigger than yourself- The old saying, “it’s not all about you”, is true. It’s really all about God. My life ought to show that.

Have eternal values- Make the decision about what is valuable to you. When we look at this we find that we have place too high a value on some things and too low a value on others .

Center on God’s priorities- Just as figuring out what we value is important, so is aligning our priorities to fit that model. “First things first” and “Let’s keep the main thing, the main thing!”

Do you have active plans or passive plans today?

The call of community

I am still pondering on this concept of “Community”. It is certainly not new in my thoughts, just more to the top of the list lately. As I begin to take inventory of my “community”, I find that the boundaries are defined differently for different relationships but there are common threads throughout the whole community. For example, I may not be called to have a ministry to the metro inner city, but I do have a call to have a heart for hurting people. That heart for hurting people knows no geographical boundaries. Within my geographical area, however, there are hurting people on every level of life. There are happy poor people and there are unhappy millionaires. There are healthy homeless people and there are sick people living the life of luxury in mansions. Psalms 68:6 says “God sets the lonely in families”. You and I may be asked today to be family for someone who has no other family. I not only have a responsibility to be community today for others, but also I have a need to seek out community for myself in the place where I am planted.

I close my blog this morning with the following story from an unknown source. This is a wonderful illustration of what I am talking about: I plan to use it in my Mother’s day message later this spring.:

The Greatest Occupation
A few months ago, when I was picking up the children at school, another mother I knew well rushed up to me. Emily was fuming with indignation. It seemed she had just returned from renewing her driver's license at The County Clerk's office. Asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation, Emily had hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself. "What I mean is," explained the recorder, "do you have a job, or are you just a..."

"Of course I have a job," snapped Emily. "I'm a mother."

"We don't list 'mother' as an occupation...'housewife' covers it," said the recorder emphatically. I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high-sounding title like "Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar."

"And what is your occupation?" she probed. What made me say it, I do not know. The words simply popped out. "I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations." The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair, and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly, emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pompous pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.

"Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what you do in your field?"

Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, "I have a continuing program of research (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field (normally I would have said indoors and out). I'm working for my Masters (the whole darned family) and already have four credits (all daughters). "Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are in satisfaction rather than just money."

There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants - ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model (6 months) in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.
I felt triumphant! I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than "just another mother."

Mitty Moments

"WE'RE going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. "We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500! We're going through!" The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" he shouted. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Berg. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. "The Old Man'll get us through," they said to one another.

"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?" "Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. "You were up to fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. "You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. "It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over."

The Fictional story of “The secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber has always been one of my favorites because of the situations I have found myself in due to daydreaming.

My Bible reading schedule this morning took me to a portion of the Book of Exodus where God is instructing Moses on the building of the tabernacle and all the details surrounding it. At one point God tells Moses to be sure to do this exactly as he was told when they met on the mountain. Any time someone tells me to do something exactly as I was taught at a particular class, I begin to wonder if I was really paying close enough attention. One of my favorite sermon illustrations comes from a day in fifth grade when Mrs. Tibbitts made the statement, “I want you to never forget the thing I just told you”
The reason for my stress that day (and still to this day ) was that I was daydreaming up to that statement and I have no idea what she told us to ALWAYS remember. I wanted to raise my hand right then and ask her to repeat it, but didn’t, so now nearly fifty years later I still wonder what great truth I missed that day.

God has placed us in learning mode under many different teachers everyday. Be careful of the Walter Mitty Moments.

Have a Good Time

Once in awhile I get into a philosophical mode. I start pondering the deeper thoughts and it helps me to escape from some of the pressures of daily life. Great philosophers are able to boil down thoughts into bite-size chewables. One of those was Soren Kierkegaard , a Danish
philosopher and theologian from the mid 1800’s. Here’s one of those chewable vitamins for you this morning:

“There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn’t so, and the other is to refuse to believe what is so.”

He had a way of bringing out modern relevance of
biblical figures. He had a passion to renew Christian faith within
Christendom in the Danish church. One of his main recreation activities
was to talk with ordinary people on the street. He had much to do with the
shaping of modern thinking. He had passion. I am convinced that passion is
the impetus that we need to use in making our decisions. More than
emotion, passion goes to the will. We can choose the will part but our
emotions kind of just happen. As life happens for you today, appreciate
the passions you have and remember that they are there for a reason. One
of my favorite authors, Leonard Sweet says that at judgment day one of the
questions from God will be, “Did you have a good time?” Make sure you can
have a positive answer.