- When speaking with someone in crisis don't say you understand what they are going through or feeling because you don't. You can't get inside their head and feel what they are feeling. In fact, truth be known, they don't even know what they are feeling. Instead affirm your care and concern for them and express your sympathy at what they are going through.
- Don't try to explain why this tragedy has happened to the person in crisis because it is too soon to fully know and since you aren't God you don't truly understand why it happened. In particular don't ever say it was God's will that this or that person die, or live- you are not God and you don't fully understand what is or is not God's will. Plus there are dramatic spiritual implications to assigning death or life to God in crisis situations... The bottom line is sometimes we don't understand why something has happened. It may take years and years if ever to come to a better understanding of God's role in a crisis.
- Stay off the news! The worst thing you can do in a tragedy is to do an interview with the media. You will inevitably say something that is misunderstood because you or the person in crisis is in shock, the media will invariably change what you said to fit their agenda, and in years to come when you see yourself on the news it will bring flooding back the sorrow and pain that was felt for you or anyone around you.
- Let people talk but don't talk about how they feel, instead talk about facts. Where were you when the tragedy occurred? When did you learn about it? etc... Facts are pretty straight forward and the place to begin. Feelings are elusive and at the beginning of a crisis most people are in some form of shock.
Monday, December 17, 2012
How to Respond to People in Crisis
In 1999 I had a crash course in dealing with people in crisis when I was actively involved on scene with the Columbine High School shooting. The tragic shooting in Connecticut brings back way too memories but it also reminds me of the importance of sharing some of the things I learned.
Monday, December 10, 2012
The Alter
This past week I built two stone altesr on the stage that were used on Sunday morning December 9th during the morning worship assemblies. I love building stuff so about a month ago when Mark Howell asked me to build this alter I was excited. I began chewing on how to build it. Should it be cardboard? Styrofoam? A table with a table cloth?
After I thought and prayed about it for a while it struck me that this needs to be the real deal, it needs to be built out of stone. I did some research about alters from the Old Testament and looked at recreations of those alters and then started looking for stone. I had a limited budget so I was more than excited to find the 'clearance aisle' at a stone store at Kirkwood and Hwy 90. Clearance aisle at a stone store?! That's way better than any Black Friday sale but I digress.
I purchased 3800 pounds of stone for pennies on the dollar and started building the alters. Projects like this are fun because it exercises your brain. It's like a crossword puzzle that requires gloves and a weight belt. It took about 6 hours to put together and I fully spent a quarter of that time praying over the alters and the people who would use it on Sunday.
It's fascinating how there are some things that never occur to you unless you physically do something. Here are a few things that occurred to me in the process of building and using the alter:
Today we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts but even with the ever present Spirit it is good to have physical reminders of our commitment to God.
After I thought and prayed about it for a while it struck me that this needs to be the real deal, it needs to be built out of stone. I did some research about alters from the Old Testament and looked at recreations of those alters and then started looking for stone. I had a limited budget so I was more than excited to find the 'clearance aisle' at a stone store at Kirkwood and Hwy 90. Clearance aisle at a stone store?! That's way better than any Black Friday sale but I digress.
I purchased 3800 pounds of stone for pennies on the dollar and started building the alters. Projects like this are fun because it exercises your brain. It's like a crossword puzzle that requires gloves and a weight belt. It took about 6 hours to put together and I fully spent a quarter of that time praying over the alters and the people who would use it on Sunday.
It's fascinating how there are some things that never occur to you unless you physically do something. Here are a few things that occurred to me in the process of building and using the alter:
- In the Old Testament when God said to build an alter and sacrifice an animal I had always envisioned those people fretting over locating an animal to sacrifice. It had never occurred to me that they had to locate, move, chisel, arrange, take apart, rearrange, fine tune, and put back together a vast quantity of stone. My alter was hollow and smaller than Old Testament alters and still weighed 3800 pounds. Building an alter was a significant undertaking for God in the Old Testament.
- Everyone that leaned on the alter Sunday morning was marked with some of the white limestone dust. A number of people will continue to remember the alter as they run their clothes by the dry cleaner this week trying to explain why their clothes are covered with white powdery dust. In The Old Testament anyone who worshiped God at the alter likely had rock dust and blood on their clothes. They had a physical reminder of their commitment to God.
- The pile of rocks that was the alter is now in one of the lawns of the church building. In fact the way it is piled looks a bit like a crypt so the pile is going to move before too long. But it is significant to realize that alters, no matter where they were built in the Old Testament, would have been a long term reminder that someone had worshiped God there.
Today we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts but even with the ever present Spirit it is good to have physical reminders of our commitment to God.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
It's Time to Panic Part 2
The first church I worked for after I finished my undergraduate degree almost 23 years ago had a number of interesting members who inspired me to make sure my life did not follow in their footsteps. One of these people was an older man who had lost his wife a few years earlier and now spent a great deal of time volunteering at the building. He gave a sizable amount to the church each year which helped a number of people overlook some of his oddities.
He had his own parking space under a covered drop off near the church office doors. I learned the hard way it was a bad idea for anyone else to park in his covered space. When an unsuspecting person did this he would park very close beside their car and bang his car door against the other car.
Since he was at the church building so much during the week he became the energy saving watchdog. If you were in the restroom it was best to take a flashlight. If you needed to make a copy on the Xerox machine you would need to allow an additional 4 minutes for the machine to warm up because he would not allow the machine to stay turned on between copies. He was known to turn off electric breakers to make sure everything was off. On more than one occasion I lost my data on the computer because I could not save to my floppy disk drive fast enough when I would hear him flipping all of the breakers off. He never understood the difference between a computer and a typewriter...
But the most odd thing I discovered about him was why he was alone. He and his wife were married sometime around World War 2 and they decided to never have children because they did not want to bring a child into such a messed up world. The day he told me this I was taken back and was not sure how to respond. In the subsequent years I have time and again chewed on the reasoning for his decision.
Without a doubt the world is imperfect and will be so until God brings this present age to a close and fully reveals his kingdom. We know that I John 5:19 tells us that this whole world is under the control of the evil one. But we also know that God and his forces are actively at work in this world. We know that throughout history God's people have lived by faith as can be powerfully seen in Hebrews 11. So the question becomes, do we trust God to take care of us in an imperfect world or do we panic?
People throughout history have reacted out of panic because they thought things were so bad that they could never get better. The Anasazi who built cliff dwellings in what is now southwestern Colorado are believed to have moved onto the cliff faces out of a perceived threat. At the end of World War 2 much of the population of an island in the Pacific jumped to their death because they believed when the United States liberated their island life would not be worth living.
A lifestyle characterized by panic ultimately misses the point of the Bible. God created the world, sin damaged the world separating us from God, and God began a plan involving his son to redeem all of creation. This damaged world is not our destiny, it is simply our journey. Our destiny is with God. God will bring this present age ruled by sin to an end. We will be resurrected with new bodies just like Jesus was resurrected. We will live on a redeemed and restored earth able to literally walk with God. The kingdom of God glimpsed when Jesus walked the earth will become the norm. There will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more crying, no more sadness, no more hunger.
There is no need to live a life of panic because we can live expectantly with the hope we have of resurrection and eternal life. We can live with confidence if we have received God's precious gift of salvation offered through the blood of Jesus. There is no need to panic about work, school, politics, church or anything else we tend to get worked up over. Instead we can live filled with peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control- not because anything in this world warrants this type of life, instead we live a life of faithful calm because God is our god.
We panic because we try to control what we cannot control. Faith in God recognizes this world is messed up and we can't fix it, only God can. Relax and trust God, it'll be o.k., it really will.
He had his own parking space under a covered drop off near the church office doors. I learned the hard way it was a bad idea for anyone else to park in his covered space. When an unsuspecting person did this he would park very close beside their car and bang his car door against the other car.
Since he was at the church building so much during the week he became the energy saving watchdog. If you were in the restroom it was best to take a flashlight. If you needed to make a copy on the Xerox machine you would need to allow an additional 4 minutes for the machine to warm up because he would not allow the machine to stay turned on between copies. He was known to turn off electric breakers to make sure everything was off. On more than one occasion I lost my data on the computer because I could not save to my floppy disk drive fast enough when I would hear him flipping all of the breakers off. He never understood the difference between a computer and a typewriter...
But the most odd thing I discovered about him was why he was alone. He and his wife were married sometime around World War 2 and they decided to never have children because they did not want to bring a child into such a messed up world. The day he told me this I was taken back and was not sure how to respond. In the subsequent years I have time and again chewed on the reasoning for his decision.
Without a doubt the world is imperfect and will be so until God brings this present age to a close and fully reveals his kingdom. We know that I John 5:19 tells us that this whole world is under the control of the evil one. But we also know that God and his forces are actively at work in this world. We know that throughout history God's people have lived by faith as can be powerfully seen in Hebrews 11. So the question becomes, do we trust God to take care of us in an imperfect world or do we panic?
People throughout history have reacted out of panic because they thought things were so bad that they could never get better. The Anasazi who built cliff dwellings in what is now southwestern Colorado are believed to have moved onto the cliff faces out of a perceived threat. At the end of World War 2 much of the population of an island in the Pacific jumped to their death because they believed when the United States liberated their island life would not be worth living.
A lifestyle characterized by panic ultimately misses the point of the Bible. God created the world, sin damaged the world separating us from God, and God began a plan involving his son to redeem all of creation. This damaged world is not our destiny, it is simply our journey. Our destiny is with God. God will bring this present age ruled by sin to an end. We will be resurrected with new bodies just like Jesus was resurrected. We will live on a redeemed and restored earth able to literally walk with God. The kingdom of God glimpsed when Jesus walked the earth will become the norm. There will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more crying, no more sadness, no more hunger.
There is no need to live a life of panic because we can live expectantly with the hope we have of resurrection and eternal life. We can live with confidence if we have received God's precious gift of salvation offered through the blood of Jesus. There is no need to panic about work, school, politics, church or anything else we tend to get worked up over. Instead we can live filled with peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control- not because anything in this world warrants this type of life, instead we live a life of faithful calm because God is our god.
We panic because we try to control what we cannot control. Faith in God recognizes this world is messed up and we can't fix it, only God can. Relax and trust God, it'll be o.k., it really will.
Monday, November 26, 2012
It's Time To Panic!
In an online news story this morning the story of a tragedy on the California coast was reported. A family was spending a day at the beach, mom, dad, a son, a daughter, and the family dog. They were throwing a stick for the dog to retrieve when the dog got caught in the surf and was dragged out into the ocean. The teen son jumped into the water and swam to save the dog. The dad jumped into the water and swam to save the teen but the dad was soon swept out and went under the water. The teen boy got back to shore on his own. He and his mother went back into the surf to look for the dad but soon they were swept out and went under water.
Meanwhile on shore the daughter ran to get the park ranger. The ranger's car got stuck in the sand so he had to walk over half a mile down the beach to get to the scene. Once there he located the bodies of the father and mother who had drowned but could not locate the son. A helicopter and boats came out but they were never able to the son's body.
The article ends with this sentence, "The dog got out of the water on its own."
If the son would have waited on shore instead of jumping into the water in a panic everything would have worked out fine. If the father would have waited on shore instead of jumping into the water in a panic everything would have worked out fine.
It is easy to recognize in hindsight what should have been done but there is a lesson we can all learn about panic- sometimes things are not nearly as bad as they seem and our panic'd response is ultimatley what causes the problem.
How many times does our panic response end up being a far larger problem than the initial problem itself? Remember Y2K? We were convinced we would end up back in the stone age when computers changed from 1999 to 2000?
We have this response in politics, religion, employment, families, school...
Sometimes the process of remaining calm can look pretty odd. I remember a story my grandmother used to tell me. She was driving a late 30's Ford down a highway in east Texas right after she got married when a big dog ran out in the middle of the road and stopped. My grandfather had warned her about the danger of flipping the car if she swerved at high speeds and as usual she was going too fast so instead she centered the car on the dog and ran it over. When she got to where she was meeting my grandfather he got upset that she had dented the front of the car until she told him that it was the dog or rolling the car which helped him not to be upset anymore.
I have been full time ministry 22 years and have watched time after time at church after church as groups of people panic about what is 'going on'. They become convinced that the church is about to descend into some sort of spiritual apostasty or that there is something going on that is being covered up. The typical response is to create a firestorm at the church or to flee to another church. What most intrigues me about these situations is that 9 times out of 10 there is no foundation for the panic and the damage done by the panic is far, far worse than what the panic itself was focused upon.
I have seen this same dynamic play itself out in interpersonal relationships at church, work, school, and in the family. At times we connect the dots on things that should never have been connected and we develop a panic'd paranoia. We believe the sky is falling. We believe 'it's the end of the world as we know it'.
I wonder what the correlation is between panic and faith in God. I wonder if sometimes the reason we panic is because we believe if we don't take care of the problem then the world will spiral out of control. That would be a form of idolatry- we see ourselves as a god or even as GOD.
I wonder if Satan uses panic and paranoia as a temptation to get us to act without seeking God first. As I think through what would solve these damaging panic and paranoid responses it begins with seeking God in prayer. Really? Yes, seriously! Somtimes this prayer might have to be quick but think how differently things would play themselves out if we began by seeking God. What if we began by asking God to give us His clarity. What if we asked God to guide our actions, our words, our thoughts, our feelings. What if we asked God to give us wisdom to help us recognize how to respond.
Meanwhile on shore the daughter ran to get the park ranger. The ranger's car got stuck in the sand so he had to walk over half a mile down the beach to get to the scene. Once there he located the bodies of the father and mother who had drowned but could not locate the son. A helicopter and boats came out but they were never able to the son's body.
The article ends with this sentence, "The dog got out of the water on its own."
If the son would have waited on shore instead of jumping into the water in a panic everything would have worked out fine. If the father would have waited on shore instead of jumping into the water in a panic everything would have worked out fine.
It is easy to recognize in hindsight what should have been done but there is a lesson we can all learn about panic- sometimes things are not nearly as bad as they seem and our panic'd response is ultimatley what causes the problem.
How many times does our panic response end up being a far larger problem than the initial problem itself? Remember Y2K? We were convinced we would end up back in the stone age when computers changed from 1999 to 2000?
We have this response in politics, religion, employment, families, school...
Sometimes the process of remaining calm can look pretty odd. I remember a story my grandmother used to tell me. She was driving a late 30's Ford down a highway in east Texas right after she got married when a big dog ran out in the middle of the road and stopped. My grandfather had warned her about the danger of flipping the car if she swerved at high speeds and as usual she was going too fast so instead she centered the car on the dog and ran it over. When she got to where she was meeting my grandfather he got upset that she had dented the front of the car until she told him that it was the dog or rolling the car which helped him not to be upset anymore.
I have been full time ministry 22 years and have watched time after time at church after church as groups of people panic about what is 'going on'. They become convinced that the church is about to descend into some sort of spiritual apostasty or that there is something going on that is being covered up. The typical response is to create a firestorm at the church or to flee to another church. What most intrigues me about these situations is that 9 times out of 10 there is no foundation for the panic and the damage done by the panic is far, far worse than what the panic itself was focused upon.
I have seen this same dynamic play itself out in interpersonal relationships at church, work, school, and in the family. At times we connect the dots on things that should never have been connected and we develop a panic'd paranoia. We believe the sky is falling. We believe 'it's the end of the world as we know it'.
I wonder what the correlation is between panic and faith in God. I wonder if sometimes the reason we panic is because we believe if we don't take care of the problem then the world will spiral out of control. That would be a form of idolatry- we see ourselves as a god or even as GOD.
I wonder if Satan uses panic and paranoia as a temptation to get us to act without seeking God first. As I think through what would solve these damaging panic and paranoid responses it begins with seeking God in prayer. Really? Yes, seriously! Somtimes this prayer might have to be quick but think how differently things would play themselves out if we began by seeking God. What if we began by asking God to give us His clarity. What if we asked God to guide our actions, our words, our thoughts, our feelings. What if we asked God to give us wisdom to help us recognize how to respond.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Following God
At the very end of the year 2000 my family and I moved from Colorado to Northeast Texas. We lived in a small town outside Longview for just over 2 years while we adopted 3 children from Russia and worked with a church to help them start a youth ministry. It was obvious within our first couple of months at this small town church that this was not the place we needed to be so we began searching for a new church.
We identified that one of the primary criteria for the church we were seeking was a willingness to be led by God. You might think this willingness to be led by God would be a given at every church but my experience has shown me that all people and even church leaderships are fallen and at best struggle to allow God to be in charge.
Over the course of 18 months we interviewed with around 45 churches scattered around Texas. A common question I had for the leadership had to do with what role God had in their decision making process. I could write a book about the range of responses this question received including one minister that told me God doesn't really have anything to do with our day to day decision making process.
The response to this question is ultimately what caught my attention at Sugar Grove. The answer I received from person after person at Sugar Grove described a passion and a journey at understanding how to hear God's voice and apply that into the direction of the church. The answers I received were not marked with confidence saying 'we've got this all figured out' but instead with humility recognizing it is about God, not about us.
In my nine and one half years at Sugar Grove I have marveled time and again at how the leadership has heard God's voice and responded in faith. Faith responses are characterized by a journey, not by a finished product. Sugar Grove is a church on a journey... a journey of learning how to listen to and follow God.
We identified that one of the primary criteria for the church we were seeking was a willingness to be led by God. You might think this willingness to be led by God would be a given at every church but my experience has shown me that all people and even church leaderships are fallen and at best struggle to allow God to be in charge.
Over the course of 18 months we interviewed with around 45 churches scattered around Texas. A common question I had for the leadership had to do with what role God had in their decision making process. I could write a book about the range of responses this question received including one minister that told me God doesn't really have anything to do with our day to day decision making process.
The response to this question is ultimately what caught my attention at Sugar Grove. The answer I received from person after person at Sugar Grove described a passion and a journey at understanding how to hear God's voice and apply that into the direction of the church. The answers I received were not marked with confidence saying 'we've got this all figured out' but instead with humility recognizing it is about God, not about us.
In my nine and one half years at Sugar Grove I have marveled time and again at how the leadership has heard God's voice and responded in faith. Faith responses are characterized by a journey, not by a finished product. Sugar Grove is a church on a journey... a journey of learning how to listen to and follow God.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Heaven, Hell, and Resurrection
Have you ever thought about where your views and beliefs about God, Jesus, salvation, and the church have come from? We can idealistically say our views on spiritual subjects comes from the Bible but the reality is that our spiritual views are shaped by many sources.
A couple of years ago I taught a September through May class exploring the foundations of our faith. The premise of the class was to explore foundational elements of our faith to see how much our view of spiritual subjects was consistent with the Bible. The class turned out to be a massive research project that brought about a transformation in my own personal view on a number of subjects.
When I was growing up I watched Road Runner cartoons every Saturday morning. Inevitably the Road Runner would get squashed, flattened, or obliterated in the cartoon- good wholesome fair for a 9 year old! What happened next? He got wings, he floated up, and ended up sitting on a cloud playing a harp. My Saturday morning cartoon reflected what I had been taught about heaven. Heaven was a non-physical existence that was seperate and apart from this world. In church I would continue to learn intermittently that we would go to heaven after this world had been literally destroyed by fire. I also intermittently learned something about the Baptists's believing in something to do with 1,000 years but I shouldn't believe in the 1,000 years- whatever it was.
As I grew up and entered into ministry heaven was where we were headed after we died but it was something that was not discussed very much. I would teach about heaven in generalities; it is a place where we are with God, it is the opposite of hell... As I continued in ministry I still did not know much at all about heaven or that 1,000 year thing. Then in 1999 I entered Denver Seminary and had a professor encourage us to dig into the word of God. He told us that the Bible is the word of God preserved for us through the power of the Holy Spirit and throughout history God's people have poured through the Bible seeking to understand God. He encouraged us to do the same and gave a personal example of why he had come to the views he had about the 1,000 year of reign of Christ after exhaustively digging through the word of God. He went on to tell us that our view of the 1,000 year reign would not get us into heaven or keep us out of heaven but the importance was pulling our sleeves up and digging through the word of God.
I was intrigued because this was the first time in my life I had ever heard anyone talk about the 1,000 years and end times. My antennas were up! However for the next few years life and ministry stayed fast furious as Michelle and I raised 5 and then 6 kids while we both worked full time jobs. But the spark of interest about end times and rapture and heaven and hell were still on my radar which was one of the primary passions leading me to develop a class exploring the foundations of Christianity.
Through the course of research I was turned onto a New Testament scholar named N.T. Wright. His background is the last place I would have thought to find a New Testament scholar, the Anglican Church of England. As I read more of his writings I was startled to discover that his teaching was most consistent with what my Biblical research was producing so I asked a friend of mine who is a Greek/Hebrew/ Old Testament/ New Testament scholar and he affirmed that N.T. Wright was in fact the real deal and in his view spot on with his understanding of the New Testament.
His views on heaven were radically different than the Bugs Bunny cartoons I had grown up on. But then it occurred to me... maybe it's a problem that my theology of heaven and hell was primarly shaped by Bugs Bunny cartoons instead of the Bible.
Here is a link to N.T. Wright talking about heaven... Enjoy.
A couple of years ago I taught a September through May class exploring the foundations of our faith. The premise of the class was to explore foundational elements of our faith to see how much our view of spiritual subjects was consistent with the Bible. The class turned out to be a massive research project that brought about a transformation in my own personal view on a number of subjects.
When I was growing up I watched Road Runner cartoons every Saturday morning. Inevitably the Road Runner would get squashed, flattened, or obliterated in the cartoon- good wholesome fair for a 9 year old! What happened next? He got wings, he floated up, and ended up sitting on a cloud playing a harp. My Saturday morning cartoon reflected what I had been taught about heaven. Heaven was a non-physical existence that was seperate and apart from this world. In church I would continue to learn intermittently that we would go to heaven after this world had been literally destroyed by fire. I also intermittently learned something about the Baptists's believing in something to do with 1,000 years but I shouldn't believe in the 1,000 years- whatever it was.
As I grew up and entered into ministry heaven was where we were headed after we died but it was something that was not discussed very much. I would teach about heaven in generalities; it is a place where we are with God, it is the opposite of hell... As I continued in ministry I still did not know much at all about heaven or that 1,000 year thing. Then in 1999 I entered Denver Seminary and had a professor encourage us to dig into the word of God. He told us that the Bible is the word of God preserved for us through the power of the Holy Spirit and throughout history God's people have poured through the Bible seeking to understand God. He encouraged us to do the same and gave a personal example of why he had come to the views he had about the 1,000 year of reign of Christ after exhaustively digging through the word of God. He went on to tell us that our view of the 1,000 year reign would not get us into heaven or keep us out of heaven but the importance was pulling our sleeves up and digging through the word of God.
I was intrigued because this was the first time in my life I had ever heard anyone talk about the 1,000 years and end times. My antennas were up! However for the next few years life and ministry stayed fast furious as Michelle and I raised 5 and then 6 kids while we both worked full time jobs. But the spark of interest about end times and rapture and heaven and hell were still on my radar which was one of the primary passions leading me to develop a class exploring the foundations of Christianity.
Through the course of research I was turned onto a New Testament scholar named N.T. Wright. His background is the last place I would have thought to find a New Testament scholar, the Anglican Church of England. As I read more of his writings I was startled to discover that his teaching was most consistent with what my Biblical research was producing so I asked a friend of mine who is a Greek/Hebrew/ Old Testament/ New Testament scholar and he affirmed that N.T. Wright was in fact the real deal and in his view spot on with his understanding of the New Testament.
His views on heaven were radically different than the Bugs Bunny cartoons I had grown up on. But then it occurred to me... maybe it's a problem that my theology of heaven and hell was primarly shaped by Bugs Bunny cartoons instead of the Bible.
Here is a link to N.T. Wright talking about heaven... Enjoy.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Sticking In There
I just finished riding the first day of Bike Around the Bay. This is a 180 mile bicycle ride that completely circles Galveston Bay. Today I rode 94 miles. That's all good until you realize that all but about 10 miles had either a 17 mile per hour head wind or cross wind. That's what you call challenging conditions.
My favorite kind of riding is a tail wind going down a hill. You can go fast without much effort. It's fun. Riding into a strong wind for 84 miles is not always alot of fun.
One positive thing about the tough day of riding into the wind is that it gave me alot of time to pray and talk with God. I spent time praying about me, my family, alot of people, and Sugar Grove. As I prayed God gave me a thought. We like things to be fun. We like things to be pleasant. We don't like to be challenged. We don't like a strong head wind in our life, our marriage, or our church.
When our life gets tough there is a temptation to find a way to escape to something that makes us happy- for a litle while. When our marriage is not alot of fun there is a temptation to seek out something that makes us happier- for a little while. When church does not make us happy we are tempted to switch churches to find one that "fits us better".
However true Christian character is developed through endurance, not through seeking out something that makes us happier. Happiness is about us. It is what makes me feel good. Endurance is seeking what God desires. Instead of simply assuming that unhappiness or disatisfaction means we should switch to something that makes us happy we should start by seeking God's guidance.
As I was riding it was so tough I started singing a song... "In the name of Jesus I can do this. In the name of Jesus I can do this." Sometimes its good to be in a situation where the only option we've got left is the power of Jesus. Not pleasant, but good.
My favorite kind of riding is a tail wind going down a hill. You can go fast without much effort. It's fun. Riding into a strong wind for 84 miles is not always alot of fun.
One positive thing about the tough day of riding into the wind is that it gave me alot of time to pray and talk with God. I spent time praying about me, my family, alot of people, and Sugar Grove. As I prayed God gave me a thought. We like things to be fun. We like things to be pleasant. We don't like to be challenged. We don't like a strong head wind in our life, our marriage, or our church.
When our life gets tough there is a temptation to find a way to escape to something that makes us happy- for a litle while. When our marriage is not alot of fun there is a temptation to seek out something that makes us happier- for a little while. When church does not make us happy we are tempted to switch churches to find one that "fits us better".
However true Christian character is developed through endurance, not through seeking out something that makes us happier. Happiness is about us. It is what makes me feel good. Endurance is seeking what God desires. Instead of simply assuming that unhappiness or disatisfaction means we should switch to something that makes us happy we should start by seeking God's guidance.
As I was riding it was so tough I started singing a song... "In the name of Jesus I can do this. In the name of Jesus I can do this." Sometimes its good to be in a situation where the only option we've got left is the power of Jesus. Not pleasant, but good.
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