Hang on Tight!*

Photo credit: Lakeside Water Sports

Last week, I was taken back to my teendom in my mind. I was privileged to go “tubing” behind a boat, something I hadn’t done in several years. I had great fun on this large inflatable sled tied to the boat as the boat driver zigged and circled, up and down the lake, bouncing the two other riders and me into the air and skipping us across waves like a rock skips over the water when thrown just right. As I was slung off the tube by centripetal force and a large wave, I had to check to make sure my britches were still on! I was whisked back to my teen years in my head, when we used actual old tire inner tubes with an old rope tied to them. As a teen, I also had the privilege to be the boat driver for tubers (what were my parents thinking?). The object of tubing was to try to get the rider off the tube in some spectacular fashion, including, but not limited to, flipping rider off the tube in a wild spin across the top of the water and/or a spectacular airborne body launch caused by the tube hitting a large wave sending the rider flailing into the air and splatting on the water. Some tube riders would hang on even when the tube flipped! The driver I had last week was a masterful tube driver who has been known to get a rider off the tube within the first 30 seconds of the ride. He had mercy on me as an old man and gave me and my two other tube-newbies a good long 10 minute ride before ejecting us from our air-filled raft with precision skill.  Drivers are the ones who decide when it was time to let his next victims/riders have a try. I was like the carnival ride operator who decided when the “tilt-a-hurl” ride was over, even though someone was screaming to get off and about to lose the corndog they just ate. Everyone on this trip though, came off the tube with a smile on their face.  A great time was had by all, but I am a little sore from being flung gleefully around the lake. 

Sometimes in our spiritual life, it feels like all we can do is hang on when the temporary ruler of this world is trying to get us to let go of God. The Apostle Paul was reminding God’s people to hang on to Jesus, because Jesus is hanging on to us, ensuring our safe arrival to heaven when our ride around the Sun comes to an end. Paul says,  “...I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14 NIV11) When the evil one is trying to get us to fail spectacularly and let go of our faith, we can be reminded to keep hanging on because Jesus has a hold of us. He promises, “no one will snatch them out of my hand!”

Hang in there people! 

God is Glad to be with us! 

I’m praying for us all!  

The Gift of Overshare!*

 I don’t know if you’ve ever had the gift of “overshare,” but for some reason I seem to always have the urge to give TMI (Too Much Information). As a kid I was rarely able to keep myself from saying what would better have been left unsaid. The only time I received enough demerits to earn myself Thursday School detention after school was when I couldn’t stop talking in the Library. To my shame, it would just spew out of my mouth like a loose water hose spraying anyone in range of the loud and sometimes embarrassing deluge. This trait made me a bit vulnerable to anyone who wanted information. All they had to do was pull the string and I would talk like a kids toy from back in the day before they discovered that a string was a hazard to children. (Think Woody on ToyStory). I was also prone to ask questions that might make someone uncomfortable without considering the impact. This part I got honestly from my grandmother who once asked the very tall check out clerk at the grocery if she was standing on a box. Even I blushed right along with the clerk when she said it. As an adult I’m still fully capable and apt to say something embarrassing to which my adult kids cringe. A friend of mine, 90 year old, Lucille is quick to say that her ex husband who was a doctor said she had diarrhea of the mouth, but that was not a medical term. I’m glad to know there are others who talk a lot too, however, it is often accompanied by much regret especially when intensely discussing a disagreement with my wife.

King David wisely requested that God help him not say the wrong thing or say anything at all when he shouldn’t. He prays, “Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (Psalm 141:3 NIV-GK) Maybe this should had been my prayer from way back. Oh well, I can at least pray it now! What about you?

Hang in there people, God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!”

Frankie Heck it! Rewrite*

 Did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in? Anita and I used to enjoy watching the sitcom “The Middle.” Many of the middle class, middle America situations that the producers built their comedy around were situations that we were living through in our own home with our own kids, so much so that we sometimes felt there must have been secret cameras capturing the everyday drama of real life and rewriting it in sitcom form. One particular episode that lives on in our home is when Patricia Heaton’s character, Frankie Heck, had a computer problem. Everything she tried to make the technology work correctly and recover the files of pictures she reluctantly saved to the computer never yielded a good outcome. So, after an emotional meltdown she dramatically unplugged the computer, counted the magical "10 seconds" and plugged the computer back in. She did this repeatedly (not recommended). Eventually, miraculously the computer worked again and the photos were found. This still happens with the technology around our house now. When the Wi-Fi is being wanky, we ask, “did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in, Frankie?” Most times the Wi-Fi comes back up. We do this with smart TV’s, laptops, smart phones, and anything else that we feel technically unfit to fix. 

When life is going nuts and things just don’t seem to be right, sometimes we need to unplug a moment and then plug back in. When I do pre-marriage counseling, I tell couples when they become angry or frustrated to the point of engaging the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response in their brain, it typically takes the body 30 minutes to calm down from this God-given protection response. The chemicals in our brain are triggered in such a way that we become self-protective and even aggressive if we feel threatened or unsafe. The part of the brain that reminds us who we really are, how we really act in this situation has shut down. If we don’t recover, we continue to act in fear instead of joy. And that means I have to win at all costs and everyone else has to lose… so then we all lose. God reminds us through Paul that if we let emotions control us, we quit acting like Jesus and we start acting like the Evil One. Paul says, “‘In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV) So, when something triggers us we need to do a “Frankie Heck restart,” and take some time to return to joy by plugging back in to Jesus, and then plug ourselves back in to the relationships with those around us. We can start acting like our “Jesus self” again.

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all! 

Grab the Bull by the Horns!*

A friend at Southwestern Seminary had invited me out to the ranch where he was living and taking care of the owner’s Longhorns. I was excited to see these massive creatures up close. He asked if I wanted to help feed them. Always up for an adventure, I said “yes.” He demonstrated how to take a bale of hay through the barn door and scatter it in front of these docile but extra-large hungry beasts. So, I grabbed a bale by the twine and as I was about to get out the barn door the twine snapped, and the hay exploded just inside the door. Well, I learned that hungry longhorns don’t understand that they are not allowed in the barn even if there is food on the ground. So, in my ignorance, I literally grabbed the cow by the horns and headed it back out the door. Surprisingly, it stayed just outside the door as I kicked the hay toward him and his herd mates. My friend said, “I can’t believe you just did that.” He knew that the cow could have easily slung me into the loft if it was so inclined, without even trying. I guess I was just lucky he was hungry and not hangry.  They say ignorance is bliss, unless of course it is just ignorance.  What you don’t know can hurt you. 

The Apostle Paul was worried about the early church and reminded them that he and his friends were praying for their knowledge and wisdom of spiritual truths. He says, in Col. 1:9-14  “ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  So before you take the “bull by the horns,” pray for knowledge and wisdom so you can “live a life worthy of the Lord.” 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Awkward Christian Soldiers*

As we get closer to Vacation Bible School season, my mind goes back to wonderful nostalgic memories of VBS as a kid. I am so thankful for a church family that loved kids so much that they would invest volunteer hours and dollars into a week of focused faith development.  We would march into the Sanctuary singing “Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus, going on before.” Many of us had never marched before, so it was kinda awkward trying to stay in step. For some reason, the boys were more out of step than the girls even with the teacher starting us out with “right, left, right, left.” Maybe it was a developmental thing; you know, a brain and motor skill thing that girls get before boys. Anyway, we could have changed the song to: “awkward Christian neophytes, lurching like baby giraffes, with the grace of Jesus, loving us anyway.” When we arrived in the Worship Center we put our hands over our hearts and pledged our allegiance to the American Flag, the Bible, and the Christian Flag. 

Unintentionally, and again, perhaps, (spiritually) awkwardly, we may have begun to march in the direction of something that valued national patriotism equal to or greater than the worship of God Almighty. Don’t get me wrong, God has blessed America. Everyone of us is blessed to live in this great country and we should all truely pledge our allegiance to all the good our flag represents, we should also love God’s Word, and highly value the symbols of our faith, but there is no equal to God on Earth or in Heaven and He should be worshiped far above anything else. The first two of the ten commandments say, “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;” (Exodus 20:3-5 NIV-GK) Once again, God in His grace, allowed us all to mature and develop in our understanding of our relationship to Him. Many among us first understood the Gospel of Christ in Vacation Bible School. I’m not sure I would change any of my experiences, if I could go back. My life has been shaped for the better by those early faith events. I would, however, perhaps try to help kids understand that a personal relationship with our Awesome God through Jesus Christ is far above anything we can march, pledge, or salute our allegiance to. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all. 

Boltbanger!*

It’s a wonder I didn’t “put my eye out.” When you are out of leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, you get creative, and apparently a little reckless. Not sure what my dad was thinking when he showed me what happened when you trimmed off the matchheads of strike anywhere matches and put them between two bolts connected together by a nut then dropped it vertically onto a hard surface.  The loud bang and powerful energy that sent the bolt skyward was too great a temptation for a pre-teen boy not to do over and over again. The occasional explosion in your hands when you tightened the bolts just a little too tight was not enough to deter me from trying again. And why I would try this on the back porch in front of a bank of floor to ceiling windows is beyond me. I was not thinking what could possibly go wrong. I was just enjoying the satisfaction of making a loud noise and the feeling of excited fear you get when the aimless projectile possibly launched in your direction.  One day, when my Mother got tired of the noise, somehow the bolt-banger disappeared as did the matches.  Perhaps these tendencies could have been a clue as to why my college friends and I would later enjoy aiming roman candles at each other at 20 paces. 

Dr. Luke reminds us of the powerful work of the Holy Spirit and its impact on the church. Luke tells us the words of Jesus before His ascension. He says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.””(Acts 1:8 NIV-GK) The Greek word for “power” is dunamis. We get the word dynamite from this root. I can recall the excited moments of a call to respond to the Gospel message at a Youth Camp one night. Powerfully, the Spirit was at work in the hearts and lives of several students. There was an excited reverence in the auditorium. About 30 kids responded one at a time. As an intern, I was called by the preacher to speak with 3 or 4 of them about their response. The thrill greatly surpassed the moment the bolt-cracker exploded, because this was an eternally changed life, a life launched into a relationship with God-Almighty, a life that would be rocketed to heaven at this end of this life. I could not sleep that night having watched God’s Spirit at work in several teenagers' lives. I watched as this power changed their lives that night and continued to change their life and behaviors over the next several years. Oh to see a little bit of that Holy Spirit revival dunamis in our world today. 

Hang in there people. God is glad to be with us. I’m praying for us all.

My Tongue Is On Fire!*

Photo Credit: Placerville Dental

At my church in Chattanooga, the ministry staff enjoyed lunch together pretty much every week. We would pick a place like Rain (the local Thai place), or the Chop House, but we frequently ate at Firehouse Subs. Usually there was a competition of sorts at many of these places to see who could handle the spiciest food. The Thai place would prepare the food “Thai Hot” as the hottest rating. All but one of us would ask for Thai Hot. We would all sit and eat, laugh, eyes watering, noses running, and sweat would break out on our foreheads. Our mouths sometimes got so hot we couldn’t taste our food… but the hotter the better. On our trips to Firehouse Subs the M.O. (modus operandi) was to order our sandwich and grab a bottle of hot sauce at the hot sauce bar. One day the pastor was feeling especially adventurous so he decided to try the hottest offering. It had scorpion peppers, habaneros, and other flavors. If you are familiar with the Scoville pepper scale, the Scorpion pepper has a rating of up to 2M heat units and the Habanero has a rating of up to 350K. By way of reference, a typical jalapeno has up to only 8K. So, from the first bite, the pastor actually stopped chewing, his eyes got big and then watered. He finished the bite and drank a huge gulp of tea. We had never seen him even act like something was too spicy before. We were all fearful to try it. But one by one we put one drop on a toothpick and stuck it on our tongues, all of us felt the instant regret. Our tongues were on fire!  IDK why we did this, but we enjoyed the bonding moments of being Spice-bros for Christ.  By the way, a little known hack to reduce the burn is to lick a handful of salt (though some debate this). 

James the brother of Jesus, knows that one of the ways we are known is by our words. He warns the early church and us  about the power of the tongue. He says, “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.” (James 1:26 NIV-GK) He picks back up several verses later warning us, “... the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”(James 3:5-6 NIV-GK) Wow, He is trying to tell us that when we belong to Jesus, it changes what comes out of our mouths. If we forget that we belong to Jesus, our mouths speak words that can burn up our relationships and make us act like the devil.  Using our words to do harm to others or boast about ourselves ruins our witness for Christ. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all.