These aren’t super spiritual, but they’re all good advice if you want to brighten your day (and other people’s as well):

“‘So the three mighty men . . . drew water from the well of Bethlehem . . . and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord.’ –2 Samuel 23:16

What has been like ‘water from the well of Bethlehem’ to you recently–love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing? Have you taken whatever it may be simply to satisfy yourself? If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything ‘to the Lord,’ other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

That’s a little convicting.

It’s easy to receive a blessing and let it end there. You can be thankful and gracious, but if you let the blessing stop with you, then you miss out on half the joy.

The other half is sharing the blessing and watching it multiply. You can pay it forward by being equally generous with others.

The good news is that the generosity from God never runs out. As I’ve read and experienced many times before, you can never out-give God. You can never be more generous because whatever you have to give back came from God in the first place.

When you think of yourself not as owning but stewarding, then it becomes easier to hold your life and your stuff with open hands. You can give to those in need when you remember how once God gave to you when you were most needing and least deserving.

A good place to start is in tipping your servers at restaurants. Also, be faithful to go above the tithe wherever you attend church services. But most of all, be generous with your life. Be generous in your actions, seeking to serve rather than to be served. Love others as God has loved you.

“Some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic
But I had a good life all the way” (He Went to Paris, Jimmy Buffett).

One of the first things I saw this morning was about the passing of Jimmy Buffett. I can’t call myself a Parrothead because I never saw him in concert, and the only t-shirt I have of his came from Goodwill. But I’ve liked his music for a long time.

For me, whenever I hear a Jimmy Buffett song, my mind always takes me back to those Panama City trips back in the late 90s. There were two guys who set up on the beach and played nothing but Jimmy Buffett songs. They were armed with two guitars and some canned background music.

It sounds cheesy (and it probably was), but that’s how I got my introduction to most of Jimmy Buffett’s songs. Now when I hear any of his music, it instantly takes me to those beaches. Isn’t there something about hearing Jimmy Buffett that makes you want to go somewhere tropical and sip on a drink with an umbrella sticking out of it?

Music has that power to conjure up memories and feelings like nothing else. If I hear Margaritaville, I am instantly back in 1995, smelling the ocean air, hearing the waves, and enjoying good times with my friends. Plus those two guys doing their best Jimmy Buffett impersonations.

Thank you, Jimmy, for all those years of great music that made us all want to go South and stick our toes in the sand where the ocean meets the shore.

I’m a fan of the three day weekend, though I confess that the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends always tend to sneak up on me. I forget about them until they are nigh, and then it’s always a pleasant surprise. One day, I will be able to plan my own surprise birthday party . . . and pull it off.

But there’s something nice about those rare times when you can turn off the alarm for tomorrow morning and sleep in. I get that the term “sleeping in” is probably a scary concept to those of you who are morning people and thrive on being up before the sun. That is not me.

I think I read somewhere that I am not a morning person or a night owl. I’m a kind of permanently exhausted pigeon. Lately, that feels a bit true. I feel like I could at any moment given the opportunity take a nap.

But when 5 am rolls around tomorrow and I just so happen to wake up out of habit, I can simply roll over and go back to sleep. That little thought makes my heart happy.

“Lord, I don’t ask for a faith
that would move yonder mountain.
I can take enough dynamite and move
it if it needs movin’. I pray, Lord,
for enough faith to move me” (Norman Allen).

Ain’t that the truth?

Sometimes, I feel like I can be like an immovable mountain in my apathy and sloth. Sometimes, I can’t be bothered to seek the things of God.

Even then God is faithful. Even then God still pursues me. Even me.

I don’t need a faith that moves mountains as much as I need a faith that moves me from the head to the heart, from affirmation to action, from words to walking.

As much as I’m scared to pray it, I need God to blow up my world. I need God to shake me from my apathy. I need what I believe to make its way from my mouth to my hands and feet.

The good news is that there is another acceptable prayer for when you can’t feel your faith: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

As I’ve mentioned a time or two, I sometimes will pray the words of others when I have none of my own. Sometimes, a saint from down the centuries will say my words better than I ever could.

The ideal is to pray from the Psalms. Those are literally praying God’s words back to Him.

I also love The Book of Common Prayer and The Valley of Vision. Recently, I discovered Every Moment Holy, a collection of liturgies for every day activities and for processing human emotion.

I do believe that God wants above all to hear your words, even when you feel inadequate and tongue-tied. The words that come from a broken and contrite heart always reach the ears of God in heaven.

“O MY LORD,

Forgive me for serving thee in sinful ways —
      by glorying in my own strength,
      by forcing myself to minister through
        necessity,
    by accepting the applause of others,
    by trusting in assumed grace
      and spiritual affection,
    by a faith that rests upon my hold on Christ,
      not on him alone,
    by having another foundation to stand upon
      beside thee;
        for thus I make flesh my arm.
Help me to see
  that it is faith stirred by grace that does the deed,
  that faith brings a man nearer to thee,
    raising him above mere man,
  that thou dost act upon the soul
    when thus elevated and lifted out of itself,
  that faith centres in thee as God all-sufficient,
    Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
    as God efficient,
    mediately, as in thy commands and promises,
    immediately, in all the hidden power
      that faith sees and knows to be in thee,
    abundantly, with omnipotent effect,
      in the revelation of thy will.
If I have not such faith I am nothing.

It is my duty to set thee above all others
    in mind and eye;
But it is my sin that I place myself above thee.
Lord, it is the special evil of sin
  that every breach of thy law arises
    from contempt of thy Person,
    from despising thee and thy glory,
    from preferring things before thee.
Help me to abhor myself in comparison of thee,
And keep me in a faith that works by love,
    and serves by grace.”

“The prayer of a Christian brother who was in prison for years in Romania during the difficult years of the cold war. He prayed:

‘Lord, I look forward to the great day I see you and your family in heaven. I look forward to seeing the great evangelists standing before you. I look forward to the day I see all the missionaries coming home rejoicing with their sheaves. I look forward to hearing all the great singers of the world praising you. I look forward to seeing the great preachers of the ages standing before you.

“But Lord, I have one special request. When that day comes, allow me to be there in the clothing of a prisoner. I want to praise you throughout eternity in my prisoner’s clothes to always remind me that I was a prisoner for you.'”

This is someone who was willing to suffer for the sake of Christ. This man chose prison and Jesus over freedom and denouncing his faith.

I think that the idea of a comfortable Christian life is an anomaly. The majority of the history of the Church is filled with persecution and mistreatment. If you look, you will find that the Church grew and flourished the most when it was the least regarded by society. One of the early church fathers said that it was the blood of the martyrs that watered the seed of the Church that grew and multiplied.

I love that this pastor wanted to be known forever in heaven as a prisoner for Christ. The clothes meant to shame him became his highest honor because he wore them for Jesus.

I of all people love comfort and ease, but I also know that if we abide under suffering and persecution for Christ, we will find a joy and a peace that doesn’t come in times of comfort. The disciples rejoiced whenever they suffered for the cause of Christ because they knew that in the end it meant more people seeing their witness and hearing the gospel.

I want the Church in America to prosper and succeed and I don’t look forward to persecution at all, but maybe it might be the best thing to get us out of our apathy and idolatry and ignite a passion for the true gospel of Jesus Christ in us.

“God’s timing, not mine.
God’s will, not mine.
God’s plan, not mine.
God’s glory, not mine.”

I wanted to remind us all — me especially — that you can’t go wrong with praying God’s will be done. It’s the prayer that never fails. It’s the one request God always grants.

But it’s hard to pray because I want my timing, my will, my plan, and my glory.

But God’s timing is what I would choose if I knew what God knows.

God’s will is so much better than mine.

God’s plan is to give me a hope and a future.

God’s glory is my greatest good.

“Christians are persons who no longer seek their salvation, their deliverance, their justification in themselves, but in Jesus Christ alone. They know that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces them guilty, even when they feel nothing of their own guilt, and that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces them free and righteous even when they feel nothing of their own righteousness…

Because they daily hunger and thirst for righteousness, they long for the redeeming Word again and again. It can only come from the outside. In themselves they are destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside; and it has come and comes daily and anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing us redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. But God put this Word into the mouth of human beings so that it may be passed on to others. When people are deeply affected by the Word, they tell it to other people. God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings. Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

I think that the gospel isn’t something we need just once. It’s not something you hear once, believe, then move on from. It’s not just something that serves as a free pass into heaven and that’s all.

The gospel is something you and I need to hear every day. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves at least once a day. Then we need to preach it to each other as often as needed. Like the familiar prescription that says “take as often as needed.”

We need it every single day. We need to be reminded that we’re sinners who deserve hell and are separated from God. We need to be reminded that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that we might not perish and end up in hell but have eternal life, abundant life, and — best of all — Jesus.

We need the reminders because we’re forgetful. Or at least I am. I tend to revert back to thinking that I’m not all that bad of a person and that I can really do alright on my own without any help from God. I forget that I needed the blood of Jesus to save me as much as anyone who has ever lived.

But God is faithful to remind me. And He created community for us to be able to encourage, exhort, and remind each other of the gospel. That’s why it’s vital not to neglect meeting together. That’s why we need each other as much as we need God.

Preach the gospel to yourself and each other at least once daily. And call the Great Physician in the morning.

I remember the Scholastic Book Fair. It was always a favorite day of mine. You could walk into one of those with $10 in your pocket and feeling like a king. Even if you didn’t have any money, you could at least hope your mom would have pity and spring for a book or two.

Back at my last job, I walked downstairs during lunch and they had something very similar set up in the lobby. It felt like I was going back in time. I got all the feels seeing all the books and other stuff. I think I actually bought something that day (though I can’t remember what).

I wish that was an option for where I work currently. Having us take our lunch one day for a trip to the book fair would be epic. Though hopefully this time they take credit cards or Venmo because I almost never have cash.

Somebody needs to make that happen. Just sayin’.