faith

Winning the Lottery

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So, the lottery is up to something like $1.4 billion. I also read that if every single person in the U.S. had a winning ticket, every person would win $4.3 million. I believe whoever calculated that was off a few decimal places. The actual total would be $4.30 per person, enough for a value meal at Taco Bell.

I have ideas with what I’d do if I won the lottery. I’d buy one of those old houses on Fair Street in Franklin. I’d finally get my red Mini-Cooper. I’d travel a lot and go to all those places I’ve always wanted to go.

I’d be very generous. I’d give to charities and pay off people’s debts and buy really nice stuff for my friends and family. Or would I?

I believe wholeheartedly that people that aren’t generous with $1 won’t be with $1 million. If you’re not a charitable person now, the chances are that sudden wealth won’t change that.

Maybe the answer is to start looking for ways to be generous now. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve spending lots of money on others. It could mean spending time with people. It could also mean donating your talents.

The best way of all to learn generosity is to remember how generous God has been to you all this time. He saved you, didn’t He? He rescued you from your own mess and gave you everything you needed in Jesus, right?

That kind of generosity should inspire us to a kind of generosity that is most needed yet most rarely given– a generosity of loving people not because they deserve it or earn it but because God loves the unloveable and calls us to do the same.

In fact, when we tangibly love those who can never return that love, we are most like the God who loved us when we were at our worst.

But I’d still like the opportunity to prove that all those millions wouldn’t change who I am fundamentally as a person. I’m just saying.

PS If you’re a millionaire and you don’t have a bookshelf that spins into a secret room you’re spending it wrong. Give me your money.

 

Seize That Day

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I found out recently that a friend of the family passed away suddenly. Actually, I’d say he was my friend, even though he was closer to my parents’ age.

It’s been a long time since the last time I saw him, but I remember him as being one of the most positive and encouraging people I’ve ever met. In fact, I’d say that he qualified as jovial.

When I was working on getting my Eagle Scout award, he was one of my biggest encouragers. Every time he saw me, he always made me feel like I could do it. In fact, he helped me keep going in those times when I felt it was too hard and I felt like giving up.

I don’t know that I ever really said thank you. I know I can never adequately express how much his encouragement and enthusiasm meant to me.

Maybe the best way of saying my thanks is to pay it forward and to be as positive and encouraging to those in my life. Maybe it’s to live life the way he did, and do that ol’ Carpe Diem thing– seize every moment and live it to the fullest.

Thanks, Doyle, for being my friend and for believing in me. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your reward.

 

All is Still Grace on a Monday in January

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I had the good fortune to run into a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. We were greeters together at Kairos for a few years and then her life took a different path than mine and I hadn’t seen her in a long time.

I seriously doubt that she was as excited to see me as I was to see her, but it was a nice, brief reunion. It was another of those God-winks that I keep seeing when I look through the lens of gratitude instead of seeing through fear or despair.

I also got to see a homeless deaf man signing with a woman via Skype over his iPad. It was a beautiful moment that made my day.

I look at it this way– the worst day ever still only lasts 24 hours. No matter what happens, there will be a sunset and a sunrise, followed by a fresh morning with new mercies and grace. For that I will always be thankful.

I did have a caramel macchiato from Starbucks and sipped it while watching The Wonder Years on my antique iPad that I traded for at McKay’s a couple of years ago. I think that qualifies as a Monday win.

So there it is. A full work day, Starbucks, a good conversation with my friend that I see every Monday, serving at Room in the Inn, and good music in the Jeep to make the driving in Nashville traffic bearable.

I realize that there are a LOT of people out there around the world who would trade anything to have my problems (as well as my blessings). There are many much worse off than I am, many of those who are way more grateful for what little they do have.

It’s still a process. I have spells of envy and anxiety like anybody else. I have moments where I can’t see the good in the moment because I’m too wrapped up in reliving the past or worrying about the future.

But right now, by the grace of God, I am thankful for where I am right now, because that is exactly where God is and where God is working on me at this very moment.

The end.

 

 

 

Unquenchable Hope

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Maybe what you’re looking at a week into the new year are the ashes and crumbs of what’s left of your hopes and dreams.

Maybe you’ve 99% given up on anything ever changing in your life.

Maybe you need to hear this right about now: your God is the God of the never impossible and the never hopeless and the never finished. There is no such thing as too difficult for this God.

Look at Golgotha. If any dream seemed dead and done for, it was what laid inside of that tomb for three days.

If Jesus could overcome that grave and that death and that hell, there is absolutely nothing in your life that you are facing right at this moment that He can’t and won’t overcome. Nothing.

Maybe what you need is an unquenchable hope built on  an undefeatable God.

It’s never too late to start hoping and dreaming again.

 

 

 

My First Ever Mac Blog

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Well, the day has finally arrived. I am typing my 2,001st blog, the first I’ve written using my newly-acquired, refurbished Mac Book Pro. I feel so hipster right now.

It took a long time to save up enough money, but I kept at it. Actually, I almost had the money a couple of other times, but other expenses kept me from getting it. But I persevered. As I’m learning, a little bit of patience in all matters goes a long, long way.

I promise not to turn into an anti-PC snob. I still have to use one at work. I hope that my blogs will get better (or at least more artsier) with this new contraption.

In other news, I finally saw the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise in IMAX 3D. It was ridiculously overpriced, but I do recommend possibly going to see it on the big screen. The movie itself is better than the prequels, but not quite as good as the original three (maybe better than Return of the Jedi).

If any movie needs to be seen in grand 3D-style, it’s Star Wars. Maybe try to get in to a matinee showing or some other day other than Friday or Saturday.

I won’t be like so many who have been leaking spoilers from the movie all over the place. I’ll just say it was great seeing just about all the old faces from the first trilogy as well as some new faces that give me new hope for the Star Wars movies to follow.

One spoiler alert: at the end, the screen goes black and the credits roll. FYI.

That wraps up my Saturday. I slept late and took a nap, so life is good. Hopefully, Sunday will be just as varied and entertaining.

The end.

 

 

2,000 Posts Later

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“Though my plans disintegrate and my aspirations die, though my dreams shatter and my goals are thwarted, even if no woman is ever romantically interested in me and all my friends leave me, though I never have another visible reminder of God’s presence of of spiritual comfort, if all I have in life is God and only God, I will lift up my hands up to Heaven and proclaim that my Yahweh is good to me. My Yahweh is AWESOME!!!”

I posted this a few years back. Actually, this pre-dates my WordPress blogs and probably goes back to at least 2010.

The point is not that I wish any of these things I mentioned would happen or that I fear they will happen.

The point of what I wrote is that even in the very worst case scenarios, God will still be good and I will still be blessed and I will still lack for nothing.

God is enough.

That is the cliffs notes version.

If you only get one thing from tonight’s post, let it be that God is enough.

Make that your mantra.

If you pin your hopes and dreams on anything else, ultimately whatever it is won’t satisfy you. Nothing else has the capacity to do so. Not your marriage, not your kids, not your career, not money, not anything. Only God can truly be enough.

If you have everything you ever dreamed of and don’t have God, you really don’t have anything. If you end up with absolutely nothing but God, you still have everything you need.

So, here’s hoping for at least 2,000 more blogs and enough creativity to fill those posts so that they will continue to be both fun to write and fun to read.

Maybe I can get Lucy the Wonder Cat to be a guest blogger one of these days. You never know, right?

Tonight We’re Gonna Blog Like it’s 1,999

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I had a random memory today. And I mean random in the sense that it wasn’t connected to anything current.

I was thinking back on a sermon by my pastor, Aaron Bryant, where he mentioned listening to The Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill back in the day.

That got me thinking about a particular youth group trip way back in ’86 or ’87 in the Ridgeway Baptist Church bus with Jason Payne sitting in the very back of the bus with his ghetto blaster playing that same Beastie Boys album at full volume. I think we were on our way to that year’s Youth Evangelism Conference in Nashville (of all places).

I remember very little else about that trip. But I remember the Beastie Boys.

I bet I must have heard that CD all the way through at least two or three times.

You’re probably wondering where the oh-so-spiritual tie-in is. There’s really not one.

I just know that certain songs can trigger memories hidden deep in the recesses of my mind and can bring back faces and places from long since past.

2016 just so happens to mark the 30th anniversary of that Licensed to Ill album that ruled the Billboard charts way back in 1986. This way way before Eminem or even Vanilla Ice. For those who grew up solely on CCM fare, this was even before DC Talk.

I suppose you don’t really appreciate the significance of a moment when you’re in it. It’s only after time and distance has given you some perspective that you really do come to see those memories in a new light.

Who knows what we’ll remember about 2016? Hopefully, there will be some moments worth cherishing and remembering, some very happy moments. That’s my prayer for all of you (and for me, too).

Let’s make 2016 a year to remember.

 

Revisiting Narnia in 2016

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“The story begins on an afternoon when Edmund and Lucy were stealing a few precious minutes alone together. And of course they were talking about Narnia, which was the name of their own private and secret country. Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country. Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect. Their secret country was real. They had already visited it twice; not in a game or a dream but in reality. They had got there of course by Magic, which is the only way of getting to Narnia. And a promise, or very nearly a promise, had been made them in Narnia itself that they would some day get back. You may imagine that they talked about it a good deal, when they got the chance” (C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader).

I will be going back to Narnia this year.

Some people have favorite vacation destinations like Gatlinburg or Rosemary Beach. I like Narnia. It’s way more affordable and I can visit whenever the notion strikes me.

Middle Earth is another good place to revisit, especially with all those hobbits and elves and wizards keeping things interesting. There’s never a dull moment in the Shire.

That’s it. Notice has been served. I will most definitely be re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia as well as The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (and quite possibly The Silmarillion).

Gird your loins, folks. It’s about to get real.

Contentment

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“I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. He whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle).

That refers to Susan, the second oldest of the Pevensie children and the only one not to end up in Narnia. There’s a lot of truth there.

The current culture values youth. Sometimes too much, I think. It seems like people are trying to live like they’re still in their 20’s when they’re well past that decade.

There’s nothing wrong with thinking and acting younger than you are, but there’s also great peace in being comfortable with who you are and where you are in life.

I for one would not want to go back to my 20’s. It was a great time, but I also happen to like who I am now way more than who I was then. I’m a lot more comfortable in my own skin and a lot more content.

The best place to be is fully content with who God made you to be, not trying to hold on to what’s past or longing for what yet may be, but fully present in the present and thankful for the gift of being alive.

I’m not 20-something. I’m not even 30-something. I’m 43 and I like it. I’m blessed to have made it this far and I’m realizing now just how much grace and mercy have carried me along. I’m seeing more and more how much there is to be thankful for in this life and how gratitude really does open your eyes to see more of God at work in you and around you.

I’m also not quite the night owl I used to be, so this will be my abrupt exit. Good night, sweet dreams, and God bless.

 

Getting Out of Yourself

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I overheard someone say that this time of year can be the most difficult and depressing time for a lot of people.

The holidays, Christmas and New Year’s, are over and the real world has started back up in earnest.

Maybe you’re one of those feeling blue. Maybe you feel like everyone else has gone back to their lives and forgotten about you. Or maybe you feel like no one has ever noticed you.

Maybe you’re fretting about where you are in life and wondering if you’ll always be stuck there.

You spend a lot of time, maybe too much time, thinking about yourself and your problems.

The solution? Is it to get over yourself?

I think not.

I think the solution is to get out of yourself. Go and serve others who are in a worse position than you.

I volunteer at Room in the Inn, a ministry that gives homeless men a place to sleep and a warm meal on bitterly cold nights.

I don’t say that because I’m so sanctimonious and holy. I say it because I’ve often been the one who needed an adjustment in my perspective.

Here are men who have way less than me, who are dealing with struggles and issues that I’ve never even dreamed of, yet many of whom have a way better outlook on life than I do (most of the time).

Often in serving, you seek to bless only to find yourself the one being blessed. You seek to minister and find that you are the one being ministered to instead.

Those who complain and who are bitter are usually the ones who aren’t serving. The ones who are serving find they have little time to spare for griping and cynicism. They also find that you can never outgive God or bless more than you are blessed, and that has a way of changing your outlook.

Also, sometimes depression can be more than just being discouraged. Sometimes, it’s a chemical imbalance issue. Never be ashamed to get help. Never be ashamed to confess what you’re going through to trusted friends.

Remember that God is with you in this to the very end. And beyond.