life

In a Merle Kind of Mood

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Like many of you, I was shocked and saddened when I read of the passing of Merle Haggard. I had heard that he had been ill and in the hospital, but I had no idea that he was anywhere close to dying.

I only recently came to understand his genius. I picked up a boxed set, entitled Down Every Road, containing 100 of his best songs. He didn’t sing about pick-up trucks and girls in short shorts, but he had more country in his little pinkie than 75% of those styling themselves as country music artists have in their entire bodies.

I wonder why it took me so long to discover how good he was. I also wonder why we so often fail to appreciate what we have until we’ve lost it. We don’t fully realize the blessings of the people in our lives until it becomes too late to tell them.

Maybe what I’m telling you is to vocalize your appreciation for every good thing in your life (and every good person, too). Don’t email. Don’t Skype. Don’t text. Tell them face-to-face with actual words that come from an actual heart filled with love.

Maybe what I’m telling you is to hold everything loosely and to realize that nothing in this life lasts forever. Even you have an expiration date. So if you know you and everyone around you won’t live forever, perhaps it will remind you to cherish and relish  the days you’re given as the gifts they are.

Maybe what I’m telling you is that life is too short to waste on music that you don’t like. Find what speaks to you and go listen to that. Even if it’s from a time before you were born.

I find myself listening to a lot of Merle today. It just seems appropriate to honor the man who made so much great and lasting music. I hope and pray that he truly does rest in the peace of Christ that passes all understanding.

 

 

A Living Sermon

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There’s an older gentleman that I see on Mondays when I volunteer at Room in the Inn. He isn’t one of the homeless men who get bussed in. He’s one of the many volunteers who faithfully devote their Monday nights to serving these men.

I noticed one night that he was missing part of his right arm. I didn’t think a whole lot about it. I figured it was probably something to do with diabetes. Then I read this and my world got blown up (in a good way):

The Best Sermon I Never Preached

I don’t need to add anything to that. I teared up a bit as I heard one of the volunteers read this tonight at our last Room in the Inn for the season. The guy who read it got choked up.

The lessons for tonight are 1) don’t take any part of your life for granted, 2) appreciate each moment as the rare and precious gift that it is, and 3) remember that worship is still the best medicine there is for what ails you.

 

God’s Sweet Approval

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“Happy is the person who can hold up under the trials of life. At the right time, he’ll know God’s sweet approval and will be crowned with life. As God has promised, the crown awaits all who love Him” (James 1:12, VOICE)

Sometimes, the trials of life can feel devastating. A family member passes away. You lose your job and go through a financial crises. You deal with a debilitating injury or illness like cancer.

Sometimes, it can be the small things that get you down. Maybe a friend who normally texts you back didn’t respond this time. Maybe you had a Murphy’s law kind of day at work where everything that could go wrong did. Maybe it’s nothing specific and you just feel forgotten and abandoned.

Whatever it is, you can always hold up under trials by holding on to God and His sweet approval. The approval of God is not what awaits you at the end of the trial. It’s what gets you through the trial. If you belong to Christ, it belongs to you already.

Knowing God is in your corner and on your side makes any difficult circumstance bearable. Knowing God is still the God who fights for you in your battles makes even the hardest days easier to navigate.

No matter what you’re under, God is still watching over you. No matter how long the wait seems, God’s patience toward you goes longer. Remember, He was not willing that you should perish but that you should have eternal, everlasting, abundant life. He really  is for you.

Remember what God in Jesus went through for you. He thought that you were to die for. He still does.

That’s a reminder that all of us need halfway through another crazy and unpredictable week that never seems to let up.

It’s not that you’ve got this as much as He’s got you.

 

A Deeper Dependence

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“Explore me, O God, and know the real me. Dig deeply and discover who I am.Put me to the test and watch how I handle the strain. Examine me to see if there is an evil bone in me, and guide me down Your path forever” (Psalm 139:23-24, VOICE)

Some days are easy. I feel like I’m at the top of my game (whatever game that is) and everything I do comes easy. All my traffic lights are green and seemingly everything I touch turns golden.

Somedays just aren’t. Some days it feels like a struggle to do the easy stuff. There are days when I’m doing well to remember my own name, much less anybody else’s.

Every day, every path, every choice leads me closer to or further away from who I really want to be.

I’ve come to the decision over time that there’s not a day that goes by where I’m not completely dependent on my God. Good days, bad days, easy days, difficult days, all days are days where I won’t survive unless I lean on the Lord.

I think that’s success– a place where I am completely and utterly dependent on Jesus, trusting Him completely for every single need. That’s the place where I find the truest peace and the richest mercies.

That’s where I want to be.

But then that desire to be my own man rears its proverbial ugly head. The cultural idea of the self-made man who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps is a hard notion to kill.

Yet kill it I must if I want to be in a place where Jesus is all my heart’s desire, where I am satisfied with nothing more and nothing less than as much of God as I can handle (and then some).

I still wish Mondays didn’t have to start so early.

 

Mission Accomplished

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It may not sound overly exciting, but I got a few things done tonight. I paid a couple of bills and finally got around to my 2015 Federal Tax Returns. For some reason, I put my taxes off, and when I do get around to them, they really aren’t so bad.

Here’s my take on the day.

The morning and evening commute? Not my favorite.

Having a job to commute to and from? Totally worth it.

Having to pay bills? Not so much fun.

Not having to write checks and lick stamps and remember to put them in the mailbox in the morning? Win.

Having the money to pay the bills and not having to worry about it? Priceless.

Having my taxes done and over with until 2017? If I weren’t so tired, I might break into a happy dance. Maybe I’ll settle for a happy nap instead.

Perspective is my new mantra. It’s all about perspective.

I could complain about how sore my feet are from the journey or I can choose to sing along the way. I choose singing over complaining. It’s better for you.

Choosing to see the blessings instead of the burden isn’t always easy, but it is most definitely alway worth it. If you look for God’s gifts in the every day minutiae, you end up seeing God there. You see God’s hand everywhere you turn.

If you look for joy, you find it. If you look for bitterness, you find that, too. You really do find what you’re looking for in the long run.

All that to say that the most important part of this Thursday is that I’m still here, therefore God must have a reason for me being here. I will celebrate another day of life successfully lived.

I say that qualifies as mission accomplished, don’t you?

 

Words That Create (More Goodness from Henri Nouwen)

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“Words, words, words. Our society is full of words: on billboards, on television screens, in newspapers and books. Words whispered, shouted, and sung. Words that move, dance, and change in size and color. Words that say, ‘Taste me, smell me, eat me, drink me, sleep with me,’ but most of all, ‘buy me.’ With so many words around us, we quickly say: ‘Well, they’re just words.’ Thus, words have lost much of their power.

Still, the word has the power to create. When God speaks, God creates. When God says, ‘Let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3), light is. God speaks light. For God, speaking and creating are the same. It is this creative power of the word we need to reclaim. What we say is very important. When we say, ‘I love you,’ and say it from the heart, we can give another person new life, new hope, new courage. When we say, ‘I hate you,’ we can destroy another person. Let’s watch our words” (Henri Nouwen).

Choose your words carefully. Speak life and not death. Speak hope and not despair.

Even your lack of words can have tremendous power. Your choosing to ignore someone sends a more powerful message than any words of hate ever could.

So choose words that head and not harm. Choose words that will build up and not tear down.

That’s all I have on this Thursday evening in February.

 

Held

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Tonight at Kairos, Mike Glenn spoke from John 10:10 about how while the thief came to steal and kill and destroy, Jesus came that we might have life to the fullest. It was another in a long line of great sermons from Uncle Mikey, but that’s not what I’m writing about.

My mind took a tangent during the sermon, as those with ADD can testify happens frequently, and here’s where my thoughts took me.

Sometimes, it’s all you can do to put one foot in front of the other. Even breathing in and out is a tremendous effort of the will. You feel like your life is about to completely fall apart at any minute and your kingdoms will come crashing down.

Know in those moments that it is Jesus holding you together and you are safe.

Sometimes, you feel great. It’s one of those days where the stars align and everything falls into place and all your traffic lights are green. You feel almost invincible, like anything and everything is possible.

Know that even then your world is secure only because it is still Jesus holding you and your world together.

The same Word that spoke the world into being holds it all together. The same Jesus that holds the world in place has your life in His hands. You’ve never been more safe than when it’s Him holding your universe in orbit, keeping you at every moment from spinning completely out of control.

For some of you, that’s a nice sentiment. For others, it may be a much-needed reminder in a stormy season of your life.

As for Mike’s sermon, the gist is that the world around you lies to you about who you are and what you need to be happy and have a good life. Jesus is the only one who delivers on His promise of the good life. What He offers is more than just a good life, but life abundant, where you live out of the overflow of love and mercy, where you are drowning in the love of God, where all that peace can’t help but flow out to those around you.

See? I paid attention. Mostly.

Still Astonished

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“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground” (Brennan Manning).

” . . . [A]lmost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to . . . . [O]nly a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement” (from Joe Vs. The Volcano).

Very few things in my life are cause for astonishment anymore. I don’t necessarily consider myself overly cynical, but I have experienced a lot in my lifetime, so not much is new to me.

I miss the part of being a child where so many things astonished me, to when the world was a far more magical and mystical place.

Maybe the one thing that should never lose its wonder for me is the grace of God. The fact that I wake up every morning to a new dose of grace still astonishes me. In fact, the more I see of myself, the more I learn what I am deep down apart from the grace of God, I am amazed that such a thing as grace still exists for me.

Also, perhaps what could serve to draw people to this great God we serve is when people see us living in a constant state of total amazement over God’s love for us. It won’t happen when we focus on following rules and being moral. It will happen when we finally confess our complete and total dependence on God and His grace and fall at His feet in an act of utter surrender.

When you see that life and everything in it is grace, you truly begin to see each new day not as an entitlement or a reward but as a completely undeserved gift (which is what grace is) that comes not to those who’ve earned it but to those who realize that they deserve nothing but death and hell apart from God.

So, thank you, God, for this life, and forgive me if I don’t love it enough. Forgive me if I don’t thank You enough for it and live amazed by it.

Amen.

Thanksgiving and Thanksliving

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“Go through His gates, giving thanks; walk through His courts, giving praise. Offer Him your gratitude and praise His holy name. Because the Eternal is good, His loyal love and mercy will never end, and His truth will last throughout all generations” (Psalm 100:4-5, The Voice).

These days, you hear a lot about how thankful everybody is. Especially on November 26, known on most calendars as Thanksgiving Day.

What about the other 51 weeks of the year?

You find that thanksgiving works best when gratitude becomes the attitude of your heart and not something you celebrate only around holidays and special occasions.

Thanksgiving becomes thanksliving when gratitude becomes less of an act and more of a lifestyle.

You really do see more of God when you see everything as grace and a gift from His band. I’ve found that out through experience.

You really do find what you seek. If you go around expecting the worst, all you see is bad news. When you look for the good, seeing blessing in everything, you find that you being alive today is the miracle. You breathing in and breathing out is pure grace.

I confess that I’m not always good at gratitude. Often, I get caught up in the trap game of comparison, which leads either to pride or despair. Either way, you never see the entire picture of what (or who) you’re comparing yourself with.

If I do any comparing, it’s with myself. I want to be better than I was yesterday. I want to be less critical and more compassionate, less grudging and more giving, less fretful and more forgiving. I know that I’m a long way from who I used to be and am not nearly what I shall be when Jesus is through with me.

So, live thankfully. Be grateful. Don’t let Thanksgiving be one day out of the year where you eat your weight in turkey, but an attitude that carries you through all 365 days of the year.

 

Patty Griffin and the Long Ride Home

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“I’ve had some time to think about you
And watch the sun set like a stone
I’ve had some time to think about you
On the long ride home” (Patty Griffin).

So, here’s the deal. The Red Sled has a pooped-out transmission. Thankfully, that means rebuilding and NOT replacing (which is apparently about $1400 more). That got my anxiety up a bit.

But on my ride home, I had Patty Griffin’s A Kiss in Time to keep me company. To those who only know top-40, Patty Griffin is an astoundingly amazing artist who has the rare combination of angelic voice and keen songwriting ability. This particular album captured her in a 2003 live performance at the Ryman Auditorium (the same place where I saw her live in 2011).

There’s something about music that forces you to be present in the present. You can’t daydream about the past or fret about the future when a good song is playing. You can’t help but notice the music. At least I can’t.

Music is a reminder that you can’t change the past or control the future. All you can do is to live in the present and receive it like the gift it is. Each moment is a package waiting to be unwrapped by those not enslaved to their smart devices.

So I go to bed tonight knowing that in the end everything will be fine, because God’s already there and He’s promised me that He’d take care of the details.

Hopefully, I won’t keep myself up half the night coughing out my lungs like I did last night. That’s not my idea of fun.

Here’s hoping you find something to smile about and celebrate about God in the days and weeks to come.

My celebration will be my head hitting the pillow as soon as humanly possible.