Category Archives: Life

A Go(o)d Word

25 Friday Apr 2014

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Before I jump into the meat of the post, I have to point out that the old Hee Haw song was actually “Gloom, Despair and Agony On Me” and I used the word pain incorrectly.  I’ll let the Hee Haw aficionado who pointed it out to me rename anonymous for now.

I am blessed with a wealth of friendships built on connectedness with God.  I don’t know how or why I these people are so helpful to me but I give thanks for Bart, Everett, Dennis, Jason, Rick, Rick, Jacob, David, David, Joe, Jerry, Dan, Derrick, Jeff, John, Josh, Brad and the list could go on.  These men have a special place in my heart.  One of them, Joe, was talking to me a couple of weeks ago.  I told him about the place I was in and he told me about a time he was on a 40 day water fast.  Yes, no eating for 40 days.  Anyway, on this day he said he laid in the floor, weak and feeling like he couldn’t go another inch, and cried out to God to either bring him home or give him a new word.  A good word.  A God word.  He then prayed that prayer for me.  I am so ready for a new, good word from God.  A word of revelation.  A word of hope.

The day after I talked to Joe I had an old acquaintance get in touch with me about a possible job he thought was a good fit for me.  I got so excited because it combined two areas that are passions and was a position that would let me achieve levels I think I am ready to achieve.  Then it’s back to waiting and silence.  I got a call for a phone interview today.  The position pays 30% of what I make now.  Tough.

People keep telling me I’ll look back and understand.  I look back at the last 10 years right now and I still don’t understand.  I accept it as reality but I don’t understand why God allowed it.  I see possibilities for my future that are so much greater but I don’t know why I had to go through what I did to get here.  All that to say I’m not sure I’ll ever understand but I do want to be able to accept what I have today and see hope for tomorrow.  I have a relationship that fits that description perfectly.  I hope to soon have a career that does also.

Joseph is the word I have had the last two days.  Separated from his family for 17 or 18 years.  He earned favor with his captors and became a man of power.  I love the story but I am not sure I will make it 17 years.  I’m not sure I’ll make 17 more days.  Regardless, the story of Joseph is a powerful story about what God can do.  I’m praying Joseph’s way out of captivity will be my way out sooner rather than later.

Then there’s Bart.  Bart drove 6 hours round trip to see me and to come lift my spirits.  Friend is a good word.  Brother is a God word.  Bart is certainly a good friend but he is my brother.  I love him dearly and so thankful that he has found a relationship that edifies him and encourages him.  I see it and it reminds me of the hope I have today.

The other day I got to share a little of my faith with the janitor at work.  Today she asked me more about it.  It was an indirect question but I could tell what she was fishing for and it was a good conversation.  I’m so glad she is improving and getting her life turned around.

So, in the midst of my “crisis” there are good words and there are God words.  I want to soak them in and live in them until my situation improves.  I hope that means returning to be with the people I love very, very soon.  I hope that means a job that fills me up.  I hope that means more opportunities to share a good word and lots of God words with people.  Until then, I hold onto Psalms of David.  I hold onto Job.  I hold onto Joseph.  I hold on and I cry out to the all-powerful God.

Grace and peace.

Pain, Despair and Agony on Me

21 Monday Apr 2014

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If you are not from the Hee Haw generation, that title will make no sense to you.  Having been subjected to Hee Haw and Minnie Pearl and some hillbilly antics, this is a phrase I have remembered from my youth.  Pain, despair and agony on me.

Sometimes that is all I feel pressing against me.  Pain.  Despair.  Agony on me.  Last week I wrote about the sunny side being up but for some reason it’s easy for me to see pain and suffering.  I have addressed it before, maybe it is my “gift” to better understand those who are hurting.  Maybe it is my curse.  In my present situation, I am away from my son during the last 2 months of his time at home.  I hate thinking about missing a baseball game or a senior event he is attending or participating in.  I have had such a close relationship with him and find myself 3+ hours away and not able to run home every night for every event.  It hurts.  I have been blessed with an incredible woman coming into my life.  She is a joy to be with whether we are talking or watching sports.  She challenges me to go deeper with God and to look deeper within myself to heal old wounds and to live life better than I have lived it before and to be more honest with myself and others about my hopes and fears and failures.  I want to be with her every night.  I want to receive her encouragement and her love and her hope in person instead of on a phone.

At the same time, I believe somewhere deep down inside me I am in the is time and place for a reason.  I’m not sure what it is but every now and then I get a brief moment of peace that I have a purpose here.  I want to know it and understand it but it hasn’t been revealed yet.  As I wait, I look for things that help me get through this time whether it is my weeping and wailing prayers for God’s mercy and revelation, a good word from a friend or a quote that is shared.  I am thankful today for good friends and a good woman who are lifting me up.

I saw this today and it reminds me of what all those who love me are saying.  “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” ~Wayne Dyer

I can choose today to look past the heartache and seek ways to help someone else.  I can get through this day because even though I feel so alone right now, I know there are others out there who care about me and love.  So, I can be miserable or I can push forward.  Motivation doesn’t always have to be a happy, nothing gets me down attitude.  Sometimes it is simply to do what must be done.  That is where I am today.  I will work to quell my misery with the knowledge of what I need to do today.  And keep moving forward because somewhere in front of me is the hope of better days, of more time with my children and lots more time with a gift I have received in the form of a loving and caring woman and friend.  Hope is up ahead.  I will press on.

Grace and peace.

Live Hard, Pray Harder

11 Friday Apr 2014

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I’ve always heard the phrase “Work Hard, Play Hard” and probably lived it out part of my life.  I may have played more than worked a lot of times too but I digress.  Life is hard sometimes.  Oh, I see people I know who look like they have the world by the tail, plenty of money and nice families and great vacations all over the world and it doesn’t look like they struggle with a thing.  I have also known homeless people very well and I’m not so sure they didn’t have the more peaceful life but it was not an easy life.  For almost everyone of us, in some way or another, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, life can be hard.  What is hard for us may be a blip for someone else but it doesn’t make it any less hard for us.  I’m a firm believer that our misery is the worst we know and we can’t simply look at someone else who may have a difficulty we don’t want to make it all better.  (Some thoughts on that.)  So, what gets me through? Prayer.  Now, there is no doubt I have lots of thoughts on prayer and have had some intense battles with it.  I didn’t say I know everything about prayer, just that I have lots of thoughts and battles.  I have gone through times with lots of worded prayers and I have gone through times when I simply asked God to look at my heart because I had no words.  I’ve also gone through periods of complete silence knowing believing that if God knows me better than I know myself, he knows what is going on within me.  Today, I’m in a between point where I do the first two; say some prayers at times, mediate and listen at others. One of the greatest gifts God has put in my life is a woman who reads the Bible in the morning and then shares her prayer for the day with me.  I never knew how powerful it was to have someone share their daily prayer with me.  It makes me think.  It encourages me to pray.  It reminds me others are facing the day with hopes and dreams and battles ahead of them and approaching it with a prayer on their heart for that day.  In my darkest moments, her prayers have softened me.  In my better moments, her prayers have encouraged me.  I know it’s a gift because I see what it does to my mind and my heart.  I am thankful for her faithfulness to God and to prayer because it inspires me to live more faithfully too. I won’t share her prayers here because I have not asked for permission.  Instead, I’ll share a prayer by Thomas Merton.  I appreciate the simplicity of it and his desire to serve God even when he doesn’t know how.  I want to have a heart that is 100% for God even when I am blind to what I need to be doing or where I should be going.  Those are the times I want to lean on God the most.  Again, I digress.  Without further ado… MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

• Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”

Grace and peace.

It Goes Deep

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

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I used to think of myself as someone who could withstand pain.  I played through it in sports.  I challenged people to “games” of enduring pain and always walked away proud of myself for what I could take.  I thought I knew pain and had it whipped.

Then I met real pain.  A family lost.  Loneliness.  Silence.  The feeling of abandonment.  I met real pain and learned I am not so tough.  I have learned how deep pain can go and I have learned that there is no amount of mental effort I can exert that will make it easier or even bearable.  Real pain isn’t at the muscle level but at the heart and at the soul level.

As the pain has intensified, I have gone through a litany of emotions.  Anger with God.  Pleading with God.  Abandonment of faith.  Faith is all I have.  Hope.  Fear.  Failure.  Unworthy.  Loved.

I’ve called a couple of close friends lately and let them know I feel like I’m at the end of the rope.  One prayed with me that I would hear a new word from God soon.  My current situation causes me to shed lots of tears, to SCREAM out in pain that goes deep, into the core of my being.  That prayer from my friend and the next day I’m on a call that is giving me hope.  I don’t know that it’s the way out of my pain but it was a conversation that led me to believe there is hope, that there is a new and brighter day coming.  It cannot come soon enough because each day that I wake up, I want to hide under the covers and not face the day ahead of me.  There are a couple of situations I can pinpoint as the cause and there is no easy away around them.  So I pray for a new word, a new outlook, a new understanding of where God is leading me.  I pray it will be a journey out of this pain and into the light, into the sunshine and cool breeze.  I pray it will be a walk that is closer with God and closer with someone I love dearly and with my closest and best of friends.

This pain goes so deep and it hurts constantly.  No amount of Advil or alcohol could take it away.  Only God can.  Only God can take me somewhere that allows me to feel renewed and revived and pain free.  I read something today that said God is closest to us in the darkness, that is where his power is most evident.  I long to see it and pray he will give me relief very, very soon.  The pain is deep.  It is crushing my spirit.

It is because I know this pain that I can imagine what it is like to live without it, to live in the pure and total joy of God, to soak in the blessings he has without these things that attempt to destroy me.  I want to live a life full and free with his purpose for me as the guiding light and to revel in the unburdened freedom of his love for me.  I want it because I know that feeling of freedom and love goes deep.  I know it can and will go to the core of my being.  I know that it will fill me up and I pray that I will overflow from the deepest recesses of my being with the joy that comes from being a child of God and walking in his goodness.

Grace and peace.

Heart Transplant

03 Thursday Apr 2014

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Several years ago I did a sermon based on a friend who had a heart transplant.  The idea of the lesson was that is what God does for us when we decide to be a disciple of Jesus.  He gives us a new spiritual heart.  The desires, the hopes, the goals that pumped out of my heart changed when I decided to follow Jesus.  My new spiritual heart gave me new life.  Eternal life.

Last night I got to hear another story of a woman who had undergone a heart transplant.  The story of her suffering and her fear was real and left many people with tears streaming down their face.  The story of the life that was lost to give her a new heart was heartbreaking.  The story of the victory and the incredible recovery that doctors cannot explain is uplifting.  There were several comments she made that resonated with me.

Our misery is the worst misery we know.  She struggled at times.  She questioned God at times.  She didn’t understand why she was going through all of those things.  She could also look at others and think she was grateful she didn’t know their misery but it didn’t make her misery less painful.  Oh, how I experience that every day.

Our story is meant to be shared.  Others going through difficult times need to know they are not alone even when our walks may be somewhat different.  We don’t share so we can tell them what to do though.  We share so they know we are there when they need to grab onto something to keep from falling into oblivion.  I know that feeling from both sides.

We are victors.  Psalms 23 says, “when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”  David didn’t say when we are made to live forever in the valley or that we would be stuck in the valley.  We walk through it.  I feel like I have been walking through the valley for years but I keep walking.  Along the way I am reminded that I have great kids, that I have met a wonderful woman and that I have friends who help carry me at times.  I’m still walking through it and “through it” is something I need to remember.  Winston Churchill is credited with say, “when you are going through hell, keep going.”  He stole that from Psalms 23 I think.

I am reminded that we are not promised easy days.  Man, how I want some easy days.  I dread coming to work many days but I need the paycheck and I want to make a difference.  There’s so much opposition to me making that difference and it comes from the attitudes of the leadership.  That’s hard to face but I keep walking through it.  Maybe, one day, the valley will lead me out of here in a different direction.  Maybe, one day, I’ll find myself on the mountaintop and out of this pit.  So, I keep walking through it.

Heart transplants, like all good things from above, don’t come without pain, without surgery, without course corrections, without misery and yet it leads to life.  I can’t wait to have an abundant life.  A life with less turmoil, less stress, less worries.  Some of that will come from inside of me and much of it will come from God.  I pray he is speedy.  Until then, I keep walking through it.

Grace and peace.

The Weight/Wait

31 Monday Mar 2014

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I’m supposed to be at Opening Day at Globe Life Park today cheering on the Texas Rangers, soaking in the sun and enjoying the pageantry of the first day of baseball season.  Instead, I’m 3 hours south in a boring little town on a dreary, cloudy day.  That just ain’t right!

Following God isn’t easy.  We are promised so much but sometimes the weight of our situation and the wait for God’s actions are hard.  I’ve got financial struggles that are heavy on me.  I’ve got emotional struggles that are heavy on me.  I want to throw off the load and let God help but so far nothing has changed.  I want to unload the weight off my shoulders (and mind) because it is wearing me down.  It’s too heavy to keep carrying.  I know God can handle it.  I know God can do unbelievable things.  Yet, I wait for him to remove the weight.  I wait.  And wait.

It seems like I’ve been waiting for months, even years.  And I keep waiting.  I read the stories of God doing great things for his people and sometimes they had to wait years and years and years.  I don’t know if I can make it 40 years waiting on God but those who did saw his faithfulness.  It isn’t easy.  The weight is heavy.  The wait is hard.

I am blessed with good people in my life.  They encourage me to wait on God.  I am thankful to have strong Bible teachers and preachers in my life who can deliver a message I need to hear.  They encourage me to wait on God.

The weight is heavy.  Today is one of those days where I am feeling the strain.  I so deeply want God to come lift it off today, to show me his provision and make it evident and to allow me to quit waiting and let me walk into a land of milk and honey.  I need that today.  I have already begged for it today.

So I wait.  I wait for God.  Some call me crazy.  Others don’t understand.  I may be crazy and I don’t know that I understand it myself.

Yet, in faith I wait.  I will continue to beg God to act quickly, to take me to a place where I can see and live in his bountiful goodness and where I can glorify Him for taking the weight off of me.  Until then, I will still have faith, I will wait and I will choose to believe that He is acting and will act in accordance to His plan I cannot comprehend or understand today.  I trust Him to be true to me.

In faith I will wait.  It is not with joy I wait but with a trust that He will see me through.  In faith I will wait.

Grace and peace.

Outrage to Action

28 Friday Mar 2014

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It’s easy for me to see and analyze the world’s problems. I mean, they are all so obvious that it isn’t hard for me to see them and pick them apart.

Yes, I am that guy. I go to a retail store and I can pick apart the service or cleanliness or merchandising. Twenty years in retail will do that to you. I go to a restaurant and I can quickly analyze all the things they could do to serve me faster and better. Eating too much will do that to you. I can go to a car dealership, a movie, wherever, and I can quickly analyze the problems and come up with a list of solutions. I simply know what I like and think everyone should cater to me.

I can do it with churches too. And, best of all, I can do it with people. Yes, I have the ability to look around, see everyone’s problems and have answers for how they could all live better lives. As long as it doesn’t affect me of course. Or worse, cause me to look in the mirror.

I wrote a post recently about “the church’s” outrage at government and how misplaced I think it can be at times (see it here Outrage for What?). Here’s the thing with outrage. It’s a good emotion when it leads me to do something about it. You see, it’s when I take the outrage and do something about it that I gain credibility. Complainers are not credible people. Resolvers are credible people. Sure, complainers can stand on their soapboxes that look like pulpits or blogs or books or podcasts or social media and get noticed yet their complaining rarely resolves anything.

The other day, I ran across a blog post from 2003 and the writer was “debunking the myth of Mother Teresa.” He had reasons why she wasn’t really healing the sick or protecting the poor and he certainly blasted her for her Catholic faith. He gave examples of things she said and wrote to cast her as a non-Protestant at best and a non-believer at worst. As a bit of a radical in my faith tradition, I found myself agreeing with much of her thoughts the author was castigating and found others to be insignificant. He did mention some of what he reported was said or written in 1984. Oh my, if people went back 30 years on me to find out what I was up to they may bolt and chain the church doors to keep me out.

For a moment, I was outraged at the blog author and sat in my chair questioning what efforts he was making first-hand with the poor and sick. However, the longer I thought about it, the more I thought it was me who needed to examine myself for my outrage. What have I done recently to help the poor? How have I reached out lately to touch the sick?

I pray my outrage will continue as long as it drives me to right wrongs, to help others and to see with the eyes of God so I can be his instrument of peace and hope on earth.

Grace and peace.

This post was originally written and posted at Word For Today.

 

 

Good Grief!

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

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The movie “Noah” is coming out soon and I’m hearing stories of Christians bashing the movie for its lack of biblical accuracy.

Good grief.

I don’t think the studio ever said it was biblically accurate.  I don’t think the studio is really trying their hardest to represent the Bible.  I don’t think the studio minds the dust up and free publicity at all.

Good grief.

I always wonder when people start ranting and raving about stuff like this:

how many of them spend money on movies that are not wholesome at all?

how many of them wile away hours watching TV instead of looking like the church?

It’s easy for me to bash them because I sure don’t do all that I need to be doing but leave the movie-makers alone.  Please.  Squabbling over a movie takes away time from what Jesus called us to do anyway, seek and save the lost.

Go seek.  Go save.  Leave the movie business to Hollywood and take care of Christ’s business.

Grace and peace.

Someone Always Has It Worse?

18 Tuesday Mar 2014

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One of my points in my Job lesson was that we Christ-followers need to empathize better.  We need to be at peace with the lack of peace.  And with silence.

Job’s friends did a great job of supporting him for 7 days.  Not a word was spoken among them.  Then the 8th day came and everything fell apart.  His friends were full of advice, full of the wisdom that comes with not having a clue what someone is going through but feeling like you need to say something.

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” – The Desiderata

The peace there may be in silence.

I have very dear friends who lost a daughter a few years back.  I remember hearing people tell them “God had a plan” and “read this book and it will help” and “sometimes we don’t understand until later” which may all be well and good.  At some point.  BUT IT’S NOT GOOD IN THE DARKEST MOMENTS OF THE MOST INTENSE PAIN!

God has a plan in their daughter dying?  Please!  Do enlighten us.  God has a plan for a divorce?  Please!  Share this great understanding of yours.  Read a book or listen to a sermon?  Oh yes, that is exactly what I want to do when I feel like my insides are being ripped out of my body.  We’ll understand later?  Then SHUT UP because if I don’t know and you don’t know we don’t need to pretend we know we will understand later.

As I come through a divorce and share the pain, especially for my kids, people still say, “maybe it will help them down the road.”  Yes, and just maybe they will become serial killers too.  Don’t dampen my spirits and don’t give me false hope.  No one knows what will happen so just be quiet.

Bart is one of my very best friends.  When I am in pain, when I want the world to end, when 300 pounds of tears flow out of my 250 pound body, Bart has a pretty standard line.  “I love you and I am here for you.”  Bart knows my pain and he knows he doesn’t have any more insight into the future than I do.  He doesn’t try to “help” or tell me someone else has it worse.  He simply lets me know he is there.  He doesn’t try to force his way in or figure it out.  He simply hurts with me until I’m ready to talk, ready to seek advice, ready to find ways to nullify the pain.  Bart will run through brick walls for me if I ask.  AND, he will sit quietly with me.

I think Job wishes he would have had friends that would have been quiet awhile longer.  Most of us don’t have some great wisdom that no one else has.  Most of us don’t understand the pain someone else is going through, even when we have lived through similar situations because no situation has the same mix of characters, personalities and issues.

Christ-followers need to empathize with the hurting, with those who can’t see through the darkness, with those who want to curl up and die instead of facing the pain of this life, even when it’s temporary.  Empathy doesn’t come from worldly wisdom, it comes with presence.

Be quiet.  Be present.

Grace and peace.

There Are Battles

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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When you stop to think about it, I’m not a very cheerful writer.  I talk about my difficulties, my obstacles, the things that knock me to my knees.  Those things are often front of mind because I know so many other people who struggle and are afraid to admit it.  Or don’t know they can admit it.  Or don’t think they have an acceptable outlet to admit it.  I’m always on the lookout for those people to let them know, YES, there are battles.  AND, yes, we can overcome them.  Or at least get through them.

Last week, I had the privilege to speak to men at a church in a fairly small Texas town.  A country town.  An agricultural town.  A man’s man town.

I talked about Job.  I talked about struggles.  I talked about some dark days I have been through.  I assured them that we can look at Job’s life and know that one day things will be better.  The wounds may not completely heal.  The scars may not go away.  One day things will be better.  In this life or another but God will lead us through if we are faithful.  That doesn’t mean perfect.  In my darkest hours, I yell at God, furiously, with anger and say things I shouldn’t say.  My darkness hurts.  Bad.  Yet, I get through it because I eventually remember that I am not in control of this messed up world and I simply need to look for a sliver of light in the moment.

Two men approached me after the lesson with the same message.  “I don’t think I would have killed myself but I have faced a challenge that was so dark, I can now understand how someone could go there.”

Wow.  These were two men’s men, show no weakness, pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of men.  At that moment, I was there outlet to say something they have never said to anyone else.  Their outlet to let it go.  Their outlet to be affirmed that darkness sometimes overwhelms us.

I’m sure some people get tired of listening to my darkness stories but some people need to know that there is someone out there who understands, who empathizes and has compassion for others who face darkness.  I like to think of myself as an instrument of peace, a place where they can share hurt and find peace on the other side.  I like to think that is how God uses me.

Next week will be some of my points from the lesson on Job.  Nothing new.  Nothing profound.  Just simple thoughts from a simple brain that hopefully will help me always remember that there is light coming to take over darkness.

I am blessed.  I have two incredible kids.  I have the love of a remarkable woman.  I have some incredible friends who I can share anything with who will pick me up and help hold me upright until I’m ready to walk on my own again.  There is light in my darkness.  Always has been.  Always will be.

Grace and peace.