Light the fire

After spending a couple of hours working in the yard last weekend, I came back inside at around 8pm ready to eat something. I forgot that I had agreed to grill out. I really needed to clean up first so I asked my wife to start up the grill. I gave her simple, three step instructions to get it started and heated up. She hesitantly gave it a shot, but after I came out from cleaning up, I realized it hadn't gone as planned. I soon realized that the problem wasn't hers. The electric ignition switch needed a new battery.

This was frustrating for my wife who foresaw not being able to complete this task. It was frustrating for me because I knew that I would not be able to ask her to do it again.

Its difficult to try to do something again after you failed the first time (especially when it is an easy task or something that a lot of other people can do). In my own spiritual journey I find myself telling people to press on in an area of their life, but don't understand why they give up so easy (since in my experience it was easy for me).

But there are areas in my life where I do the same thing. Praying for healings is a scary thing for me. Whether I am praying for my own or someone else, I know that there have been times when God didn't answer. This makes it difficult to keep asking. But James 1 and Luke 11 have encouraged me to keep asking. Because maybe I haven't knocked enough times. I know God is all powerful and loves us, so its sometimes just a matter of timing and perseverence. So, lately I have been praying, "Lord, help me to not give up on asking you. Grow my faith through this experience."

I look forward to his answer, no matter how many times I have to ask.

Thankful

Sunday morning, 2:25am, and we awake to a loud rumbling. The storm is here and not far away. For others, its in their neighborhood or headed for right for them. An F2 tornado that radar hasn't even detected yet.

The next morning the strength of the storm is fully realized. By a handful of people, its in the form of their roof or half their home gone. One family wasn't home, thankfully, and the father wondered out loud as he looked at the open sky from his daughter's room, "what if we had been here?"

I wondered about the closeness of the storm as well. What if it had landed in my back yard? On my roof? As scary as that thought is, I am thankful that God is watching over me and my family. I can be reassured that even though there are countless uncertainties in this life, his love for me is unchanging. And for the times when danger is near, I have God as "my shield" there to protect us.

When I prayed with my son the following night, I reminded him of the short prayer that God answered when we prayed the night before; "Lord, we pray for our family - protect us."

I am thankful God was listening.

Too many seeds

Over the past few weeks I have had an extra chore to do in my yard thanks to my two silver maple trees. At least once a week, I go out to my driveway and sweep up the countless "helicopter seeds" that have fallen from my trees. Sometimes I use my blower and other times I work with my push broom and send the seeds out to the street. I also have to take time to clean out my flower bed because the seeds find their way into it since it sits next to my driveway and under the tree.

Last week I was doing this process and during the middle of it I gritted my teeth and exclaimed, "I hate these seeds!" As I continued the clean up process, I started to think about how nice it would be if followers of Christ could continually dump seeds of kindness, love, grace, mercy, peace, etc. onto the people and places in our lives. What if the seeds of Christ that we are spreading where everywhere? What if we literally spread so many that it would be annoying, or better yet, impossible for the enemy to clean up?

Thinking about the seeds like that and imagining this kind of impact that I could be a part of - and hope that I am actively being a part of - made the seed clean up process a little less frustrating. So each Spring, these seeds will be my reminder of what we can do by spreading the seeds of joy and hope found in Christ.

The Police Rule!

So last week I went to see The Police in concert, my first concert in about 5 years. I am pretty picky about music, limiting my music selection to about a dozen musicians / bands. My two favs are The Police and U2. The unique sound of the police and the unbelievable talent of the band's members is what I love the most. They only made four albums, but that was enough to establish some timeless hits.

The concert, not surprisingly, was the best I had seen. The music and vocals were great and the hd projection screens were a nice touch. Even my wife, who isn't a big fan, liked the show. Afterwards, though, she made a comment that rang very true for me. "Wouldn't it be great if people worshipped God the same way they worshipped this band tonight?"

I agree wholeheartedly. The people, athletes, musicians, etc. that we so easily worship are, we often forget, human. They don't have any special powers or auora surrounding them. They are ordinary people doing extrodinary things. God, on the other hand, is loving , all-powerful, awesome, etc. But because we can't see Him, it is very difficult for us to fully engage in the same worship we regullarly participate in at stadiums and arenas every week. The funny thing is the short and long term gains for worshipping God far surpasses any rewards from concerts or events. If only more people could understand and experience this reality.

Tree Watching

Last Monday we returned from a Holiday trip to the metropolis of Osage City, KS to see my Father and Stepmother and family. It was a nice three day getaway highlighted by my Dad and I watching old movies late into the night.

We left in the morning so we had the rest of the day to unpack and settle back in. I took the wheel and put in some music of my own liking as I knew the trek from Topeka to Omaha wasn't exactly the most scenic.

But there was a stretch of 60 miles just before the Nebraska state line that caught my attention. I began to notice the damaged trees along the road. I remembered the ice storm that hit a few weeks back and I realized that this stretch was hit the hardest. Most of the biggest trees had lost the top branches. Some trees were split in half or had limbs still dangling.

As I continued to fix my eyes on these trees, I began to wonder how many of them would survive. What would this landscape look like in the Spring and Summer? Only time will tell of course. But there is one thing that will be a determining factor. The trees that are deeply rooted with extensive root systems will stand a better chance for survival.

In my spiritual life I know this is true too. When I am deeply rooted into scripture and my relationship with God, the damage the storms of this world do to me is more easily repaired. But the times in my life that I have allowed other things to pull me out of the ground, those times have been the most difficult to recover from. For 2008, I know that it will be very important for me to stay rooted in what's most important.

Not Fair!

Yesterday I spent the day tieing up some loose ends and running errands with Jackson. By the end of the day I was ready to have a little fun and didn't want to fix dinner myself. So, I decided it was time for a trip to Dave and Buster's. I figured Monday night would be slow and enable Jackson and I to play the games crowd free.

I was right. Only a handful of people were there so Jackson and I went to work on the skee ball, pop a shot, and any other game that caught his eye. After about 30 minutes our card was nearly spent so I convinced Jackson to play the horse racing game again. It was a game that could entertain 12 people, but you only needed two to start. The object was to roll billiard sized balls into three different holes marked "walk," "trot," and "gallop." Which hole you made it into determined how quickly you made it to the finish line. The nice thing about the game was the 50 tickets given out to the winner. Earlier we had cashed in since we were the only two players. As we sat down and started the game, I had that same outcome in mind.

Naturally, I had to help Jackson a bit. It's a tricky game for a 2 year old. So as I carelessly rolled my ball up the game board with little urgency, I would then turn and assist Jackson with his roll. After about 6 rolls, I heard "down the stretch they come" which signaled the race was nearing an end. But just a few seconds later, the bell rang and it was over. I thought I must have had some good last rolls and proceeded to look for my tickets to be spit out. But to my surprise, nothing.

Then, I turned and looked to the end of the game - some 20 feet away - and sitting at the first chair was a 12 year old boy who had been wandering the game floor since we had arrived. He was looking at me with a sly smile. Just before the game started, he had jumped on the first chair knowing he could cash in.

My first reaction was, "no way did he just do that." How could he take these 50 tickets away from my 2 year old son? Look at how many tickets he has! This can't be fair. I quickly burried my frustration and proceeded to the prize room with our meezly 250 tickets. After 20 minutes in the room, I realized that my son wasn't missing those 50 tickets. He didn't care about the big, expensive items. He was happy with the orange and blue mini basketball he had picked out.

My son showed me something that night. Although life is unfair and full of disappointments, we can still find plenty of good things to be happy about. We can choose to look around and see what we don't have or didn't get this Christmas season, or on the other hand, we can look beyond the big stuff and find the small, yet significant treasures that mean the most. Like spending an evening with your child.

Time Out

The holidays are always a great time to visit family and friends. We traveled to Kansas last week to visit my family. It had been a while since I had seen two of my brothers. It didn't take long before we were joking around and carrying on - just like old times.

But after I gave my younger brother a hard time about something, he jokingly responded with what he thought was a harmless, "shut up." What my brother had forgotten was that his two year old and my two year old were in the same room. I quickly reminded him of the fact and we all agreed that he deserved a "time out." Later that day, however, he slipped again and said the same two words. So, it was back to the corner. He knew his mistake a moment after the words left his mouth.

This experience reminded me about the words in James 3. "If we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could control ourselves in every other way." Our tongue is a powerful thing and when it is left to just our control, trouble always follows. The key is to continually pray for self-control (one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit) and fill your heart with uplifting things so that positive words will flow out of your mouth.

I wish that my brother's mistakes had no ill effects. But not surprisngly, my son repeated that phrase more than once the next day. His time outs were a powerful reminder of the "wild fire" effects that our tongue can have. I know I won't be perfect in this area but it is up to me to keep God in control of my life and practice my own self control as much as possible.