living for eternity today

Tag: life (Page 1 of 3)

The Gambler

We can find wisdom just about anywhere, if all we do is look with open ears and eyes. One of the places we can find some of those wisdom nuggets is in the lyrics to songs. Maybe some of the new songs have that wisdom but I’m an old guy with a limited bandwidth for music, so I don’t spend my time listening to much that is of the modern generation.

Some of the most memorable music in my life happened when I was a kid. I think this is true for most of us actually. Through most of my middle school years, I spent countless weeks every summer riding shotgun as my grandpa drove across the country. Indiana one week. New York the next. Texarkana for the periodic extra long trips.

There were a few songs that we’d play over and over again. The theme song to Smokey and the Bandit was a sure favorite as we went east bound and down, loaded up and truckin’. I still play that from time to time on long road trips!

Another was the song The Gambler by a music icon, Kenny Rogers. Now some of you are likely saying something about that being a country song and you’re not a country music kind of guy. And you’re right. I don’t listen to a lot of country music. But this one is a classic and it has some real wisdom. Take the chorus as an example.

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away, know when to run. You never count your money, when you’re sittin’ at the table. There’ll be time enough for countin’, when the dealin’s done.

Yep I sang those lyrics in my head as I typed them. And if you didn’t you need to listen to the song! In all seriousness there’s wisdom in these lyrics that compare life to a poker game. You’re dealt a hand. You need to figure out how you’re going to play it, because everyone has to play the hand they’re dealt.

Some days when you’re playin’ the hand you’re dealt, it’s easy. You throw your cards and toss your chips. Money flows like water. But other days you need to hold those cards close to your chest. You don’t let people see what you have. You don’t flash your hand to anyone because you just don’t know what they’re going to do with the information you share.

Still other days, those cards you’re dealt are just no fun and frankly destructive. So in those life moments, you need to know it’s ok to fold. Stack your cards in a pile facedown. Push your chair away from that table and excuse yourself from those sitting around it.

Then there are days when you don’t really even have time to collect yourself that much. You just toss the cards on the table. Grab your chips. And run. As fast as you can you get the heck out of dodge.

The moral of the story here is be aware of the cards in your hand. Know the players at the table in your little poker game we call life. It’s ok to hold those cards close for a season. It’s ok to fold and walk away. It’s even ok to let go of those cards completely and never look back.

I’m not sure what season you’re in and whether it’s a warm summer evening or a cold winter morning, but the game goes on. So learn to play your cards. One day as you sit alone on the sideline of life, then you can take time to count the payoff. But for now – hold ’em, fold ’em, walk away or run. However you do it, you have to play the cards you’ve been dealt.

Rapture

I lost three of my grandparents in about a year and a half. That narrow window of time for a loss is a lot to handle. And if you’ve lost anyone special to you, no matter if it’s three people nearly all at once or something significantly different, it kind of makes you wonder. Where are they? What are they up to? And will we ever see them again?

Those questions, and likely others like them, were swirling around a young church in the latter portion of the Bible. The book of 1 Thessalonians was written to a young church that didn’t have a lot of history. They knew the basics of who Jesus was and what he did. They knew the promise that he was coming back again.

But they didn’t know what that meant for their family members who died before Jesus came back. That seems to be the main issue here in the 4th chapter of this little letter. What will happen to my family who have already died?

I often wonder the same thing. I mean I kind of know, as much as a human can know the details of the afterlife. But I know they’re with Jesus and I know that one day we’ll all be with Jesus together. The challenge was that it seems Paul drew such a beautiful picture of the day when Jesus comes back to gather the living to be with him, that they started to get worried about the dead. You know the whole they’re going to miss out on this wonderful day when Jesus gathers his people to be with him.

This chapter drives us to understand this is just not the case. This is where the term rapture actually shows up in the Bible. No you won’t see it in many English translations because while it’s there it isn’t there the way we might think. It’s translated in most English versions as caught up in the clouds. That’s it. Caught up. The word that some translate as rapture and have written books about and formed whole theological traditions about is really a word that means to be caught up.

It’s a hard thing to consider especially with all the Hollywood-izing that’s happened with the term. Planes flying with no pilots. Cars with passengers zapped away. Football games with star players turned to vapor. These are the ways we try to explain it but I think this really misses the thrust of the word Caught up.

Think about the sunrise. You know that array of bright orange, red, purple and pink that somehow paint across the entire eastern sky. Add a little frost on the ground and crisp weather that makes you see your own breath and you’re caught up in something pretty spectacular. Yep you’ve been enraptured by this whole reality. It’s the same idea!

Paul here is telling the people in this little church that they will be caught up with their loved ones and with Jesus on the final day. No hocus-pocus. No slide of hand. No vapored bodies. No planes with no pilots. None of that is found here. Just being totally caught up in the presence of the risen and now returning Jesus.

Could those things happen? I mean I guess they can. God can do that if he wants but that’s not what this passage is about. It’s about you and me and even my grandparents all being fully enveloped or enraptured by the wonderful presence of the glory of Jesus when he finally returns. And that is something that should change the way we see life and death!

Trip Down Memory Lane

I recently had the chance to take a trip down memory lane. You know one of those moments when you’re surrounded by people you knew in a former life and all the feels came flooding back. After getting home from a funeral in my home town, I started thinking about all the people that have impacted my life through the years. And be careful because the older you get, the more people are on that list.

As I looked around the room that day, I saw face after face of people I knew. Some of them I haven’t seen in more than 20 years! It was crazy to see that many people from my past all in one place. It was saddening to see that so many of them had become sheer memories until we walked into that funeral home.

The really sad part was that so often these trips down memory lane happen at life altering moments. Sometimes they’re at weddings and reunions but often we see these people and trigger these memories as we walk past the family at a funeral. And that was the case for me.

I was leading a funeral service for the mother of a friend. He and I connect periodically. But the crowd that came into the funeral that day to pay their respects were the ones I hadn’t seen in far too long. In an age of social media and all the communication devices that we have at our disposal, there’s really no reason to not stay connected.

It’s as if we’ve grown comfortable with being isolated from one another. It’s as if we’ve grown somehow ok with distant relationships and virtual connections. There’s nothing ok about virtual relationships! Call me old fashioned or whatever you want for that matter, but relationships are best celebrated in person!

I can’t tell you how to do life. I don’t have that right to be honest. But I can tell you that even if you’re an introvert you still need people. Doing life in a bubble of isolation is not good. Removing yourself from the people who mean something to you is unhealthy and will eventually leave you stranded on an island of loneliness.

Don’t wait for a funeral to reconnect with friends from your distant past. Reach out. Grab a coffee. Sit down over a glass of bourbon. Go for a walk. Have a barbecue. Host a game night. Gather as friends. This life is far too short to try to go it alone. Open up and let people in. You won’t regret it especially when you’re wading through the mess of life, broken and lonely.

Take your own trip down memory lane! It will do you some good.

Can You Really Have Your Best Life Now?

Let’s get this out of the way right from the start. This is not an outright knock on a religious best selling book or its author, well not exactly. If someone told you, however, that you had the ability to have your best life in this moment, would you listen? Or like me, would you think there was some crazy catch, gimmick, or sales pitch coming your way? If you bear with me for a few minutes, I hope you are able to see that your best life really is possible and there’s no gimmicks, sales pitch, or any bait and switch attached to it.

Simply put I believe the message of Jesus in the Bible is one of having your best life right now. Don’t believe me? Read on.

The message of your best life now is often seen through the lenses of prosperity, wealth, power, and fame. All of those things that we can stock pile in our lives to elevate us above someone else are considered ways to have our best life right here and right now. But what about having our best life in some of the crappier moments in life?

The message of the Bible is one that totally throws the whole prosperity message on its head. Essentially, Jesus says that we can have our best life in the midst of the most fearful, dangerous, heart breaking, painful, lonely, hurting moments we could ever imagine.

It’s really less about circumstances and more about perspective. When Jesus came onto the scene the message of who God was, and what God wanted for his people, had become distorted at best. The idea of grace, goodness, mercy and forgiveness became things worked for and earned instead of free gifts given and received. It’s no wonder some people thought, and still think this way today, that we need to work harder for God’s blessings. It’s no surprise that we tend to think our best life only happens when things are going the way we want them to go.

So what does it take to have our best life now? I think it takes a change of heart. A different perspective. A less selfish approach to life. An others mentality. It’s really not important how you word it. The idea is simple. The way to have our best life now is to put someone else’s needs before our own. I know that it’s super counterintuitive, but that’s why it works so well.

Have you ever done something nice for someone else, like really just out of the goodness of your heart helped them? Then somewhere down the road some sort of blessing, benefit, good deed is done to you? Some call it karma or the universe repaying us. Others just call it good luck. But what if that’s the idea behind the real best life? What if the best life isn’t about amassing large amounts of things for ourselves and it’s really about serving those around you? What if our best life isn’t found in a padded checkbook but instead in the smile on a homeless man’s face when he receives a meal? What if it’s found in the gratitude of a widow when her needs are taken care of anonymously? What if our best life is found in spending time with a friend when he’s lost his wife, or she’s lost her job, or their child is ill? What if our best life is found in serving those around us with no strings attached and with no expectation of repayment?

I am a firm believer that we can and should have our best life right now. And to not have our best life now, in my mind is a misplaced understanding of who Jesus is and how he’s called us to live. The best life is a gospel filled life. The best life is a life that has its priorities straight. The best life is a life that keeps the main thing the main thing and doesn’t let personal ambition take the place of genuine love for those around us.

I think our best life isn’t just possible, it’s the only way to really have an enjoyable life.

Time To Slow Down

For those of you who know me, the title to this post will seem a little odd for me. I’ve never been one to really move slowly in much of life. I drive fast, talk fast, eat fast, run fast. The issue is faster isn’t always better. Driving fast means I miss the scenery. Talking fast means some won’t get the whole story of what I’m trying to communicate. Eating fast means I set myself up for an upset stomach or I’m hungry in no time! Running fast might mean that I out run the guy behind me but it also means I don’t have the stamina to run for a very long time.

One of the books that has been pretty helpful in this idea of slowing down is one by John Make Comer titled The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. It’s a really good book. It hits right where it needs but is gentle where it can be. The idea is very simple.

Hurry is violence to the soul.

John Mark Comer

Now I know that sounds pretty intense but the context of that passage really sets the stage for what he means. The simple way of putting this is that we were designed to be able to run at a decent pace. Admittedly some of us can run through life moving quicker than others, but all of us have a limit. Hurry is pushing the limit to its end and then exceeding the boundaries doing harm to ourselves and others. Hurry doesn’t make us more effective. And to be honest, hurry doesn’t even let us get the task done faster (as odd as that sounds).

One of my favorite ideas that comes out of the book is actually a reference to a bible verse. Comer writes An easy life isn’t an option, an easy yoke is. That’s fairly profound but only if you know what a yoke is. A yoke was a tool used to keep an ox on task. It would rest on its shoulders and the load was tied to it. Then the ox would have to pull that load so the man wouldn’t have to pull it. Admittedly it was a great idea, but the purpose of this yoke was to load the ox to the max so you had to make fewer trips. And that’s what hurry does to us.

Jesus says in the New Testament that his yoke is easy and burden light. That means he’s not really all about heaping up load after load and making us move at a frantic pace. He’s designed the load specifically for what we’re able to handle, with his help. Don’t forget that last part!

But the problem is, we try to pursue and easy life instead of the easy burden Jesus promises and that’s where the wheels fall off. Pursuing an easy life will end up bringing a heavy burden. But pursuing an easy burden won’t necessarily result in an easy life all the time.

Running as fast as we can seems like the best way to get the task done. And sometimes you might be right. However, that’s not all the time. You have to use wisdom to be able to determine when is the right time and when is not the right time to put the pedal to the floor in life. I know that I’ve done this wrongly for years. And it’s likely done significant damage to my own body, not to mention several key relationships.

It’s never too late to slow down the pace of life. It’s never too late to literally hit the pause button and sit for a minute. It’s never too late to take a gentle and calming walk in the middle the day to take in the wonder of life around you. Since I moved to a house on just over 12 acres, I’ve added a lot to my plate. But oddly enough the pace has slowed a bit. I can sit outside and enjoy uninterrupted sunrises and sunsets. I can hear all the wildlife moving and talking around me. Most every night I’m blessed by a sky filled with stars.

Maybe you like to move fast, I do too. But you’ll never know what you’ve been missing with all that speed until you slow your pace (perhaps even literally) and see what’s been there the whole time.

What’s Your Story?

There’s nothing like a good story! If you get the right story, it can suck you in and almost pull you through it. All good stories have a few things in common. They have relatable characters, a good plot, generally there’s some good tension that needs to be worked out, and in most cases good stories have some form of a happy ending or at least a good resolution.

So what’s your favorite story? Why is it your favorite? Do these common ideas for good stories apply to your favorite story?

As I see it there’s a pretty straightforward way defining a story. Here’s my definition: a story is the life or adventure of a character who wants something and is willing to overcome challenge(s) to get it.

I think our lives are a lot like story as well. So often we get bored with our lives. We get bored with our relationships or with our jobs or with our hobbies. Why? I think it’s because we have lost the art of story in our day to day lives. We’ve stopped seeing the plot of our lives develop and our character progress through the narrative of life.

Think about your life as a story for a minute. You are the main character. There are protagonists (those are the good guys) and there are antagonists (those are the bad ones). Some of the bad guys are really bad and some of the good guys are, well nominally good at best and eventually prove to be not in your corner the way you thought.

Our lives have some form of adventure as well, even if it’s not climbing mountains or repelling off of buildings or saving the world. We can have adventure in driving to work or walking the dog or making dinner. There is adventure in just about every aspect of our lives if we just open our eyes to see it.

Our life has a plot as well. Although admittedly this one is an area of our lives that we don’t focus on nearly enough. What’s the plot of your life story? Do you even know what you’re about or why you’re here? This is your plot. The why behind the what of your day to day life. Without a plot we grow tired and wear out quickly. We burn out. We give up. We walk away. Not knowing our plot or having the wrong plot, i.e. life story, is what causes us to drift and lose focus on important relationships or even lose our jobs. The lack of plot, in my mind, is a huge factor in much of the depression we see in our world and honestly a significant factor in divorces, college drop outs and the inability to hold a steady carrier.

Think about marriage for a second. Marriage has a plot. But for many couples with children, those kiddos are the plot of their life. This is why so many couples have trouble when they become empty nesters. The kids were the plot to their story, and with no children around they seemingly have no plot. So little marriage tip – your children are not the point of your marriage. A product of it to be certain but they are not the point of it. The sooner you figure that one out the healthier your marriage will actually be.

Our faith lives are the same way. If our lives as followers of Jesus are only about the Sunday morning church attendance gig, then we’re doing it wrong. Then we’re going to burn out on “doing church.” We’re going to wander to the next church around the corner when this one doesn’t give us what we want. And quick hint…that new church won’t cut it forever either. That is until you figure out your story. Faith is about far more than going to church or giving an offering or singing a song or which book we use in worship. Faith is about story. It’s about your story and God’s story colliding in a fantastic adventure.

A life of faith is the adventure of a character who’s willing to overcome adversity to achieve something. This was what drove Jesus to do what he did for us. This is what took him to the cross and out of the grave. It was the story of salvation. Our story isn’t one of salvation. It’s the story of discipleship. This is what Jesus told us to do and what we’re supposed to be about daily.

Living a life of faith is about growing in our love for Jesus. It’s realizing every day just how loved we are by the one who created all things. It’s the story of loving one another and serving one another and being with one another. It’s about letting the image of Christ come to light in all we do.

So I guess now is the best time to start living that story!

Life Is About Perspective

Every situation in life comes with a choice of how we’re going to approach it. Are we going to try to find a problem in every situation, or are we going to be part of a solution? I read an article recently where the author said it has to be exhausting to always be looking for a problem in the world. Pray for those people. I never really thought of that before, but it’s so very true! And it reminds me of something I learned as a child and that we teach regularly.

If all we do is search for something wrong, I can guarantee you’ll be able to find it. But I can also guarantee that you’ll be a much less joyful person in the process. It seems that we live in a world where people are riddled with this desire to find a problem. We listen to the news to pick apart the facts that are presented. We scroll through our social media feeds to find something written that doesn’t line up with what we think, believe, or how we live. We look at people and judge their actions or clothing or speaking just to find something wrong with them.

Does it make us feel better? Do we do this in an effort to build ourselves up by using the pieces of someone else’s life that we smashed?

If you have to smash someone else’s life in an effort to make yourself look or feel better, then you my friend not only have a problem but frankly are a problem. There’s a principle that we teach in the church that’s based on one of the commands of God in the Old Testament. Put the best construction on everything.

Do you do that? Do you read someone’s social, listen to them speaking, watch them walking, evaluate their clothing situation and put the best construction on them? Or do we jump to conclusions and judge based on what our preconceived opinion sees and hears?

Look, I get it. Not everyone is like you. And you aren’t going to agree with everyone. But there are some things that you can just let go. You don’t have to be the social media troll that pipes up on everything you don’t agree with just to raise trouble.

Now as in everything in life, there are exceptions to this just keep quiet rule. There are times when it is very beneficial and even necessary to say something. If someone is living a life that is dangerous, incongruent with their expressed belief, or just out of the norm for them. These can be indicators that something is drastically wrong. But make sure to check your heart and your motives before you say something. Carefully evaluate your intentions. Are you doing this for you or for them? Is your intent to gain understanding of what’s going on in their life or to infuse their life with your opinion?

If we truly pause long enough to evaluate our intentions, then it’s very likely most of the things we were going to say are not necessary or even beneficial. So it’s really all about perspective. Are you looking at something from your vantage point and trying to make someone else see your side of things? Or are you selflessly entering a conversation with no agenda other than to humbly learn someone else’s point of view? When you figure this out, you’ll soon see what it means to put the best construction on everything.

5 Natural Trends We Need To Navigate

Life has a way of acting kind of like the ocean. Some times the tide is high and crashing in while other times the tide is so far out we can easily manage life on the shore without even getting wet. And honestly like the tides there are some predictable patterns or trends we can see coming before they actually come crashing into the shore. But unlike the patterns of high and low tides, the patterns of life can be shortened or lengthened by how we react and prepare.

There are several things about life that we all know. Life can be a struggle. It can be fun. It can feel like things are spiraling out of control. We can feel like we’re in our sweetspot when things are going well. It can be monotonous and drone on and on. And things can start to crash all in seemingly a very small span of time. So what do we do? How do we manage all this change and shifting of tides in life?

There are two basic operating principles we need to take to heart before we can navigate these trends. The first thing we need to do is acknowledge that these shifts are coming sooner or later. We can’t stop all of the change from happening around us, no matter how hard we try. The second is that we all start in a point of struggle. It’s pretty much that simple. Everything from birth to starting a business to planting a new church to starting a new job, it all starts from a point of struggle. The rest of the trends or stages will flow out of that original struggle. It’s how we react to the struggle that determines how long we’re in struggle mode.

Party Time!

Generally speaking, when we navigate out of our time of struggle, we’ll settle into a new routine and we’ll see some pretty good things happen fairly quickly. In an organization of just about any kind, this is when pretty fast growth happens. People are happy and things are generally fun in this stage.

Think of a child in the younger years when they really don’t have a much of a care in the world. Life is pretty easy for them. We feed them. Clean up after them. Rock them. They just eat, sleep and make messes that they don’t have to do anything about! It’s like party time all the time.

Storm Season

When we progress through our season of parties and fun and all the excitement of the new beginnings, we undoubtedly will have to learn to navigate through a season of storms and devastation. This season of life unfortunately doesn’t happen just once. It’s repeated off and on. This season comes when the honeymoon phase of a new thing has ended. We settle into our routines. We start to question those around us and sometimes it causes us to question ourselves. The storms can be awful. And for many of us, we quit in the middle of one of these storms, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

This phase is like those teenage years when we argue with our parents incessantly. Our parents are morons. We are awkward. Our friends are butts. Our siblings are annoying. Life is just terrible, at least in our minds anyway.

The Groove

After the season of storm we will hit the pinnacle season of life where things just seem to go well. It’s like we settle into the groove and life goes unexpectedly well. This is the phase of life that everyone wants to be in but rarely do we stay here for long periods of time. We all too often don’t recognize this phase for what it is, so we fall backward into the stormy season or slide forward into the monotonous moments to come.

This is that season of life that typically brings us through graduation and into our first job. We’re making real money and enjoying the challenges and opportunities that life provides. This season can last for a long time if it’s nurtured properly, but most of the time we overlook the blessings that this season brings.

Monotonous Moments

If we don’t challenge the status quo while in the groove, we will easily and quite quickly slip forward into a season of monotony and boredom. It’s like driving through the plains states when you’re tired. Everything looks the same and you quickly fail to see the beauty of the moments around you. The time of monotony happens when the routine becomes the rule and there’s nothing exciting in front of us.

This phase of life is kind of like what happens when we realize the dream job we fell into after graduation doesn’t have all we thought it did. It’s what happens when fail to challenge ourselves or the systems around us. Life gets boring. We fall asleep at the wheel of life. And quitting is becoming more and more appealing.

The Crash

Unfortunately, if we don’t address the challenges of monotony we’ll end up in a head on collision with this final season. It’s when we crash and burn. We can’t see any light around us. We can’t see a way out. We isolate ourselves from those who care for us. We quit the thing with which we’ve grown bored. Instead of constantly looking for new opportunities, we look for a clear and easy way out. We give up on progress, happiness and success. We simply throw in the towel. Left unchecked this season can lead to some very serious personal issues with depression.

There are probably more seasons of life than just these few but in my experience these are some key markers to look out for in life. The point in sharing this is to make us aware of what’s going on. I find that when I know what to look out for I’m less likely to fall into it. Like a pothole on the road that I will swirve to miss, these seasons are some that I can be better prepared to maneuver through and around.

Your Life Matters

Your life matters. Yes, this is about you. The past couple of years have been pitting one person against another about whose life matters. Well the point is that life matters. The owner of life isn’t the point. The fact of life is what is vital.

I know that some will say it’s a copout to say that all life matters. But realize I did not say all lives matter. But that life matters. The life you live and the life your enemy lives – they both matter because life matters. But you don’t make your life matter because you’re a good person or a rich person or a person of a specific ethnic background. Your life matters because your life was a gift to you.

This week we focused on life issues. We talked about beginning of life issues and end of life issues. But we spent a lot of time looking at how we deal with those who don’t see matters of life the same way we see them.

It’s easy to make this whole topic of life matters something about politics or even race or age but it’s not about that at all. It’s about valuing each individual life as something special. Everyone has an opinion and everyone has seemingly their own viewpoint on this one. But the fact of the matter is all of our views are tainted with some bit of information we have coming into this. We think the concept of life matters is something about race. Or we think it’s all just a bunch of political bologna. And to a large extent that seems to be the case unfortunately.

But the truth is that life is not something we can determine. We have to let outside sources inform our understanding of life’s origin. We have to let the reality of the uniquenesses of the human condition help us better value lives of all shapes and sizes and points of origin.

Below is a message I gave on the value of life and why it’s so very important to have a proper understanding of ourselves before we can even have this conversation.

Fresh Wind

I’ve been working in my basement to make it more of a fun and livable area in our home. But one thing about a basement is that if there’s not adequate air flow and ventilation things can get a little stale and stagnant. In our home there are no air vents in the basement and no returns down there either, so the air just sits. One of the final steps I’ll take is to open up a couple of air exchange vents so that we can get some fresh air into what otherwise would be a stale air environment.

But it’s not just basements that need fresh air. Sometimes, if we’re honest, we need some fresh wind in our lives as well. We get so caught up in the way it’s been done and in the comforts of life that we kind of grow stale and stagnant. We need a fresh perspective and a new way of approaching things.

This may not be a popular opinion by any means, but I am starting to wonder if 2020 wasn’t the call for a fresh wind. I wonder if God didn’t see the need for us to stop doing things comfortably and start doing them in a new and fresh way. Could God be using the massive disruption that we all experienced in 2020 as a way to breathe some fresh wind into our lives?

We don’t always need pandemics and massive social uprisings to find new wind in our lives. We can find this very thing as we dive into the Scripture and spend time with fellow believers. Fresh wind comes when God breathes new insights into our current realities.

Today’s Music Monday is about realizing the need for this fresh wind perspective and then experiencing just that – the breath of God breathed into us all over again to revive us and wake us from our comfortable slumber.

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