Broken Umbrellas

Last summer we bought our daughter an umbrella.  And not just any umbrella, a fancy, personalized, lacy, pink umbrella. She loved it.  She loved it so much she wanted to play with it everywhere.  The problem is, she would slam in into and through places an open umbrella simply should not go.  We told her repeatedly that if she continued to treat it that way she would break it.  She didn’t believe us.

Until she broke it.

Last week it was rainy, and we gave her a new umbrella.  I was marveled by the way she took extra care of her new one.  It may be that she’s a year older, or it may be that she has learned from her own mistake.

I think a lot of us live our lives the same way.  We know the consequences for bad choices could happen to us, but we don’t believe that they will.  As a result, we continue to make those bad choices.  Then, when things do go wrong, we usually don’t know what to do.  That’s why God gave us his Word, to help us to make the right choices the first time.  That’s also why God gave us His Son, to forgive all of our broken umbrellas.

Nothing Left to do but Go

Many of you already know this about me, but our family loves going to Walt Disney World.  We make a lot of sacrifices so that we can travel there as often as possible, usually once per year.  Disney World is kind of a hobby of mine, but since the actual vacation only happens for one week out of the year, that means I need to spend the rest of the year planning and preparing, which for me is still part of the fun.

The only problem is, as of today, all the planning and preparing is over.  The hotels are booked, our dining is reserved, our FastPass+ options are locked in, and we’ve even checked in online.  Not only that, but our trip is completely paid for.  There is nothing left to do but to go.

This past weekend at church was our Graduation Recognition Service.  It was a special time with our seniors, and Christ was honored as we looked at what He had done and was continuing to do in their lives.  Before the service began, I looked at the parents and said “are we ready?” and one mom, through tears, said “no!” 

As parents you work throughout all of your kids’ lives to get them ready, and then when it is time all the planning and preparing comes to an end.  There is nothing left to do but for them to go.  I’ve always believed that the role of a parent is to work yourself out of a job.  I am far from there, but I know my girls will be walking across that stage, and then walking down that aisle, sooner than I care to think.  In the meantime I want to do everything I can so that when they get to that point in their lives they are ready and there is nothing left to do but go.

Listening Rules

This time around, I’ve done something a little different with my Blog.  I am coordinating this entry with a message given on 5/14 entitled “Countering the Conflict.”  In that message there is (or was if you read this after the message was delivered) a section about how to listen in such a way that we can keep our conflicts from escalating.  This technique is great for families, coworkers, and other relationships where we run into conflict on a more regular basis.  I will look at each “Listening Rule” in the message, but wanted more access to them, so I have placed them on the Blog this week for you to review.  If you subscribe to our weekly FUSEletter, you will see the rules there as well. 

These are adapted from Why Don’t We Listen Better: Communicating and Connecting in Relationships by James C. Petersen.

1) Take Turns

On person is the Speaker, another is the Listener.  You can even make labels if you want.   The person who is the most upset gets to speak first, the other person can only listen.

2) Talk without Accusing, Attacking, Labeling, or Judging

Your pride will want to escalate the conflict by doing these things.  Leaving these four things out will help you to keep things from getting worse.

3) Listen without Agreeing, Disagreeing, Advising, or Defending

It is really easy to let your pride cause you do these things, too.  You are not there to defend yourself or give advice, you are there to listen to and understand the thoughts and feelings shared by the Speaker.

4) Ask “Is this what you mean?”

The Listener repeats what he or she feels the Speaker has shared.  If the Speaker says “yes” they move on.  If the Speaker says “no” then he or she tries again to communicate thoughts and feelings more accurately

5) Switch

The Listener now becomes the Speaker, the same rules apply

6) Repeat as many times as necessary

Pawning Life

I don’t always watch Pawn Stars

But when I do I watch it for 6 hours straight.

Before I get any nasty emails, that Pawn Stars with an “aw,” which if you don’t know is a show on the History Chanel.  It’s about some guys that own a pawn shop in Las Vegas and some of the crazy things that come through their store.  Whenever someone comes in with an item, they ask if they are looking to pawn it, where they have the chance to get it back later, or if they want to simply sell the item to the store.

Many times, without realizing it, we view our life with Christ this same way.  Some of us pawned our lives to Jesus, hoping to pick them up again at the tail end of High School and into College.  Only after we have kids might we consider letting Him borrow our lives again.  Others of us sold our lives to Jesus, hoping to get a return on that investment in terms of greater blessings or dreams coming true.  If that investment doesn’t pay off we may have to rethink the offer.

For those who follow Jesus, we have given our lives to Him.  In fact, the Bible says we were bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20), so in reality they aren’t our lives at all.  But Jesus doesn’t force open our hand; He waits for us to understand that true life comes from being truly His.  That means that He is in control.  When God seems to be using your life to do something totally different from what you expected or hoped He might, fight the urge to take back your life from the God who gave His for it.  

To Do List

I’m a “To Do List” kind of person.  This is for two reasons.  First, I like the satisfaction of crossing something off.  There are times that I do something that isn’t on my list, and so I write it down and then cross it off immediately.  Second, if I don’t write things down I forget them, so the only way to ensure that important things get done is to put them on my “To Do List.”

When it comes to faith, many people view their relationship with Christ more like a “To Do List.”  There’s church and small group, yes, but there’s also prayer and Bible reading and outreach and service tithing and children’s ministry and youth weekend and marriage retreat and that fundraiser and… the list goes on and on.  If we want to, there can be a zillion things we add to our list of things to do for God.  And often we allow our “To Do Lists” to make us feel more spiritual.  “Look at all the things I am doing for God!” we say as we cross something else off the list.  However, the truth is that if we do those things in order to feel more spiritual, we’re not really doing any of them for God.  We are doing things to make us feel more spiritual; we are doing them for ourselves.  When our faith looks more like a “To Do List” we do all those things for our own glory. 

What if our relationship with Christ looked more like, I don’t know, a relationship?  What if we allowed it to have ups and downs?  What if instead of making the goal crossing things off a list we tried to slowly become more and more like Jesus?  What if we gauged our spirituality not by the depth of our Bible studies but by the depth of our compassion for others?  What if we viewed evangelism not as adding tick marks to some heavenly roster, but actually making disciples? What if we saw discipleship not as information transfer but as life transformation?  What might things look like then?

Getting Better

I blogged some time ago about the problem I was having with my foot.  The doctor told me proper footwear would alleviate the pain I was feeling and get everything back to normal.  The problem is I don’t like proper footwear.  I like flip flops.  I like bare feet.  I don’t like wearing shoes all day; it makes my feet feel claustrophobic.

As a result, I didn’t wear proper footwear.  The shoes I bought were not quite right, and the insoles helped but didn’t fix the problem.  Then, when I got home I would take the shoes off.  This is fine if I’m just watching television, but to stand for any amount of time I needed to be protected.  But I just didn’t want to.  So as a result nothing got any better.

Only recently have I purchased several pairs of the right kind of shoes and kept them on whenever standing.  What a difference!

Often in life there are things that we just don’t want to do, but they are the only things that will make our lives any better.  God gives us lots of things in His Word to do, and many of those things are uncomfortable or difficult or just plain inconvenient.  But the longer we live the more we see that those are the only things that will help our lives to get any better.  My doctor didn't tell me to get rid of my flip flops because he hates me or doesn't want me to have any fun, he did that so that I could feel better.  God’s Word works the same way.  So if there is something that you know God has asked you to do but you don’t want to do it, trust Him that nothing will get better until you choose to follow Him.

Gravity and Grace

This weekend my wife and I watched the movie “Gravity,” a film that would more appropriately be titled “90 Minutes of Sandra Bullock Not Catching a Break.”  Things seem to go from bad to worse to worse to worse to worse.  The movie was good, but the plot was simple: in space, no one can hear you get hosed.

Sometimes we feel that our lives are like that.  We call out to God, but He doesn’t seem to hear, let alone answer.  Everything we do seems meaningless, and everything that happens to us seems to push us in the opposite direction of where we want to go.  We feel abandoned by God in a life where it seems to be getting harder and harder to breathe.

Those are the movements when we need God’s extra grace to make it through.  God is stretching our faith, giving us a chance to let go of all those other things and cling to Him.

Even though we can’t see Him

Even though we can’t seem to hear from Him

Even though it feels like He is a million miles away and we are all alone

He wants us to know that He is right there, walking with us through this difficult time.  Loving us enough to allow the painful situations to bring us closer to Him and make us better people in the process.