Author: Tim

Posted on

Ever Have Someone Else Facepalm on Your Behalf?

During my senior year in college, a buddy and I drove out west in February and did some winter camping in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. This was quite the leap for me; prior to this, I think I had only slept outside in a tent in someone’s backyard once.

Our first day in Utah, we stopped to see some of the sights in Salt Lake City. It was probably 40 degrees and overcast as we walked around and explored a little bit. Soon after, we got back in the car and headed for the park where we’d planned to set up camp.

That area is kind of funny; it was warm and pleasant (for February) in the city, but as we drove just a few miles and gained some elevation, it started snowing. This was back in the dark ages before everybody had GPS, so we weren’t as confident about our location as it’s easy to be today. The roads got smaller and snowier, and we had to drive slower to be safe.

As we passed signs confirming we were where we wanted to be, we started relaxing about being lost, but got a little intimidated by seeing white everywhere and knowing this was the environment we’d be sleeping in. We passed a little parking lot that said something about paying for a parking pass, but with all the stuff going on in our heads, we didn’t pay much attention to it, or figured we’d come back once we knew for sure we were in the right place. We got to the final parking lot before a locked gate barred any further vehicle passage, parked the car, and skied off into the forest for our winter camping adventure.

Fast forward a day or two, and we’d survived at least one frosty night in the snow. My buddy and I were back at the car in the parking lot, swapping out some gear or something. A park ranger was making the rounds in the parking lot. Seeing us, she came over with a big, bright smile, and we started chatting. The Winter Olympics were in town, which was why we had come. She wanted to hear about where we’d come from, what events we were going to see, and we swapped perspectives about some of the big news of the games so far. She was very personable, and thought what we were doing was really cool.

Eventually she took a look at the front of our car and didn’t see the parking pass that was supposed to be displayed on the dashboard. When she asked about it, we were forced to admit we hadn’t purchased one. She squinted her eyes shut and tossed her head back, as though she were saddened for us. “Oh, guys, come on!” She then performed her duty of writing us a citation, which I probably still have sitting around somewhere in the basement. I think she signed it Ranger Chen or something. She was perfectly willing to spend time being nice to us and chatting with us, but her cordiality didn’t supersede her authority and responsibility.

One of the conundrums non-Christians can fall victim to is some version of the idea that “if God’s all-knowing and knows my heart, he knows I’m a mostly good person, and even though I never ‘gave my heart to him’ or whatever, he must know that I would have if I had been presented with the choice.” I can see how that might make sense to them, but they’re looking at the picture without having all the information.

God is holiness personified. Holiness means “set apart.” He’s beholden to abide by the rules He Himself laid out. That means He can’t let unholiness exist in the glory of His presence. Someone who hasn’t accepted Christ as Savior does not have their sins blotted out, so their unholiness would be in danger of contaminating God’s holiness. Although God freely offers Christ’s righteousness to all, He can’t/won’t tolerate the unholiness of those who don’t accept it.

In His role of authority, God looks at those who don’t make the choice to follow Him and says “Guys, I love you, but you DO have to play by the rules. You ARE subject to the penalty associated with sin.” For every person who dies without accepting Christ, God hurts for their loss. I imagine He might toss His head back with eyes squinted shut, just like that park ranger, saying “Rrrrghh! Even after all the evidence I put in front of them!”

If you’re still breathing, you still have the opportunity to accept Christ as your savior. Don’t assume you’ll have time to think about it later, though. Every breath you take is a gift from the Lord, and you don’t know how many more you’ve got left. Take some time right now to consider what to do with the question of who Jesus Christ is.

Posted on

Sometimes You Just Need To Get Away From it all

After finishing college I moved back in with Mom and Dad for about a year and a half and worked in construction while I tried to figure out what to do with my life. During that time I helped out with the youth group in the church I’d attended since I was a kid.

One of the big events on the youth group’s calendar was a 4-day/3-night retreat over President’s Day weekend at a Christian conference center very close to the church. This particular retreat, dubbed “Winter Weekend,” was a popular one for the churches in our denomination’s district. Churches from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York sent kids from their youth groups to attend the gathering. I went along to serve as one of the guys’ counselors for our church’s group.

It was a good retreat. There were sports tournaments to compete in, along with a number of Bible sessions featuring praise and worship, and some small group time with just our church’s group. A lot of kids had an emotional encounter with Christ, and a number of them accepted Him as lord and savior of their lives.

About midway through the weekend, the question of weather began to become an issue. All the different churches’ groups were scheduled to depart Monday morning, but a significant snowstorm was on track to hit our area Sunday night and into the wee hours of Monday morning.

It wasn’t quite this bad, thankfully!

Leaders from the various groups collectively conferred with the conference center’s staff to figure out options, and each group decided what was best for their situation. A few of them made the difficult decision to leave early so they could beat the weather. Our group and a few others, on the other hand, decided to stay and ride out the storm, overstaying the scheduled end to the retreat in the process. Since the same storm that was about to hit us would also hit our home school district, we knew the local schools would be shut down for a bit. Our youth leader passed word to all the parents of the retreat’s attendees from our church, and let them know they could pick up their kids directly from the retreat as originally scheduled if they wanted, but otherwise we’d delay our return to the church by about 24 hours.

We went to bed Sunday night, and woke up to some heavy snow the next morning. The staff dug us out with snowblowers and plows, and the township and county began working to clear the local roads. One of my fellow counselors, who had attended Winter Weekend for years as a camper, talked excitedly about how it seemed like a dream come true…having a snowstorm strand us all together a little bit longer during a spiritual high. The cooks managed to cobble together three unplanned meals for us, the conference center managed to scrape up some staff to keep stuff open for a bunch of restless, hungry teens, and the various youth leaders and worship leaders called audibles for some unanticipated programming. It ended up being a very sweet time of togetherness, worship, and focus on the Lord.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but opportunities to extend a shared spiritual high don’t come along very often. It seems much more common to be hanging on for dear life as the world’s troubles relentlessly assail you, leaving you bruised and battered.

That’s what makes it all the more important to get a break in routine. Maybe you can’t manage a week-long, or even a weekend-long retreat, but it might be worth investigating anyway. There’s something about putting the normal distractions of life on hold while someone else pours into you spiritually. Does your church have a men’s or women’s retreat coming up? Maybe there’s an opportunity for you to do something along those lines this summer. Consider taking a closer look at those kinds of opportunities, because getting away from the normal routines and daily responsibilities for awhile can be incredibly revitalizing.

Posted on

When You Make the Easy Stuff Difficult

I was fortunate one summer during college to get a job working in the field of residential construction despite not having any experience. It was interesting work and taught me stuff I still use years later.

When you’re an entry-level guy on a construction crew, it’s no surprise that you get a lot of the jobs nobody else wants. Grunt work: carrying heavy stuff, doing the sweaty work out in the sun while everyone else is in the shade or air conditioning, etc. You get the idea.

One of the not-so-bad new guy chores was going on coffee runs. The first construction crew I worked on had a coffee break every morning, so whoever went on a coffee run would take coffee orders and pick up a box of donuts or something at a gas station in town.

There was only one problem. I didn’t (and still don’t) drink coffee, and it’s not a good idea to send a non-coffee drinker on coffee runs unless they know what they’re doing. And man, I did NOT know what I was doing.

The size of our crew varied, but in general there were anywhere from three to eight workers giving orders to the coffee runner. The only thing I could reliably deliver was the box of donuts.

“Yeah, get me a large coffee, light and sweet.” Okay, so that means cream and sugar. But how much cream and how much sugar? Is that like, half coffee and half milk? (That’s what “half and half” means, right?) I can get you a black coffee and grab the number of sugar packets you tell me to, but if I have to just dump in sugar, you might not like what I bring you. Powdered creamer…what the heck is that? Does that take the place of cream and sugar?

It wasn’t long before someone else started doing the coffee runs.

Admittedly, I could have done better with this task. “Hospitality” is not one of my gifts, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have tried harder. I think one thing that makes God smile is when you’re willing to take on a kingdom role totally outside your normal skillset. While it’s important to use the gifts God’s given you, it’s also important to be humble and reliant on Him. After all, successful use of your spiritual gifts could bring a degree of success that makes it easy for you to get a little too big for your britches. Floundering in something you’re a little less cut out for every now and then helps you keep some of that humility.

So use your spiritual gifts, and use them as best you can for God’s glory; just don’t limit yourself to the things you’re good at. Sometimes all God wants from you is a willing heart, regardless of how good (or bad) you might be at what He’s giving you to do.

Posted on

Faith Not Only Moves Mountains, it Moves Other People

Have you ever heard stories of someone’s faith inspiring others?

There’s a story in the Bible about the faith of a guy who probably wasn’t a believer, but was moved to action by someone else’s strong faith.

Acts chapter 27, verses 13-44 tell of when Paul was on his way to be tried in Rome. Along the way, the ship he was on (with 276 people aboard) got caught in a very strong, dangerous windstorm that blew the ship hopelessly off course. This late-season storm made even veteran sailors scared. These guys tossed cables and ropes around the underside of the boat to try to help hold it together. They threw extra cargo and gear overboard to make the ship lighter. Time dragged on, and after days without seeing the sun or any stars, they gave up all hope of living through the ordeal.

That’s when Paul, a passenger on this boat, bucks everyone up. He stands up in the midst of everyone and says “hey, we’re going to be okay. Last night an angel of the Lord visited me and told me what to expect; we’re going to lose the ship, but every last one of us is going to make it through this alive, as long as we all stay on the ship.”

This lifted everyone’s spirits, but there wasn’t any concrete action yet. Sailors taking depth soundings around midnight one night learned they were entering shallower and shallower water, and they dropped all kinds of anchors to slow their speed toward the shore. They were just hoping to survive until daylight. A few of the less scrupulous sailors aboard the ship prepared to use the ship’s skiff (dinghy) to pretend to assist with the anchors. In reality, they were going to ditch everyone else aboard and try to make for land in the little boat.

Here’s the remarkable part. Paul saw what they were up to, and told Julius, the Roman centurion in charge of the ship, “hey, if those guys leave, I can’t guarantee the lives of everyone else left aboard.” Julius, a professional career military man, with no hard evidence Paul was right, did something very uncharacteristic for a man of his position. He had his men intentionally cut the skiff’s ropes, so they purposely lost that asset to the storm!

What kind of craziness is that?! The smaller boat would be very valuable to have if a shipwreck really was forthcoming. The ship did run aground, and everybody got to land safely, but Julius had no way of knowing ahead of time Paul would be right. This guy was not a believer; he was merely inspired by Paul’s faith.

People want to hope; they’re looking for a reason and an outlet for it. Do you have the kind of faith that steels the confidence of others around you? It’s important not to make things up; Paul DID get a visit from an angel. Even if you don’t get similar visits, live your Christian faith in accordance with the Bible’s teachings in such a way that your belief in God’s promises motivates others to take a closer look at the faith you’ve got.

Posted on

Why Does This Whole Thing Seem so Familiar?

I don’t have a whole lot of free time, but when I do, sometimes I like to watch old TV shows. There’s a lot of demented stuff in today’s shows, or they find ways to ratchet up the tension so much there’s no way you’re going to sleep soon after watching it. With the old stuff, yes, there might be more plot holes, or the show was written for an audience with less access to information than today’s audiences, but there’s usually no problem falling asleep after (or even during) the show.

One of the old shows I watch is Magnum, P.I. (not the remake…the original 1980s Tom Selleck version). This is a show about Thomas Magnum, a former Navy SEAL doing freelance work as a Private Investigator in Hawaii. In the show he’s constantly bumming favors from his Vietnam buddies and rarely pays back what he owes them. He gets to enjoy the lavish accommodations, including the famous red Ferrari, of a famous author’s Hawaiian estate in return for providing security advice (much to the chagrin of the estate’s caretaker, Higgins). He’s often dealing with clients that can’t pay his full rate, getting cornered in an alley by some burly dudes that don’t like him snooping around, or trying to avoid Higgins’ pair of Dobermans.

As I watched one episode, there was something about the plot that seemed very familiar, like I’d seen it before. Every 4th of July, Magnum had a tradition of spending the day alone at sea in a little boat called a surf ski. (It’s kind of like a kayak, but it’s got an open top and is easier to fall out of.) While he was out at sea, a reckless boater got too close and capsized him. He got separated from the surf ski and paddle and got caught in one of the strong currents near the islands, and he ended up needing to tread water for like, 12 hours or something crazy like that. I didn’t remember what happened in the end, but I remembered that part of it.

It turns out Magnum, P.I. was a show my dad used to watch when I was a kid. Although I was a bit too young to watch the show when it originally aired, he must’ve been catching this one as a rerun while I was dawdling and trying to avoid going to bed one night. The thought of having to tread water for hours blew my mind as a young kid (and who knows…maybe it subconsciously had something to do with my becoming a lifeguard later), and left a strong-enough impression that I remembered it more than 35 years later.

You know, back before they had TV shows, and way back before paper was readily available, people had to rely on other means to pass down significant things from one generation to the next. The Old Testament Israelites, few of which could even read or write at an advanced level, used markers and oral tradition to keep alive the memory of God’s faithfulness to them. They’d build monuments to serve as reminders for times when God saved them from destruction, or recite the story of how the Lord liberated them from Egypt (the retelling of which is commanded in Exodus 13:3-10, and still today occurs at the Passover seder). Many of the Psalms themselves are written in ways that aid memorization; some Psalms have a verse starting with each successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Other Psalms are sung at specific times of the year to commemorate certain things.

Even though we currently have what seems like limitless information available at our fingertips, it’s important to remember and celebrate the information we already have. The Lord’s faithfulness to us is second to none, and His grace and mercy toward us far exceed anything we deserve. Despite the fact that we’re bombarded with more information per day than any generation in history, don’t forget the importance and relevance of God’s actions toward us all. It’s the most important and consequential thing you’ll ever hear about, so don’t forget it, and be sure to pass it on to those around you.

Posted on

Alright, it’s Time To Go; Everybody out the Door!

It’s funny just how much kids can teach you about God’s dealings with us.

I’ve got three kids; a girl, a boy, and another girl. They all have different approaches when they know it’s time to leave the house.

My oldest is very deliberate, and spends a lot of time planning to avoid feeling rushed. As long as she knows the departure time, she’ll work backwards from there to calculate time for clothes, time for hair, time for gathering necessities, etc.

My son doesn’t take much time to get ready. After years of urging him to prepare, get shoes on, and use the bathroom in preparation for departure, he’s demonstrated that as long as he knows what’s coming, there’s really no need to call him until we’re about 60 seconds from actually walking out the door.

My youngest is funny. We’ll warn her about our impending departure, but she’ll stay wrapped up in a book for as long as possible. When we tell her it’s time to get shoes on because we’re leaving, that’s when she goes and packs a snack and some water. We end up waiting for her because her idea of “time to go” doesn’t jive with ours.

Based on their three different personalities, we treat them differently when we know about a deadline or timeframe we want to adhere to. The three of them need different sets of guardrails to arrive at the same end state. Their approach might be to have all questions answered before formulating a detailed plan, agreeing to the task without having much information at all, or just bobbing along with whatever today brings.

Now, keeping that parenting analogy in mind, how great is it to be known by a Creator who understands us better than we do? He knows what motivates us, what overwhelms us, what inspires us, and what deflates us. He knows exactly what we need when it’s time to get us moving in a certain direction.

Similarly, we’re all offered different opportunities to take part in building Christ’s kingdom throughout our Christian lives. We’re not required to do them, but different sets of blessings and challenges come along with each one. God already knows which of those opportunities we’ll take part in and which of them we’ll decline. He offers us invitations that are easy to accept, and others which prove to be more difficult. I imagine that while He enjoys seeing us accept those easy ones, it brings Him genuine joy to see us choose to accept the hard ones.

So the next time you know God’s extending a challenge to you, even if it’s one you don’t want to accept, why don’t you take a closer look at taking Him up on it? He knows you better than you do, and He’s going to give you everything you need to take on that challenge. Either in this life or the next, there’s a special blessing for you on the other side of your obedience.

Posted on

Christmas is Over and now it’s Time To Pay the Piper

Christmas is over. Hopefully you were able to enjoy some time with loved ones. Now the other shoe drops, though. January heralds the arrival of the credit card bills.

There’s a reason stress levels are so high this time of year. The period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day is likely the period of highest spending during the whole year for most households. If you were able to sneak through December without dealing with many bills, January’s probably not going to be quite as kind to you. Depending on how much your spending increased during the Christmas season, those bills may put a major strain on your bank account.

Well I don’t have a way for you to make all those problems go away, but I might have something that can help take the sting out of it. For next Christmas, rather than running headlong into your bills using only your regular paycheck, it might help to save up for your Christmas expenses during the whole year. I bring this up now because you’ve got almost an entire year to prepare for the next Christmas. The priority, obviously, is to pay your bills from this Christmas, but if you’re done with that already, you may want to take a look at this strategy.

How much did you spend on this past Christmas? Add everything up. Include those gifts for friends and family that come to mind easily, but what about the less obvious things? Your list might include things like gifts for your kids’ teachers or members of the club you’re part of, white elephant gifts for parties at your work, end-of-year donations, etc. Don’t forget the extra electricity for decorations (indoor and outdoor), the higher electrical demands accompanying the hosting of guests, and additional heat during cold weather. Maybe you picked up some special booze as a Christmas treat. Did you have any extra out-to-eat occasions in late December? Did you have to travel somewhere (gas/tolls/tickets)? Add all of that to your list and tally it up.

After giving it a little thought, maybe that number is a little higher than you expected. Depending on your situation (mainly how many people you purchase gifts for and how extravagant your celebrations are), your total could be anywhere between $200 and $5000 or more. I’m not going to tell you what “right” is, but if you’re feeling pinched, maybe you can make an adjustment now to help prepare for the next round.

Take your total and divide it by the number of paychecks you get in a year. If you get paid every two weeks, you get 26 paychecks a year. If you get paid twice a month, that’s 24 paychecks. After dividing the total cost by the number of paychecks, whatever number you get, that’s the amount you’d need to save per paycheck to cover the same amount of expenses this coming Christmas. Wish you had a little more cash to cover this past December’s festivities? Boost that number a bit. If you did something out of the ordinary that you don’t plan on doing again, like a special trip, you can get away with saving less per paycheck to cover things next time.

Next, it’s a good idea to have a separate bank account for you to start stashing your “Christmas cash.” You could keep it all in your normal account and keep a running tally of how much of that money is set aside for December use, but unless you’re pretty diligent about keeping track of that sort of thing, it gets hard to distinguish how much of that money is just your normal account and how much of it has been set aside for specific use. That’s an easy way for the money to get sucked into other spending throughout the year. Setting up automated ways of funding this account every paycheck makes it easy for you to build your celebration fund without having to actively think about it during the year.

By way of example, if you’re paid every two weeks, $50 per paycheck is $1300 at the end of the year. If you go $60 per paycheck when you get paid twice a month, you’re looking at a total of $1440 by your last paycheck of the year. Even small additions can add up. At those two paycheck rates, saving $5 more each paycheck can mean a total of $120 or $130 more at the end of the year. By this point you probably already got your first paycheck of the new year. Even if you did, January’s still a great time to get started on setting up this kind of system with your bank, credit union, or section of the mattress where you stash your money.

Sacrificing that much per paycheck might be too much of a stretch. I totally understand that, but I’d also ask this…if that’s too much to set aside per paycheck, do you have a reliable plan for paying it off all at once if you don’t use a method like this? If for one reason or another this strategy isn’t going to work out for you, consider doing most of the year’s paychecks like this and taking a break when needed, or only saving half or two-thirds the amount per paycheck and coming up with the rest via whatever method you’ve been using. Either way will help cushion the blow if you’re not already doing something similar.

Posted on

Some Good News About Last Year and Some Hope for the Next One

Happy New Year!

It seems like January gives us hope for a better year ahead, but by the time we get to December, we’re worn out and tired. Well let me give you some good news about the year we just closed out.

A recent study of 2024 sales of print media showed that for the year, general sales were up approximately 1% compared to the previous year. At the same time, sales of Bibles were up over 20%!

I haven’t looked real deeply into the data, but it sounds to me like there’s no downside to this. I can’t claim anything for sure as a result of this one study, but I’d guess the whole “truth is relative” movement is losing some momentum as people look for something they can count on. While TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram can be fun for awhile, sooner or later people start to question the meaning of life. No matter what, the God-shaped hole in people’s souls needs to be filled, and people seem drawn to truth.

So there’s reason for optimism as we step further into this new year. Revival should always be our prayer. If you encounter someone new to reading the Bible, help them out a little bit. It’s not the most intuitive book to get started reading. Newcomers may not realize that starting at the beginning is actually starting at the VERY beginning. The really important stuff comes much later.

If you’re one of the people picking up a Bible for the first time and you’re unsure where to start, try the book of Matthew. It covers the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. (If you get done and move on to one of the next three books, don’t be surprised if it sounds familiar; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are four different accounts of much of the same material.) There are plenty of online study plans, but I can’t overemphasize the importance of getting some insight from a Bible-teaching church, especially from small group studies the church may sponsor.

As we get a new start on the calendar, let’s keep an eye out for opportunities where we can be used by the Lord in various capacities, both in ways we’re comfortable with and in ways that stretch us. Put those spiritual gifts to good use!

Lord, as we kick off a new year, help us strive to fulfill Your calling in each of our respective lives. As this hunger for truth grows within our culture, help those seekers find reliable, grounded followers to help guide them through Your word. Help us not only represent You well, but help us also be mentors for people new to the Bible. Aside from that, give us the courage we need to follow your leading in our lives; help us to actually become the men and women You put us here to be. May this new beginning encourage us to be bold as we pursue You, being willing to take the next step even when we don’t know where the journey will lead. Above all, may You be glorified through our actions. We know Your will shall be done with or without our permission, and we thank You for the invitation to be a part of Your work in this world. Forgive us when we let You down, and help us avoid wallowing in our mistakes, instead pressing on toward the life You’ve called us to. I ask these things in Your name, amen.

Posted on

If You Could Choose Anywhere and Any Time…

Imagine if you could choose where, when, and under what circumstances you were born. If you’re perfectly fine with how things worked out for you, that’s great, I’m not trying to make you unhappy with your upbringing. But think of the possibilities. Many people would probably choose to be born to rich parents, or maybe to royalty, or if nothing else, in a nicer climate or better location than where you started out.

Of course, we have no way of choosing where or when we’ll be born, our ancestral lineage, or the circumstances of our birth. It’s something we all accept as being beyond our control. That’s what makes it so hard-hitting when we look at Old Testament scriptures to see “before-it-happens” predictions of where and how the Messiah would be born. There are a number of Bible verses describing the coming Christ’s future birth:  

Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Genesis 49:10 – The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

Micah 5:2 – But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

Isaiah 11:1 – There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

Now aside from the virgin birth part of it, I can see how a skeptic might say “well, okay, but if you make enough predictions, you’re bound to get something right.” You know what? I agree with that. Here’s the thing, though. The verses listed so far only pertain to Christ’s birth. When you add in predictions about the Messiah’s demeanor, about His riding on a foal, that He never suffers a broken bone, the nature of His death, etc., you start really narrowing the possibilities down in a way that excludes random chance. While it might be possible to fulfill a few of them by chance, things start to get mind-blowing when someone comes along and fulfills all of them.

I heard somewhere that the odds of anyone fulfilling all the prophecies related to the Christ were fewer than one in 80 billion. I think we get desensitized from movies about how astronomically unlikely it is to overcome such odds. The computer virus gets beaten. Han Solo successfully navigates the asteroid field. Tom Cruise saves the day. Let’s bring this a little closer to real life. The odds of winning the MegaMillions lottery earlier this week were a little better than 1 in 303 million. If those odds remained the same from drawing to drawing, you’d hit the MegaMillions jackpot over 260 times before reaching the same level of likelihood as a single individual fulfilling all those messianic prophecies.

Even if you don’t believe in God, you’ve got to admit there’s something a little unusual about that. The inference is that Jesus Christ is the predicted Messiah. If that’s true, it has massive implications for you and for everyone you hold dear. Why don’t you take a closer look into it?

Posted on

Veterans and the Christian Life

After I left the Air Force, I spent some time as a contractor working for the Department of Defense. The DoD is a lot more than just people in military uniforms. There are also government civilians and government contractors. (Military members normally move around to different assignments every few years, so government civilians are there longer term to provide continuity. Government contractors are more of the “hired muscle” who bring specialized skills, highly sought-after knowledge, and/or certain kinds of experience.)

As you might imagine, many of the folks working as civilians or contractors in the DoD are veterans. I’ve met men and women who have seen or done all kinds of amazing things. I’ve heard some of them tell stories that left my jaw on the floor. Sometimes it seems like they survived epic events by pure luck. Other times they displayed true heroism. I’ve met a lot of people who spent a great deal of time stationed underground in a missile silo, ready for the command to launch a nuclear strike. I knew a guy who, years ago, witnessed a car careen off the road into a canal, jumped in and dove to the bottom, waited for the car to fill with water so the pressure equalized, then opened the door and pulled the lady out to safety. I’ve known people who disarmed or intentionally detonated explosive devices. I know a dude who parachuted into Area 51. I met someone who used to take apart and put back together portions of nuclear weapons. I met a guy who was portrayed in the movie “Blackhawk Down.” I once worked with two guys who initially met when they were engaged in a firefight…against each other.

One of the fun things about working in an office environment with a bunch of veterans is that, even when the stress factor gets cranked way up, many of them keep their cool. When the tempo really picks up and deadlines loom, they move as fast as they need to, but they don’t seem perturbed. I heard someone explain why once. “I’ve been shot at. This ain’t stressful.”

It’s nice to work with people that have such a clear view of what’s important and what’s not.

It got me thinking, though. Christians should have a similar mindset, shouldn’t they?

What if we looked at it this way? We’ve been rescued from a destiny of eternal condemnation. We make mistakes over and over again, yet always receive forgiveness when we’re truly sorry. We have the opportunity to share this life-giving miracle with others. We serve the universe’s King. Our Lord empowers us to do things we can’t even anticipate. He protects us from eventualities that are not assigned to the same future as us.

It’s December. In many ways, this is the busiest, and most stressful, time of the year. Remember why we really celebrate Christmas. It’s because we take time to remember the event that changed history forever, and was the beginning of the end for Satan’s reign on Earth. If you’re a Christ follower, you’ve been saved from an eternity of suffering, so don’t sweat the small stuff. “I’ve been condemned to, then rescued from, Hell. This ain’t stressful.”