Author: Tim

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It’s Just a Little Trick, But it Works Really Well Against Us

Here’s a little trick the devil likes to use on a lot of folks. The reason he uses it frequently on people is because, unfortunately, it’s so effective at hamstringing them.

Have you ever noticed how you keep remembering examples of your own character failures, even long after they occurred? Letting people down, perhaps, or letting yourself down, or even going left when you should’ve gone right…all sorts of things that you should have been able to shake from your memory by now, but haven’t. Why can’t you move on from these failures?

You can’t forget them because fallen angels are constantly reminding you about them.

You see, what Satan and his forces are constantly doing is reminding you of things God’s already forgotten. You are human. You make mistakes. You ask forgiveness for those mistakes, you learn the lesson, you deal with the consequences, and you move on. When you’re living your life for Christ and things are going well, these little reminders get whispered into your ear. When you turn inward and withdraw from others, they’re also whispered into your ear.

Why? Why would the Lord’s enemy want God’s followers downcast and morose? Quite simply, to make you less effective as a Christ-follower. Joy is one of the Fruits of the Spirit. Robbing you of it makes the Spirit appear less powerful, even though it’s not true. It also hurts your testimony. The nagging thoughts of failure or regret are intentionally placed in your mind to pull you off your spiritual “A Game” and keep you huddled in the corner.

Focus instead on the truth: if Christ is your Savior, you’re a child of the living God. You’re forgiven. Those infractions are blotted out in Christ’s book. It’s time to look toward the future, not the past. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can achieve unbelievable things, either to impact the Kingdom of God or for God’s sheer enjoyment of seeing somebody He created do exactly what they were created to do.

Learn from your mistakes, but don’t dwell on them. As the last few grains of sand slip through the hourglass of your life, your goal should be to have no potential remaining. The Lord created us with a lot of potential; don’t let yourself become self-limiting.

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Beware The Shifting Sands of Situational Ethics

Personnel issues in the military can be funny things. The military is usually trying to either grow or shrink the number of troops it’s got in its ranks. Depending on the prevailing environment, a kick-you-out infraction may not always mean you get kicked out.

For example, I joined the Air Force in the 2003/2004 timeframe. We had heavy commitments in both Afghanistan and Iraq at the time. Even though it was an era of high patriotism in the nation (just a couple years after 9/11), the various branches of the military began having trouble recruiting enough folks to maintain troop levels.

During “shrink the force” environments, the brass makes it easy to kick people out. If you get a DUI during such a time, for example, you just gave your leadership everything it needs to discharge you. Instead of getting three strikes, you might only get one. On the flip side, when the military’s trying to keep everyone it has and is still losing numbers from casualties and natural attrition, you might get six or seven strikes and still be okay.

I forget this one guy’s first name, but I’ll call him Rodney. Rodney had a big mouth and a bad attitude. He had skills in what we were training for, but the guy just kept getting in trouble for one thing after another. I’m not sure which straw broke the camel’s back, but our leadership decided they’d rather try to reform him than lose him, so they sent him to corrective custody. Corrective custody is probably best described as being a combination of basic training and some kind of prison. For example, you could go to the bathroom, but you had to ask permission, and permission had to be granted in, like, half a dozen steps or something like that. If you didn’t do things according to the way you were instructed, you ain’t makin’ it to the latrine in time.

When Rodney came back from corrective custody, it was “yes, Sir,” “no, Sir,” and “please and thank you, Sir.”

Thinking back to those days, it might be a little extreme to say it this way, but there were some pretty worthless human beings in the military at the time. You hear stories about people that are problematic during times of peace, yet are absolute heroes under fire, and those are cool stories, but sometimes you’ve just got people that are fulltime sandbags and oxygen thieves. Rodney was on the shiny side of borderline, but it was good enough for leadership to say “let’s try to get him where he needs to be.”

Now imagine someone with a love so unfathomable, so bottomless, that He says “I’m willing to die for the benefit of all those sandbags and oxygen thieves.” Unbelievably, that same someone knows full well “yes, most of them will reject what I offer them,” but died on their behalf all the same! What kind of love is this?

This is the love that Jesus Christ, the one and only son of God, extends to all of us. All of us were born into a world of sin, separated from God and Heaven by our imperfection. The sinless Christ, both fully God and fully man, died on our behalf to bridge the gap we can’t cross on our own. He presented Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father, once and for all creating a pathway to the Lord’s presence for us sinners. That pathway runs through Jesus Christ alone, and He offers it to all of us, regardless of our “worthiness.” We’re all unworthy. Yet due to that matchless love, we’re all invited. Won’t you accept His invitation?

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It’s Nice To Have Some Guiding Principles

Every August for the past 9 years, I’ve been virtually attending a two-day leadership conference. I’ve listened to talks from all sorts of performance experts, team builders, authorities on communication, generational specialists, and leaders from the commercial, government, and religious sectors. The conference’s whole mindset is that anyone who possesses influence is a leader. That includes most people on the planet. Building on that theme, the conference also embraces the notion “everyone wins when leaders get better.”

Going back through my notes from those past years, here are some of the main “bumper sticker” points I came away with. Not all of these are easy to remember, but I hope you can apply at least a few of them in your own situations, whether they’re professional or personal contexts. It’s also helpful to review this list from time to time. I’ll add a little note here that this is an annual conference sponsored by a religious organization; while I recognize not everyone reading this is religious, you can still walk away with a lot of good stuff here. Feel free to comment on any items here that really hit home for you.

You get more of what you tolerate. The things you accept are what you’ll get more of.

Leaders add value to people.

Courage is the 20-second sprint. Tenacity is the 4-hour marathon.

Success isn’t about talent; it’s about drive.

Your life moves in the direction of your strongest thoughts. “What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.” -Muhammad Ali

Busy leaders don’t change the world; focused leaders do. Don’t be afraid to say “no” to things that distract you from your mission. (Build your own “To Don’t” list: “I won’t do X until I complete Y.”)

Conformity is the quickest path to mediocrity. Greatness is born in the extremes.

Appreciate people more than you think you should, then double that amount (and then round up). Good leaders make you think they are important. Great leaders make you believe YOU are important.

When God gives a challenge to you and nobody else, don’t be surprised when nobody else understands it.

Apathy makes excuses. Obsession finds a way. “Good” requires motivation. “Great” requires obsession.

This is only the middle of the story. Whether good or bad, look ahead to what’s still coming.

Great leaders don’t cast blame, they take responsibility.

The pathway to your greatest potential often goes through your greatest fear. The difference between where you are and where you could be is the painful decision you’re unwilling to make.

The amount of busy work always expands to fill the amount of time you allot for it.

“Multiply your time” by giving yourself permission to spend time on things today that will give you more time tomorrow. Automation is to your time what compound interest is to your money. Institute the “30 times” rule – Be willing to spend up to 30 times the amount of time it takes to perform a task on actually training someone else to perform it for you. For a 5-minute task, be willing to spend up to 150 minutes to fully train them on it. It will pay you back in the long run.

If you don’t answer God’s call, He’ll call someone else. You already have everything you need to start doing what you’ve been called to do.

“Priming” people has a way of generating the outcome you want. Keep telling students they’re smart and they’ll perform better on tests. Keep telling people they’re polite and they’ll interrupt less.

When doing great things, anticipate hardship. Everything worthwhile is uphill. If you’re holding the football, you’re going to get tackled.

People can handle change; it’s the uncertainty they have a hard time with. Tell them what to expect. People will follow you if you paint a vivid picture of what’s coming.

There are six qualities needed to lead well through a crisis: Intelligence, Curiosity, Humility, Resilience, Empathy, and Integrity

Holding grudges is a form of arrested development. Learn from the past, but don’t let it control you.

Everyone draws criticism; decide what trait/characteristic you’re most willing to be criticized for, and lean into it.

Just because someone’s wrong in your eyes doesn’t mean they’re worthless.

When things are uncertain, what’s most important to you becomes clear.

Comfort and safety are enemies of success.

A desire to fit in can harm your authenticity. Own what makes you authentic. Contrast, rather than compare, yourself to others.

Bad behavior is an unskilled expression of an unmet need.

Discipline is choosing what you want most over choosing what you want now.

When disagreement surfaces, progress with humility.

Don’t take your gifts to Heaven; Heaven doesn’t need them.

It’s not the leader’s job to innovate; their job is to create the conditions that allow great innovations to happen.

People are impressed with your strengths, but they connect with your weaknesses. Be transparent.

It’s not what you do occasionally that matters, the things you do consistently matter.

“Good enough” is the enemy of game-changers, but know when “good” is “good enough to move on.” Pursuit of excellence will motivate you, but pursuit of perfection will limit you.

You may be disappointed if you trust too much, but you’ll limit your leadership if you don’t trust enough.

Poor performance is especially contagious. The best predictor of a team’s success is not the best performer or the average performer, but the bottom performer.

Loss of trust happens fast. Gossip destroys trust, and people take notice if you, as a leader, are engaging in it.

Condoleeza Rice on life in DC: “Everything’s always nuclear war. In reality, sometimes it’s just paper clips.”

Foster an open, no-blame culture. This environment creates openness and a willingness to own mistakes.

Battle complacency. Pick your counterpart on a rival team and do your job better than they do theirs.

Dominate via the aggregation of marginal gains. Make multiple 1% improvements to the enterprise. No aspect of the process is too small to improve on. You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.

When building new habits from scratch, use the 2-minute rule. Habits must be established before they can be improved upon. When starting from nothing, don’t do anything for longer than 2 minutes. “Showing up” gets habitual, and from there you can improve the quality of the habit.

Rejection is sometimes God’s protection. God: “You’re not rejected; I just hid your value from them because they have no part in the destiny I’m assigning you.”

Look for these things in the people you’re going to trust, and be them for the people you’re asking to trust you:

  1. Empathy: We trust someone when we feel they understand us. We need to feel understood before we give trust.
  2. Motive: You sense people’s motives and feel suspicious when you think their motive isn’t in your own interest.
  3. Ability: Do they have it within themselves to execute the thing I’m trusting them to do?
  4. Character/Composition: Not all character strengths are appropriate all the time. You don’t call a SEAL when your aunt gets cancer, and you don’t need a book club friend when it’s time to reach down deep for a big personal challenge. Displaying the right strength at the right time is important.
  5. Track record: What’s their history look like? Forgiveness is free, but trust is earned.

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care…about them.

Just because I’m right doesn’t mean you’re wrong (and vice versa).

You can’t use your long-past experience as a 25-year-old to relate to today’s 25-year-olds. Times are vastly different.

Remember the power of “yet.” Consider “I’m not good at this” vs. “I’m not good at this…yet.”

Communicate enough that everyone on the team understands the vision and can contribute their own version of excellence. The goal is bounded autonomy.

You are more than the worst thing that ever happened to you. So are your teammates.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming all your thoughts are correct. Have the humility to challenge your own assumptions.

There’s a level of psychological safety necessary for high-performance teams. On those teams, you can ask questions, suggest new ideas, and admit when you’re wrong without the team treating you unkindly.

You only get to fix mistakes you take ownership of.

Self-awareness leads to “others awareness.”

Solid Emotional Intelligence comes from mastery of these four progressive skills:

  1. Self-awareness – Recognizing your emotions and being prepared to react to them
  2. Self-management – Using this awareness to produce the outcome you want
  3. Social awareness – Recognizing and understanding the emotions and perspectives of others
  4. Relationship management – Using awareness of yours plus others’ emotions to manage interactions

There will always be more good ideas than there will be capacity to execute. Learn how to say “no” to the things that don’t contribute to the team’s goals.

People who have enjoyed working for a given leader have usually felt valued, inspired, and empowered. Seek to provide those things to the people under or around you.

When you delegate tasks, you create followers. When you delegate authority, you create leaders.

You have your own recipe for success, so stop trying to steal someone else’s. Don’t become someone else at the expense of who you are. Be you and don’t be sorry about it.

Impressing someone is not the same as connecting with them.

It’s not your job to feed the 5000; it’s your job to provide the loaves and fish.

Which of these stuck out to you? Did any of them hit a little too close to home?

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Every Christian Generation Thinks It Could Be the Last One

Ever wonder why God leaves things murky when it comes to the timing of the Rapture, the Tribulation, and other aspects of the End Times? I mean, we know some of the sequencing of that stuff, but we don’t know the year, decade, or century it’s supposed to happen. We’ve struggled with this for almost 2,000 years. Why do you think that is?

All scripture is God-inspired, so we can be assured that even though imperfect men wrote it, it includes the information, even the specific words, God wanted to show up in scripture. One of the most vague choices is the way timing-related words get employed.

Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. Revelation 22:12

On occasions like this, it can be frustrating to have a different definition of words like “soon” than the Lord does. Was He intentionally misleading us when these scriptures were first recorded? I don’t think so. God may give scant details sometimes, but I don’t seen Him as intentionally misleading.

The Son of Man will come at an hour

when you do not expect Him.

Matthew 24:44

Consider, for example, how your decisions might change if you believed something was imminent. If you knew you had three weeks to live, would you do anything differently? You’d adjust your decisions accordingly; you’d prioritize what was really important in life, wouldn’t you? It shifts your mindset from a marathon to a sprint. Why? So you drop the distractions. So you live well. Scripture hints at this mentality and lifestyle:

The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. 1 Peter 4:7

I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Revelation 3:11

I think the Holy Spirit left this ambiguity in scripture because He wants every generation to be ready. Readiness and a watchful state of alertness are what He wants from us. Believing time is short helps facilitate this mindset.

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The Difference Between Good and Great

As an enlisted troop in the Air Force, I picked up on some of the nuances of performance appraisals from a friendly Captain. I’m not sure how much things have changed since then, but at the time, it seemed customary to not say anything bad about the person being evaluated.

How do you distinguish between a troop that’s outstanding and a troop that’s sub-par? According to this Captain, it was all in the nuance.

“If you’ve got a troop who’s absolutely amazing, can do no wrong, and you think should be promoted immediately, you say things like ‘they walk on water,’ or ‘they stand head and shoulders above the rest.’ If, on the other hand, you’ve got somebody who still needs to do some learning, you talk about how much ‘potential’ they have.”

I protested a bit. “But isn’t ‘potential’ a good thing?”

“It is, but it means it’s not yet realized. ‘Potential’ refers to untapped talent that has yet to be harnessed.”

I was thankful for this little glimpse into the art of politely distinguishing between the skill levels of subordinates, and in a way, I believe it applies to Christ-followers today. You see, at the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual gifts to Believers. He calls us to use those gifts for His glory, but He doesn’t often compel us to use them. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, our potential as Christians is absolutely through the roof, and we each individually decide how much we want to allow God to have His way in our lives. The more the better, as we’ll see when we get that final performance appraisal from the Lord.

(As far as I know, Simon Peter is the only guy other than Jesus who could have a performance appraisal claiming a literal ability to “walk on water,” at least for a little while.)

It’s not possible for us to be “too” good at using those spiritual gifts. Don’t worry, God will put a cap on what He wants out of our employment of those gifts. It’s the minimum ability we should be focused on. Our goal? By the time we take our last breath, we should have no remaining untapped potential to use our spiritual gifts.

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What if You Got To Choose Your Own Reward?

There’s a story in the Old Testament we’ve probably all heard before as kids. A destitute widow and her two sons had no money to pay off their debts, and creditors were about to come take possession of her sons and put them to work as slaves. Desperate, she came to Elisha, a prophet of God, and asked him for help.

If you haven’t heard the story before, the text is down below. What I’d like to highlight is the way God allows the widow to choose the magnitude of response. At least in this case, when God chose to intervene in the widow’s life, He essentially wrote her a blank check. The catch is that His answer hinged on how far she was willing to go in her obedience to Him.

The level of the widow’s obedience in this case directly affected the degree of the Lord’s response. In a sense, she got to choose the extent of her own blessing. Elisha told her to collect lots of empty jars from neighbors and friends, then fill them all from the single jar of oil she still had at home. She could have very well rolled her eyes and said “yeah, okay” when Elisha told her what to do. “Sure, I’ve got two or three empty jars at home; I think I’ll just use them and not bother any of the neighbors.” Imagine how disappointed she would have been if that’s all she did. The text doesn’t actually say how fervently she went from house to house looking for additional empty jars, but she probably would’ve tried a little harder if she knew for a fact what was going to take place, don’t you think?

Someday you and the Lord are going to look back on your life to take a look at just how closely you obeyed His commands and calling. He’s going to reward you based on what He sees (Matt. 16:27, Rev. 22:12). With this in mind, will you be satisfied with the level of dedication you’re currently using to serve God, or will you wish you had put in the extra effort to find a few more empty jars?

2 Kings 4:1-7

4 A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.”

2 So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”

3 Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few. 4 And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.”

5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. 6 Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.”

And he said to her, “There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased. 7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.”

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You Never Know if the Sunrise You’re Seeing is Your Last One

My family was recently driving along when we encountered a dangerous situation. We passed through an intersection just as a four-car accident occurred. We weren’t involved, thankfully, but it’s not often you’re so close as something so serious happens.

Without getting into drawing pictures, there were two cars waiting in the turn lane to turn right, when a third car came up behind them and slammed into one of the cars. There was a screech of brakes right before it happened, but the car was going pretty fast, and still hit the car in front of it probably between 20 and 30 mph. The car that got hit had its back end picked up and tossed, and the offending vehicle spun a bit too, and ended up striking a car in the next lane. The vehicle that got hit hard struck the vehicle in front of it. This all happened as our family was approaching the intersection from the opposite direction, turning left and driving directly in front of where all the cars were pointing; those lanes of traffic were at a red light as our family crossed in front of them.

We were in a position to quickly get to each of the vehicles, so we stopped and my wife and I got out; we were the first people on the scene who were not involved in the mishap. Two of the cars’ occupants were totally fine (and one of them was already talking with 911 and checking on the people in the other cars). The guy in the offending vehicle seemed okay, but he was kind of acting in ways that didn’t make sense, like he was disoriented. I don’t know if that had any bearing on his failure to slow down in time, but by the time I got close to him he had been through an impact, the car’s airbags had gone off, and the car was facing a different direction than when he last had control of it, so that could have altered his mental state.

The last vehicle, the one who got hit hard from behind, had a driver inside who was hurting pretty bad. He stayed inside the car for awhile, writhing in pain. The guy on the phone with 911 was in there with him. The hurt dude stayed in his seat for a bit, but eventually decided to get out of the car. I should have tried to get him to stay in the vehicle. He struggled to stand on his own, so I helped him over to the grass, where he laid down and rolled around on the ground, his back and neck in serious pain. Thankfully it didn’t take long for fire, police, and ambulance to arrive on the scene. I have no idea what became of any of those folks, but that one guy’s going to be hurting for a long time, and may never walk without pain again.

This isn’t my first run-in with situations requiring emergency services. I can’t tell you why, but God has inserted me in a number of crisis situations where somebody called 911. I’ve already written about several of them (bakery blackout, swing swim, father-in-law fiasco, and highway hazard), and there’s at least one or two more I haven’t posted. Sometimes I’m the first person to arrive, other times I’m just another person able to be there to lend a hand. I haven’t been certified in any kind of CPR or first aid for about 20 years. I’m just an ordinary guy. Why does God keep steering me toward these predicaments? I have no idea. I can ask Him one day, but for now I just roll with it.

I wasn’t really sure which direction to take this post. I just wanted to write about an out-of-the-norm event that happened, but I’ll add some observations for you in the event you find yourself in a similar situation, where you might be able to help somebody’s bad day from being worse.

First and foremost, if you arrive on the scene of an emergency situation, make sure somebody has called 911. In scenarios where seconds count, minutes can seem like an eternity, so ensure those wheels have been set in motion. If you’re the one that calls 911, tell them your location and what kind of services you need so they can get the right people moving your way, and then fill in the details. Secondly, make sure you’re not going to make the situation worse by inserting yourself into it. It’s one thing to deal with an acceptable level of risk, but it’s another to recklessly complicate the situation for the trained responders. Only step in if you’re going to make things better. When first responders arrive, get out of their way.

In talking to other people who deal with a lot of emergency situations, I certainly haven’t seen it all, and there’s a lot I haven’t had to deal with. I have, however, noticed that there are a few reactions people commonly have when you show up at a time of great uncertainty. Here are a few I’ve noticed.

  1. Some people are glad they’re no longer alone in facing their crisis. While it’s certainly nice if you know what you’re doing, sometimes they’re just so glad not to be alone that they don’t really care how helpful you can be. A little human warmth and compassion is a powerful force in shaping these folks’ outlook, so if there’s no immediate danger, that may be your best bet.
  2. Other times people are so keyed up and full of adrenaline, they start doing something just for the sake of keeping busy, even if it doesn’t make sense. I’m sure EMTs can tell plenty of stories about showing up at someone’s house to see someone laying on the floor having a major problem while someone else in the house is organizing spices or sorting papers or something. You can help the situation by providing structure during times like these. If they’re obsessing in a way that’s counterproductive or that’s going to get in the way, give them a job that removes them from the picture. “Call 911 and tell them you need an ambulance at (insert address/location).” “Go wait for the ambulance and guide them in here.” “Go make sure the kids are okay and they don’t wander off.” “Help with crowd control.” “Write down a list of medications this person’s on.” Pointing someone in a purposeful direction by giving them something useful to do can make a difference when time is a factor.
  3. Confusion and/or disorientation. Harrowing ordeals have a way of disrupting your brain’s ability to think rationally. Peoples’ threshold for this varies widely; you’d be surprised at how easily this can occur. On the flip side, sometimes you meet people that don’t seem fazed by anything. Regardless of what type they are, just try to make sure they’re safe and keep them from wandering off until first responders arrive.
  4. The emotional and mental processing start to resolve themselves. You can often see people start to become overwhelmed when they realize what almost happened. They may be totally safe after a near-miss, but the adrenaline kicks in and there’s nothing for it to help with, so peoples’ muscles start trembling or they need to pace. You can talk in soothing tones and all that, but the adrenaline just needs to get burned off. It gets awkward sometimes. They’ll usually be pretty tired when it’s over.
  5. Recounting what happened. I’ve seen and done lots of high-risk stuff, so I understand the desire to tell someone all about what took place. Not everyone realizes it should wait until after everybody involved is medically stable, though. Subtle hints usually don’t work during times like this, so you might need to be a little direct in telling people to pipe down while you focus on more important things.

Well hopefully you’ll never need to call 911 or encounter an emergency situation, but if you do, remember these things: Make sure help’s on the way first. Then make sure it’s safe for you to enter the scene. After that, use your best judgment on how to make the most serious thing less serious. Finally, help in whatever way seems best, but make sure you’re not getting in the way when the professionals arrive.

Lord, we live in a broken world, and sometimes that fact becomes painfully obvious. If you call upon any of us to take part in any sort of crisis situation, please give us clarity of thought, excellent judgment, and supernatural wisdom to recognize what actions we should and should not take. Let us be your hands and feet, along with a ray of hope, to someone whose day just took a turn for the worse. I ask in Your name, amen.

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We Went Back to Where it all Began

A couple years ago I wrote about an earlier time when two of my kids played tee ball. Man, if you’re competitive when it comes to sports, or you generally enjoy competence, you probably want to stay away from watching tee-ball games.

These days my two kids who were in tee ball are about 10 years older than when they played the sport. My son is old enough to get a job now, and this past weekend I went with him and my younger daughter to a little league complex so he could earn some cash on opening day.

We dropped him off so he could do his thing, and my daughter and I headed into the bleachers to kill some time watching a tee-ball game while we waited. (If you decide to read my previous tee-ball post, this is the same daughter who got antsy in the stroller and I took her walking around during the games.)

When I had kids playing in a tee-ball game, it was a disaster. The kids kinda had fun, but it was hard for me to watch for some reason. This time around was different, though. The game was still a disaster for sure, but it was much more fun to watch. My daughter and I had a good time being spectators.

The second baseman still stood around picking his nose. The whole team still swarmed to (and sometimes fought over) the ball anytime there was a hit. There were still sometimes two runners on the same base. For the kids, the highlight of the experience was still having team snacks after the game.

Why the difference in perspective? I think maybe it’s because none of my kids were out there, looking like they couldn’t find their way out of a wet paper bag. I can only surmise the first time around was so frustrating for me because my kids’ team couldn’t function, but this time was a hoot because I wasn’t invested in either team and I was able to just watch and enjoy the chaos. My daughter and I sat in the bleachers, laughing at the cuteness and abject comedy on display out on the field. They were a funny bunch, and they didn’t care that they didn’t know what a good play looked like.

In your life, have you walked away from serving God in the past because it was somehow too aggravating or frustrating for you to be a part of? Maybe it’s time to give it another shot. Just because it was hard for you back then doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same today. If it is, maybe now you’re better equipped to handle it. Try doing a little reintroduction to using your gifts for God’s glory. He gave you this talent for a reason; you might find this time around is much different.

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You Don’t HAVE A Soul, You ARE A Soul. You HAVE A Body.

I’m at the age now where I’m too old to do all the things I used to be able to do, but I’m not old enough to realize I should sometimes skip the attempt. I think it’s safe to say it’s a little late for me to start thinking about a career as a professional athlete.

The kids are getting quicker and I’m getting slower. Injuries and sore muscles take longer to overcome. I rest a little longer between sets when working out. I could push through the pain, but these days I put a lot more thought into whether or not that’s a good idea. It feels like every year gets a little shorter than the last one. In my mind I’m still in my mid-twenties, but the aches and stiffness in my joints tell a very different story. I blinked and it’s twenty years later.

I share this because I want to emphasize to you the idea that our time here is short. For our lives to have an eternal impact, we have to be doing productive things in the here and now, and the here and now is quickly passing us by. That means our time is precious and should be filled with purpose. Here on Earth, we’ve only got one lifetime to make a difference for those not currently headed to Heaven. Eternity hangs in the balance, and the stakes are the highest they could possibly be.

Got time for two and a half minutes of Christian motivation? Here’s one of my favorite quotes from this clip I hope you check out. “My life is too valuable, my calling too great, my God too good, to waste my life on things that do not last.”

Time is short. Live with a sense of urgency and intentionality. You have ONE life during which to make an eternal impact.

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Sometimes You Realize too Late You Pushed Things too far

If you’re a long-time reader, you may know there’ve been times in my life where God’s been very gracious in assigning me guardian angels that were really on the ball.

In high school I got into rappelling. It was lots of fun, and I looked for different places and opportunities to do it. I got to zip down the elevator shaft of a building under construction, repeatedly jump off an old antenna tower, and even descend onto a stage in front of a live audience while upside-down a couple of times.

One of the first times I volunteered to use this “talent” for something other than myself was for a video advertisement for a youth group fundraiser we were hosting at our church. I worked with a guy that agreed to film it, and we went to a multi-purpose room/auditorium nearby to make the ad. The place had a drop ceiling with those Styrofoam-like tiles, and I was going to pop down out of it, look around, and say something like “hey, anyone know where the spaghetti dinner is?” (I think the premise was that if it had something cool like rappelling, it didn’t need to make any sense.)

I’m pretty sure at that point I hadn’t yet done anything complex when it came to rappelling. It was mostly out of trees or off something pretty straightforward. Here I had to climb up into the drop ceiling, hunch over and scoot along the wooden planks and steel trusses in a crawlspace that was probably only about 3 feet high while dragging my gear along, then crouch uncomfortably and try to avoid muscle spasms while I set the anchors and figured out how to safely fall through a two-foot by two-foot opening when my rappelling profile was much larger than two feet.

I didn’t really think about it much at the time, but it turns out this was remarkably dangerous, especially for someone so inexperienced. If my present-day self could communicate with my then-self, there’d likely be some yelling about the bone-headed, unnecessarily risky nature of it all. I was probably 15 or 16, clambering along the framework of the roof probably 25-30 feet above a concrete floor. I’d seen the floor view of the drop ceiling lots of times before, but it was all dark and dusty up above, and the tiles hid the fact that it was a long way down. Up in the ceiling there were very few safe places to stop and rest; if a foot or hand slipped and I fell, those thin little tiles were nowhere near strong enough to catch me. While scooting out to where I wanted to be, I couldn’t see the danger, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

The fact that I couldn’t see the floor way down below helped mask just how dangerous the situation was. It was still crazy unsafe (even foolish) for me to do what I was doing, but since the drop ceiling was only a foot or two beneath my feet, it made me feel more comfortable than I should have. I was hunched over or crouched for extended periods, sweat beading up on my forehead, with no safety attachments as I scrambled along. If the ceiling had been open and I had seen how high I was, in addition to the struggles I was dealing with, I probably would have had the good sense to say “ehhhh, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

Being ignorant of danger doesn’t make us any safer. I wonder how many of us are dealing with very dangerous things, either knowingly or unknowingly, that could have a serious impact on our spiritual lives, the relationships we hold dear, or some other aspect of our lives. Maybe there’s something you’re doing that “isn’t going to hurt anybody,” or “isn’t as bad as the thing what’s-her-name is doing,” but you know it’s not something the Lord would approve of. I pray you’d see and become fully aware of the danger it poses (whether spiritually, physically, or otherwise), and have the good sense you need to make the right choice about continuing to engage in such things.

Lord, we all have blind spots in our lives. I ask that You’d highlight the things we’re doing or not doing in our lives which we should re-evaluate, and please give us the sense to make choices removing us from danger we would have otherwise brought on ourselves. These things I ask in Your name, Amen.