Author: Tim

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So Many Sides to the Same Person

When I was in middle school I had this teacher named Mr. Levine (leh-veen). Mr. Levine was a retired Marine. To a seventh grader he was pretty intimidating; he obviously spent a good amount of time in the weight room, and he sounded like he had the type of voice that had been damaged from a lot of yelling while he was in the Corps. He had a big hairdo and a Magnum P.I. mustache. He even made it into a terrible Sylvester Stallone movie in some b-roll footage of an arm-wrestling tournament. He had a copy of the movie (“Over the Top”) in his desk that we were occasionally able to coax him into playing for us. (Who doesn’t love movies where a trucker gets to arm wrestle for custody of his son?) Mr. Levine taught me early American History in 8th grade and Civics in 9th grade.

Since I had him for two years, I got to know him pretty well, to the point where during one class project, I got paired with a dude and we did a skit where I acted as Mr. Levine, impersonating his mannerisms and saying some of the ridiculous things he was known for. The class was in stitches, my partner could barely get through his lines, and Mr. Levine took it pretty well when some lanky kid made fun of him to his face in front of the whole class. That was after I got to know him though. Before I had any interaction with Mr. Levine, I saw a different side of him.

Like a lot of middle schools, ours was filled with young teenagers whose brains were going through explosive growth spurts, and the medulla oblongata figured prominently in a lot of the dudes. As a result, there was a lot of aggression and rage leading to scuffles and even some downright fights with fists and legs flying.

On one occasion between classes, we were moving like cattle through the halls. I came around a corner and there were a couple of dudes wailing on each other in the middle of the hallway. I mean, they were going at it! While I would have loved to stop and watch, the crushing flow of humanity pushed me along, right past the spectacle. As I moved along, though, storming out of his classroom with wild eyes and flaring nostrils, stomped Mr. Levine. I guess somebody told him there was a wild fight in the hallway, and he was just the guy to break it up. As much as I wanted to see the fight, I would’ve loved even more to see what happened when Mr. Levine got his hands on those guys. Heaven help them. They probably didn’t even know what hit them. I can imagine him grabbing one by the scruff of the neck and picking the other one up by his belt and marching them right down to the office to start the paperwork for their suspension.

There were a number of sides to Mr. Levine that I got to know. In a classroom, he was engaging and funny, and he cared about his students. When he was a lunch monitor he moved all throughout the cafeteria making the rounds, he was quick with a joke but he didn’t tolerate any physical nonsense. When a fight broke out and he was nearby and able to lend a hand, you could see the barely-restrained wrath and zero hesitation to jump into the fray.

While I don’t want to make it seem like I think of Mr. Levine as a God-like force, it is kinda fun that he illustrates some of God’s numerous facets. God is described in scripture as being full of wrath, but also as being incredibly patient; he announces generous blessings and also demonstrates mercy to some Bible characters even as they come up with excuse after excuse not to follow the path He’s told them to follow. Jesus showed a divine level of kindness when his close followers insisted on doing dumb things or making outlandish claims. He also commiserated with grieving friends, looked past people’s arrogance and lying, and tolerated abuse from people who knew far less than He did but viewed themselves as superior.

You know, God has a lot of facets.

We often get stuck with one particular image of God the Father, God the Son, or even God the Holy Spirit. It’s important to remember not to put Him in a box, though. He’s got more depth and breadth than we can possibly comprehend. The next time you find yourself confining God’s character to one particular archetype, try to remember to open up that aperture a bit and allow yourself to accept that God doesn’t work according to your view of Him. You could find yourself dealing with any (or all) of the attributes listed above, or any number of others not named above.

Lord, You are indescribable and incomprehensible. Thank you for tolerating us in our weakness, our stubbornness, our short-sightedness, and all our other shortcomings. Thanks for the reminder of Your depth and breadth, and that You far exceed what our imaginations can envision when it comes to knowing You fully. Help us not get wrapped up in trying to understand You, but instead focus on trusting and relying on You. These things we ask in Your name, Amen.

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Has Artificial Intelligence Become the Boogeyman?

The topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been in the news a lot lately, forecasting doom and the end of humanity. While AI is undoubtedly something very powerful, this feels to me a lot like things are being conveyed in such a way as to convince me to panic. When that happens, it’s time to ask why.

Before we go any further, let’s just agree that there are already a handful of AI companies who stand at or near the top of the pyramid. Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, etc. There are others, for sure, but these are some of the biggest names in American AI. Representatives from some of these very large companies have been coming out and saying “we need AI regulation, for sure, before this gets out of control.”

On the surface that sounds very responsible of them, doesn’t it? There’s actually a much more self-serving reason these big companies want regulation. Let’s illustrate it with a story.

Picture a Mom ‘n Pop pizza shop. They make great pizza…a neighborhood favorite. Their success is built on great recipes, great service, and a long track record of positive word-of-mouth referrals. After awhile some of the bigger pizza chains start moving into the neighborhood. The Mom n’ Pop pizzeria holds its own for awhile, but the competition is heating up.

Now this is unreasonable, but let’s assume some local politicians decide to regulate pizzerias. They create laws that say “any time you want to sell a pepperoni pizza, you have to make sure each slice has at least six slices of pepperoni on it.” Hmmm. Well, that’s a little intrusive, but okay. So Mom ‘n Pop’s pizzeria hears about this and decides they already do that most of the time, but just to make sure they don’t get into trouble, they start using smaller-diameter pepperoni slices so it’s easier to make sure each slice of pizza naturally gets enough pepperoni.

The politicians, who take campaign contributions from the bigger pizza chains, say “uh uh uh, not so fast.” Then they pass another regulation saying the pepperoni slices have to be at least a certain diameter. Then on top of that, they make another couple regulations governing the sourcing of the ingredients and the length of time you can retain hand-made dough before either using it or discarding it.

It isn’t long before Mom n’ Pop are paying more attention to the regulations than to delivering the quality products that have made them a neighborhood pillar for as long as most people can remember. Come to find out those big pizza chains are making contributions to the local politicians specifically so they can flatten the little guy. It’s the big pizza chains who can afford an entire compliance department solely focused on being familiar with the regulations and integrating them into their business processes. Those chains help write the local regulations. Those regulations become so onerous and burdensome that Mom n’ Pop eventually decide it’s no longer worth the effort. They close down earlier than they otherwise would have because their profit margins shrink, it’s no longer worth the hassle, and the anxiety wrapped up in all of this compliance now eclipses the joy they formerly got from being a neighborhood mainstay. The local pizzerias go out of business and the chains are all that’s left.

In my mind, that’s what’s happening with the topic of AI regulation. In the hands of a skilled user, AI can vastly increase the amount of work a single user can perform. So what if a skilled user in a small start-up company found a way to make AI better in some respect? There are untold numbers of angles this could come from, and it’s very hard to predict. It could help disrupt a trillion-dollar industry. That small start-up could quickly rise to the level of being able to compete with some of the big companies.

That’s not something the big companies want.

So if you’re one of those companies, currently leading (or near the front of) the pack, it’s in your best interest to get some regulations put into place…fast. You do that by hyping the fear factor. You’ll hear a lot more talk about Skynet and Terminator or War Games movies. When there’s enough momentum for regulations, guess which companies get to have input on how the regs are worded? That’s right, the ones at the front of the pack. They write the regulations in such a way that it’s nearly impossible for young start-ups to compete. Only the biggie companies are left with the resources to operate within the regulations and still drive innovation, even if it means the innovation occurs slower than in an unregulated environment.

So do we let companies (and AI) run wild and free? That’s probably not the answer, either. This is an amazing tool; we’re going to need our own advancements in AI in order to stay competitive on the global stage, so if we do impose regulations, they need to be biased toward avoiding the scenario described above, and maybe instead steer development toward what we want and away from what we want to avoid. (We want it to enhance our decision-making abilities and synthesis of information, not do our thinking for us.) We have to assume other countries out there will have fewer regulations and scruples than us, which will allow them to advance more rapidly than we do. How do we compete in that kind of environment? We need to aim for bounded chaos within which the field can naturally evolve.

And obviously, let’s not connect AI to any nuclear weapons. J It should absolutely be used to ingest and synthesize available information during very fluid and high-stress situations (like if we believe we are under nuclear attack), but AI should be used as a decision aid, with its findings quickly and easily able to be verified. It should NOT be given any sort of weapons autonomy, even if it can calculate consequences and courses of action in a fraction of the time any single human can. We have to assume our adversaries are going to use AI to the fullest potential in shortening the decision cycle, so we’re intentionally not competing if we fail to use any and all methods to rapidly synthesize large amounts of information. Let’s keep its role to augmenting our decision capacity, though, not replacing it.

Artificial Intelligence isn’t a bad thing on its own. It IS a game-changer, and we have to consider how we employ it, but I think the fear-mongering is a little much. In the coming weeks, keep an eye on which politicians are pressing for AI regulation. Those are likely the elected officials either preying on constituents’ fears or receiving campaign contributions from large tech companies.

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That’s What We Call an Unforced Error

Doubles tennis was the only sport I played in high school. After practicing for awhile you get a pretty good feel of the court’s dimensions, both on your side and on the far side. There were times I hit the ball from deep on my side and knew right away it was headed out of bounds and all I could do was hope the guy on the other side went for it. Other times it hit the wrong part of my racket and it was easy to tell it wasn’t even going to make it over the net.

After hitting around a good bit, you start to get a feel for how big your own side of the court is, too. You figure out where to stand when you’re playing baseline, when you’re playing net, and also when you’re on the forehand or backhand side of the court. You don’t want to venture too far toward the middle; straying from the edges left you vulnerable to an opponent blasting a well-placed shot down the side, right past you.

At one of our home matches, we had been playing our opponents long enough to get a feel for their style of play. They weren’t super precise in hitting the ball right on the line, and they didn’t often put a whole lot of zing on their shots. In this particular instance I was playing the baseline while my partner stayed up near the net.

One of the players on the opposite team lobbed a shot up high, over my partner’s head, and it was coming for the baseline. I backed up, growing increasingly confident that even though it would be close, it was going to land out of bounds. As it sailed increasingly deeper, I decided in my mind “yep, it’s going long.”

Of course, you don’t receive the point until it lands out of bounds, so I waited for it to come down from its ballistic trajectory. It picked up speed as it got closer, and I reached out my hand to catch it on the bounce back up. Sadly for me, my judgment proved to be fallible that day. The ball landed in the green (in bounds), but I had already made up my mind to catch the ball rather than play it. In a complete goober move, I watched the ball land in bounds, take a bounce, and then I caught it on the way back up, uttering an audible “awwwww!”

I had decided in my mind I was going to be right. By the time I recognized I was wrong, it was too late for me to do anything different. There are so many lessons like that in the Bible; you can read scripture, interpret it one way, then find out your interpretation wasn’t correct. In Jesus’ day, everybody looking forward to the Messiah’s arrival expected Him to be a conquering hero King who came to set His people free from oppression. Yes, that part is still to come, but the possibility that He’d show up two different times didn’t even occur to people. When some guy born to a poor family, who lived his life as a commoner, claimed to be the Messiah, I understand why so many people gave Him the brush-off. They took their eye off the ball, though. He fulfilled all the prophecies about where the Messiah would be born, how He’d die, and a variety of others. Just because they had made up their mind about what “right” looked like didn’t mean they had a complete understanding of how God had decided to write the script.

Another example of landing on the wrong interpretation: “God won’t give you more than you can handle” sounds very biblical, but Scripture never actually promises that. It comes from a distorted version of 1 Corinthians 10:13, which is about temptation, not suffering in general. I know Christians who have been overwhelmed and in over their heads multiple times. Paul actually describes being burdened “beyond our ability to endure” in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, and says that experience taught them to rely on God rather than themselves. That’s the true takeaway: if you’re going to grow in the Lord and you’re not willingly relying on Him, He’ll arrange it so you unwillingly rely on him.

One more. Matthew 7:1 says “Do not judge.” If you take it literally, it sounds like you’re never supposed to make judgments about another person’s behavior. You have to take it in context though; a few verses later Jesus talks about removing the plank from your own eye so that you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matt 7:5). The warning is against hypocritical/self-righteous judgment, not discernment itself. On the contrary; we’re to liberally use the brains and discernment God gave us. Compare “Do not judge” with John 7:24: “judge with right judgment.” Absolutely we’re to judge acceptable behavior from unacceptable, but that has no bearing on whether or not someone’s worthy of love and an attempt to reach them with the Gospel.

There are plenty more examples, but we’ll stop here. The point is that you shouldn’t make up your mind so firmly that you’re stuck being inflexible when God teaches you something new. The Bible’s big. We’ll probably need to read certain things a few times before really understanding them. Be open to the idea that God knows better than you do, but is willing to teach if you’re willing to learn.

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When God Says “Not That Way”

Not long ago I spent some time working in our church’s nursery. I’m talking the really little kids…from birth up to when they start walking steadily. Kids at this level spend a lot of time sitting on the floor, grabbing toys and shaking them, asking for snacks, crawling over to grab what somebody else has, etc. For me, it’s a fun age to work with.

It seems like every nursery at church has one of those box-shaped toys where you dump out a bunch of shapes, but then the lid has a bunch of differently shaped holes you try to put the shapes back through. At this age, it’s easy for the kids playing with this toy to get frustrated.

On this particular occasion a little guy was interested in the toy, so I dumped out the contents and showed him, using a shape or two, what was supposed to happen. He got the rough idea, but didn’t yet have the capacity to follow through. It struck me as a metaphor for how God will lead us toward something, but aside from Him we frequently don’t have the patience or the tools to see things through to the end.

With the little guy, I let him give it a try. The circle is the easiest one to make work, so I gave that one to him first. As you might guess, he didn’t use it on the circle hole, he just picked a different opening with a different shape and tried to make it work. When it didn’t go the way he wanted, he started trying to just smash it through. He didn’t even have the fine motor skills to line up the shape with its matching opening, so he resorted to brute force.

I gently guided his hand, still holding the shape, to the right spot. Together we even got the shape partway into the hole; all he needed to do was let go of it and it would fall into the box. I let go of his hand and watched to see what he’d do. To my gentle frustration, he pulled the shape all the way back out. Starting to see the picture, he then tried putting the shape back in the hole, but found himself still unable to do it and started smashing the shape on top of the box again.

It made me appreciate God’s patience with us. Whether it’s “I know you don’t have the tools for this yet but I’m introducing it to you anyway” or “you know, you’re really not getting this, even though you should by now,” He’s got so much patience with us. The patience isn’t limitless, but it’s usually pretty generous as long as we’re giving it an honest effort. On our end we often get frustrated and want to just start smashing things when they’re not working the way we want, but God’s often got a very specific way (and timeline by which) He wants us to get things done.

Try giving it some more patience, and learn to be okay having less control over the method, direction, and timing of everything. He doesn’t expect you to be an expert, or even proficient, at things right away, but if He’s charged you with some specific role, He’ll provide you with the tools and the opportunity to learn how to do the thing He’s asking you to do. Stick with it, don’t get frustrated and start smashing things, and celebrate even the small bits of progress you’re making.

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Rest in the Concept of Biblical Teamwork

There’s a parable in the book of John which indirectly talks about the value of teamwork in evangelism.

Bringing people to Christ is rarely something that’s done in one sitting. It’s impossible to tell ahead of time who will respond positively to the Gospel, so you have to cast a wide net, be persistent, and not get discouraged when you don’t see progress at the rate you’d like to.

I’ve heard evangelism compared to a frozen bough sagging under the weight of a winter snowstorm. Any snowflake by itself is not enough to make the branch break, but many snowflakes collectively add up to more weight than the branch can hold. Each snowflake represents an interaction with a Christian, a conversation about God, or maybe the “pebble in the shoe” that comes from philosophical questions raised in an unbeliever’s life. While some people simply never choose to believe despite large amounts of “snow” accumulating in their lives, the choice remains theirs, while the duty to keep adding flakes to it remains our responsibility.

John 4:35-38 talks about this evangelistic teamwork:

Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

Teamwork is quite obviously part of the picture here. Maybe you’re sowing, reaping, or doing something in between. Are you actively participating in the sowing/growing/harvesting process? Are you adding individual flakes to various branches? God’s equipped you with talents and gifts for the purpose of bringing Him glory and pointing others to Him. Don’t let those gifts be wasted.

Lord, it’s hard, and it’s scary to be part of this process. It feels like there are so few workers dedicated to “the harvest.” Help me lean in when I feel You pushing me toward specific interactions. Whether I’m laying out the Gospel, having discussions that make unbelievers ponder the concept of intelligent design, or just listening to someone who needs an ear, help me to represent You well and point others to You in a way that honors You. Amen.

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The Cheese is Old and Moldy. Where is the Bathroom?

I was in 8th or 9th grade when I first took Spanish. When you’re first learning a new language, you’re memorizing a lot of vocabulary, learning sentence structure and gender agreement, and learning how to conjugate verbs. In my first year (Spanish I) there wasn’t a whole lot of emphasis on conversational skills. Our teacher that first year taught us the basics…we could all count to 20 or something like that, sing “happy birthday” in Spanish, ask where the bathroom was, and tell you that John/Juan is handsome and has a beard.

There was a lot more than that, of course, but the teacher was easily distracted. He was a nice enough guy, but he was dealing with a bunch of middle/high schoolers who didn’t really care what he was saying and didn’t always take him seriously. A lot of times he’d just end up telling us stories about his gang days (he didn’t seem like the gang type), singing weird off-key songs in Spanish, or generally rambling in ways that weren’t terribly helpful for learning. The homework from the book, though, helped reinforce the subject matter. We learned the rudimentary stuff from him, but got the actual instruction from the book if we took the time and put in the effort.

The next year we took Spanish II, and most of us had a different teacher. She was stone-faced, man. I had her for a few years, and even though she had a sense of humor, she hardly ever smiled. The first day I had class with her, the bell rang, she shut the door, then walked to a spot in the classroom we could all see and hear her. Without any introduction in English, she said “si me entiendes, levanta la mano.”

I was a little stunned at first, partly because of the drastic change in teaching style. Everybody sat there in confused silence, looking at each other. As I worked through it though, I was able to put together what she had said. “If…you understand me…raise your hand.” It took me a minute, and I figured it out. But when I looked around the room, nobody was raising their hands. With a little bit of a gulp, I slowly raised my hand, and I was the only one in the class to do it. She looked at me with what was probably a mix of disappointment at only one hand among so many being raised, with a mental note of “okay, so you’re the one setting the curve right now.”

I don’t know for sure, but I have my suspicions what she thought of the Spanish I teacher.

Not that I was a stellar Spanish student, but I picked up some stuff over those years in high school. I had two different teachers, plus the text books and the workbooks. When it comes to learning a new language, reading, writing, speaking, and hearing are four distinct skills you need to develop. These things all worked together to reinforce the same thing: being proficient in the language.

With regard to the Christian walk, there are different skills, disciplines, and practices that all work together to make you more “proficient” in your walk with Christ. Reading the Bible, hearing the sermons of a skilled Bible teacher, speaking prayers to the Lord, and immersing yourself in a culture where people practice their faith, if done consistently, will drive you toward a rich walk with God. Of course there are teachers who are more skilled than others, or who have styles that are more effective for one type of personality over another. If they’re exercising the gifts God’s given them, it’s all contributing in some way to a deeper understanding for somebody.

So stay in the Word, stay in prayer, stay in church, and make sure you’re using your spiritual gifts to do the Lord’s work. This engagement is how we help each other out in our Christian experience, strengthening not just our own walk, but each others’ in the process.

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Quick Hit: Out of the Mouths of Babes…But It’s Not What You Think

If you’ve got kids, you know mealtime can be funny, frustrating, and a whole other host of emotions.

A few years back we were having breaded shrimp for dinner. My son is well known for being pretty quick to eat whatever’s in front of him, whereas his younger sister can take much longer to clean her plate. My son gobbled up everything in front of him and then more or less hung around while the rest of us caught up to him.

My younger daughter mostly ate the sides before starting on the shrimp. Looking around at other peoples’ plates, she saw little leftover bits of shell. When she asked about it, we showed her how to pinch the tails so she could get the meat without eating the harder shell. As she started getting the hang of it, my son spoke up and said “wait, those shrimp had tails?” It turns out he had eaten everything, shell and all, for each of the shrimp on his plate.

Although my son probably wouldn’t like this tie-in, the book of Proverbs describes wisdom as something to be received through instruction. (Sorry buddy, don’t take offense…) “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” -Proverbs 12:15

Sometimes we’re simply unaware that either what we’re doing isn’t the best way to do it, or that we’re missing out on something other people have insight into. Don’t be so impressed with yourself you don’t even take the time to consider that you might be able to listen and learn from others. With a little humility, you can learn from even the people you’d least expect.

The next time someone offers you some insight, don’t be too quick to dismiss it, even if it’s something you already know. People who don’t think like you can often package profound truths in fun ways.

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“Character Isn’t Developed in Ease and Quiet” -Helen Keller

Quite a bit of the Bible covers the idea of trials being used to teach believers to rely more heavily on God. That’s an important concept I think we overlook too often. God wants us to rely on Him. He wants us to take one step at a time even when we can’t see the path things are going to take. I’m going to put a twist on it, though. I’m not saying it will work this way for everybody, but I’d like to share a bit about how it’s worked in my life.

This hasn’t been true 100% of the time, but throughout our marriage, when my wife and I looked around at some of the people we knew who were in a similar life stage as us, we just seemed to have it a little easier. Maybe our version a particular challenge was less complicated, or our loved ones tended to have better health, or we just had trials that were fairly short in duration. It’s certainly been a blessing, but we didn’t want to grow accustomed to it. Concluding that God can take away as easily as He can give, we adopted the saying “to whom more has been given, more is required.” We considered ourselves blessed in certain ways, so we viewed ourselves as able to offer things others could not.

Years back, I finished some schooling I had been working on. It was such a relief! I took a bit to enjoy the sheer amount of free time after completing a years-long endeavor. Soon, though, I felt I needed to give some of that time back to the Lord rather than sitting on the couch and wasting it. I started looking for ways to use the gifts and talents He’s entrusted to me. After struggling for a bit with what that might look like, I settled on an idea. You can poke around the various pages of this blog and see I’ve had a bizarre collection of interesting experiences most people never come close to. I’m also able to write in a conversational, down-to-earth tone that people find easy to understand. The idea for this blog took shape and started getting off the ground, with the work I put into it following the same schedule my schooling previously did.

It didn’t stop there, though. A couple years after the blog started, the world got put on pause as covid spread across the globe. As you recall, the pandemic changed so many aspects of daily life. In our house, I worked from home for a long stretch of time. It was kinda nice…for a little while. Not having a commute was great, but missing out on the back-and-forth with folks at work drove my creativity to find new avenues of expression. A new, outrageous idea started forming. This time gave birth to the idea of a 10-part Christian speculative fiction book series.

To be sure, it’s an audacious goal, especially considering I’ve never attempted anything like it before. I’m excited about the series though, I’ve got the skeleton for the whole thing mapped out and I’m very far along on some volumes, but what I’ve found is that I get bogged down in the writing. I’ve put together extensive notes on each of the volumes, and it’s fun for me to base some of the characters on some of the people I’ve known in person, to write comedy into it, to write powerful emotional scenes, and ultimately point readers to Christ without making it preachy. But…the project has stalled because I simply don’t have the time, energy, or focus (or more accurately, all three at the same time) to make meaningful progress as far as getting words on paper. It’s incredibly frustrating for me to have what I believe is an epic story mapped out, but be seemingly unable to get it into a deliverable format that can reach the masses and become a tool God starts using to reach a new audience. This might sound a bit like I’m inflating my own ego, but in reality I’m simply treating it with gravity and a matter of urgency; I approach it as though the series will be part of what triggers or contributes to a large revival. Going back to the beginning of this post, the stalled nature of the project is something I’d consider a trial in my life.

In this post I’m taking the long way to arrive at this point: even though I’m facing this trial, it’s related to the work I’m trying to do for God’s kingdom, rather than a trial related to my personal life (finances, health challenges, etc.). Of course I’m interested in getting this story out for public consumption as soon as possible, but I believe the challenges associated with that goal come at a smaller cost to me personally than the trials I’d likely be facing if I had decided not to do anything significant to honor God. I believe when people step into the calling God’s given them, He plows the road for them, removing obstacles that would have inflicted some kind of expense on them had they not followed His lead.

God’s going to allow you to face trials in your life. While you obviously can’t escape all of the personal challenges in life, it seems like you get to bypass many of the especially taxing ones when you’re living in the power of God and walking the path He’s invited you to travel. Had I waved off the blog idea and the book series idea, I don’t know what different set of trials I would have faced in the interim, but I’ve also got a certain degree of peace of mind knowing I’m genuinely taking swings at the pitches God’s giving me. I’m in no way qualified to write a 10-part fictional series, but I’m not afraid to give it a try when I feel God’s saying “here, try this.” I’m relying on Him and His timing, and trusting He sees me and has a plan. In the meantime, in the words of TobyMac, “if I can’t walk, then I’m crawling.” I’m still working on it when I can, always trying to move it forward.

I write this to encourage you. If you’re already following the path you feel God’s calling you down, that’s fantastic…keep it up! If, however, you’ve been feeling a sort of “tugging” in a certain direction you can’t explain, and you’ve been avoiding it because there’s at least some aspect of it that simply doesn’t make sense on any level, I’m going to extend a personal invitation to you to give it a try anyway. Paradoxically, the excuses you’ll think of first could be some of the first obstacles to get plowed out of your way when God starts clearing the road in front of you.

God knows you and knows what you’re capable of when He empowers you. You act in obedience, then He clears the road. It’s not the other way around. Try stepping out in faith and see what happens.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. – Proverbs 3:5-6

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Well, This Could Get Real Bad Real Quick

Back when I worked as a teenaged lifeguard at a Christian conference center, the lifeguards often spent the morning cleaning the pool and running various errands in preparation for opening the pool in the afternoon.

Normally there were four or five of us, and it was fairly common for us to split the different tasks in a given morning. Rather than unlock and then lock the gate again every time one of us entered or left the pool area, we commonly replaced the lock in the gate and set it so it looked like it was locked when it actually wasn’t. It was important, though, that if there was ever a time when all of us left the pool area, the last one out secured the lock for real.

One morning I left the pool area to head to the resort’s main office for something. As I walked into the foyer of the dining room on my way to the office, I passed a couple of guys who were talking to the dining room hostess. One of the guys was very tall (probably in the 6’5”-6’6” range) and probably at least 240 pounds. She was on the shorter side, which made the guy’s size more pronounced.

As I was walking past, the guy was asking something like “is it okay if we go swimming in the pool before we come in the dining room to eat?” The way he asked it, he made it seem like he was thinking down the road to later in the day/week; the pool was only open in the afternoon and it was fairly common for people to hang out in the pool until it closed, then go right from there in wet swim trunks to the dining room for dinner. He seemed more courteous than most by asking. There was something more to it, though. There was something subtle about the way he asked it that made it sound a little off. She had no problem with the swim trunks thing since a lot of people did it anyway, so she shrugged and said “sure.”

I continued to the office to do whatever I was going to do, then not long after I headed back toward the pool. As I came around the corner, I saw these two guys swimming in the water, and there were no lifeguards around to stop them (or help them out if the need arose). I had no idea where the guards had gone, but right now they were nowhere to be seen. There in the gate, though, was a lock that wasn’t fastened.

I forget what I said, but I made it abundantly clear they had to get out. They gently protested, saying they had received permission from a staff member to go for a swim. Technically, that was true, kind of, but that staff member didn’t actually understand what was being asked, nor did she have the authority to grant their request. It was only coincidental that I happened to witness this exchange that I understood what they were talking about. Now it made sense that they asked in a manner that could be interpreted a couple different ways.

I was pretty peeved about this. It felt like there was intentional deception involved. I wasn’t laid back about kicking them out, I was pretty to-the-point. I stood by the gate the whole time, with it wide open while they got out of the water and collected their things. Then as they drew near the gate, the size of the big dude once again became apparent. I was probably 16 or 17 years old, around 6’3”, and about 180 pounds. I wasn’t a little guy, but if this dude decided he didn’t want to comply, there wasn’t a whole lot I could’ve done about it. As they passed me, the big guy stopped very close to me and just kind of stared me down for a moment. It’s not often I have to look up at somebody. Then he took a step closer, so our faces were only inches apart. If this guy wanted to throw down, he could’ve throttled me. Something about his demeanor told me he was just trying to get me to back down. I sure hoped my judgment was right. I didn’t flinch, blink, or step back. After a very anxious few moments on my end, he walked out of the pool area.

You’d better believe that gate was locked within the next 30 seconds.

In a way, this guy reminds me of Satan. By every measure Satan has the capacity to harm you and the advantage he needs to do it…size, power, speed, drive…but he’s limited in the sense that he has to seek permission to cause you physical harm.

One thing he does NOT need permission for is to mess with you. He can harass you. He can snipe at you. He can do lots of stuff to make you have a really bad day, and he can do it repeatedly, in an effort to get you to back down, to get discouraged, to quit whatever you’re doing for the Lord’s sake. He can intimidate you to no end if you permit it, but if you belong to Christ, you can confidently stand your ground and not flinch when those intimidations come.

If you’re following God’s lead and doing things contributing to His kingdom, you’re making yourself a target in the realm of spiritual warfare. Don’t let it get you down. View it as encouragement that you’re doing something important enough to be considered dangerous to the powers of darkness. After all, why would the bad guys waste time harassing someone who’s not a threat to them?

God, it’s so easy to fixate on only the things I can see and hear. Help me remember there’s more than what I can see, and that if I’m living for You, You’re in my corner and are helping pave the way for where You want me to go. Help me recognize and be an encouragement to others that might be experiencing some of that intimidation and harassment. I ask in Your name, Amen.

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That is One Nasty River

There’s a story in 2 Kings chapter 5 we can all learn from.

Naaman was a great General, a mighty soldier, that his king viewed as a great and honorable servant. Naaman was a rich man, accustomed to walking the great halls of the high levels of society, and was constantly around the finer things of life. Unfortunately for him, he had a disease no amount of money could cure him of: leprosy.

He caught wind of someone in Israel who supposedly had the ability to perform medical miracles, and when he told his king about the prospect, the king facilitated his journey. Naaman brought an excessive amount of money and gifts to the land, ready to perform all kinds of bizarre rituals or to complete difficult quests for the sake of being healed. Skip ahead to when Naaman arrived at the prophet Elisha’s door, he expected to be received with the rolling out of the red carpet, then be given a personal ceremony where Elisha prayed and performed some kind of dramatic routine, then be healed supernaturally.

Instead he got something much different. Elisha didn’t even bother to meet him. He sent a messenger instead. “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”

Naaman was furious. Didn’t this prophet know who was standing here at his doorstep? The Jordan River was dirty and muddy, and there were far more prestigious rivers where he came from in Syria. He could have easily washed in one of those if that’s all it took! He stormed off in anger.

While he was still livid, his servants approached him. They said something to the effect of “hey Boss, not for nothing, but when you came here, you were prepared to do all kinds of elaborate or crazy things if this guy told you to. If he told you to do something easy, why not give it a try? What’s the worst that could happen?”

The text doesn’t really say how much Naaman deliberated over this; it just says he went down and did what Elisha told him to do. And wouldn’t you know? “His flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” I wonder sometimes if we make things too difficult. I think a lot of us know God can use us for mighty things if He chooses, but we don’t often think about the easy things or the small things.

One of my favorite lessons from the Bible is the idea of God saying “if you’re not faithful in the little things, why would I trust you with the big things?” What if, instead of looking for that big dramatic thing that happens infrequently, we focused on trying to be faithful and willing to do the small things on a regular basis? My worry is that we might spend so much time on the sidelines waiting for something “truly worthy of our standing” that we miss smaller opportunities God places in our path much more often. Let’s grab the opportunities that are already there instead of waiting for the ones that might come along further on down the road.