Author: Tim

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The Show Must Go On, But It’s Up to You

If you follow my posts, you probably think to yourself every once in awhile “this guy talks a good game, but what does life look like for him when things get tough?” It’s time for a little bit of transparency. I’m human and I have failings, and it’s often difficult to worship God by pursuing His calling. The whole intent behind writing this blog is to push readers to use more of the potential God’s empowered them with. Here’s an update on what that looks like for me.

I’ve shared in the past that I feel led to write some Christian fiction books. The original plan was seven books that are each 40,000 to 50,000 words. From there it expanded so that a few of those seven stories had multiple volumes, leading to a goal of 10 books that are an average of 50,000 each. That’s a total of half a million words.

As I’ve shared before, this is an odd calling for me. I have a blog, but I don’t come from a writing background. I think I wrote a 10,000-word paper for a college class one time. My academic studies have mostly been science-focused, so venturing into creative writing (especially a creative writing endeavor of this magnitude) is wading into deep waters for me.

Truth be told, I’m pumped about this opportunity. My soul feels settled now that I feel like I know the purpose and manner by which I should honor my Savior. There are a lot of difficulties associated with a project like this, though. I had seven stories floating around in my head, and my imagination kept splitting its focus and bouncing between them. Where should I start? I’d sputter through some writing, but there were so many possible storylines that I couldn’t keep track of them all. Ideas kept coming and coming, and it was all I could do to write down all the ideas.

Taking a linear approach, I started with book number one, dabbled in book number two when I needed to think about something different, and put down some notes for books five and six as I went. I made some decent headway on books one and two, but the ideas kept rolling in for book five (which grew to three volumes), so I got more and more excited about that one. In the interest of focusing my efforts, I eventually stopped working on most of the other stuff and zeroed in on the book five trilogy.

The hardest part for me isn’t the enormous nature of the project. I’ve written down a lot of words. To date, I have over 135,000 words in draft for the different stories. For me the hardest part is how slow the progress is. I’ve got a full-time job, plus a family and all their extracurricular activities. I usually sleep less than six hours a night, I get home about 10 hours after I leave for work. I exercise, I write a blog, I do yardwork, and I pay credit card bills. I need to fill out another form for something? Now it’s time to do taxes. Since starting the series, I’ve twice been notified that my job would be ending and I need to look for a new one. There’s not much time (or sometimes, mental energy) to devote to writing. In fact, over the past year, the bulk of the writing I’ve done is when I take one of my kids to youth group one night out of the week. I find a quiet place in the church to write for a couple of hours while I wait for the event to be over. That usually results in 1,000 to 1,300 words a week. That’s not real fast when you consider the end goal (which, by the way, has been revised upwards to over 650,000 words after finding out just how much text it takes to tell the story you want to tell).

The frustration for me is finally having a clear vision of what God wants me to put effort into, but not being able to execute as quickly as I’d like. It’s aggravating to look at a lot of the junk that comes out of Hollywood and think “I have stories in my head that a Christian movie production company could make and Christian families would probably love, but I can’t write them down and revise them fast enough.”

And yet, despite that aggravation, it’s nice to trust that I’m working on God’s schedule. Ever meet someone that’s really eager to do something, or take on the world all at once? I guess God’s got to slow me down to meet His timing. I don’t know if that’s what He’s doing, but I have to trust that as long as I’m putting earnest effort into it, I’m going to make the progress He wants me to make.

I would love to be able to make a living off writing, but it looks like it’ll be a long time before that comes to pass. In fact, it might not ever be the case. I just know that I have to keep pressing on. Not only is this the task God laid before me, but I’ve now written too much for this to be something I give up on (I can’t just toss 135,000 words in the trash and not look back).

I share this with you not because I’m looking for pity. I’m letting you in on it because I want to be up front and honest with you. The jobs God gives you will not be easy. They’re going to cost you. Sometimes it’s a battle to even keep going. You’ll very likely ask yourself “should I give up?” I urge you not to. There’s no way for any of us to know what our obedience can set in motion, and we have a tendency to think too small about the possibilities. For example, there’s no guarantee that this is how things will play out, but what if there’s a major Christian revival that’s still to come, yet it won’t happen until one or more of the books I’m working on gets out there to shift people’s perspective? That view ought to keep me going. If God handed me a project to work on, I have to assume it’s an important one, right? It’s my responsibility to keep chipping away at it, no matter how long it takes. One of my favorite TobyMac song lyrics is “if I can’t walk, then I’m crawlin’.” If crawlin’ is the best I can do right now, then that’s what I’m going to do, but I’ll be looking forward to a time when I can stand up and walk or break out into a run.

I want this post to encourage you. Don’t quit. The Lord knows exactly what each of us is capable of, but we, His followers, are the weak link in this chain. When you receive a seemingly impossible assignment from Him, you’ve got to trust that not only is it achievable, you’re also going to have what you need at the time you need it. Don’t let a lack of resolve be the reason you don’t get across the finish line. If the Lord led you to do something, it’s got to be important either for other Christians or for unsaved souls. Please don’t let us down.

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I Know They’re Trying Hard. It’s Just…(sigh)

Years ago my two oldest kids were on a tee-ball team together. For those that aren’t familiar, tee-ball is the version of baseball little kids play before they have the skills to play actual baseball. Instead of pitching the ball to a kid, the ball sits on something that looks like a big golf tee, so the kids get to swing at a ball that isn’t moving. In the unlikely event that the fielding team is competent enough to get three outs in an inning, the batting team keeps batting until everyone on the team has had a chance to hit. Everybody gets to field the ball, and everybody gets to run the bases.

I’ll be the first to admit that tee ball is a good way to teach young kids the mechanics and basics of baseball. I’ll also tell you that it’s extremely painful to watch. You normally have nine or 10 kids out in the field, and when a batter connects with the ball, at least half of them start running toward the ball, no matter what position they’re playing. You also have kids standing around looking up at the clouds, singing songs to themselves, picking their nose, or sitting down in the outfield playing with dandelions. Usually those kids are the ones the ball gets hit to.

I remember the coach for my kids’ team also had a kid on the team. He was funny to watch. He was fine for a while during each game, but there would come a time when he would just be done with it all. He’d take off his sunglasses, hold them straight out in front of him, and just drop them on the ground and walk away, as though it was a mic drop.

Well as enjoyable as the game was to watch, we also had a very young third child, and she would only stay content in the stroller for so long. Since my wife is a better fan and cheerleader than I am, she stayed and cheered for the team while I picked up our youngest when she got too antsy, and I’d take her for a walk around the area.

On one occasion I took her out to a nearby area that had a large storm drain. I held her little hands and helped her walk around on the grass, but then another kid came over and stood on top of the storm drain, looking down into it. He seemed very interested in it, kneeling down and peering as far into the tunnel as he could see. He knelt there for a moment, and a smile crossed my face when I heard him shout down into the drain “Ninja Turtles, are you down there?”

Kids are fun, man. They’ve got big imaginations, they haven’t yet been beaten down by life, and in their minds, anything is possible. The summer months can be a little challenging if you’ve got kids with lots of energy and no school to attend, but hang in there. Love on ‘em anyway, because they don’t stay little for long. Foster that imagination of theirs, and it’ll serve them well as they get older.

And if you’ve got somebody in tee-ball right now, it won’t always be so painful to watch.

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Benchmarks Are There for a Reason; Use Them

Before all the modern tools used in making today’s maps, cartographers had to do things the old-fashioned way, with surveying tools. As you might imagine, using the crude instruments of yesteryear could be tedious, and if surveying teams had the opportunity to take steps that would save them some work on subsequent projects, they’d be eager to hear about it.

Enter the idea of the benchmark. On a topographic map, a benchmark is a spot whose exact elevation is known. A benchmark is a small disc that’s permanently installed at such a site, and it’s inscribed with numbers that display the elevation of the spot where the disc lays. Surveying teams can show up and get right to work using the benchmark as a hard and fast fact; it’s something they know is true and can be relied upon to build accurate information off of.

Today’s society could use some reminders about one of the Lord’s benchmarks.

In many places the Bible condemns sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is an umbrella term under which several types of specific categories fall. Often times it seems like Christians are quick to condemn homosexuality as sin (which it is, according to several verses in the Bible, like Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-28, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10), but in focusing on just one type of sexual immorality, other types are ignored or somehow seen as “less bad.” In all cases we’re to love the sinner but hate the sin, but we also need to remember that all sin is detestable to the Lord and is something that should not be accepted, especially among Christians. Christians engaging in sin should be confronted (in love), and not be “given a pass” for something that eats away at their witness.

God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman. That’s the only acceptable combination in His eyes. (Don’t get mad at me, take it up with the Man upstairs.) Sexual activity you engage in with someone that is not your spouse is sin. The natural question is “How do you define ‘sexual activity?’” I’d say that if you have a behavior in mind that you’re already trying to rationalize, it’s probably something you shouldn’t be doing. Jesus described it this way in Matthew 5:28 – “but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Just be honest with yourself. Call sin what it is. One-night stands, quick flings, cohabitation, etc. If you’re doing something you know is wrong, come clean to God with it. (Trust me, He already knows; the coming clean part is mostly for your benefit.)

On the flip side, it’s important to recognize that we are all sinners, and all of us struggle with sin in some way. The attraction of a sexual sin like pornography that has a stranglehold on one Christian may have no power at all over another. At the same time, those that have overcome such addictions are in a prime position to come alongside a brother or sister that’s currently losing in their struggle with the sin. I urge you: if you’re one of those two types, seek to connect with someone of the other type. The fear is often “nobody would even want to associate with me if they knew what I’m keeping secret.” I understand why you may think that, but Christianity is not a spectator sport; it is to be lived in the trenches and we’re supposed to help one another in our struggles.

Sexual sin is one of, if not the only, sin where the advice we get is to outright run from it. First Corinthians 6:18 says Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. That means actively taking steps to prevent certain situations and outright extracting yourself from others. If you use a computer to access sites you know you shouldn’t, don’t use the computer unless someone else is around. Put your phone down, turn off data, or shut it off unless you’re purposefully using it for appropriate things. If you have a coworker or someone else in your life that you enjoy being around a little more than you should, actively avoid spending any more time than you need to with them. It’s on you to recognize the problem and start trying to do something about it.

You may think the things I’m saying here conflict with the messages you get from our culture. I hope so. The Christian’s message is supposed to do exactly that. We’re supposed to stand out. The messages you’re hearing from the world are the moral equivalent of installing numerous false benchmarks all around real ones. Keep track of what’s true and trustworthy, and it will cut down on a lot of the confusion you’ll otherwise face. Remember…sin is something to be avoided, not tolerated.

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Big Fires Come From Little Sparks

One time when I was pretty young, one of the neighbors hosted a bunch of the neighborhood kids for a backyard campout. I don’t remember the group size for sure, but there were probably about four to six of us that had a campfire and spent the night in a tent.

This was my first time sleeping outside (it’s probably a stretch to call it camping), but I had grown up with lots of campfires. We had a roaring bonfire, and we kept it going for awhile. I’m more of an early riser than a night owl, so it didn’t take long for me to turn in for the night while a few of the other guys stayed up around the fire.

The next morning I was one of the first to wake up. The tent was humid and stuffy, so I headed outside. With nothing much else to do, I wandered over to the campfire pit. The fire had gone out, but the stones and ashes were still warm. Using a stick, I stirred the ashes around, looking for embers that were left over from the previous night.

I found a single ember that wasn’t much larger than a spark. As soon as I uncovered it, it started glowing brightly. As a fire dies down, a layer of ash settles on the hot coals and creates a blanket that prevents the coals from getting fresh oxygen. The coals use up whatever air it can reach, then go into a dormant, smoldering state until either the fuel or air run out, or more fuel and air become available. When I uncovered the ember it the fresh oxygen revived it, but it was about to run out of fuel. I looked around nearby and found some dry leaves and pine needles and set to work trying to rekindle the fire.

With some patience and fanning, the leaves and needles soon began smoking heavily, and finally caught fire. I grabbed more nearby kindling and began building the fire to the point where it was crackling. By the time everyone was awake, it was roaring again.

All of us have sin in our past. Some have a past that includes addictions of some sort, which is very difficult to ever be completely free of. It could be drugs, alcohol, pornography, or any number of other vices. A percentage of those people are able to overcome the worst of it, but they know they must completely turn their back on that addiction if they are to remain free of it. If you know someone that’s a recovering alcoholic, for example, and they haven’t had a drink for many years, it’s a bad idea to encourage them to celebrate a special occasion with “just one” small drink.

Those people know themselves; if they’ve decided to completely abstain from the object of their addiction because they know it’s the only way to remain free of it, please respect that. A roaring fire can dwindle to just one small ember, but an ember is all it takes to build a raging and crackling flame once more.

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Visiting a New Church: You’ll Find What You’re Looking For

It can be tough trying to find a church you like. I fully recognize that, but sometimes people take things to the extreme.

Churches can be a little too this, or not enough of that. The natural inclination is to look for a church home that meets your preferences. That absolutely makes sense. It’s important not to set the bar impossibly high, though. “The Perfect Church” simply does not exist. Even if it did, it would be ruined once you, an imperfect person, started attending there.

“I don’t like the worship.”

“I don’t like the preaching.”

“It’s not welcoming enough.”

“The people there are too friendly.”

These can all be criticisms of a church, but let me point out that when you walk into a church for the first time, you’re likely to find what you’re looking for. That is to say, if you’re looking for a reason not to like a given church, you’ll probably find one. If you’re looking for hypocritical behavior, it’s probably only a matter of time before you encounter it. If you’re looking for someone to do or say something that doesn’t jive with your preferred code of conduct, yes, it’s going to happen.

Instead, I’d like to propose that you walk into a church looking for solid Bible teaching and a congregation of people that’s imperfect but loves Jesus, loves each other, and wants to spread the Gospel. Once you find that, be on the lookout for a way to volunteer your spiritual gifts in humility. (By humility, I mean exactly that…even if you believe you’re blessed with more talent than whoever is already serving in that capacity, you should not expect to impress everyone and be given the leeway to transform an existing ministry into the version you’d like) A healthy church welcomes new attendees and looks to employ those new attendees’ spiritual gifts and willingness to serve.

Rather than looking for reasons not to attend a particular church, look for the things you know God would applaud about the church and the ways you can fill the role of the missing puzzle piece that makes the church a more complete entity. Christianity isn’t a spectator religion; you’ve got to get involved. Maybe you haven’t found the church you like because the one you’re attending is still missing the thing you can offer.

Who knows? Your contribution to the congregation may be the thing that makes a future newcomer say “yes, this feels like my new church home.”

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Life Lessons From a Sitcom

Years ago there was a sitcom on TV called “Parks and Rec.” It was a comedy that focused on the staff of the Parks and Recreation Department of a small Midwestern town in Indiana.

The main character in this show is a woman named Leslie Knope, a very energetic civil servant overflowing with enthusiasm. Leslie’s best friend is Ann Perkins, a bubbly and fun (but not nearly as over-the-top as Leslie) nurse. My personal favorite is Leslie’s boss, Ron Swanson. He’s a deadpan middle-aged guy that enjoys solitude, fine alcohol, well-prepared meats of any kind, and making government bureaucracy less efficient.

In one particular episode Ron learns Leslie is planning a surprise birthday event for him, which, in Ron’s mind, is a mortifying idea. Leslie’s panache for flamboyant celebrations is something he fears will be turned on him. Out of morbid curiosity, he asks Ann about a past surprise birthday party Leslie threw for her. You can almost sense his nausea as she fondly recalls being “kidnapped” from work, brought to a restaurant where a mariachi band sang happy birthday to her and made her wear a sombrero, then afterward heading home where virtually all of Ann’s friends were waiting to surprise her.

Ron went into defensive mode. He starts sleeping at the office to reduce the opportunities for him to be kidnapped. He starts learning of little hints that another kidnapping is in the offing. When Leslie finally comes to him with a lame attempt to get him to a specific location elsewhere in the building, he resigns himself to the fate he’d been trying to avoid. He follows Leslie to a conference room and she opens the door, where he expects someone to lunge at him.

Instead, he finds a comfortable chair at a simply set table for one. The table has a large steak, a heaping side of bacon, a baked potato with plenty of toppings, a bottle of booze to complement the steak, and two war movies for him to enjoy by himself.

As he stumbles to find the right words to say, Ron mentions the party Ann had described to him earlier. Leslie replies “I did that for Ann. Why would I throw Ron Swanson an Ann Perkins party?”

This oddly touching scene is the perfect analogy for the way the Lord commissions us to do His work. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, when I was younger I always feared I’d have to grow up and become some kind of missionary in a far-off land. I know that’s important, but I don’t want to do that! To any missionaries out there, a thousand thank yous for the work you do. I can’t rule out the possibility that being a missionary is still somewhere in my future, but I feel blessed that God’s said something similar: “I already have people for that. I need you to do this thing nobody else is equipped to do.” Hopefully you’re hearing the same message.

As it turns out, there are plenty of roles God can use you for, and there are some we may not enjoy. Sometimes though, you may just find that God hands you an assignment and you mull it over for awhile, only to come away saying “yeah, you know, I think I could do that!”

They won’t always be fun, but you’ll be blessed each time you say “yes” to God.

Lord, thank you for knowing us better than we know ourselves, and for training, equipping, and preparing us for the things You’ll ask of us. Help us be brave when we’re asked to do something we don’t want to do, be appreciative when we’re asked to do something we like, and be confident in You at all times. In Your name I ask, Amen.

To see this “Parks and Rec” exchange, have a look here. There’s some crude language sprinkled throughout, but it’s still a fun clip.

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Aim Small, Miss Small

There are a couple of movies out there that cite the phrase “aim small, miss small.”

The movies I’ve seen this line quoted in use it in reference to shooting. If you aim generically at the broad side of a barn, the theory goes, you’ll probably be able to hit it, but if you just shot 10 times at a barn without aiming at any particular part of it, like you were firing from the hip, you’d probably have 10 hits that are widely scattered across the target.

Instead, pick a specific point on that barn, maybe a prominent notch on an individual board. Try this technique with another 10 shots, and you’re going to have a much tighter shot grouping. By aiming at something small (in relation to the target), if you miss, you probably won’t be far off, and you’ll obtain a much more consistent result.

Consider this saying in light of how you pray. Prayer should include praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, and this is very important. That portion of your prayers certainly warrants more than the passing mention that’s here in this post, but today I want to focus on the asking part of prayer. I would guess that for many of us, the most common reason behind why we pray is because we’re asking God for something.

God wants us to pray, yes. He wants us to pray often, having an attitude of prayer that lasts throughout the day. This frequent communication brings you nearer to God. But what is it that you ask for when you pray? Health? Blessings? Maybe salvation for unsaved friends or family? Revival is always something we should be asking for, and should be a frequent request.

I have to ask, though: just how specific do you get in your prayers? Do you ask generally for salvation for those nameless, faceless people you pass regularly, or do you ask consistently for God to move the heart of that cantankerous neighbor you avoid when you see them outside? Do you ask God to spark revival, or do you ask Him to show you the part He wants you to play in bringing that revival about?

Let’s assume for a moment that for the next year, God agreed to grant all your (unselfish) requests. How would that affect your prayer life? I’m guessing that not only would you spend a lot more time in prayer; you’d also get a lot more specific about the things you pray for. This probably isn’t going to be a scenario God chooses for you, but that’s no reason to skip out on that type of prayer life. Keep that in mind the next time you bring your requests to the Lord.

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It’s Up to You: Volunteer or Be Voluntold

There are a lot of bible verses about leaning on God or relying/depending on God. Lots of times they’re connected to the idea either that “this is more than I can handle on my own,” or “no matter how cool I think I am, God’s really the one in charge.”

Here are a few examples:

  • For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. –Isaiah 41:13
  • In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. –Proverbs 16:9
  • I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. –Psalm 121:1-2
  • I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. –John 15:5
  • When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. –Hosea 13:6

God wants us to rely on Him, but that way of thinking doesn’t come naturally to us. That last verse from Hosea gives a little insight into God’s thoughts. When we’re happy and satisfied with our lives, we tend to drift away from God more than when we’re in the middle of some kind of crisis. During a crisis, “reliance on the Lord” becomes a hands-on lesson for us. It’s that reliance that ensures we don’t forget Him.

There are a lot of circumstances in life that drive a closer reliance on God. Loss of a loved one, an extended illness or other medical situation, a job loss, relationship problems, and on and on and on. It’s kind of the opposite of “fair weather followers;” when things are fine we don’t talk to God much, but we cozy right up to Him when we need or want something. It’s human nature.

Here’s the part that’s important to remember. If we don’t rely on God on our own, He tends to introduce events in our lives that force us to reconsider. I think it’s interesting to note that as you look at famous biblical characters (Moses, Nehemiah, and Paul, for example), they all had their personal problems, certainly, but those problems were not the primary outlets for their reliance on God. Rather, their reliance showed through when they were doing something bigger than themselves, focusing up and out rather than down and in. When Moses was focused on leading the Israelites out of Egypt, he wasn’t terribly focused on his speech impediment. Nehemiah took charge of a project that gave a ruined city its identity and confidence, allowing him to look past the anxiety he felt for his languishing brethren. Paul traveled all along major trade routes spreading the gospel, planting churches, and empowering the next generation of Christian teachers, not really sweating the small stuff like multiple shipwrecks, beatings, imprisonments, or being bitten by a poisonous snake.

Another way of saying this is that if you’re not looking at the big possibilities and purposes God is offering you, you’re limiting the options He has in your life to teach you this continual lesson. You leave only the opportunity to experience “defensive” lean-on-God moments, and by avoiding the tasks that stretch you, you shut the door on the “offensive” version. When you don’t give Him options, He creates His own, and that often leads to “crisis mode” situations. This is doubly troubling; when we do this, not only are we turning down the opportunity to do big things for God’s kingdom, we’re also unintentionally sending God the message “hey, I’m not getting it; I need you to do something that grabs my attention.”

Don’t misunderstand; even if you do everything right and jump in with both feet every time God sets a challenge before you, your personal life is not guaranteed to be free of stress and crises. We live in a fallen world. People die. We harm, betray, or steal from one another. What I’m saying is that by responding to God’s calling for your life, by reaching for something that’s beyond what you can achieve on your own, you willingly walk a life of dependence on God, and He looks on that favorably.

One final example. Peter got out of the boat and walked on water. Imagine if he opted instead to stay in the boat. God still would have had ample opportunities to use him for His plans, but He may have had to sideline Peter for a little bit to teach him reliance through a sudden personal tragedy. Peter probably would’ve learned the lesson, but it wouldn’t be nearly as inspirational as what actually happened.

What do you think, have you only been giving God “defensive” reliance opportunities? Maybe it’s time to get out of the boat and walk on water.

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Be Straight With Me. Was it Worth All That?

If you live a righteous life, you’re going to encounter opposition.

It’s a tricky thing, this balance Christians need to maintain. On the one hand, we need to have other Christians we can depend on, go to with our problems, and lean on for support. On the other hand, we can’t immerse ourselves so much in this support system that we never have contact with the people we’re meant to witness to. Our job, after all, is to go forth and make disciples of all nations. It’s tough to do that if we only spend time with other believers.

I’ve got a story to share that’s going to make me sound like I’m touting how perfect I was at a certain time in my life. That’s not my intent, so please hang in there for the point I’m trying to make. I worked construction for a couple of summers in college and then for about a year and a half after graduating. You meet a lot of interesting (translated: rough) characters in that line of work. The crude speech alone was enough to raise some eyebrows.

I stuck out quite a bit in this field. I didn’t swear, I didn’t drink, and I didn’t chase women. That’s pretty unusual for a young man in that line of work. I didn’t act in a morally superior or “holier than thou” way. It wasn’t necessary. People took notice over time. Different guys would leave or join the crew, but it seemed like everyone except me indulged in at least one of those three behaviors. One of the guys even told me “I’ve met dudes that avoid one of those things. I’ve even met a couple of guys that avoid two of those things. But you’re the only guy I’ve met that doesn’t do any of those things.”

A lot of times a few of the guys would try to prod me to let slip a dirty word or two. Occasionally a few of them would conspire to make me have a rough day, just to try to get me to lose my temper. Now why would they do that? They saw somebody more disciplined than them and they tried to get him to stumble so he’d “descend to their level.” I’m not going to sit here and tell you that people who drink or cuss or make mistakes can’t get into Heaven. I will tell you though, that blamelessness bothers sinners. I’m not perfect, but guys on that crew figured I was, and it was an image they wanted to mar for their own satisfaction. If they could make a “perfect” person stumble, it made them feel better about the way they lived their own lives.

That’s one side of the coin. There’s a very important flip side to it. When you stiffen your spine in response to consistent opposition day after day, week after week, month after month, there’s a certain amount of respect that others develop toward you. I wasn’t preachy about my faith to the other guys. In fact, I don’t know that I ever even threw “I’m a Christian” out there. One guy, who had given me a lot of grief, but who was also a very philosophical type of fellow, one day told me he had a lot of respect for my convictions. He seemed to take at least a little bit of joy in finding hypocrisy in people that called themselves religious. After months of working together and trying to get under my skin, he told me “you are who you say you are.” (I never had to say who I was.)

Not only was it a very high compliment coming from him, it was an acknowledgement to me that it had been worth the heat. Soon after that we spent some time talking about the Bible and some of the things it contained. We eventually went our separate ways, but a few years later my wife and I looked him up and visited him and his family. They had us over for dinner, breaking out some big steaks, sharing their table and their home with us. I can’t say I led the guy to Christ, and I haven’t had any contact with him in probably 15 years, but I hope to be one member of the team that takes part in his years-long journey to the Lord.

God will ask you to do things that are hard. He asks you to do it because He knows you’re uniquely suited to get it done. If He asks you to be above reproach in a difficult environment, it might just be because He knows blamelessness bothers sinners, and He’s using you to get somebody’s attention. Hang in there. God uses teams of believers to accomplish His will in any given person’s life, but you may be the one He’s chosen to get the ball rolling.

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Just Explain it to me in Plain English

When you’re a blogger, you’re always at least a little curious about which posts really resonate with readers. Unless someone says something to you, you never really know for sure. You can get insights into things like the number of people viewing the different pages on your blog. That’s about as good a proxy as you’re going to get, because you can use that metric to see what kind of posts are more popular than others. I can’t see things like the names of people that have viewed different pages, but I can see which posts get the most traffic.

It turns out that the post I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the odd politics of our nation (it’s easier for a minor to get a sex change than it is for them to get a tattoo, for example) generated significantly more hits than normal. While I fully intend for this blog’s main purpose to remain focused on pushing Christ-followers to use their lives as a living sacrifice and step into the role God’s designed for them, sometimes I also need to take my own advice and do what I’m good at, even if it’s not directly God-honoring.

Today I’d like to have another look at American politics, starting out with some of the basics and hopefully help translate a little of that into where we are today.

I try to stay away from party names like “Democrat” or “Republican,” and instead use the terms “liberal” and “conservative.” The reason is partly because people don’t often fit cleanly into one camp or the other and people don’t react objectively to labels, but mainly it’s because each party’s views can be so wide-ranging that you could squeeze multiple ideologies into each party. You’ll hear me refer to the political left (liberals/Democrats generally, but Socialists and Communists if you go further and further left) and political right (conservatives/Republicans here, but dictators if you go further right). Both sides seek prosperity or financial security, but they take very different approaches to get there.

Please understand that these are broad generalizations. Of course you can find exceptions to the things I say here, but by and large, these principles hold true. Let’s start with an abridged look at the two groups.

Left: Their view is that the people work for the government, which provides stability, services, financial safety nets, etc. for its citizens (and non-citizens, in our case). Social issues are generally the most important things our country has to figure out. Quality of life is a good thing, but the government doesn’t like when there are large disparities between the “haves” and the “have nots,” so the “haves” should pay higher and higher tax percentages the more money they make. The government will take care of you from cradle to grave in return for your loyalty in paying high taxes. Life is hard, people have extenuating circumstances; they can’t always make the most of their opportunities and they should look to the government as the solution to their problems.

Right: In this group’s view, the government works for the people, providing basic national services (federal highways, FAA and FCC rules, a strong military), but not taking more taxes than necessary and allowing local-level politics to sort out the details. The law of supply and demand plays a big part in our economy. If people are willing to pay for something, someone will come up with a better or cheaper way to provide it. Individual innovators and service providers in the private sector drive the economy and wealth creation, and the government provides only basic guidelines to make sure those efforts don’t go off the rails (as an example, think about the reasonable rules/precautions the government should pass regarding artificial intelligence right now). Ideally there should be plentiful job opportunities for everyone, and those that work hard are encouraged to go as far as their potential and drive enable them to go.

If you’re a conservative, you kind of have the political deck stacked against you. People in the two camps have very different outlooks, as you might expect. The “best minds” of left-leaning thinkers end up in government. The “best minds” of right-leaning thinkers end up in the private sector. Who, then, on the right, ends up in government? There are some good ones, sure, but often the ones that are really good decide that they can make a more lucrative living doing something other than government service, and they end up leaving public office. I wouldn’t go so far as to say our government’s Democrats are the Varsity team and Republicans are the Junior Varsity team, but it’s tough to come up with a better analogy. As a result, the country has steadily marched left, even though we’re a mostly center-right nation. Even beyond Senators and Congressional Representatives, the bench is much deeper for liberals. When liberals can’t get their legislative agenda passed, faceless regulators and unelected officials use different avenues to advance the goals of hard-left politicians. Businesses that are just trying to make a profit are impacted when their bottom line is affected by regulations that get too complicated to understand. They have to pay for the services of lawyers and compliance officers to make sure they’re doing everything legally, rather than spending that money on enhancing the quality of their product or otherwise investing in their business. (Trump cleared a lot of regulations and the economy leapt forward. Biden reinstituted a lot of them and that’s part of the reason our economic recovery is so slow. Some regulations were good ideas, others were not, but the more regulations you have, the harder it is to run a business.)

Conservatives often have the viewpoint that they shouldn’t interfere in other peoples’ lives because that’s not what they’d want to happen to them. Legislatively, liberals tend to benefit from that outlook because they don’t have the same qualms and conservatives don’t normally fight back until it’s too late. Conservatives figure that as long as politicians in Washington don’t do anything too crazy, it’ll all be fine in the end. Well, then those politicians go and do things conservatives aren’t comfortable with. That gets the conservatives to vote in the next election or two, but eventually they go back to their complacency and the cycle starts again. The result is that the country’s politics have steadily shifted leftward over the last hundred years (examples: Social Security and the New Deal, Medicare and Medicaid, the mandatory health insurance of the Affordable Care Act, today’s practice of using well-qualified mortgage applicants to pay extra fees to help support riskier borrowers, and the functional removal of America’s southern border). The political left “takes new ground” while the best that conservatives hope for is “stopping the liberal agenda.” Conservatives don’t usually take new ground. (Or if they do, it causes face-melting rage fests and riots among the left.)

Our country’s government was set up to have multiple political parties, so I wouldn’t want to see just one be completely dominant, even if it’s the one I tend to side with. It’s a little unfair to refer to the current Democratic Party as the actual Democratic Party. Over the last 20 years or so, the party has shifted far left very quickly, often to the extreme left. The Democratic platform has changed and now embraces extremism in almost every case. (Everyday middle-class Democrats who agree on almost all the Party’s main issues but disagree on one thing, like the issue of abortion, are shouted down and all but kicked out of the Party if they push their views, it seems.) People that have voted Democrat for decades out of principle maybe went along with this leftward migration, but are finding that their party traveled further left than they really agree with. Their options are to not vote, to vote Republican (which some of them will never do just on principle), or to vote for a third party. I’d argue that they didn’t leave the Democratic Party, but that the Democratic Party instead left them. They should get involved earlier, in the primaries, to try to reclaim their party and move it back toward the center, where the two sides can actually get some things done by working together.

There’s so much more to cover, but this is already getting longer than normal. No matter what side you’re on politically, please pray for our nation, that it would turn from evil and toward the Lord. Pray for revival in this land and for God to be glorified.

There’s a whole lot more, but I don’t know if you’d be interested to hear it. Want additional political posts? Want me to stay away from future political posts? Let me know. Leave a comment or use the “contact us” option to share your thoughts.