Tag: christian encouragement

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History has a Tendency To Repeat Itself

The other day my daughter pointed out to me that 2024 is starting out an awful lot like 2020 did. The 49ers are playing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. This month has an extra day at the end because it’s a leap year. It’s looking more and more likely that it’s going to be a Biden/Trump presidential election. And at least at this point in the year, the Olympics are scheduled to take place this summer as long as a worldwide pandemic doesn’t change things.

Well obviously, I don’t have the inside track on how any of those things are going to turn out (though I’m hoping the 49ers can pull off a win over the Chiefs). Despite not liking to put many political posts on this blog, I feel it’s important to sometimes address things before they happen, hopefully helping you to prepare mentally for what’s ahead.

President Biden is polling abysmally right now. I mean, it’s bad. He listens to extremist advisors and espouses policies that are difficult to justify if the goal is to make America and its economy better (raise energy prices, force electric vehicle adoption in a market that isn’t interested, ban gas appliances, forfeit energy independence, etc.). Between many of his supporters wanting him to do more to punish Israel, along with Independents (and a big chunk of Democrats) saying “you know, I think you’ve gone too far with the border situation,” he’s got a shrinking pool of people he can rely on. At this rate, his only real chance is to make the other Presidential candidates look even less appealing than he does.

Nikki Haley is still in the race, but she’s going to have to pull off some convincing wins here very soon if she wants to realistically remain in the conversation. If she somehow pulls off a massive upset and gains the GOP nomination, Biden’s going to have his hands full trying to convince the country that he can do a better job than she can. I don’t really see her being much more than a nuisance to former President Trump on his path to the nomination, though.

I’m not sure of the latest numbers, but at one point there were over 90 criminal counts pending against Trump. That’s not a small thing. If he’s guilty, he should face the consequences. I do question the timing of the four cases, though. It strikes me as odd that no charges were brought until after it was evident he’d be running again. It seems suspicious that everything seemed to hit at once, almost as though it was a coordinated effort to keep someone in the courtroom rather than the campaign trail and force them to use money on legal defense instead of being used elsewhere. Between that “legal coordination” and attempts to keep him off ballots, I don’t feel it’s Trump that poses the biggest threat of election interference or threat to democracy.

Now I can’t honestly say I know what all those charges are, but based on the sheer number of them I’ve got to imagine he’ll be convicted on at least one of them. Those are all felony counts. Here I’m showing my ignorance on the legal system, but I would think that not all felonies are created equal. There are different levels of “badness” in the felony category. If he’s convicted of the most minor felony count, it can still truthfully be said that he’s been found guilty of a felony (even if he appeals and wins). If that happens, that’s the only thing you’re going to hear out of the White House, out of Biden surrogates, and from protesters between now and the election. They’ll hope a felony conviction of any sort will be enough to cause a sizable portion of voters to withhold their support from him.

This may just shape up to be a contest to see who can avoid looking the worst. Trump’s facing 90+ felonies, but Biden just got caught either lying to the American people or showing that he doesn’t quite have a solid grasp of the situation. Regarding the border bill that fell apart earlier this week, Biden has repeatedly claimed that its passage is necessary to empower him before he can solve the border crisis. The last president somehow managed to do quite a bit to secure the border, and the Democratic Senate that’s been in power since then hasn’t taken away any of the President’s powers. My guess is that Biden will tighten up the border just enough to say “look, we’ve reduced the number of people crossing into the U.S.” to try to take away Trump’s biggest weapon, and you’ll hear “felony, felony, felony” or “fascist white supremacist” about Trump.

Also like we saw in 2020, there are probably a lot of people that are going to say “I don’t like either candidate.” In an interesting turn of events, this year there’s a third-party candidate that’s benefitting quite a bit from a general dislike of the two-party system. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is picking up some steam. He comes from a more traditional Democratic platform, from before extremists took over the party. At this point he’s the most centrist candidate in the race, and he’s gaining support from people on both sides (though more of that support probably comes from Democrats). As we draw closer to the election in November he’s probably going to get more attention because a lot of what he says makes sense to people who are looking for less drama out of the White House.

What I’m about to say assumes that Kennedy gets a LOT more support between now and November, so keep that in mind as you read it. Presidential candidates win elections by gaining more than half of the nation’s 538 electoral college votes. You need 270 to win. If RFK Jr. peels off a state or two, he could conceivably prevent any candidate from reaching 270 electoral votes. In that case, the outcome of the election gets tossed over to the House of Representatives.

To reiterate, we’re talking about kind of a long-shot scenario here. If the House gets to pick the next president, it’s going to be under tremendous pressure to “do the right thing.” The “right thing,” however, is open to interpretation. Is it the candidate that got the greatest number of electoral votes? Is it the candidate that got the most popular votes? Will it come down to a party-line vote, and if so, how will that work if a few of the representatives are in the hospital or are otherwise unavailable in one of the narrowest House margins in history?

It’s still a very difficult time in our nation’s history. There’s no candidate that everyone will support. We’re stuck once again with picking the least bad option. No matter what party is in power, please pray for our president and officials in Congress. God allowed them to be there, so please pray for His hand on them, steering them toward what He wants to accomplish.

Lord, thank you for the blessings we enjoy by living in this country. I ask that You watch over our nation’s leaders, give them wisdom, and help them make God-honoring decisions. I ask in Your name, amen.

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Looking Back Can Encourage You To Look Ahead

About a month ago I mentioned that I’d do something of a “year in review” for this blog. At the time I was discussing the importance of following through with the remaining opportunities the Lord gives you to do His work in this life. During lengthier endeavors I think it’s good now and then to stop and reflect on how far you’ve come, recognizing that God is heavily involved and deserves credit for any success.

A little over five years ago God laid on my heart an absurd task: start a blog that honors Him. I say “absurd” because: 1. I don’t really use social media anymore, which seems like it would be kind of an important element of trying to gain attention for a website; 2. I’m an introvert and don’t relish the idea of trying to connect with nameless, faceless people out there in the electronic ether; 3. I’ve had little or no classroom writing training, so a writing-centric effort doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Despite those misgivings, I decided to obey and let God do whatever He wanted with this whole endeavor.

I can’t claim that I’m some kind of massive Christian influencer. In fact, some of my posts here don’t even mention God or religion. What I can say, though, is that my blog’s reach has extended beyond what I initially expected it to. The intent behind this post is not to say “look at me and how cool I am” or anything like that at all. By sharing this information what I’m really hoping to do is drive home to you the importance of taking small steps of obedience to Christ, because over time they add up and serve as opportunities God can use to work in other peoples’ lives. Even more than that, I’d like to show how a pattern of faithful consistency builds into a cumulative body of something larger. You don’t have to do one huge, mind-blowing thing, it’s probably more beneficial to do a lot of smaller things regularly. To help prove my point, here are a few interesting 2023 stats for the blog and what I take away from them.

During the year the blog hosted 51 new posts, once a week for almost the whole year. While it’s no surprise that IP addresses from the United States score the most number of hits on the blog, the U.S. is far from the only country that had someone stop in for a visit. Besides the U.S., DareGreatlyNow.com had hits from over 50 countries during 2023. Most of those countries accounted for only one, two, or three hits during the whole year. Of course, it’s impossible to claim any of those hits resulted in bringing anyone to Christ, and I have no actual insight into what people do with the posts they read on the blog. Many times God uses conversations, songs, articles, and myriad other things to speak into a person’s life, and I hope God uses my work here to do that very thing in others’ lives. For now I have to trust that God brings the right posts to the right person at the right time, and I have to be okay with knowing that I won’t get filled in on just about any of the details until after Jesus comes back or calls me home.

Of the website’s top 10 visiting countries from 2023, it’s not a shock that most of them are either English-speaking or have large percentages of English-speakers in their populations. Aside from the U.S., the rest of the website’s top 10 patron nations are, in descending order, Canada, China, Ireland, Germany, Norway, India, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Sweden.

Broken down by region, I see seven countries/islands from North America and the Caribbean, three from Central and South America, 20 from Europe, 14 from Asia, seven from Africa, two in Australia (Australia and New Zealand), and four in the Middle East.

Few or none of these stats are a result of my own personal work to promote the blog. I simply don’t have the time to work on drawing more attention to it. I write and post stuff, and God guides people to the site to bring them to see whatever He wants them to see. I have no idea what individual concepts He’s guiding them to. Sure I would love more people to come and read, but if I’m honest, that’s the flesh talking. I’d say that all these posts were worth it if one person decided to trust in Christ as a result of reading one of them. I believe that’s true, but I also know that the blog isn’t really geared toward non-believers, it’s geared more toward Christians that aren’t fully stepping out in what they’ve been called to do for the Lord. What truly needs to happen is that the right person sees the right post at the right time. While some posts are very time-sensitive and lose relevance quickly (current events, especially), many posts on the site age pretty well, and hold true from year to year. In fact, of the five most-viewed posts in 2023, three of them were posted prior to the start of 2023. I sit here reviewing some of these stats and get confused about why posts from 2019 or 2020 are doing so well, but just accept that God’s still using some of my older submissions to work in people.

Often you are the determining factor in whether or not a post has reach. Facebook is the top referrer of people to the site, and that’s not me doing that, that’s because of readers like you liking and sharing individual posts, which then sometimes take on a life of their own (that wouldn’t happen without you, so thank you!). After Facebook, search engines are the next-highest referrers bringing people to posts. Then there are a handful of other blogs that link directly to portions of the website, so thanks to other bloggers out there!

There are other insights to glean from last year’s numbers, but it’s time to wrap this up. If I had waited these last five years to follow God’s lead, these kinds of stats would probably still be five years away. Please keep this perspective in mind when God calls you to pursue different “absurd” tasks in your life. I want this post to serve as encouragement to take up the challenge He’s extending to you, and to do it without delay. Your tasks on their own, whatever they are, may not move mountains or get your name in history books, but if God’s placing the assignment in your path, it will add to the collective effort of other saints He’s got working on various projects and could very well lead to you someday hearing the wonderful words “well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” Zechariah 4:10

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When Something Takes the hit for you

Easter is a little more than a week away. To help prepare for the season, I’d like to revisit a story I’ve told before, but it’s been a few years, so I can probably get away with it.

In the years after college I took up skydiving. It was lots of fun and a whole new type of experience. When you’re early in your skydiving career, there’s a lot of stress, thought, and mental preparation that goes into each freefall jump. It’s important to stay mentally calm so your body stays physically relaxed. If you tense up, it makes it difficult to control yourself in the airstream, and your body doesn’t maneuver the way you want it to.

One day I did a jump, and I don’t remember what the objectives were, but the freefall portion of the jump didn’t go well. Nobody got hurt or anything, but I was unable to achieve the goals I’d set for myself. For whatever reason, I had either raised my own expectations too high or I tensed up and started losing control of my ability to maneuver how I wanted to. When it came time, I opened my parachute and descended under canopy, fuming the whole time I floated to the ground.

When I finally touched down safely, I let that anger out. Draped in thousands of dollars worth of gear that had repeatedly saved my life, I couldn’t go too crazy on the chute or the rig, so I ripped off my helmet, yelling as I slammed it on the ground, then kicked it in frustration. Man, I was just seething with rage over something that I don’t even recall today.

Around Easter time, we sometimes hear the word “propitiation” in church. It’s usually referring to the idea that since God and sin are incompatible, and His holy wrath toward sin must be satisfied before we experience lasting peace, there has to be some kind of reckoning.

In my case, on that skydive, I took out my wrath on that poor, innocent helmet. After expending my rage, I stood there with gritted teeth, red face, and heaving shoulders. As I began getting myself under control, the wrath was spent, and the helmet had served as the object that took the punishment.

In God’s case, He had a choice. He could either demand ongoing sacrifices of unblemished animals from His followers, or He could implement a permanent solution. Back in Bible times, sacrifices were the means of satisfying God’s wrath against our sin…those sacrifices took our punishment on our behalf. Thankfully for us, He opted to go the second route. He sent Jesus Christ, His only son, to live among us. Living a spotless life without sin (the equivalent of an unblemished sacrificial animal), Christ died on our behalf, an innocent man dying the death of a criminal. Then, in what has to be one of the most indescribable emotions in the whole Bible, God turned His back on His own son, who then experienced our due punishment in our place.

Christ died on a Friday. That Sunday, He rose from the dead in victory, having satisfied God’s wrath and forever changing our relationship with God for the better. This is propitiation. Christ took our punishment for us so we could be spared from it.

So the next time you feel the urge to either punch a wall, punt the stupid playground ball that kid’s been bouncing, or throw your golf clubs into the water hazard, just imagine how much greater God’s wrath is, and be thankful that He’s enacted a plan that offers you a way to exempt yourself from it.

Dear Lord, thank you from the bottom of my heart for dying on the cross on my behalf. This Easter season, please help me remember the importance of what You’ve done not just for me, but for everyone, whether they accept Your gift or now. Please help me to live the way You want me to live, and share this good news with those around me. I pray in Your name, Amen.

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I’m Gonna be Honest…That’s not a Surprise

You want to talk about a boring job?

I once went on a business trip to the Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain. It’s an island in the Persian Gulf that’s its own country, very near Saudi Arabia. I was there for less than a week, I think during the month of June.

One night as I was in my hotel room, I turned on the TV, looking for something I could understand. While I flipped through channels I came across the weather forecast. I didn’t catch what they were saying, but when they threw the 4-day outlook up on the screen, it made me wonder why they even had the weather as a segment on the news. The highs for the whole forecasted period only varied by a degree or two. I mean, what do you think the weather forecast in a Middle Eastern desert area in summer looks like? It was hot at night, and then…spoiler alert…sunny and really hot during the day.

Sorry for my low-quality image. Overnight lows don’t go below 90 degrees. Daytime highs over 115 degrees.

Some things you kinda don’t really need to be filled in on, but it’s nice to hear anyway.

We’re living in a longer-range scenario where that applies, too. For those of you that are Christ followers, let me provide just a little bit of that reassurance to you.

Our world is a fallen place. It’s dark, it’s evil, and it will get worse before it gets better. Those that follow Christ will be laughed at, scorned, and persecuted. Some will be killed, and some Christian practices will eventually be outlawed. Spoiler alert: despite all that, in the end God wins.

We know where we are now, and we know how things end. The thing we don’t know is what happens in between now and then. Our job in the interim is to be faithful to what we’ve been called to do. Go and make disciples of all nations. Spread the gospel and encourage other believers. Pray for revival. There are many unsaved souls out there. By living out your calling, you’ll play a part in rescuing some of them.

Lord, thank you for being in control of everything and for the blessing of salvation. Help us all to live for You and be a blessing to the world by helping to share You with others. Amen.

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It Was Gone With the Wind

At a family get-together at my wife’s aunt and uncle’s house, my son ran into a problem.

This particular piece of property has a field that’s lined on two sides with acres of hardwood trees. My son brought an aerial drone to use in the field, but even a gentle breeze was too much for it to overcome and it got carried toward the trees. By the time he sent the command to kill power, it was out of range and it maintained a hover as the wind took it away.

He came and found me and relayed what had happened. Thankfully some of the other kids overheard the predicament and a small army of second cousins headed out into the treeline to search. (Walking behind them, it was one of those “my faith in humanity is restored” moments.)

The search dragged on for awhile though, and we didn’t develop any leads. My wife’s uncle had a number of tree stands set up in the area, so I decided to climb up a little higher for a better view.

Nearing the top of the ladder, I stopped and began having a look around. Was that… “I might see something over there!” I pointed off in a direction and someone took a walk over to check it out. I steered them toward whatever it was, and sure enough, they picked up the missing drone! It had automatically killed the power after losing contact with the remote long enough.

My son was very fortunate to have so many people willing to lend a hand. It was hard to find the drone walking around on the ground, even with so many of us searching. Getting a different vantage point made all the difference.

Now remember that you’ve got an advocate working on your behalf, who not only sees from an elevated vantage point, but from every possible vantage point. He knows what your mind is preoccupied with, He knows what you’re searching for, what He’ll let you find, when He’ll show it to you, and the surprise events that are just around the corner.

In the various crises we face with our short-term memories, it’s sometimes tough to remember that God plays the long game in our lives. The attitudes we take in facing today’s events not only are born out of the previous experiences God’s brought us through, but will also shape our future perspective. In God’s multi-dimensional perspective, He’s both having us arrive at a specific point in our lives and preparing us for some future purpose.

From our position on the ground it’s hard (or impossible) to see, but we’ve got someone in our corner with a way better view, guiding us where He wants us to go. We just need to follow those directions.

The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him. And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.” -Isaiah 30:20-21

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Papers Please. What is the Reason for Your Visit?

When I was a teenager my extended family organized a reunion in Europe. My U.S. relatives connected with my European relatives and plotted out a multi-week celebration and tour for all of us as the younger generation (myself included) met many cousins, second cousins, and great aunts and uncles for the first time. It was a lot of fun, looking back. Lots of beautiful scenery, lots of fun experiences, and many interesting people.

Aside from the flight across the Atlantic, this trip included a good amount of travel once we were there. The host families weren’t clustered in one town, they were sprinkled throughout different areas, so we did lots of smaller trips from region to region. One day as our group was waiting for a train, one of the members of our party showed us how she had made photocopies of passports for her and her husband. In the event that something happened to their actual passports, the photocopies would help in replacing the passports they’d need to get home.

This was a very good idea, and the U.S. State Department actually recommends doing this. We were all impressed with the idea, until she folded the copies up and tucked them back into the bag right next to her actual passports. That’s when everyone started pointing out that the copies should be stored somewhere else, because if they were kept together, whatever unfortunate circumstance befell the actual passports would also happen to the copies.

We’ll come back to that in a minute. The Bible impresses on us that it’s our job as Christians to be the salt and light for the world (meaning that Christ through us is the force that slows the world’s moral decay). We’re ordered to spread the Gospel with the message of what Christ has done for us. It also points out, however, that some situations are so spiritually dangerous that they must be approached with extreme caution.

The New Testament book of Jude is only a single chapter long, and spends a lot of its time talking about apostates, or those that have somehow defected from true, biblical faith. In fact, it’s the only New Testament book that’s dedicated exclusively to confronting those that warp such faith. Apostates intentionally sowed incorrect doctrine among early followers of Christ. Jude called on the church to fight to maintain correct doctrine, and for believers to contend for their faith.

In this struggle there are people of biblical faith, there are apostates that pervert biblical faith, and there are those that are caught in the middle, either trying to figure out what to believe or not yet completely firm in their decision. It’s this third group that Jude discusses in verses 22 and 23.

Verse 22 is fairly straightforward: And on some have compassion, making a distinction. The people caught in the middle need to hear the truth, certainly, and that’s part of the role of the Christian. This verse is more or less telling us not to abandon people that have been influenced by wrongful teaching. We’re to have compassion on them because it’s still possible to sway them to the truth. There’s a dire warning in the next verse though. Verse 23 says but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

This is very strange. Aside from “praise the Lord,” some version of “fear not” is the most common command in the Bible. Why, then, are we urged to do something with fear? It adds a high degree of emphasis for the reader.

Did you ever literally pull something from a fire? Speed is important. The teaching of apostates can be so sticky, so subtle, and so dangerous, that if I could paraphrase Jude, he’d be saying “if you can’t save them without getting yourself sucked in, don’t attempt it. Give it a quick try, but if you’re starting to get burned yourself, run the other way.” These people are to be given the Gospel, just like everyone else, but it’s to be delivered with a great fear of being contaminated by apostates’ lies or misleading worldview. Think back to the passport example. If the actual passports and the copies are kept in very close proximity, whatever danger befalls one will happen to the other. The two versions can be carried by the same person for short periods of time if necessary, but it’s a bad idea to keep them together in the same place for the whole trip. Jude punctuates his point by metaphorically suggesting that even the garment of one so dangerous is to be avoided for fear of being affected by false teaching.

Are you a Christ-follower? If so, part of your duty is to be very familiar with scripture so you can be on guard against false teaching, and can confront it when you encounter it. The teachers who intentionally twist God’s word will be judged harshly, but by that point it will likely be too late to help those that fall victim to these teachers. This is why it’s essential that when you hear some biblical teaching you know to be incorrect, you speak up.

Need some examples? You’ll encounter many people that don’t believe any of the following, but be especially watchful and on guard when you hear people only partially agree with these concepts:

-Jesus Christ is God’s only son, both fully God and fully man. We cannot ever be equal to Him. He is the only way to salvation, an eternity with God, and Heaven.

-The Bible is made up of the Old and New Testaments. It’s not missing anything (there’s no additional component that’s necessary in order to “complete” the set of scripture).

-Beware of people that claim to have insider information or who “know what the Bible really means.” Christ’s sacrifice is a gift to all humanity…it’s to be shared freely, not hoarded.

Lord, with 8 billion people on the planet, there’s a lot of teaching out there. Some of it’s true, some of it sounds true, and some of it’s downright wrong. Thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to be our personal lie detectors when it comes to what You’ve revealed. Help us stay rooted in scripture, amplify our understanding, and give us the boldness and confidence to contend for the faith, in order that You may be glorified. I ask in Your name, Amen.

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What can Those in the 2020s Learn From 1980s Sports Figures?

It’s aggravating to me to see the way people intentionally ratchet up tensions, even stoking violence, toward others that don’t share their same view of the world. Sadly, this is the new norm now, and it seems like it’s intensifying. Sometimes it’s tempting to use this site as a platform to unload on the people doing it. Rather than indulging in that right now, though, I thought I’d share a fun four-minute video I recently came across.

In the early 1980s, before Michael Jordan got hugely famous, some of the most dominant names in professional basketball were Irvin “Magic” Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers and Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics.

These guys could not stand each other. Both were exceptional talents, but they had a way of getting under each other’s skin and they developed a professional relationship that extended past rivalry and into hatred.

So in 1985 when the athletic shoe company Converse hired the two to shoot a commercial featuring the superstars playing each other one-on-one, nobody quite knew what to expect (least of all Johnson and Bird).

This video, Magic And Bird: A Rivalry Gives Way To Friendship, shows what can happen when some humanity is injected into a hate-filled situation.

There’s a radio station I listen to sometimes that says “the world is full of good people. If you can’t find one, be one.”

Hang in there. Better times are coming.

God, it’s bad out there. People seem like they’ve absolutely lost their minds. Please help us know when we should stand up and push back, and when we should be willing to take it on the chin. Help our pride not get in the way as we try to reflect You in the course of our daily lives, even if it means the other guy/gal walks away thinking they got the better of us. Their eternal destination is far more important than our bruised ego. In all things, may Your name be praised. Amen.

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History in Progress

Let’s talk Ukraine for a little bit.

Things have gotten out of hand there lately. Although there’s been plenty of turmoil in the world lately, it feels like it’s been awhile since there were outright military engagements between nations.

This is only the most recent example of a world whose occupants have fought with each other since Adam and Eve were forced out of the garden. Ever since the two of them, our enemy has been working to pull humans away from fellowship with God.

Awhile back I wrote about why Satan benefits from the deaths of both those that don’t follow Christ and those that do. When unbelievers die, it cements their status as someone who has not received Christ; they have no additional opportunities to accept His gift of salvation, and Satan revels in the twisted joy of having prevented God from spending eternity with someone He loves. Conversely, Satan rejoices at the death of Christians because those that belong to Christ are more likely to play a part in snatching souls from his fold. Christians are equipped with the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts, tools which can cut deep into our adversary’s kingdom. Can you blame him for celebrating when mighty warriors of the faith pass from this life, even if it means they graduate into God’s presence?

In light of this “death is good” mentality, it would make sense for Satan to do everything in his power to foment war, famine, and disease. Individual deaths are okay in his eyes, but death on the scale of thousands is something for him to aspire to. A shooting war is a good start for him, but it’s made better by the disease and famine that accompany combat conditions in an area under siege.

It’s hard not to wish ill will on Vladimir Putin. If it’s God’s will, Putin could choke to death on a pretzel today and have this whole invasion fall apart quickly. Maybe that’s the plan, but in the meantime, it’s important to remember that Putin would not have risen to be Russia’s president without the Lord allowing it.

Even though us mortals can’t see right now how God’s plan will play out in this situation, we are getting a better picture of what’s been happening. I saw a news report where a captured Russian soldier claimed to have been told by his superiors that Ukraine had been overrun by Nazis. If that claim is true and that’s what the whole invasion force has been told, we’ve got a whole bunch of misled, but well-intentioned, troops getting in firefights with people trying to defend their homeland. It’s easy to see how patriotic Ukrainians would then put together raids to hit Russians manning the stalled miles-long Russian convoy.

The whole time, in the background where we can’t see…there’s our supernatural adversary, snickering and rubbing his hands together gleefully each time there’s a death on either side or among noncombatants.

Hopefully this post serves as a reminder…there’s a lot on the line here…not just in Ukraine, but in the world today. Don’t forget about the urgency with which we should view this fleeting life. Eternity hangs in the balance, and you might be the only way the Gospel can reach some people.

Lord, the lies and injustices in this world make us long for Heaven. Some day You’ll return or call us home, but until that day comes, please help us to have the right focus, to use our spiritual gifts and talents, and to help raise God-fearing generations that will likely live in darker times than we do. Please end the violence in Ukraine and prevent things from getting any worse than they already are. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the things we see in our world, so we thank You for allowing us to cast our burdens at Your feet. We ask these things in Your name, Amen.

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Letting Go

Today’s post comes to us courtesy of a guest author, my wife! Enjoy!

On a vacation with my family I tried rock climbing for the first time. They had it set up with an automatic belay system… meaning there wasn’t an actual person spotting you if you fell, there was just the system.

I am not a fan of heights, but I also love adventures, so I geared up and was ready to give it a go. All harnessed in, I started to climb. They had someone there ready to point me to foot and hand holds if need be. They also told me to only climb part of the way up the first time and practice letting the belay system catch me so I could get used to it.

As I reached my halfway point, it was time to let go. This is where it got dicey for me. You see, I wanted to hang on to the wall, and feel the rope catch my weight BEFORE I let go. I wanted security, but no matter how much I tried to hold on to the wall and “sit” in my harness there was no feeling of security, only slack in the belay system. I was going to have to completely let go in order for it to engage and catch me. Some of you already see the tie-in here, ironic huh? I needed to let go in order to be caught. I had to trust the system would do what it was built to do. I couldn’t do it any other way. No matter how much I wanted to do it while still holding on, I couldn’t.  So, gritting my teeth I pushed off and let go (and fell splat, ha, just kidding), the rope caught as it should have and lowered me to the ground. I was able to keep going, climbing higher the next time. I even learned to kinda like it, and tried again the next day with Tim!

Isn’t this so us in our growing in our faith and trust in our Savior? God is continually, patiently working to build our faith. He knows each of us so well. We have little falls and nudges where we get to “try out” letting go before the really big ones come. During these times God shows He is faithful again and again. Our faith grows and so do the differing callings He places on our lives. There are bigger steps and leaps of faith, pushing us out of our comfort zone many times, and relying on our God’s strength in the midst of our weakness. God is always there to catch us and will never leave us or forsake us. He promises this!  (Hebrews 13:5) He is also completely honest with and tells us that we will have trouble and face trials (John 16:33), that we will be tested and tried and stretched. He is refining us, and I don’t know about you, but I think we tend to get lazy when all is well; it’s the trials, or even the scary callings or nudges from God that pulls us back to His arms. We always need Him…we’re just more aware of it in our flesh during the times of desperation, or in the face of our inadequacies.

So where are you? Are you on a mountain ready to conquer the world? Flying free? Don’t forget to lean into God and thank Him for the gifts He has given you. Remember to do all for the glory of God and point to Him and praise Him. Your gifts and talents come from your Maker. Don’t stop looking to Him. Build those disciplines and know your Bible so when life hits you hard you can keep your feet planted on your firm foundation, which is always Christ alone.

Or, maybe you are in a different phase: clinging to the wall, afraid to let go and trust, afraid to step out into the new and unknown? Maybe you’ve already let go…you’ve taken the leap and feel like you’re free falling and not getting caught at all? You are feeling battered and bruised, let down and confused at what has happened?  Some things that helped me during these times is looking back and remembering, just as God told the Israelites, to set up stones so they could remember and tell their children of His miracles and faithfulness (Joshua 4:4-7). We also should “set up stones.” We do this by recounting His awesome works, looking back at our life and taking account of His blessings and His gifts, writing down His past faithfulness to remind us in the present, looking for scriptures that encourage our heart and remind us of who our God is and all He did for us! Take your eyes off your circumstances and put them back on your great God. I heard someone recently say “He didn’t save us to then leave and abandon us to our trials all alone,” so even when it seems you are alone or don’t understand why you are going through what you are, cling to the fact that Your God died for you to save you, and He sent us His spirit to live in you, so once you are His you are never alone. Rest in the fact that our God doesn’t change, in an ever-changing culture of what is right and wrong our God is faithful and true, He beckons us to leap and trust and promises an eternity in Heaven with Him.

So yes, we will get bruised and battered in this life. We aren’t in Heaven yet, but as we climb may we keep our eyes fixed on our Savior and remember He is really the only trustworthy one that will never let us down. This fallen world will hurt and disappoint, give false promises, and lead us astray from what truly matters, but our God is always there. His death at the cross and His resurrection secured our place in Heaven if we only believe in Him as Savior. So come what may on this earth, when we are His, we are attached to the most amazing secure belay system imaginable, and our God will always catch us. He already has. Remember this life on earth is temporary, don’t get too attached or swept up in things that don’t really matter, the stuff we won’t take with us. Only the people around us matter. We have an eternity ahead of us! So be brave and live for a God that came down to save you. Love others well. Shine for Him and remember He is worth letting go for. Whatever it is God is telling you to do I dare you…go do it! It will be the best choice and ride of your life, because His plans are way better than ours. Always!

God bless you and thank you for taking the time to read.

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Face it, You Just Ain’t Got it Anymore

I used to have some pretty good hearing. Then a few decades rolled by.

My wife and I are normally pretty strict about the amount of “screen time” our kids get. Just seeing how mesmerized my son gets by anything electronic, we recognize we need to actively manage just how much time the kids are staring at something without blinking.

And yet…I enjoy a round of video games every now and then to blow off some steam, too. Right now I still have an original, old-school Nintendo with some of the best games (Contra and Dr. Mario get the most play time here). As you can imagine, the console and games are pretty old at this point, so they don’t really work all that well. If you had a Nintendo as a kid, you remember pulling the game out, blowing in the bottom, sticking it back in, and seeing if that worked any better. Sometimes the controller acted a little goofy and you’d yell to your buddy “I didn’t do it! It did it on its own!”

Well my wife surprised me with an updated version of the old console. It’s a mini version of the old Nintendo, and it has the same style of controllers hooked up to it (with some modern touches, of course). Now instead of having to switch game cartridges, there are over 600 games built directly into the console (including Contra and Dr. Mario).

This was a cool present, for sure. I normally wake up pretty early for work, so on Saturday mornings I usually wake up before everyone else, and sometimes I head down into the basement to play some games before anyone else wakes up. I even have an old TV to hook it up to because it looks weird when you connect it to a modern TV. So yes, I have a big ol’ cathode ray tube-looking monster that’s about two feet deep, sitting in a corner of my basement.

Because I know I’m going to have an audience if the kiddos find out what I’m doing (and I don’t want them to waste their screen time watching me play mindless nonsense), I turn off the lights and turn the volume down real quiet. My hope is that after they leave their bedroom and come down to the main floor, they’ll think they’re the first ones up and actually read a book or something.

So one time a few weeks ago when I was playing games in the basement and I heard someone walking around upstairs, I froze when the basement door opened. I mean, I didn’t make a sound. Whoever it was opened the door and stood silently at the top for a bit, just listening as I sat there motionless. Imagine my surprise when my son started bounding down the stairs into the basement and started talking to me before he could even see me.

“How did you even know I was down here?”

It turns out he was able to hear something that I’ve lost the ability to hear. As you age, even if you don’t have any damage to your hearing, your ability to hear certain frequencies decays at a predictable rate. My son could hear the high-frequency noise that the old TV makes when it’s turned on. I marveled at this for a bit, proud of his stellar hearing, but then it slipped my mind and I forgot about it. (You can even take some internet hearing tests that guess your age by your ability to hear. Unfortunately it says I have the hearing of someone that’s 5-7 years older than me. Guess there will be hearing aids in my future.)

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I was playing video games again one day after work while the kids played with neighbors outside. After they got too hot to continue, they all came inside. The door at the top of the basement stairs opened, and one of the neighbor kids almost right away said something like “it sounds like someone’s playing an old arcade game down here.” It turns out his family has one of the big throwback ACTUAL arcade games (like Pacman) at his house, and the high-frequency noise it makes sounds similar to my stone-age TV.

It’s official. I simply don’t have the tools I used to have.

As time goes by, you’re going to lose some of the capabilities you once possessed. What’s important is that you need to use the ones you still have (or the ones you’ve gained over time) in a way that would please God.

Picture yourself in “the good old days.” What did you have back then that you don’t have now? You’re probably thinking of physical assets. Strength, health, good looks, the ability to eat or drink whatever you want without putting on weight.

What’s also missing from back then? Think about all the mistakes that younger version of you still needed to go through. Those mistakes led to hard-won experience that gives you more wisdom in the choices you make today. How about income? Who’s making more, that younger you or the current you? With more resources comes a greater ability to fund God’s work. I’m sure family looks different, too. Back then there may have been more older generations still around in your family. Now maybe you’re on the older side of that spectrum, but those that are younger bring a special happiness to your heart.

The point of all this, of course, is that time marches on and even though the focus tends to be more on what you’ve lost, there are also some things you’ve gained.

The way you honor the Lord may not look like it once did, but that doesn’t mean you should stop using your current gifts, resources, and time to please Him just because you can’t do it the same anymore.

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. –1 Corinthians 10:31