Tag: get back up

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Let There be no Mistake: Wimbledon This is not

In high school I played a couple years of tennis. It was a spring sport, so right around this time of year, when it went back and forth between snow and hot weather, we’d have practice in preparation for our first match.

I played doubles, so the strategy was a little different than for singles. In singles you’re responsible for the whole kit and caboodle: everything that comes over the net is something you need to get back to your opponent. It’s a little different in doubles, and you have to work as a team. Figuring out the way you want to move around the court, who’s got the better serve or backhand, which of your opponents was the weaker player from the baseline, and seeing if you could lure the guy at the net close enough to the center of the court to get it past him down the alley were all parts of the strategy you’d look at developing.

Playing the net was my favorite part of doubles. Most of the time the two guys at the opposite baselines are slugging it out, but every now and then the guy on the other team would either flub the return or maybe underestimate the net guy’s reach, and allow the ball to get close enough for the net man to pounce on it and slam it back between the two opponents. Sometimes teams would get a little tricky and have the baseline and net guy switch sides of the court, which usually threw the other team off balance but also opened themselves up for an attack if they didn’t do it right.

Sometimes it would become painfully obvious that high school tennis players were not professionals. The net guy on one team would “intercept” the return and get it over the net, but the other net player would get to it fast enough to get it back over. The goal was for the net player to return the ball at a sharp enough angle that neither one of the other players could get to it in time.

I’m pretty tall, and I’ve got a pretty large wingspan. When I have a racket in my hand, my reach gets that much further. When I played at the net, I usually crouched and kept my arms tucked in, to try and mask my full reach. As the volleys continued, many times the opponents sort of got lulled into this sense that I wasn’t going to do anything unless the ball came very close to me. Once in awhile I’d even ignore a ball I may have been able to get to. They’d get less and less careful about keeping it away from me, and eventually I’d explode out of the crouch and either blast the ball somewhere onto their side or just barely tap it over the net to a spot they couldn’t reach fast enough.

That lurking, that patient waiting until just the right moment is a lot like one of the tactics our enemy uses. We, Christians, can get lazy or lose sight of the danger, and get lulled into a sense of complacency. We know we should stay away from the really bad stuff, but this smaller, less obvious version is probably okay, right?

It could be anything. Alcohol. Pornography. Racy novels. Gossip. Substance abuse. Gambling. Lying. “It’s not so bad,” we tell ourselves. There are no immediate repercussions. Then we wade a little deeper into whatever it is; we “allow the ball to get a little closer to the guy at the net.” We might even be a little excited about feeling like we’ve got things under control. Then one day, you suddenly and horribly realize you should have made different choices. That sudden realization can look very different depending on what kind of fire you’re playing with.

Then comes one of the enemy’s biggest and most effective tricks. Instead of coming clean and seeking help from someone you trust, he whispers in your ear “you’ll never recover from the shame if people find out. You’ll carry that stigma everywhere you go for the rest of your life. It’s better to just keep it hidden.”

Every one of those examples above are well-known problems among humanity. Admitting it to someone you can trust isn’t admitting you’re a failure, it’s admitting you’re human and you’re not perfect. Guess what? We already knew that. Sharing your struggle with someone and trying to get some help actually takes away most of the enemy’s power to bludgeon you with shame and regret. You have the choice of whether you want to remove a good portion of his power over you. Don’t pass up the opportunity to shed that fear and guilt. Christ didn’t die for you so you could live in shame. He died for you so you could experience the freedom of forgiveness, the wonder of His grace, and the joy of sharing this news with others.

Don’t let that amazing opportunity pass you by because you believe the lies whispered in your ear when you’re feeling vulnerable. There’s power in the name of Jesus, and He’s waiting for you to call on Him.

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How Dare You Remind Me of Something I Hate!

To me, little kids are fun. They say stuff with brutal honesty, they come out with some funny things, and they still think my lame party tricks are cool. When we were trying to figure out some kind of way to serve as a family in our church, we settled on volunteering in the child care area, which is chronically understaffed.

A little truth in lending here…I don’t mind getting down on the floor to play with kids, and I don’t mind holding a crying kid for a little while, but I’m not real great at leading a lesson or singing songs with them. I can commit to keeping them (mostly) safe during the worship service, but that’s pretty much it. If they have a hard time focusing on what I’m saying, my go-to is to distract them with bubbles. Well, all those factors collectively led to my assignment in helping out with the really young kids.

One Sunday some parents dropped off a little girl, and she was pretty tentative about the situation. I’m not sure if she had separation anxiety, or if she was just having a bad day, but as time went by, she became less and less able to hold it together. What started out as a general detachment and a barely audible “I want Mommy” turned into a full-blown meltdown. This kid was screaming. I normally try to give kids a lot of leeway to get settled down so their parents can come to church and have a bit of a respite while listening to the sermon, but this was not working out. We eventually paged her parents, but they took a long time to show up. In the meantime, the little girl got so disruptive that I had to take her outside the room because other kids were looking at her and starting to have their own lower lips quiver. I just walked back and forth in the hallway and held her until somebody showed up to get her. Nothing made her stop screaming, man. Finally her dad showed up to take her off our hands.

Now…I told you that story so I could tell you this one. Weeks later, I was working there in that same room again. Kids started coming in, and they got comfortable and started playing with the various toys around the room. Sure enough, the dad showed up with that same little girl. She looked hesitant as she peeked in. She looked around the room, looking for some kind of upside to what Daddy was asking of her. Once her gaze fell on me, that sealed the deal. She lost it and started crying right away, face turning red, tears falling down her cheeks, and starting with the yelling. Just the sight of me was enough to make her remember the screaming session from last time, and that set her off.

For better or for worse, sometimes you’ll remind people of someone or something which will be counterproductive to your goals. It may or may not have anything to do with you personally; you might just remind somebody of a person they have bad memories of. Even if they say or do offensive things to you, recognize that it’s not necessarily you they’re reacting to. Be open to the idea of taking a step back, swapping roles with someone else, or coming at the problem from a different direction. Your ability to let it roll off your back and take a different approach could mean the difference between success and failure.

Can you relate to a time this has happened? Leave a comment and share your experience!

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Be Very Aware of the Power of Your Words

Did you know your words can have an impact that lasts for years, or even decades?

I used to work with a dude I’ll call Marcus. This was a guy who used to be a Green Beret in the Army. When he was growing up in the Midwest, still a young teenager, Marcus had a cousin who was some kind of all-star football player at the state level. I guess this cousin was also a beast in the weight room, because he could bench press, like, 400+ pounds, while he was still in high school.

I guess he started making a name for himself, and the cousin got to be something of a local celebrity athlete. As you can imagine, it lit a fire under his younger cousin, Marcus, to start hitting the weights. He began visiting the weight room pretty regularly, and started making some significant gains. He was excited when he finally put up 225 pounds. Now, you’re not going to win any competitions by benching 225 a single time, but it is a substantial milestone. This is kind of when you graduate to being able to lift some serious weight. Up until now, putting weights on the bar consists of a large iron plate on either side, accompanied by a smattering of smaller weights. Once you hit 225, you get to put two of the largest plates on each side, and this much cleaner appearance makes it easy for everybody to know exactly how much you’re doing.

Proud of his accomplishment, Marcus informed his grandpa of his progress. “Grandpa! I bench pressed 225!” The response wasn’t what Marcus was looking for. Instead of an “atta boy!” or “great job, Son!,” he got a different answer. “Oh, looks like you’ve got a ways to go!”

Much later in his life, when I worked with him, Marcus was 41 years old and had just benched 345 pounds in his basement gym. Twenty-five or so years after they were uttered, Grandpa’s words were still echoing in Marcus’ mind, taunting him.

Be careful with your words. The positive ones are nice, and are often encouraging, but they get drowned out pretty easily by all the noise out there. The negative ones stick around longer and have a lot more staying power. While it’s true that negative criticism can drive people to do things they might not otherwise be able to do, is it your place to offer that kind of “help?” Not everybody is able to turn those hurtful or thoughtless words into motivation and drive. Of those who can, many of them carry around needless stress because of it. Consider offering encouragement, and if that’s coming up short, only then consider alternative ways of helping them move toward their goal.

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This Year’s Patriot Day Message

Today we mark another somber anniversary. Believe it or not, it’s been almost a quarter century since one of the darkest days in the nation’s history.

For those on the younger side, I’m sure you’ve heard of 9/11 and you know what happened and all that, but it’s hard to really convey everything the nation went through that day and how it changed things for us. Imagine the nation as a whole feeling a blend of confusion, horror, fear, anger, grief, patriotism, and rage, all at the same time. As strange as it sounds, people of just about every political persuasion got along with each other in the weeks that followed, because being Americans united us more than it divided us.

There were three sites physically impacted that day: the field in Pennsylvania where the plane whose passengers rose up against their hijackers ended up crashing, the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon near DC. Watching the images from the site in Manhattan had the biggest effect on me; I had been up on the observation deck multiple times before, and within the previous year or two I’d had lunch with my Mom, Dad, and sister in a park made famous by a picture of an exhausted firefighter. Even though the Manhattan site was the most personal to me, there were lives lost in all three areas, either airline passengers or unassuming souls on the ground. Even though it’s 24 years later, that memory is still powerful to me, and I’m sure many people have similar powerful memories of that day.

This probably isn’t the last time we’ll get a bloody nose (or worse) as a nation. What I can tell you for sure, though, is that it’s not going to be the last time you see a wicked scheme succeed.

The Bible addresses incidents where wrongdoers seem like they’re getting ahead in life. David saw it and wrote about it. In Psalm 37:7-9 we read some of the most difficult instructions in the entire Bible: when you see wickedness seem to prevail, be patient.

“7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.

9 For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.”

This Patriot Day, take the time to pause and remember the innocents who lost their lives, but remember as a Christian that two wrongs don’t make a right. When you witness evil succeeding, be patient and wait on the Lord; He sees it and will deal with it in His time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Now That Everyone Abandoned You…

Have you ever been worn out, backed into a corner, and devoid of allies? Your own attitude may be your ticket out of a bad place.

In 1 Samuel chapter 30 we read of David, before he was king. On the run from King Saul, he had linked up with, and began leading, 600 men in raids against neighboring enemies of Israel. Building on his success as one of Saul’s most prominent army officers, David’s success continued as a bandit. It ended one day as he and his band of outlaws were away from their home base (a place called Ziklag), leaving it defenseless.

Earlier, in 1 Samuel chapter 15, the Lord had commanded Saul to completely wipe out a people called the Amalekites. Saul chose not to obey God, and one of the consequences of that disobedience was a group of Amalekite raiders attacking Ziklag while none of the warriors were around to defend it. The wives and children of David’s band were all taken captive and carried away as prisoners.

When David’s men learned of it, some of them wept and wailed until they had no more strength left to continue weeping. Their despair turned to anger, and right or wrong, they directed that anger at David. Whispers began spreading through the camp; they began talking about stoning David to death.

At this point David didn’t seem to have anyone he could rely on. Not only was he on the run from the king of Israel (who had more than once tried to pin him to the wall with a spear), he had also been kicked out of a land providing him sanctuary despite his exemplary behavior because high-ranking officials didn’t trust him. Now, as his own two wives were taken from him and he was at a very low point in his life, his own group of thugs began to turn on him too. He had no earthly partners he could count on. Demonstrating why he was known as a “man after God’s own heart,” he did something in 1 Samuel 30:6 we can all take a lesson from. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

There may be times in your Christian walk where it feels like everyone’s turned their back on you and you’re walking alone. Aside from God, you might very well have no other help. It might come down to your ability to encourage yourself that the Lord is still in control, and He has a reason for putting you through the struggles you’re facing. Place some encouraging scriptures in places you’ll see them regularly, find some devotionals and daily encouragements that hit the right spot, and spend time in prayer. Pour your heart out to God; it’s okay, tell Him how you feel! David had plenty of honest sessions with Him, too.

After this low point in the story, David spent time inquiring what the Lord would have him do. That’s an example we should follow. God led him out of that tough time, and David was stronger as a result of having gone through it. Though things are hard, hang in there! God won’t abandon you. Encourage yourself in the Lord, so even when everyone else abandons you, you still have faith in Him.

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You Won’t Know how Strong you are Until Being Strong is Your Only Option

I’d bet few of the people reading this have given much thought to the types of rope used in rock climbing. Climbing ropes are meant to catch somebody who’s lost their grip and taken a fall. As you might imagine, if you’re going to be betting your life on the integrity of your equipment, you don’t want to use just any old rope.

When used properly, the gear used in climbing can withstand harder shocks than your body can. The human body itself is the weak link in the system. To help the climber endure hard falls, the rope itself is designed to have some stretch to it.

As you can imagine, it’s very important that the rope’s owner/user keep track of the number and intensity of falls the rope sustains. Some falls are very easy on the rope; sometimes a climber just kind of slowly loses their balance or their grip and rolls away from the wall without actually falling. In this case the rope holds the weight of the climber, but doesn’t absorb a shock. On the other end of the spectrum, if a climber freefalls 8-10 feet before the rope starts going taut, not only is the climber going to be wincing in pain, but the rope will have used up a great deal of the stretch it’s capable of. That portion of the rope is now both less stretchy during a future fall, and it has less tensile strength and is more likely to break since the stretch is gone. After enough falls, that rope can no longer be considered safe, has to be pulled out of active use, and is retired.

In the last post we talked about succession and training your replacement. This time I’d like to focus on people that may feel like they’ve been forced into something different.

Although many times God will move you from one challenge to a larger one, there are other times He seemingly pulls you out of something and just kinda…leaves you hanging for awhile. Whether it’s ministry or some other profession, or something in your personal life, sudden changes can throw you for a loop. A job loss, a sudden injury, or maybe retirement that came sooner than expected are all examples of a situation leaving you scratching your head and saying “well, what now, God?”

In college I had a professor who taught us about how to safely set up ropes for climbing. He taught us all about knots, setting anchors, and proper care for ropes and gear; these are all technical skills needed for safely scaling or descending walls. As a part of the course he gave all us students a piece of climbing rope about a foot and a half long. He expected us to bring the ropes to class and we used these ropes to practice different knots throughout the course. He didn’t just take a new rope and chop it in pieces; it was a retired rope repurposed to be useful in a different way. Cutting up an active rope to serve this purpose would have worked, but it would have cost the overall enterprise.

If you’ve been forced into a position you wouldn’t have chosen, it’s certainly something easy to grumble about. Maybe you simply can’t perform the same way you previously could, and others that have been waiting for a shot at the role you held are getting a turn at it now. Don’t think that means you have less value. It means your value is going to be used differently. If lots of people can do the job, maybe it’s better to move into something fewer people can do, like a role benefitting from hard-won experience. Just because you can no longer do something you formerly could doesn’t mean you’re without purpose; it means your purpose has changed.

That same professor told a story about when he was younger and managed a nearby ropes course. Since the course was fairly secluded, it was inconvenient to carry ropes back and forth each time the course was going to be used, so the staff had a shed or a box near the course where they secured the ropes after being used. He arrived at the course one day to find the shed had been broken into and one of the ropes stolen. Strangely, a few days later the rope showed up again at the shed.

Not quite sure what to make of this, he knew better than to trust the rope. It had been outside of the ropes course staff’s control, and could not account for the activities that had been done with it. He later heard through the grapevine some students had “borrowed” the rope to pull a car out of a snow bank or something. If that’s true, it was probably a few guys that simply didn’t know their use of the rope would cause it to be retired. I don’t know what my professor ended up using the rope for, but there are plenty of other possibilities. Aside from cutting it up to be used for instruction, rope can also be used for hauling gear up and down a wall, lashing gear to packs, tying down equipment to keep it safe during high winds (or in the back of a vehicle), acting as a drying line for wet gear, improvising shelters out of tarps, etc. After its retirement, the same rope can be used for all of these purposes before they stop being useful.

If you find yourself in a situation where a few bozos made a snow bank-like blunder that ended up costing you, I’m sorry things went down that way. It’s understandable to be upset for a bit, but I have to ask…how long will you dwell on it? If you’ve still got plenty to offer and you’ve got the desire, what other ways can you use your knowledge and experience to benefit others?

It’s never too late to be who you might have been. –Mary Ann Evans

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Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Solid Footing

After I passed the SERE Indoctrination course in Texas, the Air Force moved my fellow course graduates and I up to Fairchild Air Force Base in eastern Washington state. Fairchild AFB is the site of the Air Force’s main survival school.

In some ways the environment was more relaxed. The screening course was about two weeks long, but the upcoming course was six months long. With such a lengthy course that starts only twice a year, if you missed the start of one class, you could be waiting around for awhile before the next class began.

While waiting we had various tasks and activities to perform. We’d work out together in the mornings five days a week, with every Monday being a PT test that the rest of the Air Force only did once or twice a year. On Monday afternoons we’d do a 7-mile timed ruck march. The other afternoons during the week usually involved some sort of training in a section of the base where we could practice using an ax to fell trees or split wood, perform other firecraft training, or practice building shelters. Another afternoon was usually spent cleaning a particular building, repairing equipment, or prepping and resupplying stuff we’d used previously. Every now and then we’d spend a few overnights out in the forest somewhere, learning to use the skills and tricks we’d picked up.

One of the cool things we regularly got to do was grab our loaded rucks and pile into a bus and we’d get driven to state parks or national forests or some kind of wilderness that was open to public use, and we’d go on 10+ mile hikes to help prepare our bodies for the upcoming training. The only real rules given to us were that we had to carry a decent weight in our packs, we had to bring water, and we had to wear the boots we’d use in training, but aside from the boots we could wear whatever we wanted. It was a relaxed version of intense training and we’d get to apply more things we’d learned along the way.

About this time of year, April or May, we went for one of these hikes up in the mountains somewhere. There was still a lot of snow on the ground, but it was warm enough that the snowpack was melting.

Someone tell that goober that his survival vest doesn’t go with that outfit

We came to one spot where some small evergreens were sticking out of the snow. As we walked through the patch of trees, a few guys started sinking waist-deep into the snow. It was a total surprise to me. I had no clue what was going on…it almost seemed like some kind of snow shark was swimming around underneath us or something, picking us off one by one.

It turns out that during the winter, as the snow fell, the evergreens acted like umbrellas. The snow piled up around the outside of the trees, but near the trunk a snowless void remained. Weeks or months later when some unsuspecting Air Force students came walking along and got too close to the trees, the snow shifted underneath them and started to swallow them up. Though the trees looked small, their full height was hidden from view. In this picture, Carl walked right between two trees growing close together, and after sinking into the snow he had to get a hand up. The surface he had been walking on, despite its appearance, was not as solid as what he had imagined it to be.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. -Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

We live in strange times. Up is down, black is white, right is wrong, and wrong is right. The snow that humanity stands on is shifting around us, leaving us in a state of confusion with unsteady footing. As the world goes off in search of today’s version of a moral compass (and gets ready to change it tomorrow), build your life not on the shifting footing of the world’s ideology, but on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, which does not change.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”-Matthew 7:24-27

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“Abba” Ain’t Just a Swedish Pop Group

Last year as part of the effort to escape the oppression of COVID, our family went to the beach for an overnight. We had a lot of fun, got some sunburn, stayed in a hotel for the first time as a family, and ate some treats that we don’t normally have.

This was the first time in a few years that we had been to the beach. My son, 9 at the time, was now big enough to try using a boogie board in the surf. Since he was only 6 years old the previous time we’d been at the beach, he was a big kid now. In fact, he had even stopped calling me “Daddy” by this point. He was all kinds of excited that he had the chance to try out something cool.

Remember what it was like being a kid? When I was young I used to be the one that was rearing to go, but now I’m the slow parent. We stepped off the boardwalk and onto the sand, and he was ready to hit the water. My wife and I, on the other hand, still had to find a spot to set up blankets and umbrellas, then apply sunblock, then blow up whatever inflatable thing we had brought, have a drink of water, etc. Since my son was chomping at the bit to get started before I was ready to join him, I sort of explained what he needed to do in order to get going on the boogie board, and then he took off to give it a try.

He didn’t quite realize that you can’t really boogie board in the water that’s super close to the shoreline, where all the waves kept crashing. Being the enthusiastic guy that he is, he had fun giving it a try, but he wasn’t really able to get going for any significant distance.

After his old man finally got in the water, I gave it a try from some deeper water. I took a few test runs to make sure I was giving him accurate information. I found the technique that was working for me, then tried passing it along to him. In order for him to really get going, he had to come deeper, past the point where the waves were breaking.

He was fine with the idea of coming deeper, but it was tough for someone less than half my weight to do while holding a very buoyant board. As I stood in water that was probably waist deep for me, it was hard to watch him try to fight through the surf to get out deeper. His first attempt was a victim of poor timing; he ventured into the water at just the right time where the wave hit him while he was off balance. It knocked him down and pushed him back to shore. He got back up and gave it another try, but he tried again too soon. I would have said something to him, but I figured he’d see the next wave coming and hold off until it passed. Nope. The same thing happened and he had to pick himself up again. From where I stood, I could see he was having second thoughts about this. Holding the board made it so much more difficult to get out past the crashing waves when he ordinarily could’ve just dived through them or gone under them.

On the third try, with mounting failures fresh in his memory and fear building in his mind, I watched him enter the water much more tentatively. A wave approached him and it hit his board hard, reminding him of just how powerful the waves could be. I called to him, encouraging him from where I stood, but I could tell he wasn’t going to hang in there a whole lot longer. Moving slowly when he should’ve moved quickly, more waves bullied him. Struggling to keep a straight face, his eyes grew wide and he called out to me in fear, “Daddy, I don’t like this!”

It was a heart-wrenching moment. I moved quickly to him and helped get him steady. While still standing in the zone where the waves crashed, I told him I could help him get past the crazy part, but he was no longer willing to give it a try, he just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. It pained me to see him give up, and I tried several more times to convince him to give it another go, but he had made up his mind to stick to the shallows.

The part of that experience that sticks out the most to me was when my little guy’s enthusiasm melted away and he went back to calling me “Daddy.” He gave up on something that I know he would’ve enjoyed if he’d just done things a little differently. I could’ve forced him to do it, but I wanted him to want to do it, and it didn’t seem right to make him try something he no longer wanted to do (especially since it could have resulted in him fearing the ocean for years to come).

In the Bible, God goes by many names. One of them is “Abba.” The word “Abba” is something that Hebrew-speaking children call their fathers…it’s like saying “Daddy.”

The word Abba isn’t used often in the New Testament. It’s only used by two people: Jesus and Paul. Joachim Jeremias, a German theologian, remarked on Jesus’ use of the word. He writes “[Jesus] spoke to God as a child to its father: confidently and securely, and yet at the same time reverently and obediently.”

It makes sense that the Son of God talks to His Father that way. The part that’s crazy and amazing is this verse that Paul writes in Romans 8:15 and following. Paul’s writing about how we’re changed once we receive the Holy Spirit, and he says The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

This means that we (Christians) are adopted into the family of God. Not only that, but we’re loved and accepted to such a high degree that we’re given the privilege of calling God the Father “Daddy!”

The next time you’re overwhelmed or just having a hard time in general, remember that not only can you call on your Heavenly Father…you can call on your Heavenly Daddy. If you tell Him “I don’t like this,” know that He sees you, He’s got you, and He can get you where you need to be.

God, thank you so much for understanding us so well and for giving us so many illustrations by which we can get a better sense of Your love for us. You’ve assured us we’ll have hard times in this life. When we do, remind us to call on You, seek comfort in You, and remember that You’ll give us what we need for each day. Amen.

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Is Anyone Asking These Questions?

Antibacterial soap…is it good or bad?

On the one hand, it kills 99.9% of bacteria. On the other hand, it means that only the strongest…the bacterial equivalent of gold medalists…are left alive to reproduce.

It’s easy to see how this can be a double-edged sword. If you’re about to put in your contact lenses, sure, wash your hands with antibacterial soap. If you just came in from mowing the lawn or working on the car, regular soap will be just fine.

We’ve got sort of a similar case brewing with COVID. We currently have a couple of different shots geared to fight the virus. I don’t know that “vaccine” is the best term to use; a vaccine normally prevents you from contracting the disease it was made to combat. (Think Polio, Smallpox, etc.) Today’s shots are just supposed to make sure that if you catch Coronavirus, the symptoms aren’t as bad as they otherwise would be. It’s true that as the shots became widespread, the number of COVID hospitalizations declined, but they don’t do anything to prevent you from contracting the virus. Reduced hospitalizations aren’t proof that the virus stopped spreading, it could just mean that there were fewer severe cases (which is still a positive!).

These shots have limited efficacy. That is, the shots’ symptom-reduction effectiveness wears off over time. We’re still learning about exactly how long it’s effective, but for this discussion let’s say it lasts somewhere between 6 and 10 months. There’s a growing movement to get a booster shot available to the public. Once that’s available, I don’t know for sure, but I would think it would only provide relief for a similar timeframe, meaning that another booster shot is required every 6 to 10 months beyond that point.

So where are we right now? Well, here in the US, we have a growing percentage of adults that have been fully vaccinated. I imagine that means we have a shrinking percentage of adults that have either never received “the jab” or only got a partial dose. I’m a firm believer that we’ll always have some certain percentage of the population that opts not to get stuck. Realistically, I think 100% participation is very far out of reach, especially if you have to convince people to get on board with a solution that apparently only provides a limited-time reduction of symptoms.

Let’s get real here. The virus is going to continue mutating and evolving. It’s a living thing that will try to survive. We have these shots that are temporarily effective, but we will likely someday have a variant of Coronavirus that can overcome our current shots. If a shot is to be effective at stopping the spread of COVID, there are a couple of things we’ll need that we don’t yet have.

The first is a more effective shot. Protection that lasts for only 6-10 months is simply not sustainable. Some people will be very diligent for the rest of their lives in making sure they get a booster every time they hit their window. Others may get one or two, but will stop going after that. My guess is that most people will fall somewhere in the middle. If big numbers of people start skipping the boosters, the overall effort will be rendered less effective.

Second, there needs to be a massive campaign that synchronizes global dosing. Giving everyone the same shot at the same time means global “Coronahealth” is predictable and we could make more definite plans. The problem with that is that it’s a logistical nightmare of epic proportions. Let’s say that every 8 months or so, international organizations administer effective dosages for 7.5-8 billion people. That might someday be possible in countries with well-developed transportation infrastructure, but it would be a herculean lift in more remote areas of the globe where travel is much more difficult or is only possible at certain times of the year. It would certainly be an impressive feat, but even if we do it for a round or two, we’re eventually going to start asking “is this really worth all the effort?”

How about we skip ahead to that point right now? Is today’s madness really worth all the effort? Yes, COVID-19 can be deadly, but in most cases, it’s not. It’s unpleasant and inconvenient, certainly, with many people losing their sense of taste or smell for months, but it’s not as deadly as originally feared.

I’m certainly not an avid consumer of news programs, so I may not be completely accurate about this next part. It seems, though, that all you ever hear about is numbers of new infections. “There were X number of positive COVID tests last week, bringing the cumulative total to doom and gloom.” Well…sure, but then they never follow up after that; they make it seem like that’s the end of the story…all those people are the walking dead and it’s just a matter of time before the virus claims them. My question is: why don’t we hear more data on people that have overcome the virus? How long does their protection typically last? Do average people gain more protection from a low-efficacy shot or from their bodies actually overcoming the virus? To be honest, I don’t know the answer, but it seems like nobody’s asking the question. At a time where “breakthrough cases” are spiking, shouldn’t we be asking some basic questions? Considering all the regular news reports that show thousands of new cases…wouldn’t it be a fantastic development if we learned that only 60% of them had long-lasting immunity after that?

So let’s ask the question: “how do pandemics end?” In order for a disease to die out, it has to run out of new hosts to infect. That can happen in a couple of different ways. 1. Isolate people so that the virus cannot spread from host to host. In the process, every infected person that does not spread the virus becomes a dead end for it. This is why it’s so important to quarantine at the beginning of an outbreak, when it’s still possible to contain it, but it has obvious negative mental health effects that most of us have experienced at some point over the last 18 months. 2. Enough people possess immunity (either natural or synthetic) from the disease that the virus has a hard time finding new, vulnerable hosts to infect. Our current shots don’t provide immunity, so we should be looking down the line to the next generation of medical solutions to provide actual protection from COVID, rather than merely preventing potent symptoms.

I’m inclined to think that a population who received the existing shots is actually prolonging the pandemic. If we could develop a shot that were a true vaccine…something that permanently blocked the virus from infecting the person who received it…that would hasten the end of the pandemic. Biology is funny, though; by introducing a hybrid injection that makes symptoms much more bearable without actually preventing the infection, all we’ve done is give the virus a challenge…something interesting to tackle and overcome. Think Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park. “Life finds a way.” I suspect that this course of action will only extend the outbreak by creating a larger number of COVID variants than we otherwise would have had.

In short, you know best what your situation is. If you want to get the shot, I say go for it. If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to, I don’t think anybody should be able to force you to get it, but you really do need to be respectful and responsible with your social behavior in all aspects of life. At all times, assume you’re carrying the virus and that not everyone around you has as hearty an immune system as you do.

Today’s shots are not going to end COVID. This pandemic is still going to be around until it runs out of new people to infect, and infection rates (including breakthrough cases) will probably rise as the cold months approach. Don’t be surprised if the numbers get worse before they get better, but don’t shut the door on the possibility that the rising number of infections may be what eventually causes the drop in new infections.

Keep your head up. It may take some time, but we’ll get through this!