down but not out

my laptop is down and it's difficult to type from my tablet. I will try to post a new blog as soon as possible.

Now What?

If you are like me, you experienced an excellent Easter Sunday this past weekend.  It's possible it was for the first time or the first time in a long time.  Even if you just took some time out of you usual Sunday morning and reflected on the resurrection from home, you may be asking yourself "now what?"

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of speaking at a week of camp for middle school church kids.  On the night before the last one of the week some of the students received a call that a friend from back home had been killed in a swimming accident.  They were devastated.  The next day, as I was preparing the message for the evening, I was chatting with Dave, the leader of the worship band.  I told him that I was thinking of asking something like "If you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go?"  Dave said that it wasn't a bad strategy but wondered if it would be more effective to ask "What if you were to live tomorrow?"  I spent the rest of the day walking around the camp thinking and praying about that question.  And that night when I asked that question to the students as part of the invitation to give their lives or rededicate to Christ about 95% of them came forward.  The next morning we had a short service before about 20 kids were baptized in the camp swimming pool.  Here are some of the thoughts I shared with them which I believe can apply to us as we experience the weeks after Resurrection Sunday:

Live the life!

Ephesians 4:1-6 says,

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  Be completely humble and gentile; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  

Not a whole lot needs to be said about this one, let's just not forget that as it says in Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I am convinced that if we keep this mind it can be a life changer.

Hang out!

Hebrews 10:24-25:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another-and all the more as you see the day approaching.

It's God's plan that we be the body of Christ.  He designed it that way for a reason.  Church services and small-group Bible studies are to be interactive.  Don't get me wrong, going to church or Bible study does not save you, but in these settings we are able to meet as a collective body to encourage and build each other up.  I can't even begin to tell you how talking with other believers and sharing what I've struggled with has changed my life and brought me closer to God.  Can we have a relationship with God without meeting with a body?  Yes, but I am convinced that it will be one of much less power and effectiveness.  So I encourage you, find a fellowship of believers where you feel that you can best fit as a member of the body of Christ.  

Show Some Love

Before Jesus was crucified he shared a new commandment with his disciples, one that applies to us today.

John 13: 34-35

"A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

There are many more things I could say on this subject, but super-long blogs don't usually get read to the end.  So the last thing I'll say is pray.  The Lord will direct your step.

The comment section would be a cool place for you to share your thoughts or encouragements on this subject with others.  God bless y'all! 

Afraid of the Dark

I've been fighting it for quite a while.  I figured if I didn't admit it then it wasn't really true.  But there is no longer any denying.
I know this will probably comes as a shock to many of you. Of course I still have my boyish good looks.  And mentally I'm often still the equivalent of a middle school boy...
But...

I'm old!

This shocks me as much as it does you!  But it's true.
Granted I've accepted the fact that my knees have been shot for 5 years, but there were some other things that I have been unwilling to let go.
The most recent is driving.
I have a terrible time driving in the dark.  Actually I have never really liked night driving; my eyes don't adjust well after oncoming traffic shines their lights in my direction.  But lately the situation has steadily deteriorated.
I have realized that I need to be responsible, not only for my own sake, but for the sake of others.  And this means that, at times, I need to show a bit of humility.  I have had to admit that I actually need help.
Being a dude I am naturally inclined to believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness.  But God has shown me that what I had previously viewed as negative is, in actuality an opportunity for positive.
I've learned that it's more fun to go places with others!  It's a chance to spend time with friends.  For example, my friend George lives about 5 minutes from my place.  We go to the same church and often to the same activities.  But there have been several times that we have taken separate vehicles and arrived/departed within minutes of each other.  Once I started asking for rides we have had some great conversations.  The car rides have proven to be unexpected blessings.
If I had decided to get mad at God and the universe for "dealing me a bad hand" I probably would have withdrawn and simply stopped going places after dark if my wife wasn't with.

James 1:2-4 says:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Now that doesn't mean that I'm jumping for joy over my limitations.  Instead I'm looking at them and asking "How can God use this for good?"
I hope you find this inspiring. If you do, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

God bless y'all!

Liar Liar Pants on..?

The other night as I was lying in bed having another bout of insomnia I began thinking of my past.  In my mind there was a popcorn series of memories of all of the poor choices and dumb mistakes that I’ve made.  And the more tired I got, the more my angry I got with myself.   Actually, “angry” doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface; “disgusted” would be a more adequate description of how I felt about my self.  Basically, that night, I convinced my self that the sins of my past had eliminated me from the ability to do anything beneficial for the kingdom of God.  Yes folks, in one night I had decided that I had done so much wrong that I could never do anything of significance for God.  So I started saying out loud the name of our Lord.  Jesus, Jesus, I repeated in a soft voice. 

Then I felt as though the God was telling me, “Those are the lies of the enemy.”  So when I started to think positive things. 

I remembered what it says in Psalm 103:12:

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

And the next time a thought hit I remembered

2 Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old creation has gone and the new one is here!

See, the enemy knows that God has forgiven us but that we have a more difficult time forgiving ourselves.  If he can get us to dwell on our mistakes there is a chance that we might give up.  I don’t think he’s so much on a quest to get us to all wear black robes and sacrifice small animals.  I think he has set his sights on just getting us to quit trying and turn away from God.  That’s not a battle I intend on letting him win. 

1 Peter 5:8 tells us:

Be alert and sober of mind.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Remember, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just and forgives us of all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

So if He has forgiven us maybe we should forgive ourselves.  The devil is a liar, let’s stop listening to him.

My Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste!

Hello again!

Last week a former co-worker with whom I am friends with on Facebook posted a photo with a caption that took scripture out of context.  It was targeted at invalidating Christianity based on something they found to be offensive.  I took offense and posted a comment that contextualized the subject he had presented and explained the reason why the passage had been written.  One of his other friends chose to jump on the bandwagon and gave another argument against Christianity based on a twisted interpretation of another passage of scripture.  I really wanted to let that guy have it!  I was greatly offended and really wanted to give them a dose of “righteous indignation.”  But then I remembered something I had heard a long time ago, “If you’re going to give someone a piece of your mind, make sure you’ve got enough to spare.”  That made me pause and think about things for a minute.   I asked myself what my reasons were for getting into an online argument.  Was it just to be proven “right?”  And if so, what did I hope to accomplish.  Another one of those little sayings that came to mind was “You can’t argue someone into Heaven.”  I realized that if I were to attempt such a task I would most likely fuel the fire which so many that don’t know Jesus tend to fan the flame when they say that Christians are intolerant, close-minded, and that they don’t display the love that they are always preaching.  So I responded by saying, something to the effect, that I disagreed with what they were saying and would be happy to have an intelligent conversation about the subject in a different forum and that most of us Christians actually want to love people and make the world a better place.  The person who had commented responded favorably and explained that his lifetime of faith-based education had kind of soured him on the whole concept of organized religion.  And he even ended by saying “I love you Jimmy J” 

Yesterday the Bible app on my tablet had this to say:

Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers all wrongs.  Proverbs 10:12 (NIV)

I really like that! 

I am praying for these guys and that there will be more opportunities to show them what the love of Christ looks like. 

Jimmy 2.0

About 12-13 years ago the church softball team that I was on was playing.  We were down by a substantial amount.  I was frustrated and feeling powerless to help my team as the coach started someone else in my position.  I went to him several times and told him I wanted to go in and help.  Admittedly I wasn’t the best player in the world but I was pretty consistent at laying down a solid single from the plate.  The coach was one of those people that LIVED for sports and was in a crazy intense focus determined upon catching up.  After my third attempt to be subbed in I got angry, no actually I was mad as heck.  I felt disrespected and ignored.  I began pacing back and forth complaining, quite loudly, to whoever would listen (and even to those that didn’t want to hear.) 

From that night on, I was given the reputation of having anger management issues.  Any time I slightly raised my voice I was supposedly having a meltdown.  And there were even times when someone in the youth ministry would exaggerate (A.K.A. lie) saying that I had blown up in order to get me removed from my position. 

After a while, being labeled as having anger issues made me well…angry.  I got the “I’ll show them” attitude and started to actually become the person that I was accused of being.  I learned how to use my reputation to scare, intimidate, and pressure people in order to get my way.  And the more I crafted the persona, the more it grew. 

When I moved away I worked hard not to be that person any more.  In college I did a pretty decent job.  And when I moved to Madison I think I did a good job.  But it seems at times that people like to push people’s buttons to incite a reaction.  At those times I have not always had the best reaction. 

But I’m really trying.  It’s difficult!  Recently I have been “called out” for supposedly having a negative attitude or not acting as Jesus would have.  These accusations make me mad as I feel that people that don’t know how hard I have been working to be Christ-like are trying to undermine my efforts. 

So I had pre-written a biting blog post tearing down those that looked at me critically.  It was well written and got my point across quite nicely.  But I realized that I was still being an ass.  Was I correct in the things that I was saying?  Yes.  But while I didn’t explode with a torrent of obscenities, I was still acting in a negative manner.  And I was fueling the reputation that I had been trying so hard to leave behind. 

1 Corinthians 5:16-17 (NLT) says that

We have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view.  At one point we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view.  How differently we know him now!  This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.  The old life is gone; a new life has begun. 

I want to be a new person!  I didn’t like the “Jim” that I used to be.  That’s part of why I am “Jimmy” now, because I am not the person that I was 12 or even 6 years ago.  I am trying to be the person God has called me to be.  I am not responsible for the way others interpret me to be, but I am responsible for my actions. 

So I will continue to do my best to make good choices and to resist reacting negatively.  And I will pray for those that assume the worst in me.  That’s all we can do.  

Near Death Experiences

I almost died last Monday. 

Okay, that may be a little melodramatic, but I could have, at the very least, been hurt quite badly.  Here’s what happened:

I had spent the day with by buddy John.  John lives on the opposite side of town and by the time I got in my car and headed home it had gotten dark and it was raining.  On the way home, I exited “The Beltline” (Madison’s version of a busy expressway.)  My windshield wipers were working overtime to make the road visible but they were smudgy at best.  This would have probably been fine for a “normal” person, but my eyes are terrible in the dark to begin with.  As I tried to manipulate the off ramp with my impaired vision I suddenly realized that I was half way up the median and headed directly for the traffic light had appeared out of nowhere.  Thankfully, the Lord kept me from a collision and I made it home unscathed, albeit quite shaken. 

Here’s the thing, this almost mishap could have easily been avoided had I simply replaced my wiper blades.  What makes matters worse is the fact that since I got the car in April of last year there has been a brand new set of wiper blades IN THE TRUNK of my car! 

Whenever the weather has been bad I have had difficulty piloting my vehicle due to reduced visibility.  Of course I wouldn’t have thought of subjecting myself to a few minutes of discomfort that would accompany changing the blades during inclement weather.  And as soon as the weather improved I forgot and moved on.  But this time I got the mother of all wake up calls.  But even that wasn’t enough!  The next morning I scurried off to work completely carefree without giving my windshield wipers a second though.  And again the rain-smudged windshield made my drive a stress filled experience.  But this time I’d had enough.  As soon as I got home I changed them!  The entire process took me all of 5 minutes (yes, I timed it.) 

I have asked myself why I didn’t do this sooner.  Was it laziness?  Or do I think that I’m not worth 5 minutes of time to ensure my own safety? 

In Psalm 139:13-15 the author writes:

  For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

I can’t help but wonder how much better care we would take of ourselves if we had this attitude about our selves.  I am important!  I do deserve to take care of myself!  So I will do the things necessary to protect myself and guard myself from harm.  This applies to my physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. 

I could go on with ideas and examples for days, but seeing as you’re reading this, you are obviously extremely intelligent and can figure out personal applications on your own, although I would be remiss if I were not to recommend starting with prayer. 

So there are my deep thoughts for the week.  I’d love to here yours!