Your Monday morning pep talk

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Friday we cried again.

We expect leaves to fall in October and November.

What if they fall in April?

And what if they fall because someone pulls them off the trees? As if the leaves had done something wrong.

It’s unnatural. If this can happen, what else unnatural can happen?

“I don’t feel safe anymore,” I could think.

Good. I’ve never really ever been safe. I need to feel the reality of it.

I’ve never been safe because this has never been my home. There’s another home God has in mind and these things don’t happen in that home, but we’re not there yet.

Until then, there’s trouble and tragedy that feels unnatural but isn’t. It’s natural for a broken world to act broken.

Only by the grace and mercy of God has all hell not broken loose in my life and my world.

For those parents and families in Connecticut, it has broken loose. For my wife’s friend Stephanie, whose daughter was found this week at the bottom of a pond, it has. For my friend Allison, who has breast cancer, it has.

So where’s the pep talk?

Long before the bad news from Connecticut, my friend Allison – the one with breast cancer – said,

“I feel sorry for people who don’t have cancer.”

Obviously, you have to ask why. Her answer comes from someone who has experienced tragedy, and yet is deeply grateful. In a way that I’ll probably never know, she has learned that absolutely nothing can separate her from the love of God.

I put her answer on the radio station I serve, right after Burl Ives feeling holly and jolly.

Her answer is your pep talk. Click the link to listen.

Allison — gratefulness, tragedy, and the love of God.

What are you thankful for today?

How to feel better today

Last week I felt like complaining and did. It felt good.

However later it felt blah. Nothing positive came of it. Complaining didn’t fix anything. It helped my wife a little because it helped her understand how I felt about some of our hopes and dreams, but it also was a downer for her.

Last night I felt like complaining but didn’t.

It was very hard to not complain. I was complaining big-time in my head and the pressure to let it out with my voice was like the teapot every night on the stove when it rumbles inside right before it busts out in a piercing whistle. You get a warning before it busts out.

So last night I shut up before the piercing whistle. I forced myself to keep it all a secret between God and me. It was an act of trust and intimacy with God. In some feeble way I was able to let it be enough that he knew, and to let him handle the satisfaction that I craved from venting externally.

I just shut up. On the outside it was very simple–just don’t. But inside it was a raging battle.

I’ve had success with this before, but later always go back to the easy way of depending on myself and acting by how I feel.

This morning I woke up with a sense of peace and power. A renewed confidence. There’s a lot to do but I don’t feel any pressure. All the stuff I felt like complaining about is the same, but it looks and feels different.

It’s as if God says, you want peace and power and intimacy with me–prove you trust me and you’ll get it.

I think this is basic, daily living by faith. Kindergarten stuff.

I try to jump to grad-school stuff  before I’ve learned the alphabet and counting to 20.

Every day you’re offered many little doorways that open with the key of everyday trust. Good things are in the rooms through those doors.

What adventures have you had in venting or trusting?

Don’t over think God’s ‘big’ plans for you

I walk out the front door with the dog.

I think, this morning I’ll just let her go where she wants. Sometimes I have a preference for going to the right and moseying around the ponds, or left and walking the streets by the condos. This morning I think I’ll let her pick.

In the end it really doesn’t matter which way we go. The issues of our walk will be the same.

She has to take care of her doggie bidness and she needs a little exercise. That’s the same if we go left or right.

How bullheaded will she be? Will she try to stop every five feet to root something out of the grass? Will she follow every impulse and distraction, or will she show some discipline? When I tug the leash will she come with me or will she insist on her own way? Will this be a pleasant, cooperative walk or a battle? When it’s a battle her walk is shorter. These issues are all the same if we go right or left.

She turns left and I’m fine with that. Isn’t going to affect the important stuff.

Ding-ding Mr. Dogwalker! Is this just about the dog?

We walk and go through the rhythm of the doggie constitutional, plus all the sniffing and tugging. I start thinking of how easy it is to spend a lot of energy micromanaging my understanding of God’s ‘big’ plans for me, but how most of the time he’s probably more concerned with the quality of our walk. I imagine him thinking the same thing that I thought when I walked out the front door.

Left or right, why don’t you pick? Either way, our relationship is the biggie and you’ve got to deal with the issues of that relationship no matter which way we go.

Since our walk together is what counts, why do you act like the destination and the scenery is the main thing?

Are you going to be bullheaded? Will you always be distracted by trifles? Will you constantly test the limits of the leash as if it’s not there to keep you from running out in the street in front of a car like you’re prone to do? Will you always want more – over here! over here! – never having enough?

Or can you stay calm and rest, and be content and trust? And make this whole walk personal, just between you and me, no matter where it leads?

If you take care of our relationship I can take you anywhere I want, and it will be what you want, too. Is that good enough for you?

Are you frustrated with discovering or following God’s big plans for you? Is the quality of your walk with him enough?

My son-in-law tore his Marmot insulated jacket

Just a small rip. He doesn’t know how it happened, but he obviously caught it on something. It’s light stuff and would be easy to tear. It was definitely not any failure of the jacket quality.

He’d had it about a year and loved it. Too bad.

REI replaced it. For free. Even after a year.

But it was his fault!

Doesn’t matter. “Go on back there and pick out another one,” they said.

Do you find it hard to ask for God’s help when the mess you’re in is all your fault?

Of course you go to God when you’re scared or a victim. But if your trouble is your own doing are you on your own?

Is REI more generous than Jesus?

Your Monday morning pep talk

When you get to the blank below, insert the place where you are investing yourself this week–work, family, school, marriage, relationship, whatever. Be specific. Make sure you personalize it.

‘I have chosen you.’

Keep that note of greatness in your creed.

It is not that you have got God but that He has got you.

Here, in this _____________, God is at work, bending, breaking, moulding, doing just as He chooses.

Why He is doing it, we do not know; He is doing it for one purpose only – that He may be able to say, This is My man, My woman.

We have to be in God’s hand so that He can plant men on the Rock as He has planted us.

– Oswald Chambers

Now go forth in confidence that God is using this week’s unpredictability and chaos to dent your world with grace.

Nothing to see here. Move along : Day 30 of 31

This is just a video about the making of the T-Mobile dance commercial.

Fun. Entertaining.

Just a dot.

Could there be other dots that connect and take this dot to another level? And then when the dots connect could they reinforce each other and give each other deeper meaning for your life?

HaHaHa! Of course not. It’s just a video.

But let’s try anyway.

I’ll start. The quotes are from the video.

~~

Someone made this big old world and he made it for a reason. Then something bad happens in the world and people are dying but don’t know it. So as part of his reason he sends his son to the world to rescue people before it’s too late.

He’s working his reason out continually, but most people don’t see it. It’s not obvious on the surface of things.

It’s so big you can’t take it all in.

The people he rescues become pretty grateful. They don’t even know they need rescued until it happens. When they realize this, it fills them with joy. But the son isn’t done. He wants to use the grateful, joyful ones to rescue more people.

Your job is to pick someone up along the way.

Their joy and gratitude is to be something the people who need rescuing will find irresistible. People will be attracted and want to join in, without realizing it’s all a setup, part of an agenda to give them the same joy and gratitude.

But it’s all covert.

It’s like there’s a whole production going on behind the scenes of the world. Like it’s all choreographed, not for robots but for joyful, grateful people. And the choreographer is watching with excitement, unseen.

The real magic exists in you being able to convince members of the general public to join in and do what you’re doing

But sometimes the grateful, joyful people forget. They get all caught up in their own world–a wonderful world!–and forget their real assignment.

You’re so caught up in the dance that you’re not turning your head and saying to someone, “C’mon! Join in!”

Well, like I said, probably no other dots here. Just a fun video.

OR you COULD consider it your graduate class in dot connecting. Whatever. Enjoy.

(If you’re reading in email click HERE to go to the website for the video. It’s 4:24 and a joy.)

So what jumps out at you in the video?

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Day 30 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams

God is a dot : Day 25 of 31

I either use a whole lot of words or very few for this. I decided on few.

I can get understanding of all the other dots, and connect them all I want, but if they stay disconnected from the God dot, my life does not make enough sense.

When I watch this (or just listen), all the other dots quiet down and start getting along much better.

It’s not high quality, it’s not hip and happening, it’s not a sound bite. Yet the longer it goes, the deeper you listen.

(Give the video about twenty seconds to get going. And if you’re reading in an email click HERE to go to the blog to see it)

~~~~

This is Day 25 of 31 Days of Connecting the Dots: make more sense of your life, your world, your hopes and dreams

Chill. And run.

You are a created thing. You didn’t make yourself up. You’re not your own idea.

Your maker knows how he made you. He knows your strengths, your weaknesses, your pace, your abilities, your potential, your limits. Did you ever think that maybe he did it on purpose? All of it?

He knows the level of your ability to deal with life depending on yourself (your natural ability), and depending on him (your supernatural ability). Did you ever think that he limited your ability so he could make up the difference?

He engineered placing you in your family, with those parents and siblings, or without any of them. And he engineered your school and friends and job and marriage, or the lack of them. He’s overseen, or permitted, all your experiences and circumstances.

He created time, and how it moves, and how much there is. Weeks, days, hours, and minutes are the same for everyone. He knows what’s available to you today for any moment, for any project, for your life. He knows every interruption and glitch.

He knows the assignment he’s given you and what it’s for. He knows everything involved and needed to do it. He knows it’s YOUR assignment, and he gave it fully aware of you and the time available.

Knowing all this, what’s the stress? Where’s that come from? Chill.

And why are you letting discouragement drag you down? Run.

That thing you want might be important. Here’s why.

We’re probably not talking about a car/house kind of thing. More meaningful than that.

Imagine you just died

and you’re in heaven engaged in a heavy duty conversation with God.

He’s showing you some things that didn’t happen in your life, some things that for some reason you didn’t do. Maybe a project, idea, vocation, relationship, ministry…something like that.

And you say, “That’s exactly what I really wanted!”

And he says, “I know.”

And you realize

That thing you wanted was what he wanted, too

That’s why you wanted it. He made you want it, so you would cooperate with him, trust him, and do it.

But you didn’t.

So now, after you wake from your Scrooge dream and find you’re still alive, what are you going to do?

Not believe it?

Be afraid?

Be lazy?

Avoid it?

Make excuses?

The dream conversation could turn into a real one at any second.

Two GUARANTEED ways to NEVER be bored again

Get a smartphone

No matter where you are or what you’re doing you will always be able to occupy yourself in a wonderful variety of ways.

You got your phone, email, song library, camera, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pandora, podcasts, Angry Birds, weather radar, TED videos, sports blogs, news, plus anything that pops into your head you can immediately research to discover that the movie with the circus horse that jumped off the tower into the water was called “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.”

In line at the DMV, the Walgreens, the stop light (honk!)? Waiting at the doctors office or in the car while hubby runs into Home Depot? You’ll never complain about any long wait again.

AND, best of all, you’ve got a built in distraction to keep you from #2.

#2.

Embrace the reason you were put on this earth.

Not sure what that reason is? #1 can keep you distracted from discovering that, too.