Dreams and worries

It seems that life happens in the middle of a paradox, somewhere between the dreams and the worries of our lives. All of us have them - those things that call us on, move us forward, and keep us climbing out of bed in the morning. And then on the other side are the things that drain us of life, the worries and stresses of our existence. We all have those too - the things that ruin our joy and rob us of our dreams. And most of our lives are lived in the space in between.

Where does God come into the mix? Where is He when it comes to that space between dreams and worries? I guess for me He is the very glue that keeps my world from being torn apart as the dreams pull my life one direction and the worries pull the other. He is the one who keeps us from going crazy in the middle stuff.

I wonder how people make it who don't have God?

Eagle in the mud

I was driving the other day and as I looked in the valley to my left, there was a bald eagle not more than 75 feet from me, eating on a dead animal. I had to look twice to see if it was really a bald eagle, and as I craned my neck to see if it was, I could see him all covered in mud. Somehow it struck me as odd. And a hair ironic.

It reminded me of our country. The US, the mighty eagle, wallowing in the mud. That really is ironic. We have thought ourselves the nation blessed by God, although we don't do much to honor him or bless him as a nation. We started out with freedom of religion being one of the main tenants of why we separated from Britain, but somewhere in the last couple hundred years we decided that God was; #1 - an option, and #2 - disposable. But we still want him to bless us. We don't want to be a nation under God, but we want his blessing.

Now we are reaping some of what we have sowed, and the mighty Bald Eagle is eating dead carcasses and wallowing in the mud of its own choices to be without Him. We have no one to blame for our stupidity but ourselves. So when do you think it will dawn on us to stop pointing fingers and start picking up a shovel and filling in the hole we have dug? Probably not till we have wallowed in the mud a while longer.

Losing the freedom to not work

In the midst of an economy that is falling apart, I find interesting things happening - not in our country and its financial state - but in the minds of the people who live in it. I have talked to several folks who are devastated because a lot of what they had invested has disappeared. As I put myself in their shoes, I can imagine that being really hard. But there is a whole other group of people who have been living like that their whole lives. They haven't lost the ability to not have to work the rest of their lives - they have lost the ability to work and provide for their lives.

Having a retirement is something that is a luxury. Many people in the world don't have that luxury. I don't have one. My dad is 80 and is still working, simply because he can't eat without working. My mom is 76 and still working. I hurt for those who were wise and invested, and now have seen a large part of it vanish. But those that I hurt for more are the ones who will never have a retirement, who have never had the means to put even a few dollars away. I'm sure some are just foolish, but there are others who just plain didn't get very lucky in life. They never got hired on to the companies with the large parachutes attached. They never made enough to meet more than the basic needs. They are those who have been living on less that $40k for most of their lives.

There is a huge slice of humanity who never got the nice stuff. They have never been able to buy a home (let alone a second home to got to for two weeks a year) or a new car (let alone trade up for a new one every other year). Their existence has been hand to mouth most of their lives. They haven't been able to get the education, nor did anyone call them up to that standard. They are the working poor - doing the labor for large corporations at $8 an hour. Have you added it up to see how far $8 an hour goes these days? Try bumping it to $20 and hour and see how far that one goes. And then compare that to the $37 billion per quarter profit earnings of a corporation like British Petroleum.

My point is that losing the freedom to live work free for the rest of your life is hard. AND so is living your whole life without ever being work free. But the poor aren't just losing their freedom to not work, they are losing their freedom to work. When you have to choose between selling your car and selling your house, and you choose selling the house because you can go to work in your car and live in it, I think that is a bigger problem.

Which one would you choose?

Whatever happened to grace?

I had two separate things happen recently that really opened my eyes to the condition of our country.

The first happened last Friday. It was trash day and I forgot to set the trash can out. When I saw the truck coming up the road, I sprinted out, dragging the 150 pound of garbage we had accumulated behind me. The trash man passed right by our drive, but stopped at the next door neighbors' and loaded up his trash. He watched me dragging the heavy thing as fast as I could down our muddy drive way, and as I smiled at him, he loaded up his truck and continued on.

Now I know that nowhere in the universe is it written that he had to come back the whopping 50 feet to get my can. I had missed my opportunity to get my junk picked up. But it was only 50 feet!!! It didn't seem like it would have cost him that much to go out of his way a little. Evidently he disagreed. The can has been sitting out by the road all week.

The second event happened as I was trying to get some lunch during a busy day. I cruised into the local McDonald's (not even close to my favorite place to eat, but I only had $2 for lunch, so they were the choice of the day.) As I pulled up and ordered a hamburger, I was reminded that there was still 4 minutes till they started serving lunch. Frustrated, I ran a quick errand to take a video back, and was back in line within a couple minutes. When I got up to the speaker phone, I was reminded that it was still 2 minutes before they would be serving lunch. I sat there in silent protest to the stupidity of their inflexible schedule.

It seems that there just isn't much room in life for grace any more. I know that I was in the wrong in both instances. I know nobody HAD to help me. But would it have been so horrible to come back and get my can, or serve me a stupid hamburger 2 minutes early? I mean COME ON!!

What have we become when the letter of the law matters more than the people we serve? What does it mean in the church? Do we live the law, or do we live grace? And would it really hurt us that much to show a little grace to those who need it once in awhile? We don't do that with our Christian family - why would we do it out there in the real world?

Are there any real followers of Jesus in the house? I don't think my garbage man or the employee at McDonald's were Christians. But we are. Shouldn't we live lives of grace? And if your answer is 'yes', then I propose the simple question -are you?

Outside the box

Every one of us has a box we live in that keeps us comfortable and safe. Most of us don't want to admit that, but we all have one. It is our paradigm of understanding the world, our values, our perspectives, our dreams and prayers. Every body has a box - but few know how to think outside of it.

For some, the box is a denomination. For others it is there education or their job. Still others learned a set of values that they live within. Those boxes serve to define us. But they also serve to limit us.

There is something about following God that calls us outside that box. To be in a relationship with God is to be outside the box, because He is outside of any box. He is always undefinable, eternally mysterious, and always new. He doesn't ever seem to do the same thing in the same way - much unlike us humans.

So why do we settle for boxes? Because they are more comfortable. Our comfort seems to have become our own little version of God. We want the easy answers in life. We want someone to just tell us how to do it - tell us what is expected - give us easy answers with obvious and clearly defined limits. We like boxes - they just make life easier to deal with. But then we turn around and wonder why our walk with God is an exercise in staying awake, rather than a wild adventure of following. Boxes and adventure don't go real well together.

So which side of the box do you want to be on - the inside or the outside? It matters more than you know. Remember in your deciding process that Jesus was most criticised by those who couldn't stand the fact that he didn't fit into their boxes.

Cross country skiing

I decided to don a pair of cross country skis today and see how far I could get. The idea of gliding silently through the Colorado countryside has left me longing to get out and try the outdoor exercise for weeks. So my son Nathan and I entered the adventure this afternoon. 120 feet later we retired the skis and exchanged them for slippers and cowardly came back inside. Actually that isn't entirely true. I cowardly came inside. Nathan stayed out and did another 100 foot. He is so much more manly than me.

I guess I expected the whole skiing thing to be easier. I don't know what I was basing that on. I tried cross country nearly 30 years ago and absolutely hated it. We skied 7 miles in one day and I thought I was going to cry. Evidently time erases bad ski experiences.

I find that a little cross country is like a little of God. Following Him for any length of time quickly separates the men from the boys (we'll forget for a moment that my 9 year old made me look like a little girl this afternoon.) There comes a moment somewhere in the journey with the Lord that forces us to ask ourselves just how far we are willing to follow, especially when the going gets tough. I am deeply thankful that although I am a wimp on cross country skis, Papa and I have been traveling for quite awhile. And that is one adventure I will never give up.

In attempt to sound trite, I am reminded that 'cross country' is a sport described by two words - cross and country. Its funny to note that the sport bears the word 'cross' in it. I wonder sometimes how the world might change if we Christians were willing to pick up that item a little more often. But like my wimpy attempt at cross country this afternoon, we give up when the road gets too hard - loving others isn't for the faint of heart.

So what kind of cross country person will you be?

The great and powerful OZ

People and power don't always go well together. Power is one of those tough topics that we dodge in the kingdom of God. Yet is is so relevant. Everything boils down to it. Ultimately a surrender to Jesus is about laying down our power - the power or ability to think we are God of our own little universe.

Sometimes power comes out as a inflated sense of self importance. We think the world really needs us. We call that arrogance. But I find a far more dangerous pattern of power is our codependency. I am not really sure how many people really know just how damaging codependency is, let alone what it is. So let me explain.

Codependency is also a pattern of relating to the world with an inflated sense of self importance, but it is indirect. It is when we think we have to hold the world together because no one else will. It is when another person's job becomes ours to do. It is when another person's well being is in our hands. It looks like genuine caring, but it isn't. There is an old joke about the codependent who's car stalls on the railroad tracks as a train is coming, and someone else's life passes before their eyes.

Lets imagine that an able bodied, normally gifted person continues to not find a job. So the codependent helps them out, giving them money for food or some clothes or a ride. That would be called 'caring for someone,' until the point where our actions keep that other person from taking care of themselves. Sometimes that other person doesn't really have to get a job because we are meeting all their needs, doing for them what they can do for themselves. It makes us feel good that we can help, and it makes us mighty powerful, but it enables that other person to remain helpless - they don't have to find a job because we keep taking care of them. They don't have to save money because we keep giving it to them. They have the luxury to be irresponsible because we are working over time to be responsible for them. That isn't the love of Christ; that is codependence.

Exerting our power would mean to force them to have to reap what they sow. A general tell tale sign of codependency is when we give to point where the relationship with that other person is frustrating us - we are working harder at them getting somewhere than they are.

There is an interesting scene in the movie 'The Wizard of Oz'. The lion, tinman, scarecrow and Dorothy go before the great and all powerful Oz because they want him to do something for them. He tells them to go face their deepest fear - the wicked witch of the west. Ultimately at the end of the story he shows them that they had the power to get where they wanted all along. Although he takes a circuitous route in getting there, he finally draws the good out of them that had been there all the time - they just didn't see it. That is the work of Christ - not doing for others what they can and could do for themselves, but believing in and drawing out the good that God put in them when He created them. It is reminding them that they really are powerful - over their struggles or addictions or discouragements.

So go be the Wizard of Oz to some folks today.

Facing Goliath

It strikes me that life continually brings us face to face with giants. It can be going along smoothly and then suddenly something happens and you are forced to deal with something that looms in front of you, larger than life. I got confronted by one of those yesterday.

I don't know why I am surprised when the Goliaths some along. It shouldn't catch me off guard, but it always does. I had and interaction with some really good people yesterday that went really bad, and it has left me reeling as to what to do next. The ingredients of that interaction were my Kryptonite. It really upset me. And today I have to deal with the situation, and I don't want to. It is one of those times where I pray for wisdom, because I feel a total lack of having any.

I know I'll get through it. As I look across the office, I see my wife also facing a Goliath today of a different type. We all have one. I guess it is part of what it means to walk with God. May He give us strength as we step out onto that battlefield and face the things we would rather not face.

The things we put in chains

Life is filled with challenges. Some of those are handed to us without our even knowing it. Others we knowingly pick up.

As I walk with God longer, I realize that the stuff that happens in my life is rarely the place I struggle. It is what I do with the stuff that happens that is the issue. I guess it is all about perspective. I can see a $25 check as a curse because I was hoping for $500, or I can see it as a blessing because I wasn't expecting it at all. It isn't the stuff, it is what we do with the stuff.

I wonder how many of life's problems exist because we put them in chains. What I mean by that is that we bind up the stuff of life - we decide if something is possible or impossible. We are the ones who see a situation as hopeless or hopeful. We throw the chains on whatever is happening, and never let it sit in the lap of God. We lock together the padlock of self sufficiency and determine the future, not by our faith, but by our fear.

"The things we put in chains" - what if we weren't doing that? What if we took the adversities of life and just took them, without the chains. What might God do with what we left set free? That issue or problem might fly away sooner than we could ever have imagined if we would have left it without the burden of our earthly perspective, our narrow judgment, and our fleshly fear.

Will there ever be an end to the lessons yet to learn?