Decisions

There are so many decisions that we make every day that we, thankfully, do not spend much time over. Then there are those that we spend a lot of time and energy on - trying to look at every angle, trying to find the perfect outcome.

I've tried to come up with the right analogy. I don't think it is perfect, but so far what I have come up with is that sometimes we come to places in our lives where the road that we are on leads to a room with multiple doors, and you have to decide which one to go through. What is on the other side of those doors is not always exactly clear, some may have windows that let you get a glimpse and some may "seem" more safe or risky. But the point is that you can't really tell for sure, and that you have to choose one of them because staying right there is not an option.

I know a lot of people that are in one of those rooms right now (including me). In my situation, it looks like most people that I know are all going the same direction, and to some extent that seems "safest." But, some people that I care about very much are going different ways - some by choice and some because they have to. Some people have lovingly suggested to me that I consider a completely different door. Should I follow the majority, try to follow others, go through a door that nobody else seems to be choosing? The situation can be paralyzing.

I wonder, though, whether these are to a large extent created concerns that make the decision so difficult and seem so significant. I recognize that there are things that I do not see and I do not understand and that, if I allow myself to be open to it and not be paralyzed into simply watching, I will follow the path that has existed for me since before I was born. That God will make use of my circumstances.

"If clouds are full of water, they pour rain upon the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will lie. Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well."

Ecclesiastes 11:3 - 6.

So, once again, I pray for direction for myself and for all that are in similar circumstances.

Rich

When I was growing up, probably like most people, I always wanted to be rich. I wanted a big house with fancy entrance gates, a marble foyer with matching curved staircases on the sides and the most exotic automobiles imaginable. Although I do not remember saying it, my wife once reminded me that when we first started dating (more than 20 years ago!) I told her that I was going to be rich and that I wouldn't let her get in my way.

Well, although I have a nice house and a nice car, there is no entrance gate, no marble foyer, no curved staircase and nothing exotic. I have a great job, working with people that I genuinely like, and in the overall scheme of things it pays very well - though it is not exactly the seven figure income of my dreams.

But, I have come to realize that rich doesn't mean money. As long as I focus on possessions, there is always something newer, something fancier, something better. "Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless." Ecclesiastes 5:10

While I admit that I still like my "stuff," I recognize that it has nothing to do with being rich. Instead, my wealth is in my incredible family, the love that I share with my friends, the opportunities that I have been given to be in service to the Lord. It is not the picture that I had in my head when I was younger, it is immeasurably better. What I said to my wife those twenty years ago makes no sense, she has never been in my way to getting rich, she has been a huge part of it. This morning I am focused on the fact that I am incredibly rich and I thank God for the blessings that He has poured out on my life.

Failure

I have said before, and I am sure that I will say again, I fail in my faith many ways every single day. Yesterday evening, though, I Failed and I have been struggling with that.

The exact details are not important. It is not that I affirmatively did something wrong, it is that I turned away from the opportunity to affirmatively do something right. It is not like I didn't notice, or just missed the opportunity, I saw it and even commented to someone else - "we should really . . . ." But, I didn't. I just walked back to my office and went on with my day, and I don't know why. Doing the right thing would have been a little inconvenient and would have been a change from the normal procedures at the office, but that is all. The worst part is that while I recognized that it was a good idea, it was not until hours later that I realized what I had done - heard God, actually had the message penetrate my thoughts, and ignored it.

It did not hit me until I was driving home. I may have to be in Atlanta in a couple of weeks and I was day dreaming on the drive about trying to fit in trips to the Blood and Fire shelter and trying to find some of the homeless that I met in the parks. I was thinking about how awesome that would be, when what I had done suddenly hit me.

When I got home, I turned to the Bible to try to find some explanation for my Failure, or what to do. My wife has a Life Application Bible, and I looked in that under Failure. I read all of the entries. I liked the basic message of one of the notes, something along the lines of: when you fail you have to give that failure to God, ask forgiveness and grow from the failure. But, the note was in reference to Chapters 7 and 8 of Joshua. I have read and re-read those Chapters trying to find that in there myself, but I keep getting hung up on the part where Achan is the one who sins, and he gets stoned for his sin, then God says to Joshua "Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged." I'm the Achan in this passage, not the Joshua.

Anyway, I still haven't figured it out. I try to take some solace in the fact that I recognized my Failure. That I was only a little late in recognizing that God was speaking to me, rather than missing it entirely. Maybe it will help me to be a better listener in the future. I don't know, it still seems pretty sad - I'm shamed, humbled and embarrassed. If anyone reads this and has any thoughts, or suggestions, I would be glad to hear them.

Make a Joyful Noise

Today on the drive into work I found myself behind a car with the license plate - Hymn 248. When I got to the office, I jumped on the internet only to find that there are a lot of different hymnals and a lot of Hymn 248s. But, the process made me think some of musical ministries. Despite the fact that I have a long-time friend who is very involved in the musical ministries of her church in Texas, and a number of good friends who are involved in my church, I never really thought about it as a "ministry."

I have always loved gospel music, particularly big choir gospel. The worship in the music is obvious. You can feel it, hear it, become part of it. I've also experienced that same sensation at church services in other countries. The church that I attend is all contemporary worship, meaning, in part, that we have drums, electric guitars, keyboards, etc. involved in the music. Most of the music is what you would hear on a Christian Rock radio station. My old church, on the other hand, had a contemporary service on Saturday nights and traditional services on Sunday.

When we switched churches, one of the most difficult things for me to get used to was the change in music. I miss some of the traditional hymns that became part of my worship. One of my favorites was "Whom Shall I Send?" If you are not familiar with it, here is the first verse and chorus:

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin, My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them?
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord,
Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord,
if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

It just really speaks to me. The questioning hesitance of the chorus is really me . . . .

In any event, this past weekend while people were taking communion the band played the traditional hymn "It Is Well With My Soul." It was jazzed up a bit and I think it was the first time I had heard it with basically a rock band in the background. Still, though, it really moved me. All these things together have really brought into focus the ministry aspect of the music and how important it has become to my worship. It is not a performance during church, it is not entertainment, it is a complete form of worship unto itself. "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing." Psalm 100 "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music . . . ." Psalm 98 It is, of course, also a way of teaching (think "Yes, Jesus Loves Me"; "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands"; etc.)

So, among my prayers this morning is a special prayer for all those involved in musical ministry around the world. I thank you for what you are doing and I thank God for the talents that he has given you and for your sharing them with us.

Praying for Direction

For the last few days, I have been thinking a lot about prayer. It probably started with what I thought was an excellent sermon in church this last week entitled Unanswered Prayers. I don't want to attempt to repeat that sermon here. If anyone is interested, they can download it from the church's website at www.christchurchva.org.

The Bible, of course, has a lot to say about prayer. But, what really caught my attention this morning is "The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results." James 5:16 There is a lot wrapped up in those few words - both conditions "earnest prayer," "righteous person" and promises "great power and wonderful results."

For the last year or so, I have been attempting to change my own prayer life. I still pray specifically for the healing of friends and family, and for food, shelter and safety for the friends that need that. More and more though, both for myself and for my friends and family, I pray for God's direction, calming influence and intervention in our lives. The distinction to me is that I am not praying for a specific outcome in those instances, I have come to accept (at least a little bit) that I do not understand the master plan and that what may seem right to me, or what I may want, may not be the right outcome for the person inolved or for God's plan. But, if we are provided with the peace, clarity, direction and love that He can provide, then I think it is more likely that we will follow where He is leading and make the truly right decisions about roads to travel. I also recognize that God can provide us with comfort and strength beyond what may seem possible under the circumstances.

So, part of my prayer this morning, as every morning, is that God can act in my life and your life today to help us in the ways that we may need it. I pray that He will lead us and provide us with the direction that we need. I believe that there is great power in this prayer for all of us and I believe that it will be answered for all of us if we let ourselves be open to listening for that answer. While I can't point to a time that it started for me, I truly believe that God wants to have that kind of relationship with all of us.

Prepare to Stop and Change Direction

In the mornings I attempt to spend some time on the eliptical machine in the gym in my office building. I usually set the machine in reverse mode so that every five minutes it prompts me to reverse direction for two minutes. When the five minutes is just about up, the machine beeps and then displays a message that says "Prepare to Stop and Change Direction." It is a nice clear warning that is pretty hard to miss so that you are not surprised when the machine forces you to stop a few seconds later.

I was thinking about that this morning and how nice it would be if there were similar nice, clear, direct warnings in life. Instead, it seems like things often change direction on a dime and I'm caught unprepared. Often, though certainly not always (I think that sometimes life really does change directions without warning - but that is for another time), when I look back, I see that there were warnings - plenty of times that God tried to get the message to me and I wasn't looking, or I wasn't listening, or I didn't like what I was seeing or hearing and ignored it. As I said to a friend this weekend, I miss a lot, but when God wants to make sure that I get a message, He has a way of hitting me over the head so that I can't miss it.

Each morning I pray that as I go through the day God will give me the ears to hear Him and the eyes to see Him and the strength, hope, wisdom and faith to listen and follow. Still, though, I continue to miss Him on a regular basis. I know He is there, but I'm too caught up in whatever it is that seems important at the moment as opposed to what really is important. Thankfully, I know that God is patient with me. As He said to Moses "'The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.'" Exodus 34:6-7. I just pray that with practice I will get better at seeing the warning to prepare to stop and change direction before He has to hit me over the head to get the message across.

The Tree

In front of my office building in downtown DC stood a 30 foot tree. It was a nice full tree that provided some shade and looked good. The base must have been 2 to 3 feet wide. Yesterday afternoon, it apparently was clipped by a delivery truck and then it fell across K Street - blocking traffic for hours, hitting two vehicles (thankfully nobody was hurt) and generally causing a mess.

Once it fell you could see that the tree was largely hollow inside - you can still see that from the stump that remains. Although it looked good on the outside, it was rotting on the inside. All it took was being clipped by a delivery truck - it is not like the truck really slammed into it - for the whole tree to fall.

The analogy is pretty obvious. People may seem to be fine on the outside, yet rotting away in the middle. Lots of things can cause that rotting - guilt, worry, fear, shame, doubt, jealousy, greed, the list could go on and on. I suspect that we all have at least some of it, the key is finding a constructive way (as opposed to a destructive way) to get rid of it. One of the things that I have been working on is trying to learn to give those things to God. He is more than capable of taking my problems and strengthening my core. As Paul wrote from prison to the church at Philippi - "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

We also can help each other. If someone had looked closely enough at that tree, they would have seen that it was unhealthy. If we pay enough attention to our friends, family, colleagues and people we meet, we may be able to see or hear that there is something going on beneath the surface. Maybe they just need a person to talk to, or a hug - and we can help them just by being there. Maybe they need more serious help that we cannot provide, but we can help them to find it.

So, the thoughts for the day are 1) do what needs to be done to keep ourselves strong inside - seek out the help that we may need; and 2) pay attention to the people around us and be there for them/help them get the help they may need.

Have a great weekend.