Cohen and Me on a Trash Run
It’s a familiar old friend, comfortable as a favorite pair of shoes. Brokenhearted parents cling to it, and eager young parents rise to it. It’s a friendly reminder to us all that there’s a higher purpose in the midst of our most frustrating and confusing days. And yet it can say so much more to us than we ever dreamed possible:
“Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
We all know what that means, right? It means when you have children, if you get them involved in church, discipline them properly, and teach them how to behave, then when they become adults, they will live consistently with the things you tried to teach them. If you teach them to have high moral values as children, they will have high moral values as adults.
Right?
Wait a minute. How do you respond to the mom or dad who doesn’t understand why their adult children don’t go to church like they do? What do you say to the parent whose children have rebelled against their high moral standards and have rejected their values?
I’m convinced that many of us have missed some exciting possibilities because of the limited way we have interpreted this verse. [click to continue…]
I will give the lonely a reason to believe in companionship again.
And in so doing, I will banish loneliness from my own heart forever.
-from The Encourager’s Creed
Somewhere near you is an Eeyore in Tigger’s clothing. They’re bouncy, flouncy, trouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun on the outside. But on the inside they’re desperately alone and resigned to eating thistles. And you can make a difference.
There is somebody not far away who is adored for all they do and have to offer. They have no shortage of attention, compliments, and outright praise. Yet for all the attention and admiration they receive, they are profoundly lonely. Why? Because while many people are amazed by them, nobody seems to understand them. But you can.
It’s the chameleon of the emotional world. It blends seamlessly into any environment, and play-acts with the best of the cons. It can empower anybody to be hysterically funny in order to disguise the depression and isolation. It can offer wisdom or encouragement or insight to anybody else, but receives precious little in return. It can mimic the language of the spiritual, with talk of solitude and prayer and hearing God – yet all the while it disguises a relational wasteland. But you can (and should) break through all that.
Loneliness. Ever since Eve and her husband were evicted from their first home, something in us has ached with a longing for companionship and deep connection. We want to know we are searched (understood) thoroughly, known intimately, and loved unconditionally. [click to continue…]
I can’t get this picture out of my head. It’s from Stuff Christians Like, by Jonathan Acuff. Jon describes a scene that took place at the ice cream bar at Chuck E. Cheese when he was in the second grade.
I remember when I was in the second grade watching a fifth grader fall apart at the ice cream bar. The problem he faced was that the hot dog bar was right next to it. While was waiting in line I watched him take a big bowl of pristine white soft serve vanilla ice cream and approach the first condiment dispenser. He pressed down hard and out came a serving of mustard.
It was all over his ice cream and he looked down at it with complete and utter devastation. I felt bad for him but out of nowhere a Chuck E. Cheese employee jumped in and said, “Here, that’s okay. Here’s a new bowl of ice cream. That’s okay. Here you go; have some new ice cream.”
I’ll never forget that little boy’s face as he looked up at the employee and down at his ruined bowl of ice cream. He was so ashamed at what he had done, so embarrassed that he had put mustard on it that he paused and then told the employee, “I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s not a big deal. I’m fine.” And then he started to stir the mustard into the ice cream.
He tried as hard as he could to mix that bright yellow mustard into the bright white vanilla ice cream. Finally it all became this pale emo-yellow-colored mush. He looked back up and then returned to his table, presumably to choke down his mustard ice cream.
What the kid didn’t understand was that when someone purchased his trip to the ice cream bar, they were giving him unlimited access to the ice cream maker. But in his mind and world, “the ice cream is free, but the rest is up to me.”
Reminds me of me. And many Christians I know. [click to continue…]
How do you want to be remembered?
By what you did? What you said? Who and how you loved? What you accomplished or overcame?
That may or may not happen.
I was chatting with someone yesterday about the idea of legacy – one of those Five Laws of LifeVesting. He asked me to clarify what I meant and how people leave legacies after their time on earth is done. I said that legacy has two parts – the intentional and the unplanned.
There are some things I want to be remembered for, and I take action to make those memories while I still have a chance by investing my life in things that will live on after me. This is why people give money, write things, do art or music, or make memories with people, just to name a few.
But your legacy has a life of its own, and you’re making memories all the time, whether you realize it or not. Some of those are pretty routine. Some are painful. Some are glorious, and you don’t even know it.
Two days ago I got an email from Gotta-Love-Google-Land. It came from somebody I knew in my very first church staff position, 33 years ago. The message, framed with “thank you,” contained some profound memories. What was interesting, though, was what all those memories had in common. [click to continue…]
Grab a pen and a legal pad. You’ve got some writing to do, and you get one chance to get this right. Soon your number’s going to be called, and there’ll be no more letters, no more encouraging, no more leading…
…no more living.
Everything you have worked for on this side of eternity is hanging in the balance. And the guy you’ve picked as your successor – your standard bearer?
He’s AWOL.
Some people, when they burn out, act out. This guy burned out, and hid out.
And you have one chance to light a fire under him before somebody, well, lights a fire under you, so to speak. What would you say? How would you say it? Is this a time for force or finesse? Rah-rah or sob-sob? [click to continue…]
Years ago a group of scientists determined that the minerals and chemicals within our bodies were worth about $.99. Factor in inflation, and that’s probably somewhere around $3.50 or so today.
Viewed in another way, however, somebody estimated that the energy production of the human body, based upon the number of atoms within a 150-pound person, could generate enough atomic energy to be valued at $85 billion.
A hundred and fifty pounds, huh? That would make me worth, hmmm… well, never mind.
The lesson here? Don’t let a scientist try to figure out how much you’re worth!
While you’re at it, don’t build your value on what anybody else tells you.
Not the guys and dolls in Coolvillle.
Not your teachers, important as they are (remember the infamous fourth-grade teacher who send Thomas Edison home, saying he was too stupid to learn?).
Not even the people who love you most, and here’s why: The more you are loved by somebody, the more you tend to expect unconditional approval from them. When they do express frustration or disapproval, it weighs a whole lot more on your heart. I once met a 56-year-old woman who said, “Andy, just once I wish I could hear my [78-year-old] mother say I’d done something right.”
So where do you look to find your value? Here’s a suggestion: [click to continue…]
A Fable about leadership, teamwork, unity, and of course, honey…
It was a lovely morning in the Hundred Acre Wood, where Christopher Robin’s friends lived and played. The bees were abuzz making their honey (and You-Know-Who knew just who it was for).
Kanga had already gotten an early start on motherly things, while Roo was playing close by.
Piglet was pacing about his tidy home saying “Oh Dear, Dear, Dear” because he knew something Important was about to happen, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
Rabbit was tending his garden, nervously glancing around for signs that he soon may be bounced by Tigger.
Eeyore was a bit confused as he chomped on a thistle because he couldn’t think of anything to be gloomy about.
Owl was remembering the time to no one in particular that his great uncle Waldo on his mother’s side did something famous because it happened on a lovely day such as today.
And Winnie the Pooh? Being a Bear of Very Little Brain, he was sitting at the Thotful Spot, thinking. And wishing for just a bit of honey, because as everyone knows, bears think better when their tumblies aren’t so rumbly. And there’s nothing like honey to take the rumbly out of the tumbly.
This was no ordinary day after all. This was the day of the Grand Celebration. They weren’t quite sure what they were celebrating, but everyone had agreed that today would be a fine day to celebrate it. [click to continue…]
Here’s an old story that has been passed around and told in many versions. But the message is still strong and clear:
A wise, elderly man was busy working on the gate leading to his front door. His young grandson approached with the inevitable question, “Whatcha’ doin’, Grandpa?”
The fixer answered: “Laddy, there’s five kinds of broken things in this old world.
- There’s the kind which, when they are broken, no one can fix.
- There’s them which, when they are broken, will fix themselves if we leave them alone.
- Then there’s the kind which, when they are broken, somebody else has got to fix.
- There’s also the kind which, when they’re broken, only God can fix.
- And then, little man, there’s the kind which, when they are broken, I got to fix. That’s what I’m doin’, fixin’ this gate!”
You got anything broken in your life? Anything lost or damaged? Any problems that won’t seem to go away? Any memories you didn’t ask for, or pain you don’t deserve? Any relationships out of whack, or people out of touch? Learn the lesson of Grandpa’s Gate.
Some things in our lives get broken beyond repair. [click to continue…]
I have a Master’s degree in Moody. There are some who see the glass half full, and others who see the glass half-empty. Left to my own devices, I see the glass as 100% of whatever mood I may be in.
That said, I’m re-learning (God is such a patient teacher!) a powerful, powerful principle:
Never, never, never pass up an opportunity to say “Thank you.”
Why?
Because gratitude is the gateway to abundance. I am living it.
Gratitude widens the road – at least in the spirit, if not in the circumstances. As I live gratefully, forces line up to move the circumstances. But in the meantime, even while the circumstances are narrow, my soul is broad.
That’s hard for the Master of Moody to accept sometimes. I am capable of such broodiness that disciplined gratitude must be that – disciplined. And I don’t do it well. [click to continue…]
When it comes to relationships, are you a builder or a buster? I’ve known both, and I’m sure you have, too.
Relationship builders are liked. Respected. Trusted. They believe in the deep, abiding value of relationships with others, and invest their lives in nurturing them. But they also seem to go about relationship building in an almost-effortless way.
Relationship busters are different. They may get along with anybody for a season, but sooner or later their relationships tend to blow up or fall apart. Or they live in constant relationship drama.
One of the things I have learned about relationships is that a large part of them are an inside job. That is, there is a difference between the way builders and busters think. And whatever controls your thinking right now establishes the course of your relationships for a long time.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul writes from a Roman prison and encourages them to engage in linking thinking: [click to continue…]
