Blog Archives

"WHAT'S IN YOUR SOUL?!"

8/29/2016

A major financial institution has employed a fairly successful advertising slogan as of late. Their commercials all end with the pointed question: “What’s in your wallet?” Recently, having viewed one such commercial, my mind wandered back to a cartoon from my childhood. It was an old Blake Edwards’ “Pink Panther” cartoon produced in 1965 (the third in the series) by David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng and titled “We Give Pink Stamps”.

Not surprisingly, given the marvels of the internet, it did not take me very long to find it on the world wide web. It can be viewed in it's entirety at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBiSD6Aj2W4.

The plot of the 6 plus minute cartoon is that the Pink Panther gets himself inadvertently locked inside a department store for the night. To amuse himself and pass the time, he plays with virtually every toy and/or prop imaginable. At length, he gets his pink fur dirty in the process; and thus decides to run himself through the combination washer/dryer.

Alas, upon exiting the dryer, he finds himself a ball of floating fluff. To remedy this, he stretches out on an ironing board and begins to press his nice clean (albeit wrinkled) pink fur. Surprisingly, the phone rings in the midst this process and he reaches to answer it. (It is never explained who was calling the department store in the wee hours of the morning, let alone why he never called for help given that a phone was available all along.)

What does happen is the inevitable - for while he is distracted with the phone, the unattended iron manages to burn a hole right through him. When he emerges from the ironing board, he discovers that he has an iron shaped hole thought his chest. What follows is a flurry of humorous activity as he desperately seeks to find something to fill this void. After trying and rejecting many objects, he finally settles on a wall clock that fits nicely into the void and then turns and walks away.

I share all of this this because I have often reflected on it as an illustration of the human predicament. As the story of Adam and eve makes plain in Genesis chapter 3, we were all burned by sin. The resultant void in our lives has left every one of us involved in a lifelong pursuit – that of attempting to fill this void. Accordingly, men and women everywhere have tried just about every conceivable object, activity and relationship they could find to fill the void. But all of these have come up short. Indeed, about the most that can be said is that we have only consumed a lot of time in the process.

The reason for this is that the void is a spiritual one. And nothing temporal (that is, nothing of this world) can fill such a void. For a spiritual void can only be filled by something of spiritual substance. And the Biblical word for spiritual substance is “gospel”. The need we all have in our heart can only be met by a restored relationship with Almighty God, our Creator. And that relationship is only possible through His Son, Jesus Christ, whose vicarious death and resurrection provided the atonement for our sin that makes such a relationship with a Holy and Righteous God possible.

So, I leave you with this question, my friend: “What’s in your soul?” And also with the answer - for as the Apostle John tells us in His First New Testament Letter (chapter 5, verses 11 and 12): “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

ALL THAT GLITTERS...

8/25/2016

Most all of us have heard our share of phrases designed to encourage us to make the most of a bad situation. For instance, one such jewel is: “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Another tried and true gem meant to point us to a brighter side to the problem we may be facing is “Look for the silver lining in the cloud.” Perhaps these and many similar ones are common enough phrases in your own vocabulary.

But have you ever heard of looking for the gold nugget in the midst of your drought? If not, don’t feel bad. Neither had I; at least not until I came across the following tidbit of information from California. It appears that the severe drought on the west coast has given new hope to gold prospectors.

Peter Hecht, in an article written for the Sacramento Bee newspaper and published June 23, 2015, sums the issue up well:

As California's prolonged drought dries up irrigation supplies for agriculture and forces cutbacks in urban water deliveries, it also creates opportunities for prospectors and miners panning, sluicing, chiseling, and diving for gold. In recent years, drought-inspired gold seeking has spiked sales of sluice boxes, gold pans, and metal detectors at Gold County mining stores from Columbia in Tuolumne County to Auburn in Placer County. While the drought, now in its fourth year, has rendered many creeks too dry for panning, new adventures are opening elsewhere as receding waters reveal more treasures.

These days, Albert Fausel, a lifelong gold seeker who owns the historic Placerville Hardware store, is having some of the best experiences of his life. Fausel, 37, sets out to the upper Cosumnes River in southern El Dorado County. Once a great spot for swimming and fishing, the river's weakened flows are revealing sediments with "a lot of gold in 'em." Because of the drought, he says, "it's a sad season for fishing—so why not go out and get some gold?"

At Placerville Hardware, founded in 1852, four years after James Marshall discovered gold in the American River in nearby Coloma, modern prospectors now drop in to show off flecks they're harvesting from other high-country creeks. Some bring in old coins and other historic relics found in drying stream beds.

"I see some beautiful gold coming into the store," Fausel said. "That gets my tourists all excited. You come into the store and somebody's got gold in their pocket. It's amazing."

Are you currently experiencing a personal drought in your life? Has it been a while since you last experienced any refreshing and nourishing rain? Not so much physically, but psychologically, emotionally, relationally, or even spiritually? Could it be that such times are in fact God ordained in our lives? Could it be that such times are perfectly suited to help us rediscover what is really valuable? What really matters?

After the Old Testament prophet Elijah pronounced a drought as God’s judgment on Israel to Ahab, the King of Israel, in I Kings 17, he was immediately directed by God to make his way to the desert. There, he was fed by ravens and watered by a brook at Kerith. But alas, in time, as a result of the very drought he pronounced, the very brook that provided him water also dried up.

It was then that God showed him what really mattered. He was directed to go 75 miles across the desert to Zarephath, and make himself dependent upon a poor, helpless widow for his very sustenance. The point is that God wanted to show him that not only was God all he had; but that God was all he needed.

And that was the golden nugget in the midst of the drought! Indeed, had there been no drought in California, it is likely that there would have not been any new gold finds. And had there been no drought in Israel, it is likely that Elijah would not have learned to depend upon God for his every need.

And why does this matter so? Because it is only by learning to depend upon God for his very existence in the desert in the midst of a drought (in I Kings chapter 17) that Elijah becomes capable of drawing upon God for the awesome strength he would need to defeat 850 false prophets in the ensuing contest at Mount Carmel (in I Kings chapter 18)!

In light of this, all can I say is “Bring on the drought!” For the drought reveals what really matters, what really has worth, what is really worth pursuing. And until we experience this, we will never know the power that God alone can provide!

STORY SOURCE: The relationship between the California drought and gold prospecting has been covered extensively in the news. See for instance:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140814-california-drought-gold-rush-water-climate-mining-panning/.

https://www.rt.com/usa/california-drought-gold-rush-2014-732/.

http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/california-drought-has-gold-lining-prospectors-rush-resurfaced-mining-town.

http://www.goldprospectors.org/News/News-Details/ArtMID/3269/ArticleID/27
/Diggin%E2%80%99-the-Drought.

http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/butte/california-drought-is-creating-a-new-gold-rush_20160513160646618/10907345.

http://www.voanews.com/a/california-drought-draws-modern-day-gold-miners-/1859899.html.

The Sacramento Bee has several informative articles devoted to the matter. My chief source for this blog post is:

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article25205488
.html.

SCRIPTURE SOURCE: http://biblehub.com/niv/1_kings/17.htm and
http://biblehub.com/niv/1_kings/18.htm.

LET'S GET MOVING!

8/22/2016

I love the stories collected and told by the gifted communicator Paul W. Powell. One of my favorites is about our need to be properly motivated...

A man walked through the cemetery one night and fell into an open grave. He tried to get out several times and couldn’t. Finally he sat down in a corner to wait for dawn.

After a while another fellow, a drunk, came walking through the graveyard and fell into the same grave. The first fellow thought he would sit back and watch the second fellow and see if he could get out. He tried to get out of the grave once and he couldn’t and he tried a second time and he couldn’t. He tried a third time and couldn’t.

After a while the first fellow stood up, reached over and tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Say, fellow, you can’t get out of here.” But he did!

Dr. Powell’s aptly stated admonition is this: “When motivated, we can do things we thought we couldn’t.”

Indeed, everyone does need a little motivation on occasion. Today, for this reason, I thought I would a share a very inspirational list of quotations I recently came across in the hopes that they would provide such motivation for anyone currently in need.

Lolly Daskal, President and CEO of “Lead From Within”, has posted an article titled “100 Motivational Quotes That Will Inspire You to Succeed” over at www.inc.com. Here is a short sampling!

"Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out."
-John Wooden

"If you are not willing to risk the usual you will have to settle for the ordinary."
-Jim Rohn

"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."
-Walt Disney

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."
-Winston Churchill

"Opportunities don't happen, you create them."
-Chris Grosser

"Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value."
-Albert Einstein

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
-Eleanor Roosevelt

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
-Thomas A. Edison

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."
-David Brinkley

"The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it."
-Henry Ford

"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."
-Oscar Wilde

"I believe that the only courage anybody ever needs is the courage to follow your own dreams."
-Oprah Winfrey

"There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed."
-Ray Goforth

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." --Thomas Jefferson
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out."
-Robert Collier

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it!"
-Margaret Thatcher

Check out these and 85 more such jewels of inspiration at: http://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/100-motivational-quotes-that-will-inspire-you-to-succeed.html.

And then, to quote the author, go get busy “building your business, leading your life, creating success, achieving your goals, and overcoming your fears”!

LOLLY DASKAL'S WEB SITE is here: http://www.lollydaskal.com/about-lolly/.

POWELL STORY SOURCE: Look for Number 52, p. 38 found at: http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php?id=146507.

MOVING DAY

8/18/2016

It was a scene right out of the past. What I mean by this is that, unlike back in the days of my childhood when it was a fairly common sight, it is rare these days to see a house being moved down the road.

I have no idea why that is. It might be that there are simply too many obstacles nowadays compared to the past. After all, power, cable television, and other such lines abound today. Or it could be that so many houses are built on slabs rather than on crawl spaces. Or it might be that it is simply easier and/or less expensive to build a house than to purchase and then move one today.

Nonetheless, this was exactly what happened recently here in our community. Someone valued a house so much that they undertook the arduous process of having it moved to a new location. Needless to say, as these pictures indicate, it is obvious that this was no simply undertaking.

Ironically, all of this happened at roughly the same time each of my three children and their respective spouses are in the process of purchasing their own first homes. And while my wife and I did not move a house, we have hauled many a piece of furniture in the last few weeks as we have worked to help each of them in turn set up housekeeping.

All of this has gotten me to doing some thinking. As a minister of the gospel, counting part time positions while in college and seminary, I have served eight churches in some capacity over a 35 year career. Of these, three have been in the position of Senior Pastor. Moreover, although we have been in our current home for fourteen years, if one counts the early years, my wife and I have moved a total of 12 times, and have lived in 13 different apartment and/or homes.

For this reason, I know that my children, whose generation is far more mobile than my own, will likely call many places home as well over their lifetimes. And also for this reason, I have learned not to get too attached to a particular house or dwelling place. All of which leads me to my point.

It was almost 80 years ago (1937 to be exact) when Albert E. Brumley composed the music and lyrics to the following well-loved hymn:

This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through.
My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.
Oh lord you know, I have no friend like you.
If Heaven's not my home, then lord what will I do?

The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

I have a loving mother just over in glory land.
And I don't expect to stop until I shake her hand.
She's waiting now for me in Heaven's open door.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.
Oh lord you know, I have no friend like you.
If Heaven's not my home, then lord what will I do?

The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Just over in glory land, we'll live eternally.
The saints on every hand are shouting victory.
Their songs of sweetest praise drift back from Heaven's shore.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.
Oh lord, you know, I have no friend like you.
If Heaven's not my home, then lord what will I do?

The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

These words capture beautifully the spirit of one who has learned the fleeting quality of all that this world has to offer. In so doing, they also remind us not to become too enamored with temporal places and things.

The eleventh chapter of the New Testament Book of Hebrews recounts the lives of men like Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham and then admonishes us:

13All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Of Abraham specifically, we are told:

8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

For my part, I understand what motivated these Old Testament saints. Just as I do what motivated Albert Brumley. And I long for that day when I, like they, will dwell in a house prepared for me by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And what He promised me is also available for you, my friend; for He made the following pledge on the night before He gave His life in order that we might live with Him forever:

1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God ; believe also in me. 2My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going.”

5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

There it is, my friend: God’s offer of a new and lasting home in Heaven for all who trust His Son. I hope you will make plans to dwell there someday. Today would be a good day to do just that; for one never knows when moving day will unfold.

LYRICS SOURCE: http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/HHOF1980/311.

SCRIPTURE SOURCE: http://biblehub.com/.

FINISHING TOUCH

8/15/2016

As the Games of the XXXI Olympiad down in Rio de Janeiro continue to unfold this week, I thought I would continue my thoughts from my last post and relate another fairly well-known story from the life of celebrated swimmer Florence Chadwick (1918-1995).

In a blog post from Wednesday, 24 October 2012 titled “DON’T THROW IN THE TOWEL”, Roger Ewing, Senior Pastor of White Oak Worship Center in Blairs, Virginia, recounts an experience Chadwick once had while swimming another famed channel – this one running between the Channel Islands and the California coast. He writes:

From the booklet Bits and Pieces comes an interesting story about Florence Chadwick, the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. On the Fourth of July in 1951, she attempted to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast. The challenge was not so much the distance, but the bone-chilling waters of the Pacific. To complicate matters, a dense fog lay over the entire area, making it impossible for her to see land. After about 15 hours in the water, and within a half mile of her goal, Chadwick gave up.

Later she told a reporter, "Look, I'm not excusing myself. But if I could have seen land, I might have made it." Not long afterward she attempted the feat again. Once more a misty veil obscured the coastline and she couldn't see the shore. But this time she made it because she kept reminding herself that land was there. With that confidence she bravely swam on and achieved her goal. In fact, she broke the men's record by 2 hours!

Hebrews 10:35 and 36 states “Cast not away therefore your confidence which has great recompense of reward. For you have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you might receive the Promise.” I have said many times before that it is not always about those who start the race, but rather those who finish. The fact is that many will start in this race, and let’s be honest; you do have to start to finish. I congratulate you on your acceptance of God’s Gift, Jesus Christ. You are now in the race! This is wonderful, but now you must run in faith to finish.

Indeed the writer of the New Testament Book of Hebrews understood this principle well. The whole of the eleventh and twelfth chapters draws upon the ancient Greek athletic games. After painting a word picture of a stadium filled with the saints of the Old Testament, he then bids us, his readers, thus:

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

The Apostle Paul also understood this principle. His Second New Testament Letter to Timothy shows us this. After charging young Timothy with the responsibilities of faithfully discharging the ministry that God has given to him (chapter 4, verse 1-5), Paul states that he is now ready to depart this life (verse 6) because:

7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

This serves as a subtle reminder to each of us that it is oh so important to complete the race God has marked out for us. As with so many things, the race of life is easy to begin, but hard to finish. And yet, the real reward is not nearly so much to be found in the beginning of a thing as it is in the completing of it. Indeed, the starting line arguably has little significance apart from its relation to the finishing line.

And like the Apostle Paul, I want to finish the race I am running well. And when I do, I want the Lord to be pleased with my effort. For He, and He alone, will be my “righteous Judge”. I trust the same desire holds true for you.

SOURCE: http://www.whiteoakworship.org/pastor_s_blog/view/820/don_t_throw
_in_the_towel_. The Chadwick story as cited in Bits and Pieces is available widely on the internet.
SCRIPTURE SOURCE: http://biblehub.com/niv/hebrews/12.htm and http://bible
hub.com/niv/2_timothy/4.htm.

I CAN DO THAT!

8/10/2016

We are told that the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro features 11,000 athletes competing in 28 different sports comprised of 41 disciplines and 306 events. That means that there are 306 sets of medals (or 918 all total gold, silver, and bronze).

Even given that several sports will offer team medals, when the Games of the XXXI Olympiad are over, there will have been far more athletes participating than there were actual medals awarded.

And the 11,000 or so athletes at the Games represent only a tiny fraction of those who originally had hopes of being there. Along the way, untold tens of thousands (perhaps even hundreds of thousands) of other athletes worldwide were eliminated in the trials and competition leading up to the selection of Olympic athletes.

It is for this multitude of “Also Rans” that I share my post today. It concerns one Florence Chadwick, a gifted swimmer of a generation ago. It seems that...

When she was young, Florence Chadwick wanted desperately to be a great speed swimmer. At the age of six she persuaded her parents to enter her in a 50-yard race. She came in last, so she practiced every day for the new year. Again she entered and lost.

When she was an 11-year old, Florence won attention and praise for completing the San Diego Bay endurance swim - 6 miles in all. But she still wanted to be a speed swimmer. At 14, she tried for the national backstroke championship but came in second to the great Eleanor Holm. At 18, she tried out for Olympic speed swimming and came in fourth - only three made the team.

Frustrated, she gave it up, married, and moved on to other interests. As she matured, however, Florence began to wonder if she might not have done better if she had specialized in endurance swimming, something that came more naturally. So, with the help of her father, she began swimming distances again.

Twelve years after she had failed to make the Olympic team (when she was 30 years old), Florence Chadwick swam the English Channel, breaking Gertrude Ederle's 24-year-old record. It took a little time, but eventually she found out what she could do best and did it.

Now, herein is a significant truth. We may not all qualify as Olympic athletes. (And even if we do, we may not make it to the medal stand once there.) But that does not mean we do not have our own unique set of God-given talents and skills.

Ethel Waters once famously said, “I am somebody cause God don’t make no junk!” How true that is. Each and every one of us, as human beings, is uniquely created in the image of Almighty God, and as such, we are endowed by our creator with our own unique set of gifts.

And if we will but persist in the pursuit of discovery, we will eventually be rewarded with knowledge of what this skill set is, and of how we can best put it to use for the glory of the God Who created us.

Admittedly, few things are as delightful as watching Olympic athletes at the top of their game. As the Olympics show us, raw talent combined with hard work often produces incredible accomplishments followed by appropriate glory on the medal stand!

But surely one thing that does compare is witnessing a person discover and employ his or her God-given talents in life! Especially when they do so less for themselves and more for the benefit of others and /or for the glory of God!

SOURCE: From a sermon on John 4:27-34 titled "Where There's a Will, There's A Way.", preached March 28, 2011 at First Baptist church of New Sweden, Maine. This message is available online at: http://www.fbcns.com/Sermon-_March_28__2011.rtf. Here, the citation there is from Crossroads Magazine, Issue No. 7, p. 19.

NO FEAR

8/8/2016

On several occasions this week while watching the Olympics, I have seen athletes being interviewed and asked the same essential question: “With perhaps billions of people watching worldwide, how do you overcome your fear and perform at your peak on the Olympic stage?”

Almost invariably, the answer seems to be that, after an initial step or two, these gifted individuals somehow seem capable of putting the audience out of their mind and treat their current performance as if they were simply undertaking their routine for the umpteenth thousandth time alone somewhere in the gym.

I will tell you that, as a Pastor and a public speaker, I learned long ago to remember that seeking the approval of a fickle crowd can be a futile undertaking. One’s biggest fan this week can often be one’s biggest critic next week.

That being said, I was reminded in all of this of a piece I had come across recently by Jesse Rice. Jesse is a gifted communicator whose website (which is located at https://churchoffacebook.wordpress.com and which I highly recommend), describes as “a writer, speaker, and musician, who lives in Seattle-ish, Washington, with his amazing wife, Katie, his fresh-out-of-the-oven son, Ryder, and his Yellow Lab puppy, Boone”.

The article I refer to is titled “Dear Fear-Of-What-Others-Think…”: An Open Letter To My Imaginary Audience. This blog post, dated 11/23/2011, speaks powerfully to this business of overcoming the fears that can so readily cripple or otherwise impair us.

In it, he writes:

Dear Fear-Of-What-Others-Think,

I am sick of you and it’s time we broke up. I know we’ve broken up and gotten back together about a bazillion times, but seriously, Fear-Of-What-Others-Think (or FOWOT, for short), this is it. We’re breaking up.

Because I’m tired of over-thinking my status updates on Facebook, trying to sound more clever, funny, important. And I’m tired of wondering which Tweets might drive the most traffic to my blog, as though my value as a human being were truly numerical.
I’m tired of wondering which picture to post online so that my in-danger-of-over-expanding gut doesn’t hang out too much and cause others to think I’m a normal late 30-something male, God forbid. Or that I vacation not in Hawaii or Paris or rural Vietnam, but in central Oregon, if I can afford to go on vacation at all.

I’m sick of feeling anxious about what I say or do in public, especially around people I don’t know that well, all in the hope that they’ll like me, accept me, praise me. Those who already like me, accept me, and even praise me; those are the ones I’m constantly trying to keep happy. I run around all day feeling like a freaking Golden Retriever with a full bladder. Like me! Like me! Like me!

And I’m SO tired of feeling bad about myself all the time. Bad about how I look. Bad about my job. Bad about my net worth (which is currently quite RED in color). Bad about my 12-year-old car and my one-fashion-season-behind clothes. Bad about my prospects for wealth and fame and Nobel Prize-winning ideas. Bad about my community, or lack thereof.

Because of you, I go through my day with a cloud of shame hanging over my head, blocking the sun, keeping my throat sore and my nose consistently runny and my eyes all squinty like a newborn. And I HATE that.

Because when I’m afraid of what others think, I never stop acting. The spotlight’s always on and I’m center stage and I’d better keep dancing, posturing, mugging, or else the spotlight will move and I’ll dissolve into a little meaningless puddle on the ground, just like that witch in The Wizard of Oz. I can never live up to the expectations of my imaginary audience, the one that lives only in my head but whose collective voice is louder than any other voice in the universe.

And since I know I’m acting and since I know the spotlight’s always moving and since I know that in the bigger picture none of this matters a rat’s patootie, I’m never content to simply be myself.

And all of this is especially horrible, terrible, evil because if I really stop and think about it, and let things go quiet and listen patiently for the voice of the God who made me and delights in me, it turns out I’m actually – profoundly – precious, lovable, worthy, valuable, and even just a little ghetto-fabulous.

When I listen to that voice then your voice starts to sound ridiculous again. You turn back into the tiny, whining little wiener dog that you are.

So eat it, Fear-Of-What-Others-Think. You and I are done. And no, I’m not interested in “talking it through.” I’m running, jumping, laughing you out of my life, once and for all. Or at least, that’s what I really, really want, God help me.

All I can say is, “You go, bro!” For at the end of the day, it really does not matter so much what others think of us. It only matters what the One Who created us and Who redeemed us thinks of us. Simply put: we play to an audience of One every moment of our lives! May He, and He alone, be pleased with our efforts!

SOURCE: https://churchoffacebook.wordpress.com/?s=An+Open+Letter+to+My
+Fear+of+What+Others+Think%2C%22.

THE THRILL OF VICTORY

8/5/2016

Like so many people around the world, I have been looking forward to the games of the XXXI Olympiad, which begin this week down in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. After all, the summer games only come around once every four years. Thus, in an average adult life span of eighty years, that means this display of world class athletic competition only unfolds about twenty times.

Of course, even as the games themselves have grown, so have the skills and talents of the various athletes on display. It seems as if each successive competition sees the various records continue to fall. There is little doubt that these games will be any different.

Another thing that has grown is the coverage. What began decades ago as a largely tape-delayed, one network broadcast monopoly has now become a live, multi-network (and indeed continuously fed online) coverage of the games. Besides, in a day and age of ubiquitous smartphones, there is virtually no way to report a story after the fact. The world is much too tech savvy for that.

Nonetheless, the live coverage and instantaneous worldwide reporting of results does not capture what one network famously called “the human drama of athletic competition”. And a good part of why people tune in each evening is to catch this very human component.

As these athlete profiles have begun to unfold this week, I find myself reminded that, at the end of the day, these athletes, while exceptionally skilled in their respective sports, are still only human beings.

For this reason, each of them has a heritage, a life, and of course, a backstory. More often than not, each of these stories is filled with some degree of pathos and struggle. Even at their tender young ages (so many are in their twenties at most and their teens at least), long and hard was the path that got them to where they now are. And for many of them, a significant part of that path has been their journey of faith.

Thus, for my post today, I wanted to recommend a book to my readers. It was written by Dr. Gerald Harris twenty years ago back in 1996 and designed to correspond with the coming of the Olympic games to Atlanta, Georgia in that same year. It is titled Olympic Heroes: World-class Athletes Winning At Life (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996).

Though now out of print, copies can be easily be secured through any number of online book re-sellers such as Amazon or else eBay or similar online auction sites.

The book is paperback and relatively short at only 127 pages; but it is quite informative and even more enjoyable. As the title suggests, he relates the story of several Olympic athletes and their life struggles.

But more than just their struggles, he tells of their victories as they, like the famed saints of the New Testament Book of Hebrews (chapters 11 and 12), ran with perseverance the race marked out for them, having fixed their eyes upon Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of their faith. I hardily recommend this book.

SOURCE: Dr. Gerald Harris has an official website that can be found at: http://www.jgeraldharris.org/. He has served as editor of The Christian Index (the official newsletter of the Georgia Baptist Convention) since June 2003, and is responsible for the overall editorial tone of the paper. In that role he espouses the Biblical worldview through his editorials and many news and feature articles.

Prior to joining the Index, he served for nine years as a pastor and denominational leader. Over the years, he has written for a variety of denominational publications, including devotions for Open Windows and HomeLife magazines. He has also authored two additional books: Pardoned to be Priests and A Gentle Zephyr – A Mighty Wind.