How to get clarity & direction.

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For many years I struggled with knowing what to do.  I usually ended up drifting. I would make the best choice of the opportunities that would float by me, but I had no idea what the future held.  I just hoped that it would be good and sometimes worried that it wouldn’t be.  Yes, I said worried.

Today I don’t believe in worry.  Worry is a form of fear, and fear is the opposite of faith.  We know by scripture that faith comes from hearing God’s Word continually.  I now know that when I’m tempted to worry now, I need more exposure to God’s promises.

I took some time off from Blogging this last month to spend some extra time praying and getting clarity regarding direction in 2017.  I put some of the things I’ve been thinking about in this video.  I pray you find it helpful.

So – Are you with me?  I would really like to hear from you.  What are you focusing on for the coming year?

If this video helps you at all, please share.

I sure do appreciate you all.

Art

It’s the thought that counts.

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One time when we were kids, my younger brothers, sister and I were invited to a neighbor boy’s birthday party.  Back in those days we didn’t have any money for a gift.  I remember giving him a pair of novelty glasses that had lights on them.  They were mine and I really liked them but I really didn’t want us to show up empty handed.  I remember feeling ashamed that we weren’t giving him a new gift, but at the same time, I remember that gift being a real sacrifice for me personally.  He may have never known how big of a gift we gave him that day.

One of the hallmarks of this season is buying gifts. I’ve heard that when it comes to retail, there are two seasons. Christmas season and Not Christmas season. There’s no doubt that a pretty substantial chunk of our economy relies on the purchases made for Christmas gifts.

The other side of the buying is the giving. That is where the real action is. Unfortunately, this can be a little tricky. I remember several years ago, we had a “Secret Santa” at my work. We would draw names & then give an inexpensive gift each day for five days leading up to Christmas eve. I drew the name of a young man who drove our delivery van at the time. I thought I would get him things he could eat. Everybody eats – right? It was a terrible idea. It seemed that he was allergic to everything I got him. I could tell he was pretty disappointed. The problem was that I didn’t know him very well.

Don’t you just love it though, when you get it right? It’s pretty awesome when you give a gift that’s a hit. Especially if it’s a surprise. I know how I feel. When someone takes the time to get to know what you like, how you think, what you need, what you WANT. They take the time to carefully evaluate you and what would make you happy, then choose your gift…wow!

We’ve all heard “It’s the thought that counts”, and it’s usually used to make us feel better about a bad gift.  When you really think about it – It’s the thought that counts is an eye opening perspective.  Consider for a second that it really is the thought behind any gift that makes it what it is.  It shows how much or how little we think of the people receiving the gift.  It’s getting easier to buy for people you don’t know very well now that so many stores are offering gift cards.

Now consider the truth behind Christmas.  John 3:16 says For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  Now, that verse gets more attention than many other verses in the Bible.  But so often, people don’t take the time, stop, and really consider the implications of it.  While there are people everywhere who know that Jesus came to earth, most don’t consider why.

Often, the gift represents honor, and honor represents value.  God’s gift to earth represents how much He values us.  He sent us His only begotten son – who laid aside His majesty, glory & honor, and became one of us. In Philippians, the King James Version says “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men”.  New American Standard Bible says it this way “but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men”.  He became a man and came to earth because, to save us.  Why? Because we were beyond helping ourselves.  We were sold under sin to a cruel master, cursed and unable to help ourselves.  God, the Father loved us so much that He sent His Son.  To become one of us.  To live with us. To die for us. To be raised from the dead for us. To be seated at the right hand of the throne of God for us, so that Hebrews 6 calls Him the Forerunner.  That’s a very important distinction because forerunners are not the only runners.  Forerunners are the first runners.

Heb 2:10  For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

It all started on earth with a little baby in a manger. From an earthly perspective, such a humble beginning, but we can see heaven’s perspective by the way the angels acted in front of the shepherds on the hillside outside Bethlehem that night.

Luk 2:13  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,  Luk 2:14  Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Heaven’s perspective of this gift was significantly different.  They were ALL rejoicing.  This was a big deal.  Think about what they said.  On earth…peace, good will toward men.  This means that before this, there was no peace.  Things were incomplete and broken.  Why? Because the definition of peace literally means “set at one again”.  Fully restored.  Nothing missing, nothing broken.

Take some time during this Christmas season to reflect on what this really means.  God said in Jeremiah 29:11 (God’s Word Translation)  I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope.  The King James says it this way “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you…”  God’s thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace, wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken.  These are all reflected in the gift He gave to us – Jesus. God could not have given us more.  The gift reflects the thoughts.  That’s what God thinks of you.

From my family to yours,  Merry Christmas!

Art

Where to start on the road to honor.

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New Year’s Eve 2009, my family and I were on our way home from my wife’s parents’ house.  We had spent the evening eating junk food & playing games but everyone was getting pretty tired so we decided to go home.  It was right about midnight (I remember because of the fireworks) when a small Mazda coming toward us spun out of control. It hit the big pickup truck in front of us, turning the truck in the road about 120 degrees & then tail whipped right into the front of our car.  It hit us so hard that it slapped the front of our car clear off into the ditch. The Mazda was wrecked in both the front and the rear.

We were all okay, escaping with just a little seat belt rash and some muscle stress from the accident, but our car was totaled.  The 19 year old young man driving the Mazda was okay too.  He kept apologizing and it became pretty clear that he was under the influence of alcohol.

A lot happened that night.  The Highway Patrol & the Fire Department showed up, made sure everyone was okay & took our information. Then I realized that the young man’s father had also arrived. He made sure his son was okay and was now talking to the state trooper. The father had a weary look on his face.  It seemed by his actions that he was very embarrassed by his son’s behavior that night.  When he was also informed that his son had refused towing service because “his dad had a guy” the father sighed and his head just dropped into his hand.  He was ashamed.  I remember thinking as I watched it “This is the exact opposite of honor”.  Accidents sometimes can’t be avoided, but that night there were some very bad choices made that led up to this one.

Proverbs 17:2 says “A servant who does wisely will have rule over a son causing shame, and will have his part in the heritage among brothers” (BBE).

It’s so important to understand that the first part of honoring your mother and father is to NOT cause shame.  I know there are plenty of times when I was a fool and embarrassed my parents.  I am personally responsible for many of the gray hairs on their heads.  It took me a long time to understand what it really means to honor them. I wish that someone would have helped me understand honor and why it’s important when I was a much younger man.  I will share more about honor in upcoming posts but the simplest way to define it for me is “to heavily value”. As we grow up we sometimes forget that we’re still sons & daughters and that what we do directly reflects on how we were raised.  God holds us strictly accountable to honor our Father and Mother (Ex. 20:12).  We do that with our life, by being quality people, and it doesn’t end when our parents are gone. We honor them for the rest of OUR lives.

I would love to hear your thoughts on honoring your parents. Please add your comments.

 

(Previously published April 2014)

Thanksgiving perspective.

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When I think about why we have Thanksgiving in the U.S.A., It touches my heart.  We’ve all heard the story when we were in grade school of how the pilgrims and the natives sat down to have a meal together.  Maybe you were one of the children whose school put on a Thanksgiving play.  I personally remember making hats out of construction paper.  Some kids made pilgrim hats while others made Indian head-dresses.  I think I had a head-dress.  The truth is though, that there’s much more to it than that.  That Thanksgiving was a celebration of survival and the Europeans would not have made it through that first winter without the help of the native Americans.

happy-thanksgiving-2016-social-card

We know from history that the Pilgrims left England and moved to Holland to flee the persecution that was coming from the Church of England.  The writings of some of the pilgrims indicate that they decided to leave Holland to come to the new world because of what they called “the hardness” of Holland and what some called the “great licentiousness” of the youth there. For whatever reason they came, their coming was a mile marker of something huge – look how far we’ve come!

True thanksgiving is something that is done on a more personal level.  Thanksgiving is of the heart.  The word for thanksgiving in the New Testament is the word Eucharistia (Strongs G2169).  It literally means Grateful, gratitude language – giving of thanks.  In the Old Testament the word for Thanksgiving is  Todaw  (Strongs H8426).  It means to avow. Adoration, signified with an extension of the hand.  Literally, lifting hands with thanksgiving.

Philippians 4:4 says Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.  The BBE says Be glad in the Lord at all times: and again I say be glad!.  Paul goes on to talk to the us about what we should do when things challenge our reasons for rejoicing.  In verse 6 he says “Care for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtue, praiseworthy, think on these things.

If we are all being honest, Thanksgiving is not our default setting. Selfishness is.  It seems that all we have to do to be selfish is let our feet hit the floor every morning.  Being anything else takes intention.  That’s why it’s important to have a daily devotion routine.  It brings your mind back to the truth.

When I miss my times with the Lord for very long, I start to have a sense of entitlement.  I begin to get angry with people around me because they are not doing for me, what I think they should.  I find that I think about myself far more, and about others far less.

When I take time with my Heavenly Father and His Word, It brings things back into perspective.  I remember that what I deserve is far worse than what I have received.  In fact, I try to remind myself often that what I deserve is to be lit on fire for all eternity. Real fire, real torment.  That will never happen to me because of the blood of Jesus.  And because of that, I can be very thankful every day.  With great humility, I acknowledge that, no matter how difficult things are in my job, in ministry, with my family, with my bills, or any other thing, It can be fixed, It will change, and I am grateful for every good thing I have received.

I never want to lose sight of this truth.  Thanksgiving doesn’t have to come from feelings. It’s a choice.  Today and everyday, I am thankful.

Where Did The Time Go?

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My Life In A Graph.

This image is a graph I threw together to represent my life on earth.  I don’t know how long I will live but for the sake of the graph, I chose 94 years old.  Each block represents a week.  There are 52 blocks wide and 94 blocks down.  The highlighted portion shows the time that I’ve already spent.  The blocks that are not highlighted represent the yet to be lived portion of my life.

my-life

I got the idea for this graph, watching Tim Urban give a TEDtalk about procrastination (see link at the bottom).  Tim showed a similar graph for a 90 year old person.

While some might think this is a bit morbid, I think it’s important to measure these things because we as humans, have a tendency to drift and put things off until “Someday”.

Where did the time go?

Have you ever looked back at some important event in your life and suddenly realized how many years had passed since it happened?  Where did the time go?  It may seem like it was only yesterday.  We’re human. If we are not intentional, we will lose track of time.  That’s really what this is about…Time, and how we use it.

In Tim’s speech, he humorously outlines the difference between the brain of a normal person, and the brain of a chronic procrastinator.  While they both looked very similar, the procrastinator’s brain had one difference.  It’s what Tim calls the “Immediate Gratification Monkey”.

People everywhere living with regret.

One of the thoughts that I came away with after watching Tim’s talk was that there are people everywhere living with regret.  Why?  Because regret is usually what comes after procrastination has run it’s course.

Many things that we might procrastinate on are short term & temporary.  A report due to your boss at the end of the month, or a low interest rate on a loan.  These things are tied to time and have a relatively immediate consequence attached to them.  Even if you have to put in extra hours, do extra stuff, or lose sleep to get these done, you’re not likely to totally forget because of the consequences.

There are other things though, that are not tied to time and don’t have an immediate consequence.  It’s these things that cause so much of our regret.  These are the things in the “Someday” slot.  I wrote in a previous post about how I had asked my dad if we would ever go see Elvis Presley live.  My dad said “Someday”.  Just a few years later Elvis passed away.  Someday never came (see link at the bottom).

Someday!  

How many people had big dreams, dreams of traveling to some place they long desired to see, but in the twilight of their lives, they looked back with regret? They never made it happen.  Maybe they had broken relationships that they always intended to fix, or hurt feelings they always intended to forgive…someday.  Suddenly, they realized that it’s too late.  they are too old, their health is failing, or that other person is now gone.

These “Someday” issues often carry a far greater weight of regret.  The problem is that they are not tied to a short term consequence, so we don’t ever get to the point of panic over a deadline.  We will put off something that may be hard or painful to deal with, telling ourselves that we will deal with it eventually.  Eventually is a very nebulous, ethereal word. It’s not concrete.  Eventually is a synonym for Someday.  They both describe a realm where things go to never get done.

Chip & Dan Heath wrote a tremendous book called Decisive.  In chapter 11 they discuss the need for trip-wires.  They tell the story of a woman from Alabama who always wanted to visit Italy.  She had a chance to go once but because of work, she decided to put the trip off.  While she often thought about Italy, time slipped by. After several decades pass, her health deteriorated to the point that she couldn’t go at all.  The Heath brothers ask the question “When did she ‘Choose’ not to visit Italy?  Was it every day? Or never?  She surely never expected that her first decision to postpone the trip, would become a permanent one.”

Deciding by not deciding.

For plans like this, we need to install a trip-wire.  Something that would bring the choice to the forefront of our mind, forcing us to reconsider our plan, make it happen, or discard it.  We have to be intentional about these things because we have a tendency to run on autopilot a lot more than we know.  If this woman from Alabama could have put a time limit on her postponed trip, that said something like “If I haven’t visited Italy by my 38th birthday, I will either make it a high priority, or discard it”.

There are a lot of examples of this.  Has anyone heard of the band Van Halen’s stipulation in their concert rider that a bowl of M&M’s would be placed in the dressing room with all of the brown M&M’s removed?  I remember the first time I heard about that, I thought they were being ridiculous and difficult to work with.  It turns out though, that it was a trip-wire to quickly tell the band that the venue hadn’t fully read or followed the details of the contract.  It automatically put the band and roadies on high alert.  They would need to be extra careful about the staging, power availability & safety.

Moving forward.

It may be because I’m getting older, I don’t know.  I have been thinking a lot about my time.  I want to make sure I’m not just drifting.  I don’t want to let my dreams just float by and not live them because I let Busy get in the way of Important.

Where do you stand?  Is there something important to you, that the busyness of your life has crowded out?  Maybe it’s time to put it on the calendar.

 

Tim’s TEDtalk

My previous post Someday is never a safe bet.

Be Like Mary, Not Like Zack!

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While I don’t think most people would equate having a lack of faith with being rebellious, there is a kind of unbelief that is exactly that.  This week while studying, I found myself reading the passage in Luke 1 where the angel Gabriel appeared to Zachariah.  Later in the same chapter, that same Gabriel appeared to Mary, mother of Jesus.  His announcement to both Mary and Zachariah was that they were both about to become parents.  It appears at first glance that when Gabriel made that announcement, they both responded the same way and with the same type of question.  They each received a very different result though.

How were they similar?

They were the same in that in each case, God sent a messenger, an angel named Gabriel, from His presence to declare to each of them His (God’s) will.  Gabriel declares to both of them that they were going to have a child. He also declares to each of them that the birth of their child would be a miracle.  Each case would take faith to receive because in each case, the circumstances said it was impossible.

How were they different?

While it seems on the surface that they were the same, there had to be a difference.  The Bible says that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).  If they were the same, they would have both received the same results.  We see that the difference was faith.

The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17).  Weymouth says it this way  “And this proves that faith comes from a Message heard, and that the Message comes through its having been spoken by Christ. ”  Believing is a choice, and the ability to believe comes from the faithfulness of the speaker.  You believe me because I have kept my word to you consistently. I have been faithful.  That is faith in me.  Faith in God comes from being thoroughly convinced that He will do what He said He would do in His Word. We believe the promise, because we believe the speaker.

When Mary asked the question “How will this be since I’m a virgin?”  Her question was a question of process.  If you think about it, this had never happened before and she had no basis for faith.  There was no precedence.  Also, we see that once she heard Gabriel’s explanation, her heart went out and laid hold of it.  “Be it unto me according to your word!”  Her faith had kicked in and she believed the promise.

Zachariah had a very large precedence set for him.  He had examples of the Lord opening the barren womb with Hannah.  He also had examples of the Lord giving children in old age with Abraham and Sarah. They were in the same boat he was.  Zachariah had a basis for faith.  Not only that, but the Bible says when Gabriel first appeared to him, he said “Fear not, your prayer is heard”.  Zachariah had been praying for a child.  The issue is that once Gabriel told him the message, Zachariah wanted a sign to prove that the promise was true.  Even the promise from the mouth of an angel wasn’t enough. He wanted a sign.  He was looking at the promise through the circumstances the same way the 10 spies did in back in Numbers 13.

His sign was also his sentence.  He lost his ability to speak until the promise was fulfilled.  Gabriel told him why in Luke 1:20.  “Because you didn’t believe my words”.  I think it’s important to note that the angel took away his ability to speak.  Zachariah’s mouth, and confession may have been a problem that needed to be stopped.

Zachariah may have had strong faith at some point.  We can see from Gabriel’s statement that he had enough faith at one point to ask the Lord for a child.  Just like a muscle though, faith can atrophy.  The world is constantly feeding information that creates fear and doubt.  If we don’t take active steps to minimize that message & replace it with a faith giving message, our faith will become week.

So if faith comes by hearing, then if there is no hearing, there can be no faith.  I have heard complaints about how some ministers will give 10 minute mini-sermons about giving & believing for finances before they receive an offering in their church.  While I’ve been in churches where this was an attempt to squeeze more money out of people, I have also been in churches where the mini-sermon was very faith building.  It was good solid illuminated truth regarding God’s will and His promises.  It helped my faith.  What I’m trying to say is this.  If there is no hearing, there can be no faith.  To say that people don’t need to hear any more preaching about certain promises is in contradiction to scripture.  2 Peter 1:12 says “I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.”   Jude 1:5 says “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this…”  You can never have too much faith in God’s Word.

Special focus.

There have been times in my own life where I was struggling with my health.  After a few days of messing around, I finally came to the conclusion that my faith was weak in this area.  Instead of pretending that I was more spiritual than I really was, I humbled myself.  I realized that I was not where I needed to be and believing that the Bible was true, I determined that what I needed was to hear faith building words regarding healing.  I went about searching for the best material I could find on the topic.  I found a tape series, (yes, they were tapes back then), called Receive Miracle Healing by Dr. T.L. Osborn, and I listened to it…and only it, for more than 10 months.  I realized that my ailment wasn’t going to disappear by itself and I couldn’t afford to handle it medically.  I put my hope in God and trusted that He would get me to the place I needed to be, in order to receive by faith.

The bottom line.

When we get right down to it, we’re talking about trust.  We need to know that God can do it, but that’s only the first part. We also need to be convinced that He will do it for us.  We don’t receive from God based on His ability, we receive based on the level of our faith – our trust in Him to do what He said.  Literally, you can not receive beyond your faith.  And to pretend you have faith in order to appear more spiritual is actually a lame substitute.  It’s your Ishmael. Fake faith will not produce results and it’s actually a form of pride that will BLOCK you from receiving.  God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Pet 5:5).

F.F. Bosworth said “Faith begins where the will of God is known”.  If you find yourself struggling in an area of your life, and you find yourself defeated more than you are victorious, take heart. Immerse yourself in the Word & ask the Lord to help you.  Don’t let up until He turns the light on.  He will show you light in a verse that you may have read a thousand times, but all the sudden, you see what it really says.  Faith springs alive in your heart.  Once He brings revelation, and has given you a Living Word that you can believe, it’s time to receive it!  Don’t resist the message!  Don’t require an additional sign!  Don’t be unbelieving.  Don’t rebel against the promise.

Instead – Be like Mary!  “Be it unto me according to your word!”

 

 

Are you of a different spirit?

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Many of you are familiar with the Bible story where Moses sent the 12 spies into the promised land to check it out. They searched out the land for forty days and returned to give their report. If you remember the story, ten of the spies came back with what the Bible calls an Evil report. It was all negative. These spies didn’t see the promise that God had given them, instead they looked at the circumstances and determined that they were too small and too weak to take the land.

Num 13:31  But the men that went up with him (Caleb) said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched to the sons of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eats up those who live in it. And all the people whom we saw in it were men of stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, of the giants. And we were in our own sight like grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Scripture says that these reports caused the people’s hearts to melt. It wasn’t the giants that were keeping them out of the land, it was the grasshoppers. They were comparing their enemy to themselves. They were not figuring God into the equation.

Hebrews 3 tells us that the children of Israel had “An evil heart of unbelief”. When we look further, we see that, instead of trusting God, they had a spirit of disobedience. They were obstinate, rebellious, intentionally unbelieving and unpersuadable. Hebrews 3:12 warns us that we should pay attention, to make sure that none of us has an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.

Do you see the issue in that verse? They came right up to the point of making a choice to believe or not and they chose to separate. They departed from God…multiple times. At one point, they even chided Moses (Ex 17:2). The Online Dictionary defines Chide as “To give someone a piece of one’s mind. To take to task, rake over the coals, to tell off”. God called them a “Stiff Necked and Rebellious People”.

Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies that came back with a different point of view. Caleb said “Let us go up at once, for we are well able to overcome it”. They had seen the promised land through a vision of the promise of God and they could see the possibilities. They said things like “Their defense has departed from them, let us go up at once!” All that faith talk started making the faithless people mad. Joshua and Caleb warned the people that they should not rebel against the Lord. The people decided that what they really needed to do was stone Joshua and Caleb. It was at that moment that the Glory of the Lord showed up in a big way! It was also at this moment that Moses and Aaron fell face down on the ground. They knew something serious was happening. They knew God wasn’t just dropping by to say howdy.

There is a ton of stuff to learn in this passage, and I am inspired by the words of Joshua and Caleb. The Lord summed it up best when He was talking about Caleb.

“Num 14:24 But My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land into which he went. And his seed shall possess it.”

The Bishops Bible says it like this “Because he has followed me unto the utmost.”

The Bible in basic English says “Because he is true to me with all his heart.”

The Literal version says “he is fully following me.”

The Septuagint says “Fulfilled to walk behind me.”

God said he had another spirit with him. What was that spirit?

The answer can be found in 2 Corinthians 4:13, where Paul, writing to the Corinthian Church, says “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.”

Joshua and Caleb were IN FAITH. That simply means that they were fully trusting God to keep His promise. They had a good understanding of what it means to be in COVENANT with God. You and I can have covenant with God today through submitting ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus. In doing that, we open ourselves up to all that God promised. In Him (Jesus) we have ACCESS to God.

Rom 5:2 By whom (Jesus) also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Eph 2:18 For through Him (Jesus) we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

Eph 3:12 In whom (Jesus) we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.

God wants us to get to the place of trusting Him where we are like Abraham. “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He (God) had promised, he was able also to perform”.

If you are a believer, it should mean something to you to actually be in covenant with God. It should change the way you think. The way you think about health, direction, even money. According to some reading I’ve done recently, some Jewish scholars believe that poverty is an unjustifiable suffering. It should not be revered or associated with closeness with God.

Consider what Paul says to the Romans. Rom 8:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Is this not the mind of Joshua and Caleb? They were convinced that the Lord was with them and that He had taken away the strength of their enemies. They were fully persuaded that it was “Take the Land time”!

Are you in covenant with God? Have you made Jesus your Lord, and submitted yourself to Him? If not, click here. If so, are you standing where you should be standing in regard to God and His promises? Do you trust Him to make good on His Word?

This week, spend some time and examine your heart. Let God say of you, as He said of Caleb, “They have a different spirit, and have followed me fully”?

The Driving Force That Is Dad

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father-child-on-beach

A guitar playing friend and I were having a conversation about David Gilmour a while back. We were discussing how we both believe that, Pound for Pound, he’s one of the best lead guitarists ever – for playing with feeling. No one is as good as he is at putting emotion into his leads.

While thinking about this, it occurred to me that as good as David Gilmour is, he was not the primary driving force behind the success of the band Pink Floyd. One of the other prominent members of the band was Roger Waters. Roger played the bass, wrote most of the songs with David, and also sang many of the songs. I am not crazy about the sound of Roger’s voice but he writes good songs.

A lot of Roger’s writing motivation came from the loss of his father. There are references to it in his songs throughout his career. Roger’s dad was killed in Italy during World War II when Roger was only five months old. Sadly, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that Roger learned this. For most of his life, he only knew that his father was missing in action and presumed dead. When I listen to the song Wish You Were Here, I can hear Roger’s heart about not knowing what happened to his dad.

This caused me to wonder. Would the Band Pink Floyd have ever reached the status that they have achieved had this sadness not existed in the heart of one man?  The things that I identify with, and enjoy in their music are in part, because of the veiled references to this very thing.

The truth is that fathers matter. Even absent ones have a remarkable effect on their children. The ripple that’s caused by a missing father can be seen and felt over multiple generations. I see in some people, how the training they received from their father concerning money has affected how even their children think about money. The opposite can also be seen. Fatherlessness often results in families that struggle financially. I can see it in the lives of people I know. So many struggle when it comes to money, and it becomes a generational mindset that gets passed down. Fathers matter.

In his article Manifesto of the new Fatherhood, Stephen Marche wrote “Fatherlessness significantly affects suicide, incarceration risk, and mental health. The new fatherhood is not merely a lifestyle question. Fathers spending time with their children results in a better, healthier, more educated, more stable, less criminal world. Exposure to fathers is a public good.”

You may be a man who’s dad isn’t present very often anymore, and now you find yourself being a dad.  What do you do?  What’s the right thing to do?  Below are some important guidelines every father needs to follow.

  1. Show up. You can’t have any influence for good in your child’s life if you’re not there. I promise, there will be tons of negative stuff to take your place when you are not there. Many fathers don’t realize that it’s not just what you bring into the relationship that matters, it’s what stays away because you’re there.
  2. Teach what you know is right. The lasting solution is to raise our children God’s way. That means that we teach our children the right way, and we exemplify what it means in our own lives. By precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little & there a little (Isaiah 28:10). It’s important for you to teach what you know is right. Some things are too important to just leave them to find out for themselves.  If you’ve found some right answers in your life, some things that work, then it’s incumbent upon you to pass it down.
  3. Lead by example. It means that fathers need to discipline themselves to model the right behavior. Paul the Apostle also tells us in Ephesians 6 that we as fathers are not to provoke our children to wrath (anger) but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Scripture also tells us to train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it. The next verse is also connected to it, the rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
    To me, fatherhood is one of the most important things I do. I think it’s vitally important to not only teach my children the right things, but to also live the right things out in the open where my children can see me. I do not give myself permission to be sloppy in this area. These are my children, and in the end, I will be accountable to God for what I did and didn’t put into them.

Like Roger Waters used his pain to fuel his creativity, I use the pain that came from growing up without my dad to fuel my desire to help others who are enduring it now. There are just so many of us.

I say to all fathers that read this. You are more important than you may think. Your children are worth fighting for. Remember – Show up, teach what’s right & lead by example.

Until next week – be encouraged.

Art

Living In The Realm Of What Is, Not What Isn’t.

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When I was about eleven, my sister and I hatched a plan. My parents had divorced the year before, and my Dad lived three states away. We hadn’t seen him since before the divorce, and we missed him some kind of bad.

We heard that our grandparents were planning a trip to go see him. Our caper was simple, we would find a way to get to our grandparent’s house right before they left and we would stow away in their camper. They always had a camper and we were pretty sure they would take it on this particular trip. Our idea was that they wouldn’t find us until it was too late to drive back. You know, It would be a “Well, we’ve already gone this far”, kind of thing. It never quite worked out. We didn’t get to stow away in the camper.

A photo by Tim Arterbury. unsplash.com/photos/VkwRmha1_tI

Thinking back today, I’m so glad we failed. Eleven year old’s just don’t think very far ahead. When I think back on it and I think about all of the potential problems it would have caused, I just shudder. It would have likely cost everyone a lot of money and we would have ended up where we started. Also, it would have broken my mom’s heart and ruined my grandparent’s trip.  We were so focused on our Dad that we weren’t considering everyone else.

Recently I watched a documentary about Tony Robbins. It’s called “I’m Not Your Guru”. It chronicled one of Tony’s 4 day “Unleashing the Power Within” seminars. One of the people that Tony helped specifically, was a young woman who was there with her mom. This young woman had a fractured relationship with her Dad. I don’t remember what the issues were specifically, but I know he hadn’t been in her life for many years. One of the things that came to light was that she blamed her Dad for many of the difficulties that she had experienced. She felt abandoned. She traced most of the problems she faced in her life back to the fact that he wasn’t there.

Tony said something to her that stuck with me, and I’ve given it a lot of thought ever since. He pointed out that we have a tendency to fixate and obsess over what’s missing in our lives, and completely ignore what’s actually there. When it comes to our absentee fathers, we ascribe a value to them based on what we imagine would have been different, or better, had they actually been there. Everything from the rough neighborhood we had to live in growing up, to the imagined advantages that we never had because we didn’t have a man around to teach us man things.

When we obsess about the missing pieces in our lives, we hurt ourselves in many ways. I’ve outlined four that I had to deal with below.

  • When we focus on what’s missing, we ignore what we have. Spending all our time thinking about the Dad that left often blinds us to the Mom that stuck it out. When I think about the things my mom went through raising us, I am humbled. Against some pretty tremendous odds, she managed to keep us together. And it’s that more than anything else that gives us strength today.
  • When we focus on what’s missing, we develop a victim mentality. We look at our lives with a sense of powerlessness. Situations and circumstances are mostly beyond our control and we feel that we either have no right or no power to change things. This leads to the thinking that everything bad that happens to you is always someone else’s fault.
  • When we focus on what’s missing, we tend to become ungrateful. We tend to overlook the good that we have. We may unintentionally let all the negative overshadow the positive in our lives.  This includes all the people who never gave up on us.  The ones who stuck it out.
  • When we focus on what’s missing, we accept the limits of the wrong story. For many years, I thought that I couldn’t get ahead because my Dad left me without advantage. My friends and relatives who’s Dads were still there, helped them with things. Things like understanding money, basic knowledge of cars, work ethic, and knowing how to build and fix stuff. The first time my grand dad took me to the garage to work with him on my mom’s car, I had a revelation. I was not without help. I began to understand that I had a lot of the help that I thought I was missing. God just brought it to me by another route.

Tony Robbins made a strong statement to the young woman in the documentary. He said that if she was going to blame her Dad for the negative, she was also going to have to blame him for all the positive that came from it. She was going to have to blame him for the fact that she learned how to deal with problems. She was going to have to blame him for making her into a strong woman. She was going to have to give him credit for those things too.

Look at the person you are today. What difficulties or hardships in your past shaped you for the better? What do you possess today that you wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t endured your past? It’s time to focus on what is, and forget about what isn’t.

It’s time to re-frame the picture of our life, let go of the imaginary life in our head that never happened and give real thought to how we can move forward from where we are. Let today be the foundation for a future where we focus on possibilities. Not a foundation that’s haunted by the ghost of what wasn’t, but, at least in our minds, should have been.

DO YOU SUFFER FROM LIMITED THINKING?

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Henry Ford said “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right”.

I used to think that there were a lot of things that were unobtainable to me. A lot of places I couldn’t reach. And I was right. While it seemed like the circumstances were holding me down, it wasn’t the circumstances that were really limiting me. It was my thinking. As I grew up, I learned that I could reach further than I thought. I began to understand that the things that were limiting me and locking me into my small life, were actually movable. I could change them.

Courtesy of Stocksnap.io

Courtesy of Stocksnap.io

Hear this again…I learned that I could reach further than I thought. Much of the time, I didn’t try to reach further than I thought. Why, because I didn’t try to think further, and because of that, I couldn’t see very far. I had no vision for it. I was limited by what I thought.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right” -Henry Ford.

I can truthfully say today, for me, the idea of No Control is a lie. It was not always a lie though. There was a time when “I can’t help it” was the truth. Not because it was impossible, but because I couldn’t see past the limits.

We often let our circumstances fill our windshield and become so big that they are all we can see. We begin to feel that they are beyond our control. We don’t see any options. Part of the problem is that we tend to bring the problem into ultra sharp focus and then the only choices we see are the ones that are close. Chip and Dan Heath in their book Decisive, call this the Narrow Frame. Often this becomes evident when we hear phrases like Should I, or shouldn’t I? Yes or No. We tend only to see the options that are in the spotlight, completely ignoring all the other possibilities because they are not in the narrow frame.

That’s really something to think about. Our choices are limited because they are the only ones we’re looking at. We may have many more options but we don’t see them because we’re stuck with narrow frame vision. The limit is really what we can or can’t see.

A long time ago, I started my first apprenticeship to learn how to run a printing press. I remember the first time I was washing up the press, I left some of the old ink in the corners & creases of the ink fountain. It looked like old, dried on ink that had built up and had been there for years. When Tim, the guy training me, came to inspect my work, he zeroed in on the ink fountain and made me clean it again. I told him that I thought it was dried on and built up over time. He insisted that I give it another shot and do better. Truthfully, it took me just a few extra minutes of serious cleaning to get the fountain completely clean. My problem was that it LOOKED like it had been dried on and built up over time so I didn’t give it the effort. I allowed what I was seeing, or at least how I was interpreting what I was seeing, impose a limit on me, and because I thought I couldn’t, I gave the kind of effort that comes with “I can’t”.

I’m thankful today that Tim made me do it right. I began to see that when you get to the limits of what you think is possible, you should go ahead and push harder. You will be surprised. There’s almost always more out there.

If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

The question that emerges is this:  Can we change what we can see? Can we change how far we can see? Do we have any control over our vision? I would say that we do, to a certain extent, but I also know that sometimes, we don’t know there are questions there to be asked. We don’t know what we don’t know. So then, how can we expand our vision?

Tim had been a press man for over 20 years. He knew that the fountain could be cleaned. If Tim hadn’t been there to drive me to a better result, I would have settled for my first one. That is the point of an apprenticeship. An apprentice learns from a master. This means that in order to expand your vision:

  1. You have to expose yourself to people who know what you don’t. This is a common denominator in the lives of people who excel. They have mentors or are following someone who knows what they want to know. I have a few older gentlemen in my life that I look to for guidance. I also follow some successful people online.When Jesus gave the invitation for the twelve to follow him, the word follow that He used comes from the words for Union and Road. The implication is To be in the same way with, to accompany, follow and reach.
  2. You have to be teachable. The book of Proverbs in the Bible continually points out that fools despise instruction.
    Pro_12:15  The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
    Pro_15:5   A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.
    Pro_23:9  Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
    The bottom line is that you already know what you know. To get new information, you have to listen to the wisdom of people who have already traveled the road you’re on.  This usually means being quiet.
  3. You have to act on what you learn. James 1:22 says that we need to be doers of the Word, and not just hearers. We may have heard something awesome that has the potential to unlock the barriers in our lives. The temptation is to think that because we know it, it’s working for us. James says that when we think this way, we deceive ourselves. It’s the doer that is blessed in his deeds.
  4. You have to practice. I have a Fender Stratocaster guitar. So does Eddie Van Halen. I know how to play guitar. So does Eddie Van Halen. Are Eddie and I equals when it comes to playing the guitar? I wish. What’s the difference? Eddie stays up all night practicing all the time. In his early years, he would sit on the edge of his bed practicing while his brother was out on dates. What’s the difference between me and Eddie? About 10,000 hours of practice.
  5. You have to push yourself. Rory Vaden says “You can not balance your way into an extraordinary result”. You must imbalance yourself in the direction of what’s important. In the documentary The Five Keys of Mastery, the final key is Play the edge. This means that you need to always be pushing yourself beyond what you’ve done before. This means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.

One of my favorite quotes has been attributed to everyone from Tony Robbins to Albert Einstein. I don’t know who said it first but the truth of it is no less powerful. If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always got. If we want better in our life, in our job, in our relationships, then we are going to have to do something different. We may have to start listening to different people, or hanging with different friends. In AA they call it ‘Changing your playground’.  The point is that in order to see further, we have to expose ourselves to new input.  We can take steps today to remove the limits from our thinking.  I’m in…Are you with me?

If this helps you in any way and you think it could help someone else, please share it. Thank you for helping me reach further.

I appreciate you guys!

Art