Isn't It Strange?

I received this in an email and thought it worth sharing.

Isn't it Strange?

Isn't it strange how a 20 dollar bill seems like such a large amount when you donate it to church, but such a small amount when you go shopping?

Isn't it strange how 2 hours seem so long when you're at church, and how short they seem when you're watching a good movie?

Isn't it strange that you can't find a word to say when you're praying, but you have no trouble thinking what to talk about with a friend?

Isn't it strange how difficult and boring it is to read one chapter of the Bible, but how easy it is to read 100 pages of a popular novel or ZANE GREY book?

Isn't it strange how everyone wants front-row-tickets to concerts or games, but they do whatever is possible to sit at the last row in Church?

Isn't it strange how we need to know about an event for Church 2-3 weeks before the day so we can include it in our agenda, but we can adjust it for other events in the last minute?

Isn't it strange how difficult it is to learn a fact about God to share it with others, but how easy it is to learn, understand, extend and repeat gossip?

Isn't it strange how we believe everything that magazines and newspapers say, but we question the words in the Bible?

Isn't it strange how everyone wants a place in heaven, but they don't want to believe, do, or say anything to get there?

Funny How You See What You Want To See

Warning... This Post is Not About Baseball!!!

This play from Tuesday night will be debated for years to come, especially if the White Sox win the ALCS. I have talked with people who insist that they can see the ball hit the dirt. I have seen people on television insist it hit the dirt. But they have shown it over and over from every possible angle, with the picture magnified and it seems clear, and now most of the "experts" agree that the ball was cleanly caught. Still, there are those who just insist that on their television they saw it bounce. My point in this post is not to argue the call one way or another. For goodness sake, I don't even care which of those teams makes the World Series! But there is a nugget from all this that I want to talk about. Isn't it funny how we see what we want to see?

One person sees a hurricane rip through Mississippi and New Orleans and to them that is just proof that there is no God. Another person sees this same event as proof that there is. One person see's the complexities of the human body and the earth and all of creation as proof of God. Another views the same thing and says that this is evidence that there is no God.
Just this week I spoke with a woman who witnessed the birth of her grandchild and she said, "Pastor, even though I have given birth to my own children, when I watched with my own eyes the miracle of birth, it showed me even more that God is real." Yet, I have heard others argue that the process of conception and birth prove the order of natural selection and that there is no creator.
I am convinced that it is not a matter of perception as much as it is the way we choose to perceive things.

In my life, even though I grew up in church, I was so angry because my parents were taken from this world at such a young age, that I tried not to believe there was a God, or at best, if there was one, he was a mean spirited god who I did not want to know. From about the age of 14, I chose to ignore God. And in many ways it worked. There were moments where he broke into my life, but for the most part, I chose to block him out of my life. I refused to acknowledge him, except when I wanted to blame him for something. Like when a friend of mine's mom died with cancer. I remember the day, sitting in Ponderosa with 3 of my best friends laughing and having fun as teens do, when all of a sudden this lady who went to our church came over to our table and chewed us out for our display of humor. Her reason, "Don't you know that Ruth just died? How dare you act like this when someone just died?" And on she went telling us what low-life's we were.
I recall two thoughts hitting me at the same time.
I thought:
1) Yeah, there you go God; take another good person out of this life early and leave her husband and kids to deal with the pain.
and
2) If this "super-saint" who just blasted us like this is front of an entire room full of people is what being a Christian is about, then I don't want any part of it!

I went through life with a chip on my shoulder and saw the world as a drab place.
The only real comfort I found was when I was partying with my friends.
I did not really see God in anything.
It was my choice.

Fast forward a few years...
I am 23 years old and I am in prison. It is early spring, and standing in the prison yard I find myself looking outside the fence at the small pond, the trees, the Canadian geese that approach the lake, and land upon the water and I think to myself, "God, you are so cool!" I had seen that same type scene maybe hundreds of times in my life, but this time when I saw it, I saw evidence of God.
Why? What made the difference?
I am quite sure it was my attitude.
Most of my life I chose to ignore God. I had made up my mind that he wasn't there or if he was he was not worth knowing about.
But then I had a personal encounter with Christ, and I began to get into the Bible for myself and I began making discoveries that change my view point and my attitude forever.

Over the years I have sat for hours and debated with folks about the existence of God, and they have argued with the same passion that he does not exist. I believe I have finally figured out that until a person chooses to see God, they never will.

It boils down to this: We see what we want to see.

Now This Says "I Love You"

Call me old fashioned or crazy, but this is just a bit too weird for me.

This picture released by LifeGem, shows one of their creations: a diamond made from the ashes of cremated remains.
LifeGem uses super-hot ovens to transform ashes to graphite and then presses the stone into blue and yellow diamonds that retail for anywhere from $2,700 to $20,000.

Hmmm... I could see a lot of wives asking hubby to gain some extra weight as he gets older. I mean, more weight = more ashes = bigger diamond.

Especially for all you teachers

A friend sent me this picture in an email and I had to share it with everyone, but especially for the teachers out there. You just gotta love kids.

The Quest for Immortality

This morning shortly after awakening, I looked into the mirror, turned to my wife and said, "Ooh, scary looking guy in there." She said, "I am not afraid," and turned and walked away. I said under my breath, "now that's love," and I looked back into the mirror at the bags under my eyes, the hair that once was shiny black now a lighter shade with a lot of gray wove throughout, and the sagging chin and jaw line. I thought to myself, "Why in God's name would anyone want to live forever?"

You young folks reading this are not going to understand this as much as those of us in the over 40 crowd. Something happens to you along the way, that one day you will experience, and you will know it when it hits you. One day you wake up, look in the mirror and say, "What happened?" It is just like one day a switch gets flipped and you realize, horror of horrors that you are getting older. You can do all the exercise, take all the vitamins and supplements, do all the right things, but it is still going to hit you. It is just a fact of life.
Deal with it!
What is so funny to me now is, I remember when I was 20 years old and the depressing thought hit me, "Man, I am getting old."
Yes, I really thought that at 20. In my ripe old age and wisdom, 20 was just ancient. I figured that I was not a teenager any longer, and in just weeks, I was going to be "an adult"! Life was passing me by!
Now, here I am some 26 years later... and I find myself thinking, "Man, where did the years go?"
Am I getting ready to cash in my chips? Hardly!
I tell my wife all the time that she better take good care of herself, because I plan on living to be 103, and that is too old to be chasing after a new wife, so she'd better plan on staying with me.

What is it that makes us seek immortality?
I remember a line from a book that Susan Ertz wrote where she says,
"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
Man, how true is that statement?
After my recent heart scare, I find myself looking at life in a different way. Rather than worrying about how long I will be on this earth, or even if I will be here tomorrow, I am trying to live each day to make it count. I am trying to spend more time with my kids, even though that is getting harder and harder with their hectic schedules, and the ever ensuing battle to get my son to emerge from his cave.
Yesterday, there was a lot of work to be done, but my kids were out of school, so I said to myself, "the work will always be there... they won't." So I took them out for pizza, played some football with them and took them to play mini-golf.
Yes, I am behind in my work today, but I am a richer man for it.
I won't live forever. They will be gone from my home in just a few short years.
I made an important decision yesterday to live my life rather than let my life live me.
None of us are immortal. We will all face death one day.
Make your life count. Make each day matter.
And most of all, if you haven't done it yet... make sure you invite Jesus into your life. He will make this journey a whole lot more appealing, and trust me, the final destination is one you do not want to miss!

Today I Walked Where The Heart Trembles!

Call it a moment of insanity; or maybe it was just stupidity, but today I walked into a realm that one ought not to go into. For a moment I listened to the voice inside of me that said I needed to know what was in there... and I ventured into the bedrooms of my children!
"Oh my Lord!" was the words that slipped from my lips as I entered the first door, climbed over the mountains of "stuff" and when I went into my son's room, I stood there in shock. I did not know what to do. I felt like slamming the door shut and pretending that I did not see it... but noooooo, something compelled me to go inside.
For the next hour I was trapped in that room. Oh, I guess I could have run out if I really wanted, but something keep pushing me to see what was actually in there.

The first thing I noticed was the pile of clothing wadded up at the foot of his bed. I recognized it in an instant.
It was the suit he had worn on Sunday, thrown into the floor. When I leaned over to pick it up, I noticed clothing crammed in between the foot of his bed and the wall. As I started to pull them out, my blood pressure began to boil.
Not one, not two... but I kid you not, 14 shirts and 4 pairs of pants... on hangers wadded up in the floor!
And 4 of the shirts were mine that I had not been able to find recently!!!
I wanted to kill the boy!
It is bad enough as I have described it, but you need to understand that to get to where these cloths were stashed away, you literally have to stand in front of his closet door!
For the life of me, I cannot understand why he would choose the floor rather than to hang them up... but then again, who understands the mind of a 15 year old?

But the story is not over yet.
I promise you that I am not exaggerating; I found 11 drinking glasses in his room, and 5 more in his sister’s room. (This is actually what prompted me to venture into these horror chambers, because I was doing the dishes and noticed a real shortage of glasses.)
And socks! Oh my goodness, you would not believe the dirty socks all over that boy’s room! (That might explain the smell of death emitting from that dungeon he calls a room.) And I won't even go into the horrors I found in his closet. Let's just say it was not pretty.

Oh the wonders of youth. Can they really not see the mess that is before them? I stood there getting madder and madder and then a thought broke into my head.
Hmmm... seems to me that I had a room like that at one point in my life too.
Maybe I will go a little easier on him. But not much!

A Good Laugh... and aTime to Think (part 2)

It's almost 8:00 PM now, and I figure it is time to pick up on the topic I started this morning. I have to admit that there have been some interesting responses to the post I made this morning. The thing I find really odd is that no one responded to this post in the comments section, but rather I have received 7 or 8 emails and three friends actually called me to see if I was ok, because apparently they thought that I was being attacked from within my church and thus the response. All of you who emailed me or called, I appreciate your concern, but I want to go on record in saying that I have not been attacked, there are no problems in my church right now (at least that I know of) and everything I said today came as a result of seeing that picture of the church sign and a whole flood of previous battles and insane moments came rushing back into my mind as I thought of those who had been hurt by the church. A very sad but truthful reality is that the Jehovah's Witness's actually thrive because they look for folks that have been hurt in the church and they woo them into their fold. But that's a topic for another day.

What I wanted to focus on tonight is of a more positive nature.
We all know the things I mentioned this morning are real, and the sad reality is, the world also knows it is true. That is one reason why it is much more difficult to get those who need Christ most into the church house.
I have become more convinced than ever over the past year that it is time to get the church out of the building and into the streets. Traditionally, the church has had the mindset of "Come to us... we can help you" (Take a look at that sign again) and we should be making the first move, to get out of our box and go to where the pain is, rather than expecting those that are in pain to find us.
It is time that we do more in the church house than have a good time shouting and praising the Lord, but it is time for the church house to become a training center where the Body is equipped to go out into the fields to bring in the harvest.
But before the harvest can be brought in, the body must get in unity.
The divisions, the cliques, and all that other jazz has got to go.
I am convinced that our thinking has to change. We exist to do the work of Christ, and he came to seek and to save that which is lost.
This must become our primary purpose.
It is not about who gets recognition, or who holds an office or position; but it is about doing all that we do to glorify Christ.
We must develop the attitude John spoke of when he said, "I must decrease that he might increase."
It is not about us or what WE want. It is all about him and all for his glory.

When we get this straight in our hearts and heads, the rest will come to us naturally.

A Good Laugh.. And a Time To Think

OK, I am cruising the net this morning checking the news, sports and just seeing what else is happening, and I run across the above picture. It was one of those moments where I started to laugh, and then caught myself and the realization of this ironic picture hit me. Sadly, much too often, there is truth to what this sign says!
Man, this is almost too heavy for my muddled mind to think on this early in the morning. If you know me, you know I am not a morning person at all. I left it alone, went and got another cup of coffee and started getting ready to head out to the office. As I finished my coffee this image was still before me. I went in to shave and the thoughts were just controlling my mind and eventually I realized that this was one I could not just let go without at least bringing it here to the Dawg Howse. (Although I think this one will be in my discussions for a few days, so beware church!)

The first and most obvious thought I had was, "How many has the church killed along the way?" I'm not talking about the Crusades, but how many have come to the church looking for help and hope, only to be ripped apart and leave hurting worse than when they came?
How many have come trying to find meaning in life and what they found was pettiness and back-biting and division?
And how many came hoping to find a place to fit in, but left even more confused and alone because they could not measure up to the standards that would gain them access to the clique?
And how many have come and found a pastor that ministered to their hurts and they grow to love the man, and then have some do-gooder in the church shatter their image of the man they admire with some well-traveled piece of gossip; so once again, they leave... totally disillusioned with the church?
Man, we have done some weird stuff in "churches" and it is true, we have "killed" a lot of innocent people along the way.
Why is it that so many who sit in churches are at their best, not at fighting the enemy of our souls, not at going out and winning the lost, but no, they are at their best when it comes to ripping the guts right out of another sheep (or sheperd) and then stand around trying to look innocent as if to say, "who me?"

I think I need to end this one right here... for now.
We'll discuss this further in the next post.

"You Need to Be Positive!"

I was on the phone with another minister today who had called to see how I was doing. I told him that everything had come out great with the heart cath, but that I was really having a lot of pain in the groin area where they made the puncture to do the angiogram. He told me (very seriously) "You need to be more positive! Don't acknowledge that pain! If you would learn to stop thinking negatively, and turn your thoughts around to positive thoughts you would not have all these problems!"
I said, "Dude, I am positive I am in pain!"

Hey, I believe in being a positive person. In fact, I can't stand hanging around people are negative all the time. I believe there is a lot to the idea of thinking positive, not dwelling on the negative, but I do not think that means we go into denial about the realities of life.
I am positive that the Lord healed me last week.
I am positive about where God is taking me and my church.
But I also know that I hurt right now.
Somehow, I think there is a misunderstanding in the minds of some people when it comes to positive confession. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am a child of the King, but you know what: Kings kids are also told we will face trials and tribulations. We are told we will be persecuted for his name's sake.

Be a positive person? Oh yeah. No doubt about it.
But here's the reality that we all must face:
We are all going to die one day.
I don't care how much you think positive, how much you rebuke death, how healthy you are in this life... one day, your time will come.
And I am positive about that!

God Spoke through the Beatles

One of the young ladies in my church has a blog of her own and I was reading her comments this morning about watching the movie "March of the Penguins" (see the link for Sarah) and it got me to thinking about how God speaks to us in so many ways. We live in a day where everyone wants the pastor, the evangelist, (or whoever) to "give us a word." Let me go on record as saying I know that the Lord does this, but I am very guarded about most of those who have a word for someone all the time. I believe God wants so desperately to talk to us one on one, and He is always trying to do just that, if we will only listen! I won't go into a discourse on how God speaks, other than to mention that first he gave us the Bible, that when read with prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to bring it to life, will speak loud and clear to us. God sometimes speaks directly to our hearts. Sometimes through others. But I also wanted to point out, and the focus of this post is that God speaks to us through the everyday things of life. Believe it or not, he even speaks through things that are not Christian. Case in point, God once spoke to me through John, Ringo, George and Paul... the Beatles.

When I was a young man of 22, I thought life was over. Because of a lot of stupid choices in life, a lot of drugs and alcohol, I was facing prison and every friend I had relied on for years to get me through had abandoned me. I had attempted suicide several times and one day in June of 1981 I was had made up my mind on when and how I was going to kill myself. My family had all left for the state camp meeting that day, and I began to drink heavily and was popping pills like they were candy. I took handfuls of uppers and downers, along with a host of pain pills and anti-depressants. I figured I would take enough pills of enough variety that even if they found me, there would be no drug they could give me to counteract what I had taken. I remember sitting there swallowing one handful of pills after another and crying as I reflected on the miserable wreck that my life had become. I remember thinking that no one could ever understand or care about me again. I had blown it. As I sought for a reason to live, I said out loud, "there is no one left to help me" and I lay down on the couch to die.

All of a sudden, I became acutely aware of the song playing on the radio. It was as if the words were amplified in my head and there was not another sound in the world. Those words were these:

Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?


All of a sudden, all the years of sitting in church came rushing into me, and I lay there and said, "God, I'm not even sure if you exist anymore, but I think you are there. Can you help me?" Just a minute later I became violently ill and vomited like I had never vomited before and then passed out on the floor. I woke up the next morning and realized God was trying to get my attention.
That night, I found myself sitting in the Illinois Camp meeting service and I gave my life to Jesus and it has never been the same.
But isn't if funny that God used the words of the Beatles to get my attention.

If we will listen, he is speaking all the time.

The Desires of our Heart

One of these days I will learn how to add links to this site and share the blogs of some of my friends and fellow pastors. But as for now, I am not the most computer literate people. Any way, a pastor from Hawaii whom I have never met personally, but have grown to respect by means of internet communication over the past several years has a blog, and I wanted to share with you his post he made today. Rather than copy and paste it here, I will provide a link for you. Check out his post for today about the Desires of my Heart. Gary pastors a really awesome church in Hawaii. If you have time, check out his church website as well.

Hmmm... the links are not showing up for some reason, so, let me try it another way. You will have to copy and paste them into your browser address bar.

http://kahugary.blogspot.com

http://www.windwardworship.com

Short update on my health

A friend just called and asked how I was doing and told me they had been reading here looking for an update. I guess I did not think about posting an update here.
Long story short... I am going to be around for a long time.
The angiogram came back clean, not even a hint at a blockage. Personally, I stand by what I said in a previous post, I really believe the the Lord touched me last Friday and he took care of the whole problem. Others can disagree all they want. I know what I was feeling in my chest. I know that the enzymes for heart stress were showing up in my blood and then all of a sudden they were no longer there. I've been told they don't just go away that quickly.
Anyone else can think what ever they want... I choose to give God the glory.

By the way... thanks for the concern and prayers!)