Life Truths

Today was funny on many levels but the most humorous thing came as a result of laughing at life.  A couple times a month my wife and I go to a local nursing home to sing some church songs and have a little bible study with the residents.  These encounters usually provide for some hilarity such as loud talking, interrupting, belching, etc.  But today, when we went down to the memory impaired (Alzheimer, dementia) unit I was castigated by one of the residents for not bringing a shoe horn.  She  was trying to “help” another patient put on their slippers which was funny in of itself.  But then she pointed at me and yelled, “This one here should have his shoe horn on him.”  Uh, no. Or as Homer Simpson would say, “Doh!”

Now I don’t know if you are serious about your shoe horns but consider some of the other things that lucid people have said to you in life that you could have laughed off and left it to God but you felt compelled to pull out the verbal sword.  Many times we do more harm by quickly responding in anger rather than “offering the other cheek”.  Jesus prescribed this in Matt. 5:39 when he said, ” But I tell you not to try to get even with a person who has done something to you. When someone slaps your right cheek, turn and let that person slap your other cheek.” 

Funny thing about the other cheek…it will probably hurt again.  But it also sends a message to the other person.  It says “Your words have no control over me.”  Maybe you could even carry a shoe horn as a reminder that words damage you only if you let them.
 

I’m pretty content now to say that looking back, as a teenager, I may have known Calculus but in reality I knew nothing.  Compared to the stuff of life I was mindless.  All I really thought about was study hall, girls, sports, girls and whether my cologne smelled like Polo, Drakar, or something out of the toilet.  Despite my know-nothingness I managed to convince myself that I did know everything and I tried to convince everyone around me to the same.  I’m sure my parents must have chuckled under their breath for endless hours thanks to my “complex”.

Then I hit my 20’s and I think I actually hit the peak of mental accuem.  Who needs to-do lists and reminders when you’re 23.  You’re remembering names, learning new skills left and right and you still haven’t put on the 20 pound bag of potatoes that you carry as a belly like at age 35.

Saddest thing is that now I’m about to turn 36 which I know isn’t really old but I look at my family, my eye glasses, my trips to the medicine cabinet and my Clark Griswold actions and I’m really fearful for the next 35 years.  Do you remember all the stuff Clark did that looked so rediculous on the big screen?  Strapping the dog to the car bumper and then hitting the highway while forgetting he was back there?  Going postal at Wallyworld?  Getting stuck on the roundabout in London?

The other day I was cleaning the windows and rather than properly setting up a ladder I actually stacked boxes and chairs to try and save time.  Luckily nothing happen but I look back and see shadows of Clark.  When did I arrive at this point?  I thinkt he greastest cause of stress in our lives is many times ourselves.  Perhaps the greatest stress relief is to a) not take ourselves too seriously or b) quit putting ourselves in these positions.  Like if you are in your mid-30’s and you see a pick-up game of teenagers – don’t ask if they need another “baller” because you don’t qualify.  Hopefully the only thing that qualifies at about you is your medical insurance card because you’ll need it in short order.

All that said – live life to the fullest but remember that God’s fullest for you does not need to be Clark Griswold’s fullest.  Be content in Him and in the real you.

So I just trudged through the rain down to the end of my driveway with two cans and a recycle bin.  This exciting exercise occurs each week and is known as “trash day”.  At what point in our lives do we begin to identify “days”.  You’ve got “hump day” which signifies that you’re are halfway to happy I guess.  You’ve got your standard “pizza day” which in some families signifies that day of the week when mom and/or dad can’t stand the tought of standing on their feet one extra minute (especially in the kitchen).  Maybe you’ve even got “carpool day” which signifies your turn to suffer the most unimagineable kind of torture by hauling several other bratty kids too good to ride the bus to and from school.

Our lives begin to revolve around days don’t they?  Our lives begin to revolve around circumstances.  Our lives just begin to revolve and spin out of control or they burn a rutt so deep that we’ve lost track of where we were once headed.  Is this what God intended for our life?  Slepping cans of refuse to and from the curb while everybit of anticipation and excitement for life inside of me slowly dies.

John 10:10 is a great verse where Jesus said, “I came that they may have life to the fullest!”.  I refuse to be boxed in by work, schedules or trash.  God’s plan is to carve out something greater.  He says in Jer. 33:3 that if we will call to Him he will show us great and mighty things we don’t know.  Each day I get that glimpse and I love it more.  Break your rutt and get your head out of the trash or pizza box and sniff out the life God’s building for you.

My arm hurts. It burns with that day old severe sunburn kind of feeling. Only this wasn’t from laying like a beached whale in the sun without the smallest bit of intelligence to put on sunscreen. This pain has come from a different kind of stupidity. Yesterday I climbed a ladder with a chainsaw. It’s pretty safe to say that nothing good can come from that. I though that I had it all under control. Besides…what could go wrong, I have used my chainsaw a million times before.
So I start cutting down this limb that’s almost hanging over my neighbors house. As I am just about to finish I realize that I started at the wrong angle and this things gonna roll right back into my chest. By the time the tought clears through my incredibly dense noggin that rests on my shoulders I hear the crack and I free my trigger arm to block the heavy branch from jamming my adam’s apple. Instead it takes huge claw marks out of my forearm from elbow to wrist.
Seriously, I could have won $10K on AFV with this piece of work.
The point of this blog is not so much about me chairing the new professorship of the “School of the Idiotic” but rather the pain.
My arm has been scourged and it is killing me…especially when I shower and sleep. Jesus spent this week some 2000 years ago being scourged, pierced by nails, crucified and spit upon. And it wasn’t the result of any poor choice on His part but because of a love that He has for all mankind.
The prophet Issiah put it this way when talking about the coming Christ: “He was wounded for our rebellious acts. He was crushed for our sins. He was punished so that we could have peace, and we received healing from his wounds.” (Isaiah 53:5) My pain caused me to remember how blessed I am to have a Savior who willfully went through so much more pain than I can imagine so that I might live forever.
God is very good and I am not so bright. Maybe I should put that on a bumpersticker.

I was doing some work today on my computer and like most folks I stopped on my home page to check some headlines. It overwhelmed me for a moment. I’m starting to feel a bit discouraged everytime I consider the difficult straights that our world seems to be in. We have an economy that is on life support and a bunch of first year med students standing around trying to figure out how to pull the plug. I’m exhausted by lack of money. We’ve got a tiny, obstinate dictator in N. Korea putting random missiles in the sky while trash talking everyone else. We’ve got random shootings increasing by the day as others watch their lives fall apart and then decide to take it out on the innocent unsuspecting masses. We’ve got 401(K)’s that are quickly turning into 201(K)’s due to that same tanking economy. And to top it all off, my daughter is getting another ferocious cold which means that no one in my home gets a decent night’s sleep.
Where can a person go to find some sort of relief?! Maybe an hour of “Dancing with the Stars” will help in the short-term but there must be more than watching a computer geek strut his terrible stuff on national tv.
Then I remembered this verse that I came across earlier: Psalm 18:30 “God’s way is perfect! The promise of the Lord has proven to be true. He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.”
I don’t know about you but to me, there’s gotta be more than watching the stock market go up and down and continually checking the news on my home page. I’m tired of listening to others talk about how bad it is. I need to be reminded of some good news! So consider this your reminder…God is good all the time!