God's Way Works

For a better life and a better eternity

Life is More Interesting When You’re Happy

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Sorry guys, I’ve been a bit under the weather the past couple of days and not up to getting the writing done for this blog. Hopefully, I’ll be back on my game and get the next “Something Worth Doing” post out next Wednesday.

Let me take this opportunity to remind you about the Kelsey Wynne Harris Foundation. Here is your opportunity to help provide some happiness for some youngster who is suffering from cancer. We got our shirts last week and just check out this cuteness in her shirt.

You can get your shirt and help out the Kelsey Foundation at the Ordinary Store.

Have a great week and remember, “Life is more interesting when you’re happy.”

A Great Tool for Practical Praying-Lay Something Out Before God

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I need to give props to my good friend Clay Gentry for this tool in prayer. I had not seriously thought about this until a conversation we had last week. Thanks, Clay. I think this is a great tool for our praying. (By the way, go to his blog and tell him to post more. He has great thoughts and we need to read them.)

Lay Something Out Before God with Your Prayer

Even though we are taking a break from learning about prayer from the psalmists, we have still been lingering on prayer. There’s a good reason for that. If we are going to survive each day, we need to be in constant contact with God. Prayer is one of the number one ways to maintain that contact.

Hezekiah gives us a great example of a practical tool we can use with our praying. In Isaiah 36-37, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, wanted to attack Judah but he was being attacked by Tirhakah of Cush. He decided to send Hezekiah the following letter letting him no Judah wasn’t off the hook.

Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?”

Here is the tool for our prayer. Isaiah 37:14-15 says, “Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD.”

Hezekiah didn’t just reference the letter in his prayer. He actually laid it out before God and then prayed. Of course, during the days of the temple, this meant going to the presence of God at the temple and laying out the letter. It was almost like he was letting God read it. Although, we know that isn’t the case. God knew what was in the letter before Hezekiah did.

What a great tool. Have you ever thought about laying something out before God and then praying about it? Maybe you want to pray for your marriage. What about laying out your wedding ring, some wedding pictures, or even your marriage license before God and then praying about your marriage. Maybe you want to pray for your kids or grandkids. How about laying out some pictures of them or some items that represent them. You might even sneak into their bedroom while they are asleep and pray over them, laying them out before God in your prayer. Maybe you are struggling to make ends meet or are working hard to get out of debt. You could take your bills and spread them out before God and pray over them. 

The most extreme case of this I’ve heard about was a brother whose wife was cheating on him. This man drove to the motel where she was meeting her sin partner, parked outside the door, and prayed for his wife’s soul and repentance. Certainly, he could have prayed from home, but he laid the whole thing out before God and prayed. WOW!

Certainly, I don’t think laying these items out makes our prayers more effective as far as God is concerned. God doesn’t need to see a picture of our children to know which children we are praying for. However, this may help the efficacy of our prayers as far as we are concerned. Too often, prayer is just an activity of the mind for us and we move from praying to just thinking. Anything we can do to help make our prayers concrete is beneficial I think.

Maybe you think this is a bit odd. That’s okay. Why not try it and see if it doesn’t deepen your praying? 

When you have tried it, come back and let us know if it helped or made an impact on your praying at all.

Something Worth Doing, Part 15: Risk Something Worth Protecting

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(If you need to know what this is all about, start with the first post in the series and click through the succeeding links. Also, as posts are added links will be placed in that first post to each one. By the way, please check out the site for the Kelsey Wynne Harris Foundation and help promote the foundation by purchasing any of the Life’s More Interesting products. By the way, unlike the other links in this post, there is no affiliation link here. None of your purchases of these products grease my pockets.)

Today, I Want to…

…Risk Something Worth Protecting

What? I want to risk something worth protecting? What is that about? Our first thought is if something is worth protecting, I don’t want to risk it at all. I want to lock it up, keep it covered, keep it away from grasping hands.

However, this statement makes me think of an illustration I recently read in N. T. Wright’s The Challenge of Jesus. While talking about a completely different subject, he spoke about his trip to the Louvre and his desire to see the Mona Lisa. Listen to what he said:

“In October of 1998 my wife and I went to Paris for a conference, and in a spare moment we visited the Louvre. It was the first time either of us had been there. A disappointment awaited us: the Mona Lisa, which every good tourist goes to goggle at, is not only as enigmatic ash she has always been but following a violent attack is now behind thick glass. All attempts to look into those famous eyes, to face the famous questions as to what they are meaning and whether this meaning is really there or is being imposed by the viewers, are befogged by glimpses of other eyes—one’s own, and dozens more besides—reflected back from the protective casing.”*

Is the Mona Lisa worth protecting? I’m sure most of us would say it is. But something has been lost by the protection. Better to risk the Mona Lisa and let the multitudes goggle and grow by the experience than protect it and hinder the public’s betterment. Perhaps we see here it is better to protect the experience and not just the painting.

I also think of the ancient proverbialist’s words in Proverbs 14:4. “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.” Solomon, if he was indeed the author of this proverb, understood that progress comes by risking things we want to protect. We prefer a clean manger. But when we keep our manger clean from the oxen, then our crops are not going to be very good. After all, letting oxen do the work will produce a much larger crop than doing it all myself. In this case, the farmer wanted to protect his manger. However, he needed to risk it by sheltering and feeding his oxen there to reap the even greater rewards.

Our Protection Often Limits Intimacy

The situation that really comes to mind as I wrestle with this resolution is the area of relationships. I need relationships. I want to protect those relationships. Apart from my relationship with God, my most important relationship is with my wife. That relationship needs protecting. I don’t want to risk that relationship at all.

Sadly, my protection often leads to codependence. It leads to me trying so hard to fix things in her because I fear what others will think that she becomes angry with me and a wedge is driven between us. What I’ve found is when I let her live her life and do her job her way and then provide support no matter what anyone else says, that is when we draw the closest. When she makes mistakes, she learns from them just like I learn from mine. When I let her risk instead of trying to preemptively protect her, we usually draw closer.

The codependence leads me to cover up things about myself I’m afraid will turn her away from me. Sadly, the secrets lead me to isolation and I push her away anyway. Granted, one day I may have to pass on a secret that will cause Marita to turn away from me. I hope not. But it may happen. However, up to now, letting myself be vulnerable with her has only ever drawn us closer. Revealing what is going on inside me or in my dark moments is a scary thing. I usually want to protect the relationship and keep those things hidden. But as our recovering friends warn us, we are only as sick as our deepest secrets. When we share those secrets we are risking the relationships, but the rewards when the relationships survive are phenomenal.

When I think about risking relationships I want to protect, I think about my children. I so want to protect them from all the evil that is out there. The top of the list is sexual evil. For the longest time, my approach to protecting them was to hide sex from them as much as possible and then scare the daylights out of them about the rest of it. However, I realized the hiding only produces curiosity and the fear only produces rebellion, at least, that is what it did for me. But if I don’t hide it from them, I’m risking their innocence and that, to me, is definitely worth protecting.

No, I’m not suggesting we invite our children to watch pornography or send them out on dates with contraceptive devices. But I am saying I have to learn that sometimes my protection actually puts what I’m afraid to risk at greater risk. I have to learn to risk those things that are worth protecting.

It is like our little baby’s health. Have you even thought about what we are doing when we immunize our children? We are actually introducing a disease into our baby’s body in order to protect them. We are placing them at risk in order to protect them. Sadly, in some cases the risk takes place and we spend the rest of our lives condemning ourselves for taking the risk. That is why you will always find websites condemning immunizations. However, there is no argument that immunizations have lowered, in fact, nearly eradicated some diseases in our kids. We need to learn that instead of isolating our children, we should inoculate them. Is it a risk? Absolutely. But in my experience isolation is an even bigger risk because we simply aren’t so good as to completely isolate our children from everything.

Growing through Risk

Another story that comes to my mind is Jesus’ story about the talents found in Matthew 25. A master gave five talents to one servant, two talents to another, and one talent to a third. By the way, the footnote in my Bible says a talent was a monetary sum worth about 20 years wages to the common laborer. Can you imagine being given 20 years of your salary in one lump sum? What would you do with it? The man who had been give 100 years of salary and the man who had been given 40 years of salary both risked their talents. They bought and sold and traded until they had generated twice what they started with. The third man hid his talent. Think about it. That seems wise to some of us. At least he didn’t fritter it away on eating out, depreciating gizmos, and self-seeking pursuits. He protected it. When the master returned, the man gave him back his talent. The master, however, was not happy. He didn’t give the man the talent so that when he returned he could get one talent back. If he had wanted that, he could have kept the talent with him. He gave the servant the talent to produce a profit. He called this servant wicked and slothful.

Ouch! That hurts. Sometimes, what we want to claim is preservation and protection is actually nothing more than fear. We fear rejection so we don’t risk our egos. Sadly, we then spend all our time feeling inadequate because we never accomplish anything. We fear betrayal so we don’t risk entering a relationship. Sadly, we miss out on the joys of strong friendships and love, living out our lives in loneliness and empty pursuits. We fear conflict so we don’t risk sharing our opinions and feelings. Sadly, we seethe in bitterness and resentment until the conflicts erupt in proportions too great to control.

Sometimes what we want to claim is preservation and protection is actually nothing more than laziness. The five and two talent men actually went to work with their talents. They had to buy and sell, that took research, time, planning, and skill. I’m sure investing then was like it is today. Nobody ever bats 1000. They had to make up when they lost what they risked. The one talent man didn’t have to work. He just hid the talent and could sit on his behind.

I hope you don’t think this is too crass, but I have to share a poem I first heard from John Maxwell.

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore. 

But then some strange prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, “What have we here?”
Those prints are large and round and neat,
“But Lord, they are too big for feet.”

“My child,” He said in somber tones,
“For miles I carried you along.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait.” 

“You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt.” 

“Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand.”

Let’s face it. Relationships take work. It is a lot easier to be disconnected. As Simon and Garfunkel sang, “A rock feels no pain. And an island never cries.” Why work on a relationship when it means risking so much pain? Accomplishment takes work. Too many of us want to sit on our rears and hope that God will drop some major accomplishment in our laps. It just won’t happen. Why risk looking the fool when you can shoot for nothing and no one will ever notice? Leadership takes work. It is a lot easier to be the low man on the totem pole. It isn’t your reputation on the line when you are just the rummy. Why shoot to lead others when it means risking so much if you fail?

Why risk? Because the relationships that can produce the greatest pain can also produce the greatest happiness. And as Garth Brooks sang, “I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.” Because only those who brave looking like a fool in front of the masses ever accomplish anything worthwhile. Consider the simple task of writing a poem or a book. If you only ever fear that others will not want to read your book, you’ll never have the satisfaction of getting one done. Because leadership means we can accomplish things through others we could never accomplish on our own. Nobody ever became President without risking his entire reputation. Perhaps we don’t look nearly as bad as any of our Presidents have ever been made to look by their enemies, but then we’ve never led the known world to anything of consequence. Why risk? Because whether we succeed or fail the growth and accomplishment we attain is really worth it and helps us press on to bigger and greater things.

I know you want to protect something. But God has given us our greatest blessings in order to risk them. Not so we could lose them. But rather, through the risking we may grow and are able to give back to our society and to Him great things.

Therefore, today, I want to risk something worth protecting because in reality, only when I risk do I grow and gain the true fulfillment out of God’s gifts.

(Come back next Wednesday to learn about Listening to Something Worth Hearing.)

     

 *Wright, N.T., The Challenge of Jesus, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1999, p 196.

Play a Game with Your Family Today

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Today’s post is simple. Play a game. Play a game with your family.

If it is just you and a spouse, play a game with your spouse. Some of my greatest memories with Marita from the times BC (before children) are playing games. One time stands out. We were playing Farkle and I was beating the daylights out of Marita. She was going on and on about how unfair all her die rolls were. Then I started having a streak of bad luck and decided to act like she had. She thought is was funny. After one particularly bad roll for me and a good roll for her I started acting really, really disgruntled. I grabbed my glass of water and threw it on her. Under most circumstances, I’m sure that would be awful. But in our playful mood it was hilarious. We both broke down laughing.

If you have kids, play a game with your kids. Have fun. Let them laugh. Let them cut up. Let them have a good time. This is where I have trouble. I’m naturally competitive. Once a game gets started I am on the war path. Sadly, when I get like this, games can be far from fun. So, I’m trying to loosen up. Every once in a while, when the kids get carried away with laughter and I start getting on to them, Marita will call my attention to the way I’m behaving by saying, “That’s right kids. Don’t you dare have any fun while playing this game.” I laugh, lighten up, and let the game go on.

Here is what I try to remember. When my kids are out of the house, do I want them to remember that Dad always beat them at the games or that they had a lot of fun playing games in our house? I’m sure you can guess the answer. 

Anyway, whatever you do today, play a game with your family. If you just don’t have time to do it today, make sure you play a game before the week is over. You’ll be amazed what memories you create and what you can accomplish in your family with a few game nights.

Have a great week with your family.

How To Pray for it All When Time is Tight

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Last week we looked at a plan for spending some in depth time with God and making it last. However, the reality is, as you grow in your prayer life, those lists you develop are going to start taking more than 5 minutes a piece. You’re going to start wondering how to get it all in. Or perhaps your schedule just doesn’t allow for an hour. Maybe you’re shooting for 30 minutes or 15 minutes per day (no matter what anyone says, that’s okay). In any event, you’re going to wonder how to get it all in.

You need to set yourself free from the idea that you have to pray for everything in every prayer. You don’t have to cover it all every time you pray. Instead, plan out your prayers for the week and assign different topics to each day. 

Obviously, there will be aspects of prayer you keep up with every day. I’m sure you’ll offer some praise and thanksgiving along with confession every day. However, as you consider your intercessions and petitions, you can schedule them out each day.

Consider the following schedule as just a suggestion:

Sunday: Praise and thanksgiving

Monday: Personal requests and family issues

Tuesday: The local congregation, members, elders, deacons, evangelists, the work, special events

Wednesday: Other congregations, their elders, deacons and evangelists

Thursday: Special needs, the lost, the sick

Friday: Our nation, the world, war and peace

Saturday: Clean-up (anything that has come up over the week that you need to pray about)

Obviously, you can make up your own schedule, but you get the idea.

I know some people will say, “But, Edwin, that means I’m not praying for it all every day.” That’s true. However, to be quite honest, before I started this plan, I kept saying, “I don’t have time to pray right now.” Then I wasn’t praying for anything. With this plan, at least I’m getting it all prayed for in a timely fashion. 

This is just a suggestion. Just make sure you are praying. You need the connection to God to survive.

Something Worth Doing, Part 14: Do Something Worth Watching

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(If you need to know what this is all about, start with the first post in the series and click through the succeeding links. Also, as posts are added links will be placed in that first post to each one.)

Today, I want to…

Do Something Worth Watching 

Do Something

Before you can do something worth watching, you have to do something. Far too many people are satisfied to watch something worth doing. Too many of us are satisfied to channel surf for hours on end looking for something “worth watching.” Or we hop on YouTube and search for videos all day. Nielsen reports that the average American watches 153 hours of television per month; that’s more than 5 hours per day. That’s almost one week per month or just over two and a half months per year of television. And that average doesn’t include the time spent watching Hulu, renting dvds, or going to the movies.

Of course, I’m sure you don’t watch five hours of television per day. But what if you just watch two? That’s 730 hours per year. I know this is going to sound amazing, but do you realize that is the equivalent of just over 30 days of television per year? At just two hours per day you are losing an entire month out of your year. Think about that for a moment. That means you are only living 11 out of every 12 years if you watch just two hours of television per day.

Consider this, watching one season of the average show means spending an entire day watching television (especially if you’re watching “24”). If you just keep up with a handful of shows, say seven, you’ve spent an entire week of your year watching television. What could you get done if you had an extra week?

If the average American is watching five hours of television per day, they’re going to have a hard time doing anything, let alone doing something worth watching. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying television is a sin. I’m not saying you can’t find out what happens next on your favorite show. There is a place for relaxation and if watching television is your place, that’s okay. Just remember that every hour spent watching others do things is an hour you aren’t doing anything.

We are examples

The goal to do something worth watching is a bit frightening. It says we want to be examples. We want to be people folks can look to. Unlike sports stars and actors who often complain that they don’t want to be seen as role models, we are saying we do. We want to do something and do it so well people will look to us as a pattern.

However, keep in mind that this is doing something worth watching, not doing something for the sake of being watched. There is a difference. We don’t want to be glory hounds, arrogantly pressing our “superb” work on everyone else as if they should recognize how amazing we are. At the same time, we do want to do the absolute best job we can do so that if and when others are watching, they will see an example, a role model.

Here’s the rub. No matter how humble or how arrogant we are, no matter how worthy or unworthy of watching we are, no matter how much we want them to or how much we don’t, someone is watching us. Someone is looking to us. Someone is learning from us. Are we giving them something worth watching?

If you have to keep it secret, don’t do it

While we will certainly note that there is a very special sense of doing something worth watching, there is also a general sense in which everything we do should be worth watching. Obviously, I’m speaking a bit accommodatively here. Clearly there are some private matters that are perfectly normal and healthy that we don’t want others watching. However, apart from that sort of activity, we should strive to let everything we do be worth watching.

If there is something you are doing that you are keeping secret or don’t want others to know, you should likely stop (no I’m not talking about planning that secret, surprise birthday party for me). Certainly you should stop if what you are doing is morally wrong. But I encourage you to stop the secret things even if they aren’t morally wrong. Let me use my own television watching as an example. Not all that long ago I got sucked into watching a television series online. Sadly, I wasted two and a half days of my life finding out what happened to all those characters (and you wonder why I miss getting posts put up on some days). Even though I don’t think watching the show was morally wrong, I remember my wife came home one night and I immediately scrambled to shut the Netflix down and open Entourage to look like I had just sat down to check my e-mail. Ooops. Not good.

Here is what I’ve learned. Sometimes I justify actions by saying, “It’s not morally wrong.” But there is clearly part of me that says, “I shouldn’t be doing this.” When that is happening, I have inner turmoil. As my friends in recovery say, “We are only as sick as our secrets.” If I’m doing something that I’m keeping secret because of inner guilt, it is only going to cause a downward spiral for me that eventually does lead to doing things that are wrong. It may come out as rage at my family, arrogance to cover for my feelings of weakness, lies to keep from being found out, or worse. I’ve learned it almost never stops with just that one secret.

I don’t know where your secret things will lead you. I simply know those secrets aren’t helping you. Do things worth watching. If you need to cover it up or develop elaborate statements to “technically tell the truth” so no one will know what you are really doing, then you should probably stop whatever it is. Don’t do things you are afraid other might see; do things worth watching.

Find one thing you love to do, and do it so well people want to watch

While there is that general sense of doing all things worth watching, there is also a sense in which we should work on our one thing worth watching. This is about our life’s passion, our career, our bread and butter. Too many of us are willing to settle for letting life happen to us. We go to school, graduate, get a job, and then settle in for the long haul. We may do well or just enough to get by, but we don’t ever do anything that stands out. We wonder why we are always chasing our tails and never really getting anything worthwhile done.

Instead of letting life happen to you, take charge. What are you passionate about? What gets your motivation running? What would you do if money weren’t an issue? Work on that. Sure, it may not pay the bills right now, but you’ve got two hours of television per day you can trade for it. Become an expert at it. Become the best and then learn how to get others to watch you do it.

I love what I’ve heard John Maxwell say over and over again about this. Find something you enjoy doing so much you’d gladly do it for free. Then learn to do it so well that others will gladly pay you to do it. Granted, this may not be something people watch in the sense of entertainment, but it will definitely be something people will regard with respect and appreciation.

For you, this might be anything from juggling, to landscaping, to quilting, to coaching. Don’t chase the money. Chase what you love, then get so good at it that you become worth watching. When you are that good, the money will start to come to you.

Today, I don’t want to settle for letting life happen to me. I don’t want to be pushed by every current and eddy of the world. I want to stand tall and be an example. I want to cut out my secrets. I want to do something worth watching.

What do you want to do?

(Come back next week to talk about Risking Something Worth Protecting.)

Here is a great example of someone who has worked hard at something so that now he is worth watching.

Of course, be careful, you will be spending 10 minutes watching someone else instead of doing something yourself. But maybe you’ll be inspired.