I love to plan & be prepared….

Now, this is just my thinking here, but I really think that God gets a kick out of disrupting my plans.

He sees me getting all wrapped up in doing what I think needs or has to be done.

I can almost see him shaking his head…”there John goes again, getting all worked up, forgetting who really has control of things.”

You may be reading this thinking I have completely lost it, thinking how dare I say that God enjoys messing with me like that. Good for you! I am sure you have it all together.

But me, not a chance. I personally can be hard-headed. Me, I need God to whomp me every once in a while to help get me back on course. To help remind me that no matter how much I want to be, I am not in control.

So for me, I think of it as a true win/win. God gets a kick out of it, and once again I get the benefit of his grace & love helping to get me back on track. Seems like a fair deal to me.

We teach best….

“we teach best what we need to learn the most”

I may not have the quote exactly right, since it has been some time since I read the book. And it may have been said by someone else and quoted in the book. But when I first saw this statement in “Illusions” by Richard Bach many years ago, it was simply a cool sounding quote that I wrote down & kept over the years.

What I didn’t know at the time is that this simple sounding statement is anything but simple. It is incredibly profound.

The older I get, the more I figure out how much I don’t know. Sure, it’s easy when talking with someone else to just “know” the answer to their problems. It’s not so easy applying those same answers in my own life when needed.

I was reminded of this recently while talking with a friend. As we discussed what was going on with his life, I shared with him as best I could what I thought I heard him saying, & how to deal with it. Even if I say so myself, I was offering some rather astute insights at the time!

Before I hurt my arm reaching around to pat myself on the back, I have to admit that the more we talked the more I recognized what I was sharing was from hard learned experience. On top of that, my eyes were further opened to some of the same situations in my own life, and that I had not really been handling them the same way I was recommending to my friend (man, these learning moments can be humbling!).

As long as I am able to take a breath on this earth, I pray I remember this quote & the wisdom it holds.

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Don't Push Me!

When you first read the heading here, you probably had images of someone extremely aggravated. Well, there is one word I forgot (ok, so I didn’t really forget) to put at the end. It should read: “don’t push me AWAY!”

Or better yet, I should probably rewrite it to “don’t let them push you away.”

But the fact is that when people in our lives are blocking us out, pushing us away, we can go from mildly upset to the point of feeling like telling them “don’t push me”. Then if you are like me, you start thinking (or acting like) that if they don’t want me around, they don’t want me in their lives, fine!!! They can have it their way.

In fact, at times, I have been the one guilty of doing the “pushing away” to the people in my life.

Having been the offending party before, you would think I would have learned the lesson a lot faster. What can I say. Sometimes it takes one of those “whomps” to get through to me.

Lately, I have been blessed to develop a better understanding of when & why people in our lives push us away.

It’s not really a secret. I finally got it. When people push us away it is simply their way of letting us know that they are hurting in some way, and are afraid that we might figure that out if we get too close. So viola, the farther a hurting person can distance themselves from others in their lives, the easier it is to avoid facing whatever the struggle is.

I use to take this personally (ok, probably still do at times). Now I try to remember that it is not about me but it IS about them. It triggers my radar now to pay closer attention, and more than anything else, make sure to not allow them to push me away. Even if that is hard, challenging, painful.

I pray that the next time you or I get to the point of “don’t push me!” try to remember why they are pushing you away…. So you can make sure that doesn’t happen.

Do It Again!

In my last blog, I talked about being so busy & feeling overwhelmed. Just like everyone else, it is easy to get caught up in the day to day “stuff”. When that happens, I start cutting down the wrong things in my schedule, like prayer time, reading my bible, or just reading whatever book I am currently working on.

I even thought I had a great excuse: I work for the church. Surely “doing the Lord’s work” on a daily basis would justify my trimming those other things.

As He usually does, God whomped me upside the head a few weeks ago (yep, I am hard headed, so sometimes it takes a big whomp just to get my attention). So, I got my head out of my hind-end, and started back on my daily bible, prayer & reading time. In fact, since then I have made a renewed commitment to myself & to God to keep prayer first.

Interestingly enough, the past few weeks have seen some spectacular things take place that can only be described as “God moments”.

I never win anything. For years I have entered all sorts of drawings. Now, I seldom bother with them. But at the North American Conference this year, I did register for one…. You guessed it. I won!! Now, winning is good, but the fact that it is for a graphics signage package that will help cover most of our sign needs at the new church…

Then there is office furniture. Gotta have something to work on. We started looking for some used office furniture. Found some for sale. Turns out the people selling are good friends with our Lead Pastor & his family. Check out the furniture; great for what we need. Ask how much? The answer.. “for you guys, just get it out of here and it’s yours.”

Our Lead Pastor has been trying to sell his house for months so he & his family can move into our new church community. To say that there have been a few people look at the house would be an understatement. Just before he was about to take it off the market, here comes a pastor & his wife from out of town. They make an offer the next day.

A family that I have been praying about for some time is needing help with their relationships. More prayer, some spent with each of them. God working here….not me. I find out toward the end of the week that they have started breaking through the barriers that have been blocking communication. (yes, I still get tears in my eyes when I think about it).

Growing up, when my dad did something fun or amazing, I remember yelling “do it again, daddy”.

After the past few weeks, with all that God has done in our lives, I keep thinking over & over again….

Do It Again, Daddy, Do It Again!!