My First Hearing…uhhhh….Device?

Today I received my first of two hearing devices…(Sshhh not hearing aid). I’m still way to vain to call it that. Besides when you say hearing device people are not even sure what you are talking about.
The young lady, Shanna, that assisted me in my hearing test and the selection of my device was very helpful, polite, and even sensitive to my obvious…vanity…thought I was going to say hearing didn’t you? Nope hearing was not the big issue today…today’s issue was…vanity. It was obvious to Shanna and eventually to me that the hearing loss did not bother me that much…while the wearing of a hearing device was causing me great anxiety. She ask what style I wanted and I said I want the style that no one can see. She smiled and said “Of course.”
However, this was not young Shanna’s first rodeo. She proceeded to show me the stylish devices that you wear behind your ear, she told me all the advantages, she told me how much more comfortable they were etc etc. personally, being in sales, I believe she showed me the ones that had the most mark up in them...unfair... maybe... anyway... I just looked at her…like you must not have heard what I said…this was not my first rodeo either (at being totally vain). She had apparently seen this same face before and began to demonstrate how the one in the ear would look and feel. I still did not like it but it seemed the better choice.
So, almost three grand and a week later I am hearing sounds…lots of crazy sounds…some I had forgotten. Small rocks crunching under your feet as you walk across the pavement…cool…my leather jacket makes a sound when the sleeve rubs against the front…I did not know that…how loud heels sound on our marble floor at work…and this one...my blinkers in my car sound like I hooked up speakers to them!...outrageous... and, I can hear the conversations even at other tables in a restaurant…okay that one is not always a blessing…also, my cell phone actually makes a sound when it vibrates…very surprising… I know this will get old soon but I am having a blast hearing all the sounds that have been going on around me that I knew nothing about.
With all that I am still most concerned with what people will think when they see it. Okay, you have to be at just the right angle and on my right side to actually see it but I feel like its this big thing in my ear that surely everyone can see. Yet I cannot see it in a mirror! But…I know someone will!
I want to say to everyone that walks by…I’m not old! I’m totally cool...I lost my hearing playing rock music….I am not old…I’m cool damn it! But actually I have been at work with it for four hours and no one has noticed it….yet!
I know…I know…ridiculous…vain…I should just appreciate the sheer genius of this device. It is so technologically advanced that it even talks to me…it gives me warnings like…”battery low” or “shutting down” it says that when you ignore the battery low warning. Very moody.
Also, I can set the tones higher or lower and for different environments…crowds, phone, restaurants etc….all from my cell phone! Amazing!
But hey, I do have the option of going back to my old device of constantly saying…”What…What…I’m sorry but could you repeat that?” And vanity has me seriously considering it.
Vanity won over good hearing for a long time…it just became such hard work to keep up in conversations. And now hearing is struggling to win over vanity…I must admit…hearing is pretty cool…may the best device win!

People are Doing the Best They Can

Sometimes more than the work of living out the life you have been handed is the living through the mud of others opinions. You put out your best effort and can almost always count on someone to tell you that you “could have” or worse, “should have”, done better.

I have a friend, TJ,that has been teaching me something about seeing people who appear to be, in some way, failing at life. TJ often says of people “They are just doing the best they can”. She gives most everyone the benefit of her believing that they are truly getting through life the best way they can. The angry customer, the sour clerk at the register, the arrogant manager at the office, the rude and difficult client, the mom that is not doing that well at parenting, the dad that seems indifferent to his family, the juvenile delinquent, the criminal on his way to jail. Everyone.
I see TJ as a powerful and successful person. And yet when she says “they are just doing the best they can” it is spoken in such an earnest empathy. It seems to come from a place in her that makes you feel it. You just know she is looking hard at life and considering her own faults, failures, inconsistencies, all of her life choices. You can almost feel the pain. It seems she is saying to herself in the deepest way. “I know I am doing the best I can.” It’s as though she senses the pain in others when their eyes can’t make contact with hers or in body movements that display a weariness that life has not been easy. I have never known anyone who so clearly does not judge outward appearance.

I have an employee that smiles…all the time. He is a faithful employee…there everyday…on time…with a good attitude…good performer but never the top. I would have pegged him as better than average…but not really living up to his potential. He’s one of those people that seem to move about under the radar. I never thought much about him until one day a coworker told me his story. It turns out that just a few years ago his son was playing video games at home with a friend. While they were playing video games a man fired a gun, two apartments over, and the bullet traveled through several apartment walls and directly into the head of his son. The man who fired the gun is in prison today and my smiling under the radar employee communicates regularly with him. His heart is full of forgiveness and empathy for the man who is responsible for the death of his teenage son.

We have all known people that have given up on life for far less troubles. And to drive the point home for me, I was at lunch with this man one day and we were talking about how hard life is for some people. He used a phrase that we have all heard many times. He said “I don’t have to look far to see someone who is worse off than me.” The weight of those words…coming from a man that had so unbelievably lost his son…a man that has a right to say that life isn’t fair…is still counting his blessings. Average? Hardly…I now describe him as exceptional…rare…maybe even heroic.
But like me, you would not get that from a casual glance of this man. He is a living reminder to me that I have no way of knowing the story behind the people I see everyday and of whom I am in a habit of passing judgment.
Maybe we should all, like TJ, take a more forgiving approach to the people in our world and give them the benefit of the doubt. Imagine the compassion you would feel and the kindness you would share on a daily basis if you looked at most people and said in your heart…
“They are doing the best they can.”

Sometimes people truly are doing the best they can with what they know or what they have but it comes up short in the eyes of those around them. The results in their life are often graded by unrealistic standards and the effort they have put forth to just be where they are today goes completely unnoticed.

Let’s decide to stop contributing to the “mud” of negative opinions that cause the struggle of others to be even more difficult. Instead, maybe we could start believing that those around us are doing “the best they can”. Maybe then we would look more closely at the person, where they have come from, what their life struggles have been, the long road they have traveled to be where they are today, and then, compared to that…what do their efforts look like? Probably a lot like yours and mine.

"Iron sharpens iron"

Thanks TJ

“Love your brother as yourself”
Jesus

Men of God in Sin City

This past week I had a chance to share with a group of incredible men out of Las Vegas. We met up at a beautiful lodge that is a couple of miles from the entrance of Mt Zion National Park. I was captured by the magnificent scenery. The sheerness of the red cliffs, the breathtaking sunsets, and the magnificence of morning as the sun rose and created red lines in the sky. You could actually sense how the finger tips of God must have carved out this incredible place. Amazing sight…absolutely beautiful!
But…I saw something even more amazing…Something that gives you hope for this world…something that reminds you that God has an army…that it defies the standards and circumstances of this world…
I saw the finger prints of God on over one hundred men.
I watched as these men…right out of what has come to be known as “Sin City”…sought an audience with God himself! Men, from all types of occupations, all types of families, all types of life struggles…all stretching…reaching…calling out for God. Men…listening…contemplating…praying…considering…struggling…desiring to negotiate this life in a way that would honor God.
Men that left no subjects uncovered...family struggles…sex…business decisions…unforgiveness…the need to be forgiven…how they have ignored God…their need for spiritual disciplines…
Men…that discussed their sincere desires to be good husbands and fathers…to be good stewards of the gifts and blessings God has given them…to be “light” in a world of darkness…to be “more than conquerors”.
Men…that are physical…they love to hunt and fish and drive tractors and work with saws and hammers. They are attracted to sometimes violent and definitely demanding sports…they love things that challenge them physically and mentally.
Men…that are spiritual…they support their churches with their money and their abilities…they hold their daughters and play with their sons…they are seekers of the truth and warriors of the kingdom.
Men…that have strengths and weaknesses…they have good and sometimes not so good desires…they have recognized their limitations as simply being flesh and blood humans…and their need for His supernatural strength…
Men…for three days they sought Him…kneeling at the foot of a cross…bringing a sacrifice of praise to the Prince of Peace…the King of Kings.
Men…they are His warriors…clothed in humility.
Men…they have given Him their lives...their devotion.
Men...making a difference in the world…with hands raised in surrender…with silent prayers that fire through the heavens like heat seeking missiles and God in His excitement guides those humbly spoken words to impossible targets and causes the impossible to occur.
Men…as long as there are men like these…there is more than hope…there is a certainty that God is in control and that He has a very determined and well armored army.
Men…Godly men…in the midst...of Sin City…awesome.

God Forgets

“Just got a new life…but I can’t shake the old”
(Danny Painter and Meggie Wiggins)

Your sins are forgotten...I can’t even wrap my mind around that.

God said this to the children of Israel after a time of doing just about everything opposite of what He had taught, ask, and commanded them to do. "Forgotten"…when I read this recently, I kept saying it out loud over and over…forgotten…forgotten…forgotten. I know He forgives and have been taught my whole life that he forgets…he tosses my sins as far as the east is from the west…but really…forgotten?

I don’t know how that works because I am certainly not built that way. I have an ever present always running video in my brain that is always showing my life’s greatest stupid moments. All those things I wish I had never said…all those things I wish I had never done. After a lot of practice and determination I am better at not allowing that video to play…but forget…totally forget…not happening.

Gods’ ability to see me as whole and complete and pure is completely beyond me. He is not stuck in my past regardless of how ugly I or anyone else thinks it might be. That He has completely forgotten the sins that are haunting my memory is almost impossible for me to bring to a place of reality in my mind. But just like so many other things, when it comes to God, I don’t have to get it for it to be true.
I mean I don’t even understand some of the most basic things in life. For instance, I don’t understand how millions of cell phones can be sending signals to other cell phones all over the world at the same time. With all those voices traveling through the air; how come I don’t hear any of them? I don’t understand how the average teenager can play a video game online, text his true love on his cell phone, chat with other friends on his computer, listen to blaringly loud music on the same computer, and do his homework. But it happens everyday! I don’t get gravity, can’t comprehend the true size and depth of the Atlantic, or how my socks can still disappear when I am living alone! So how much more difficult the mysteries of God…the creator of the universe! But I know that God forgives and forgets…because He supplies me with just enough faith to know. Thankfully, complete comprehension of this is not a prerequisite. He just loves me and continues to allow me to live in this river of continual grace and forgiveness.

The crazy thing is that if I did forget everything then I would do some of those regrettable things again. I need some of that stuff to come up at the right times to keep me from repeating my own history. He allows these memories to become warning signs…in some instances warning billboards…to help keep me on the right track. So I am thankful for that. It’s the guilt thing that gets to me. When they hang heavy over my heart and tell me that I can do no better…that’s when I need the awareness of how God sees it. And the beauty is...He doesn’t. He forgot it…remember?

Whitney is 29 today. She is a beautiful and incredible person and I am one of the most blessed people on the planet because I get to call her…daughter! Her name is Whitney Layne and I have always sung the Beatles song to her, Penny Lane, using her name instead. “Whitney Layne is in my ears and in my eyes”.

Here is a link if you would like a reminder of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FETWNBbwy9Q

Come with me for a stroll down “Whitney Layne”.

When I think of my beautiful Whitney there are a couple of things that come to mind immediately. Her sweet voice is soothing and warm and it makes her easy to be with. The lucky kiddos that get to spend their days at her beautiful daycare are especially blessed by this. And the Whitney laugh is like no other…its big…it’s an expression of uninhibited joy…it’s unmistakably Whitney! Another thing that stands out is her level of contentment… she has a contentment that is enticing.

It just was not that long ago that she was only a few months old, sitting in her carrier next to me, watching football. Well, I always like to think she was watching football. I know this…she was very content to just be there beside me and it’s one of those memories that still defines her sweet spirit. Never in a hurry and always willing to just "be' with you. She has always been quiet and introspective…never pushing her way into a conversation or a crowd. I have always loved that.
She has lived her life with much grace and I think using the “fruits of the spirit” as listed in Galatians 5:22 is a good way to describe my girl.
Love... she has an abundance of it to share…
Joy…if you spend a day watching her operate with a house full of children...its amazing
Peace…We called her “angel baby” from the day we brought here home for a reason…
Patience…She has been patient with me…her Dad…”thank you baby”
Kindness…I have never known anyone in my life that has a more “kind” spirit.
Goodness…absolutely…
Faithfulness…she is a faithful friend…a faithful wife…a faithful mother
Gentleness…I don’t know anyone with a more gentle spirit…
Self Control…She is just not one to let her emotions dictate what she is going to be…

My “Angel Baby”
Whitney Layne, you are still in my eyes and in my ears and in my heart. Thanks for bringing us little Gracie...she has the same angel qualities as you. I love you much.
Happy Birthday!

Dad

A Little Heaven...Today

I’m creating some heaven in my life
Not so much about holy
Just setting some things right
Looking at living…how it moves along
What I got is right here…tomorrow’s on its own
Dancing and drowning its all just the same
Struggle to get nowhere it looks so insane
So many broken pieces
But nothing left to pay
Won’t you come go with me
Come out and play
We can create some heaven…today
I’m not waiting for this train to go by
Just to say I missed…I didn’t try
It’s worth the risk it’s worth the pain
A little slice of heaven’s rain
I’m creating some heaven…today

Next!

Maybe it comes with my age but it seems that I spend a lot more time pondering the results of my decisions…both past and present. Like most people, I want to make good choices…choices that have long term good results. However, when I go to this place in my thinking the choices that dominate my thoughts are the ones where I wish I could get a “do over”. But instead of getting “do over’s” life simply gives us “Next!”
Recently I sent this message to all the managers in our organization:


Mac Anderson says “The difference in our success or failure is not change but choice…"
Our success or failure is made up of a lot of choices…some big but many small and sometimes seemingly insignificant ones that we make each and every day.
Those choices put on display what we are truly made of…what we are truly about.
As the saying goes…It’s not what you say…it’s what you do.
Choose consistency…choose to stay on task…choose to honor your word.
No doubt, there are changes we all need to make but it is the everyday choices that show which direction we have chosen.

Yesterday, I received a note from someone who had been a part of my Youth Ministry some 20 years ago. They wrote me a short note just to say what a “powerful impact” I had on their life. I have received a few of those lately, since I joined the world on Face Book, and I always read them several times. I do this because I am trying to absorb them. I am trying to experience the fact that as I have moved through this life I have, in fact, made some good decisions and the results have been good.
Proverbs 17:22 says “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
Kind words from a friend are like good medicine…they nurture the spirit…bring life to the bones…produce a “cheerful heart”.
Dwelling on the bad decisions…those times I failed…even hurt...others…crushes the spirit. While not belittling past mistakes I must advance on today…make a difference to someone today…make good choices today…because I can’t help but wonder…
Will anyone write me a note twenty years from today and say thanks for having a “powerful impact” on my life? As a result of...today?
Today’s choices matter and today is the only day I can control. Because tomorrow morning there will be no "do overs". When I wake up life will simply say…"Next"!

Moving the Boundary

Have you ever changed the boundary on a piece of property or changed the rules of a game...to benefit you?
Job 24;2 says "Men move boundary stones...". Back in Jobs day, I suppose, if a guy needed a little more grass for his sheep he just went out and moved a few boundary stones. And just like that...more food for the sheep.
"That was easy" as the commercial goes. Sometimes its too easy and moving boundary stones has not ever changed. I think that is why the scripture reads..."men move boundary stones..." its present tense.
Today a man might move a few numbers from one column to another or put his name on a coworkers effort or plagiarize someones work of words or change a time sheet or how about just bill for a few hours not worked. I heard about a man that did just that recently. A really good performer...bright career...suddenly unemployed.
Men move boundary stones...when they decide what is right in their own eyes...what fits their purpose today..what best accomplishes what they need at the moment. And sometimes ,really good people, in a moment of crisis or need or just deciding they deserve a little more...move stones.
Once while King David was praying, he made a request that can help keep us in the right frame of mind and keep our priorities and integrity in place..."Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."Psalm 51:10
Its the pure heart that keeps us from taking what is not ours and the steadfastness that helps us do it everyday.
Since it is true that men move boundary stones lets pick the ones we are going to move. Lets pick up some boulders. Lets remove the mountains of rubble called discouragement that have imprisoned a discouraged friend. Or how about we take on the once thrown hard rocks of guilt and forgive the guilty, lets lift the stinging stones of gossip from the many that have been wounded by their blows, and lets bring down the firmly place stones of loneliness that have walled in the lives of people that are right next to us everyday. Lets boldly reset the boundaries for those who are trapped behind them.
Yes "men move boundary stones" Men with a pure heart and a steadfast spirit move the right ones.

Wise Words...Firmly Embedded Nails

I read today in Ecclesiastes where King Solomon said...

"The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails given by one shepherd". 12:11 (Italics and emphasis mine)

I read this several times...."firmly embedded nails". The weight of these words struck me powerfully..."The words of the wise are like....firmly embedded nails...". I thought of how when you'r reading the Bible and you see a truth...it leaps off the page...and for the rest of your life some things will occur to you as filtered through that truth. I thought of how those words affect my view of life....my decision making.

Sometimes I get wisdom from friends, inspiration from a good book or a revelation in a song writers lyrics. Some of these things have stuck like "firmly embedded nails".

It matters where I go to get my truths.

God is in the Mess

Life just keeps on rolling. There are many things I would like to make better. There are many things out of my control. There are many things I mess up all by myself. Every day there are things...good, bad, confusing...there are unanswerable questions and unending decisions...rewards reaped and consequences revealed. I never have to look far to see someone with a struggle that is much larger than mine and yet my stuff still seems big...everyday. Its just life...like waves coming ashore...unending...relentless. But living life is not about the waves...its about how you ride them.
I was reading the book of Job this morning. Job is a character in the Old Testament of the Bible who, through a series of disasters, lost everything he had, including all his children. I am always intrigued with how Job viewed God through all his troubles. I came up with this...Its not about how messy God allows my life to be...its about how I view God from the mess. Job continued to see God as faithful. He questioned what was going on...he wanted the suffering to stop...but his view of God "from the mess"...never changed.

Someone said there is no "answer" for life. There is just living life. And living life is hard. And if you are alive you are involved. We are all seeking answers...steps...principles...formulas...ways to make life better...ways to experience peace in the middle of this sometimes relentless storm. As its winds rip across our souls we seek to find shelter...we look hopefully for the green pastures that will satisfy our longings...we search diligently for the still waters that provide a place of rest for our struggling hearts and minds.

Jesus says simply "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you". He keeps reminding me that no matter what happens...no matter my own inconsistencies...no matter the actions of others....just seek Him. It is amazing to me how interested He is in the smallest details of my life and yet he lets so many things go seemingly unattended. At these moments,when life is making no sense, when the answers I am getting are vague at best, like Job, I lean on what I do know.."lean not on your own understanding but in everything trust God" and "His grace is sufficient".
Sometimes day after day goes by and I see no improvement. It seems that God is not even involved . However, when I look back on the different segments of my life it's easy to see that how I viewed God in these tough moments....how I viewed Him in the mess, ultimately defines my relationship with Him.

Lou Holtz, the famous Notre Dame football coach, talks about "playing the field" you are given. Lets say your team has the ball and they drive all the way down the field to the one yard line just as time for the game expires. Had they been able to get one more yard they would have scored and won the game. Lou says you can wish your entire life that the field had been 99 yards instead of 100, but at the end of each day it will still be 100 yards long. We don't play football on a 99 yard field. If you want to play football in America...the field will be 100 yards long. Lou says you have to learn to play the game on the field you are given. Its the same in life. We were each given a field. Each has different obstacles and each of us has to learn how to negotiate the field we were given. We can wish all day that we had someone else's field or that ours was longer or shorter or wider or what ever. At the end of the day you will still have your field. Its not a matter of what your obstacles are or how the dimensions of your field have been set. It matters how you play your field and it is 100 yards...not 99.

Besides games are not really lost on the one yard line. That's just where you were when time ran out. That one yard could have been made on eight or ten other plays where someone could perhaps have given just a little more effort. Its all the plays and all the yards. They all count. You never know when you give up or slow down or don't do your best how that is going to show up when you are down on the one yard line and need one more play to win. It is very possible that the play you ran back on your own ten yard line turns out to be the run that would decide whether you win or lose the game.
So who God is to me is not determined by whatever crisis I happen to be in today. The crises actually reveals what I have been doing up until this time. And its how I see Him in the crises...in the mess... that determines my ultimate relationship with Him.

I am determined to hear the still small voice...to wait upon the Lord...to mount up with wings as an eagle...to be able to look back and see the footprints of God all around me and the fingerprints of God on my heart, my mind, and my soul.

Therefore, I will look for God today...in the middle of life's mess. Like Job, I will remember that above all things He is faithful and how I see Him today...right in the middle of life's stuff...is important. Its shaping my relationship with Him for the days to come and He is using today's mess to shape me...its important how I view Him...right now.