Progress Doesn't Come Easy

Improvement comes with a price.

My wife and I are investing some time, sweat, and money into fixing up our home inside and out this summer. And let me tell you, nothing is as easy (or cheap or quick) as you think it should be. Everything is harder, takes longer, and costs more than you plan. It's an investment in more ways than one.

For example, we are updating our kitchen counter tops. I chose to remove the old counter tops and have someone else install the new ones. Sounds easy enough. Then came the corroded hot water valve to the sink that would not shut off. Cut the pipe, put in a new valve. Then came the screws holding one corner of the counter tops down that I could not get too. Out comes the hacksaw. Then the clamps holding the sink in place were the design of some sadistic engineer who obviously never intended to use them himself. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and dig in harder.

Eventually, the tear out was done. We expected new counters in 3 days. Nope. It's going to be at least a week. Probably longer, knowing how these things work. And now we are without a kitchen sink, dishwasher, microwave, or any counter space. The toaster and coffee pot are homeless, and every available horizontal surface elsewhere is now worthlessly occupied by kitchen refugees. It's a bit of an inconvenience.

Life is like that sometimes.

Just as home improvement often takes more investment than we planned, so does self improvement. Both also usually involve a some degree of inconvenience, and even a little discomfort. Tearing out the old is hard, whether it's 40 year old green Formica counter tops which have been repainted twice, or 40 year old bad habits which have been hidden from public sight. And getting the new delivered, or developing good habits to replace the old always, always takes longer than we want or plan. But that's just the way it is.

A good life doesn't come easy. And by good life, I mean a life marked by right attitudes, strong relationships, rewarding occupation, and close fellowship with God. Those are some of the qualities of a good life, and every one of them takes work not just to establish, but to maintain and, occasionally perhaps, remodel. A good close look at our lives will reveal what needs updated. You just have to be willing to see.

In the end, it all pays off.

In a week (or two, or . . .) my wife will be thrilled with her new kitchen, everything will be back in place, and joy will flow like a fountain. Those investments of time, sweat, and money will be rewarded. Just as every investment I have ever made in improving myself has paid many times over what I put in. It's a hard process to go through, but it's worth it.

How about you?

Do any of you have any home or self improvement plans for the summer? If so, I wish you God's speed in your labors, and may all your contractors keep the schedules they promise when you make your deposit.

Yeah, good luck with that one!  
 



Life's like that sometimes.

On Right and Wrong

It is not popular, this idea of right and wrong.

We live in a world desperately struggling to embrace the "ideals" of tolerance, situational ethics, and personal liberty. I say desperately struggling because such "ideals" fly directly in the face of what has been referred to as the collective conscience, which is in fact the sense of right and wrong which God has placed within us. I say desperately because it is the world's last ditch effort to remove God from the equation. I say desperately because, if we succeed, we will have an entirely new understanding of desperation.

In light of this struggle, any indication of holding to or believing in a higher moral standard is met with fierce resistance. The mere allusion to the idea that absolute values exist will earn you the label of radical, extremist, or perhaps worst of all, right wing Christian.

The world does not want to be restrained by right and wrong.

The world around us wants freedom, liberty, independence. Everyone wants the ability to make their own choices, fulfill their dreams and desires, pursue their passions. These are not necessarily wrong, until those pursuits come up against the boundaries of that which is right, and that which is wrong. Then life becomes uncomfortable. And let's face it--none of us likes to be uncomfortable

The world, therefore, has chosen the path of least resistance. Eliminate the nuisance of such restraints. Abolish the standards of good and bad, right and wrong, moral and immoral. Remove all such "barriers" which are "holding us back," and let freedom reign.

The result is anarchy.

A system without restraints will eventually become disorganized, unstable, chaotic. Without order, rules, standards, societies and civilizations fail. Without law, you have lawlessness. And that will serve no one well.

Should murder be allowed, if it is the desire of one individual to take the life of another? Should I be allowed to steal from my neighbor just because I want to? No, of course not. I think very few could honestly say they believe those "freedoms" should be allowed. There are absolute truths, limits to what should be, can be allowed and maintain a stable and decent society. Without those limits, we are doomed to fail.

We are headed down  a dangerous path.

Many of the absolutes established by God are being swept under the rug. They cannot be abolished by mere man, having been set in place by Almighty God, but they can be, and are being ignored. The danger is that when you say one rule of God is violable, you set a precedent. It is a crack in the dam. If left unattended, that crack will widen and spread, creating more. Eventually, the dam will fail and everything down stream will be lost. And let us be clear--we are all down stream of the will of God.

Incredibly, this is nothing new. From the time man received the breath of life from our Creator, we have railed against Him. Individually and collectively man has tried to dislodge God from His place as Ruler and Judge. All have failed. All will fail. The question is, how many will fall when the final failure comes?

There is a decision to be made.

It is a very simple decision. Is there such a thing as right and wrong? Are there absolutes which should not, cannot be changed?

I say yes. What say you? 

Life Lessons-Driving in Traffic

Life in the fast lane.

This small town country boy got to drive in the Big City over the weekend. City life, in particular city traffic, is not for me. Everyone has some place to go, and, judging by the way they drive, they're late. Bumper to bumper, weaving in and out, laying on the         horn . . . It's a madhouse. But as I watched the mayhem around me, I realized some life lessons were right in front of me.

The grass is not always greener, nor the next lane over necessarily a better choice.

We were in stop and go traffic. On the interstate. Lovely! We were not on a tight schedule, but obviously some people were. I saw one guy change lanes five times, trying to get ahead. He ended up behind us. Changing lanes didn't do him any favors.

We do the same thing in life. We know where we want to be, and when we want to be there. We all know the shortest route between two points is a straight line (except when flying over a curved earth--look up flight paths from America to Europe). But we get impatient. Antsy. We think we see a better way and crank the steering wheel of our lives right and left, oblivious to the obvious fact that traffic there is moving just as slow. When not satisfied with our new path, we jump again. And again. Always looking for an easier way when often the best thing to do is stay the course. More often than not, slow and steady wins the race. Thank you Mr Tortoise for that lesson.

Rules are there for a reason.

Speed limits, rules of the road, and traffic laws--as annoying as they are--exist for a reason. They keep things in order, ideally create a safe environment, and in general prevent chaos. The more traffic there is, the more important the rules are. And the more frequently and flagrantly they are ignored.

That's life also, isn't it? There are rules in place, some enacted by man and others by God. Just like those governing traffic, these laws are meant for both the individual and greater good. And the more people gathered together, to more likely those laws are to be violated. One person steps out of line, another follows, and pretty soon you have chaos. Anarchy. If left unchecked the entire system will spin out of control and eventually collapse. Sadly, there is evidence of that all over the world today.

Disaster awaits the careless.

Oh yes, it does. We all know what a bunch of flashing lights up ahead means. Ambulances, firetrucks, police, tow trucks. When people start breaking the rules, inevitably there is going to be a crash. More often than not, the innocent are caught up in the disaster along with the guilty. It's ugly. It's horrific. It's life changing, and sometimes, life ending.

I've witnessed people crash their lives in the same way. Speeding through life with reckless abandon, thinking they are above the law or "too lucky" to get caught, they break all the rules. Oh they look like everything is going their way, until they lose control. Eventually, those rules they are breaking catch up with them, and the result is never pretty. Broken vehicles and bones are bad. Broken souls are worse. And I've seen a few.

The other side of the coin.

For all my ranting about the speeders and traffic weavers, there is another outlaw out there. In many ways, this one is worse. He's the one who refuses to keep up with everyone else within the speed limit. He's the one in the left lane doing 50 in a 70--with his turn signal on. If anyone is going to cause problems, it's him. He's in the way, holding everyone back. Eventually enough pressure will build up behind him that something's going to go wrong. Very wrong.

In life, this is the person who will not do what they are supposed to do. The sluggard, the deadbeat, the carnal Christian. He refuses to do his part, and drags his feet through the muck and mire of life, stirring up the waters the rest of us have to swim in. He's the one dragging others down, putting them in danger. He's an anchor. Watch out for him, for he may very well be the most dangerous of them all.

Driving is like living.

Follow the rules. Find your route and stay the course. Do your part, and don't get in the way of others. If we all drive sensibly, we'll get where we want to be, just when we're supposed to be there.

Getting Away--Good for the Mind, Body, and Soul

Everybody needs to get away sometimes.

Away from work, from home, from stress, and just the dailiness of life. Whatever you do, you need a break every once in a while. It doesn't mean you are lazy, or not committed. It means you get tired, worn out, used up, and need a break. It means you are human.

I really don't like to travel.

Yep. I'm one of those people. A homebody, stick-in-the-mud, boring, stay-cation kind of guy. To me a great vacation means staying at home with nothing planned. That does not mean nothing to do, it just means nothing I have to do. I really enjoy doing projects around the house and yard, as long as I don't have to do them. I enjoy mowing the lawn, but I would enjoy volunteering to mow your lawn more than my own because I don't have to do it. You see, I like freedom, downtime. I like to decide what I'm going to do, and when. Even if it's nothing at all.

But (the inevitable but), there is a big world out there that my wife, children, and (as much as I hate to admit it) I need to experience. I live in a quiet, rural (meaning middle of nowhere), small town. I live in the same county I was born in, and truth be told, I have no intention of ever moving. I like it here. I have often said, when speaking of traveling, that if there were some other place I thought I'd like better than here, I'd go live there. But there isn't that other place (other than heaven). This is where I want to be.

Still, I realize broadening my horizons is a good thing.

As I said above, there is a big world out there and we all need to get a taste of something different every now and then. That does not have to mean traveling the world, although for some it very well may. But it does mean going outside our comfort zones every once in a while. It's important that we stretch ourselves, get out there and do something new, see new things, even (gasp!) meet new people and new kinds of people.

It's always good to come back home.

Getting out is good for me, but secretly, coming home is always the best. I know a lot of people count the days, hours, even minutes of their vacation, dreading that time when they will have to return home. Not me. I've never enjoyed another place so much that I didn't want to leave and come home. Part of that is contentment, and part of it is knowing that nowhere on this earth is paradise--every place has it's downside. Besides--I'm not going to live here forever. I'm just visiting. My true home is a place where once I go, I'll never leave. 

And that will be the greatest homecoming of them all.

What Story Will You Write?

There is no title, no table of contents, no introduction or acknowledgement. No copyright, imprint, or watermark. It's blank.

It is the book of life.

We all have one, handed to us, in some form, on the day of our birth. We fill the first pages with scribbles and blobs, stick figures and misspelled words, disproportionate cartoons of our idealistic misunderstanding of the world as seen through the eyes of a child. Simplistic. Naive. Innocent.

Years pass and the pages fill. Childish scrawl becomes more fluid, regimented, organized. Disjointed pictographs give way to properly framed depictions of reality. A true book begins to emerge. The book of our life.

Writing a book is not that hard. Hammer away long enough, and you can produce the 75-100,000 words necessary to qualify a work as a book. But a book is a story no more than a pile of bricks a house. A dictionary is a book, but a story it is not. There is no plot, no setting, no characters. No life.

Therein lies the art, and the heart, of writing.

So it is in our book of life. It is easy enough to fill our books with randomness and idle chatter, meaningless dialogue and cardboard characters. The pages fill, the word count tallies, but a story it is not. Not a real story, a story worth reading. That takes work. That takes heart. Courage. Perseverance.

Writing a story worth reading is hard. Hours, days, weeks go into each chapter. Words are agonized over, dissected, defined, replaced. Story lines are pursued, abandoned, retraced and recovered. Characters spring to life, only to fall spectacularly to their deaths or slowly sink beneath the page in a slow spiral of decay. Long hours pass when the words will not come. Sleepless nights are spent feverishly when the words will not stop. There is ebb and flow, rise and fall.

And so it is in life. A life worthy of being written happens no more easily than does a story worth reading. Every action, thought, word, and deed matter. Understand there will be mistakes, missteps, wrong paths taken. Characters will appear who seem to be on the side of right and good, but later reveal themselves antithetical to the purpose of the hero. And who is the hero of your story? Why, you, of course. Who else could it be?

So it is up to you to make corrections. While you cannot edit out lines already written, you can write anew. Start a new chapter. Create a new storyline. Bring in new characters. Everyone loves a redemption story, a nobody who becomes somebody, a villain turned hero. Maybe that's you.

I don't know your story, and I cannot write it for you. No one can. It's up to you.

What will your story be?

It's a Slippery World Out There!

Those darn banana peels!

They'll get you every time! You're just walking along, minding your own business, then . . . Wham! You're flat on you back, arms and legs waving in the air like an overturned turtle, unsure how you got there. You've just fallen victim to a banana peel. And trust me--they're everywhere!

How does one slip on a banana peel? Well, it's quite easy, actually. All it takes is a little carelessness, a moment of inattention. One wrong step and you're down. And I've found the older I get, the harder I fall. And the harder it is to get up.

Who left it laying around?

A banana peel is a piece of garbage. Trash. Refuse. It shouldn't be left laying around. Someone could get hurt. Like me. So whose fault is it?

Probably mine.

You see, I leave trash laying around all the time. Not real trash--my two older sisters broke me of that early! But that other kind of trash. That stuff in my life that really isn't worth anything and should be thrown away or recycled. You know what I mean. Grudges. Guilt. Anger. Sin.

Banana peels. Mine.

Where do they belong?

I've left a lot of stuff laying around over the years that I end up finding in the most unfortunate way. Unresolved anger at some person who then shows back up in my life. Slip and fall! Guilt over some petty offense that I never let go. Crash and burn! Envy of some person, some thing. Mayday--Going down!

If you, or I, leave that stuff laying around, it's going to come back and bite us. Hard. There has to be a better answer. And there is.

Maybe you need to forgive someone who offended you, or yourself for offending someone else. Maybe you need to deal with envy, or jealousy. It could be anger or sorrow. Perhaps pride or lust. I don't know your particular trash--I only know mine. But I do know this--we all have some. And if we don't take care of it . . . Let's just say, it's going to show up when you least expect it.

Watch your step.

We all have garbage laying around that we need to clean up. So watch your step, and when you find something along the path of life, take the time to deal with it.

And remember, it's a slippery world out there!

I Choose Joy

It happens every day.

I have to make a choice. How am I going to react to this? Whatever this is doesn't matter. I may think this is good, or bad, or neither. This may seem to be a blessing, or trial. This may be exactly what I've hoped for, prayed over, and anticipated, or it may be that very thing I have most dreaded. What this is doesn't matter. What matters is how I respond.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Paul gives us this advice in Romans 12:12, and it seems easy enough. Until the bottom falls out, and my universe seems to be spinning out of control. When the world comes crashing down around me, joy seems far away. Patience appears the enemy. Faith is hard. I want to curl up in a ball, gnashing my teeth in anguish. I want to scream in frustration and fear. I feel alone. That's when I have to make a choice.

The hardest for me is choosing joy. When things go badly, I tend to lose heart. I know that I am to be joyful in hope, knowing that my hope is in the Lord. I know that God can do all things, and that He works out all things for the good of those who follow Him. I know this. But yet, I am drawn to the worst case scenario. My mind dwells on the dark and dismal. My soul becomes downcast. That's when I have to choose.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul brings his thoughts on the topic to a conclusion with this verse at the end of chapter 12. He has spent some time contrasting a right response with a wrong one. He has told us how to react in times of plenty, and times of need. He has pointed out which reactions are good, and which are evil. In summary he tells us that we have a choice. We can allow evil to overcome good, or we can overcome evil with good. I repeat again, I have to make a choice.

How can we overcome evil with good? He has already told us. Of the many instructions Paul gave us, what I cling to is found in verse 12. Joy in hope. Patience in affliction. Faithfulness in prayer. That's how we face this, no matter what this may be. And, for me at least, it's not natural. But you know what? It works.

The one you feed is the one who wins.

You've probably heard a version of the old story of the two forces which live inside us. One is good, one is evil. Which one will be victorious? The one you feed. If you feed into fear, dismay, worry, and hopelessness, then evil will rise. If, on the other hand, you feed into courage, joy, confidence, and hope, then good will surely overcome. It makes sense, really. Of course it does; it is the truth of God.

I choose joy.

Come what may, I have decided to choose joy. Joy in the hope of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. What about you?