In athletics we talk about the home field advantage. Any team in any sport at any level would always rather play at home. It’s our comfort zone. We’re familiar with our field, our arena, our diamond. We like playing on the same court that we practice on. Not to mention the advantage of playing in front of our home town fans who know us and cheer for us. Hometown fanatics in our bleachers give us an edge by encouraging us and making it impossibly noisy for the opponents. It’s why we dress up and paint ourselves in our school’s colors and pack out a stadium to scream for four quarters.

Simply put, we like playing home games because it’s familiar territory. And we don’t like playing away games because it’s unfamiliar territory.

So here’s the $64,000 question: How comfortable would you be if every game was an away game?

I’ve been thinking about home and away. Especially as it pertains to us as Christians in our relationships with those who have yet to meet Jesus. We might call them “disconnected people”. When we think about reaching out to our disconnected neighbors and friends our first thought is “I’ll invite them to church.” It’s a good idea. A good idea, that is, unless your church is stuck in a time warp of stale tradition where the music and preaching are sinfully boring and the mission of the church is as culturally relevant as a Commodore 64 computer. In that case you might want to skip the church invite, dig up an old “Four Spiritual Laws” tract and have a go at it yourself. (But that’s a column for a later time.)

All in all, inviting someone to church is a good idea. Our disconnected friends get to hear the music and God’s Word taught and explained. And hopefully all this is accomplished in an atmosphere of people who genuinely care about each other.

Inviting our disconnected friends to church is a good thing. Yet often forgotten in the process is that when our disconnected friends join us at church, it is an away game for them. We’re bringing them on to our home field, the place where we are most comfortable. We know the music. We know the preaching. We know what words like pulpit and foyer and fellowship mean. We’re surrounded by our home crowd, the people we know. The people who encourage us. We move easily through the routine and the rituals, like a center fielder who knows every dip and divot in his outfield. It’s all familiar territory.

If inviting our disconnected friends and neighbors and co-workers to church is the extent of our relationship building, then every game for them is an away game. Were the roles reversed, how comfortable would you be? How comfortable would you be always playing on someone else’s turf?

I think it’s fascinating that as far as everything we can read in the Bible, Jesus never invited anyone to church. Or to be hermeneutically specific, He never invited anyone to come to the synagogue with Him. In fact, one could argue Jesus never invited anyone to church because He was too busy going into their worlds, meeting them on their home field. When He called Simon Peter and James and John, He climbed into their fishing boat. When He called Levi, He met him at his toll booth. When He crossed paths with Zacchaeus, a tax collector crooked as a dog’s hind leg, Jesus didn’t say, “Our pastor is doing a series on integrity. You should come.” Nope. He said, “Zacchaeus, you best get down here because I’m coming over to your place for dinner.”

I can’t help but wonder if part of what made Jesus so winsome and attractive to disconnected people is that He walked onto their home field and met them there.

Jesus’ command to us was not to “invite everyone to church to hear the gospel preached.” Not that it’s a bad idea. What He said was to “go into all the world and preach the gospel.” That means we need to add a lot more away games to our schedule and get used to playing on the road. And not just get used to it, but to love it the way Jesus loves it. He delights in meeting people where they are.

You’re supposed to win at home. Great teams win on the road. And when it comes to sharing Jesus with your disconnected friends on their field, when you win…they win.

Go.

It’s time to play on the road.

“Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him.” – Luke 5:10b-11

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

]]> http://www.asliceoflifetogo.com/2010/09/05/home-or-away/feed/ 0 http://www.asliceoflifetogo.com/2010/08/29/the-wiser-ones/ http://www.asliceoflifetogo.com/2010/08/29/the-wiser-ones/#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:36:16 +0000 todd http://www.asliceoflifetogo.com/?p=482 We notice him as we walk into Whataburger. A frail, slightly stooped elderly man helping his equally frail wife get out of a big white Mercury Marquis. While she balances precariously on a four-footed cane, he tries to pull the sleeve of her red sweater up over her shoulder.

Inside we are second in line. A good spot, I think, until I realize that the lady behind the cash register is either really new or Whataburger is having a hard time finding help. She struggles with the coded buttons, correcting herself five times before finally concluding the transaction. I take a step toward placing our order when the lady customer who’s politely and persistently made her wishes understood has an attack of honesty. “I don’t think you charged me enough”, she says. This sets in motion a five minute detailed audit of order #52, Whataburger with cheese, no onions, mustard only, fries and a medium Dr. Pepper.

My kids are surprisingly patient throughout. Emma stares at the back lit menu board while reciting her order over to herself. Annie is facing backwards. It appears she’s looking around me to what’s behind. I glance over my shoulder. The frail man has successfully gotten his wife’s sweater sleeve in place and they stand gamely, him hanging on to her and her leaning hard on the cane. They are smiling smiles of age and experience and perspective. Yes, this is taking a really, really ridiculously long time. But it’s just an order at a hamburger stand.  Their smiles seem to say that, in the span of their lives, they know it’s not that big a deal.

Annie motions me to lean toward her. “What’s up, Annie?”

“Daddy,” she says, still looking past me, “I think we should let the wiser ones go first.”

I’m always proud when my girls get it. Proud when they think of others without my prompting. Because of our weekly time spent at Carillon’s skilled care center and Vista Care’s in-patient hospice unit, they are comfortable around the elderly and all the canes, walkers and wheelchairs that come with that stage of life.

What strikes me is her choice of words. “I think we should let the wiser ones go first.”

We step back and motion to them. “Please, go ahead. I’m still deciding what I want and we’re in no hurry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Mrs. Frail says, “Thank you so much. I’ve been to the doctors and I’ve had to stand a lot today. I appreciate it.”

Mr. Frail smiles and guides his wife forward. “Thank you so much.” And they step into their own game of Whataburger order roulette.

The wiser ones. I wonder what it is that makes Annie see them as wiser? It’s a given that with age comes experience. Yet experience runs the gamut. Good and bad. Wise and foolish. Thoughtful and impulsive. Generous and selfish. Age and experience do not guarantee wisdom. There is such a thing as an “old fool”. Experience becomes wisdom only when we are purposeful in applying truth to the process. It is, as they say, the difference between having 30 years of experience and experiencing the same year 30 times.

Do a search of the Bible on the word “wise” and one discovers that the quickest path to wisdom is to possess a teachable heart and spirit. Even King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, when told by God He could have anything he asked for chose to ask for “a listening heart”. God was most pleased with that request. God loves a teachable heart because a teachable heart pushes personal pride aside for the sake of growth. When we listen to everyone, when our hearts are open to instruction, when we’re not afraid of criticism and correction, then we’re able to learn and grow in every situation.

Let’s live so that when we become the frail person in line at Whataburger, people might see wisdom instead of age.

“The wise person accepts instructions, but the one who speaks foolishness will come to ruin.” – Proverbs 10:8

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

As good literature proves, without tension there is no story. Enter the antagonist. These are the bad guys and the bad girls. They stand opposed to, struggle against, or compete with the good guys. Their flaws are more obvious than the good guys’, making it much easier for us to dislike, if not hate them.

We cheer the hero. We boo the villain. We find ourselves drawn to the struggle of the heroine. We wonder how the villainess could be so evil. We read on, hoping at each turn of the page that justice will be served.

Simply put, we identify with the good guys. And the good girls. We see ourselves as the protagonist. The hero. Because, really? Why would anyone want to be the zero?

On Sunday morning, walking out the door to church I heard a radio preacher reading from Luke 17. It’s the account of Jesus healing ten lepers. Ostracized and isolated because of their disease, cultural law required them to keep away from the general public. When anyone approached, they were required to yell, “Unclean! Unclean!” as a warning for passers by to keep their distance. Difficult enough to cope with the physical deformities of disease. How emotionally awful would it be to verbally remind yourself and others that you are an outcast?

You likely know the account. The lepers cry out to Jesus as He passes by. “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” And Jesus does just that, telling them to go show themselves to the priest. As they go, they are healed.

The Bible says that one man, upon realizing his healing, runs back to Jesus. Throwing himself at Jesus’ feet he thanks Him profusely. Jesus wonders out loud about the other nine. Did He not heal them, too?

I grew up in the church. From the week that I was born. In 47 years I’ve heard many sermons and Sunday School lessons on Luke 17. I’ve read the passage in my personal time with God. I’ve studied it in seminary classes. I’ve taught the passage in Bible studies. Yet on this Sunday morning the thought occurs to me that in 47 years I’ve always lined myself up with the one who came back to say thanks.

More importantly, in 47 years I’ve never lined myself up with the ungrateful ones who grabbed their healing and walked away, never returning to say “thank you” to their Healer.

I’ve always seen myself as the good guy.

And that’s a problem.

There is an inherent danger to always seeing ourselves as the good guy. Especially when reading the Bible. In fact, I would argue that if we insist on seeing ourselves as the protagonist when studying God’s Word we miss much, if not all, of what God wants us to learn.

We read that Jesus healed the lepers and only one came back to say thanks. We think to ourselves, “That’s me. I would have said thanks.” Really? Are we really that grateful? Do we go through our days keenly aware of every good thing God does for us? Do we always remember to say “thank you”? I can’t speak for you, but I’m not that consistent. And if in my study of God’s Word I always see myself as the good guy then I don’t have to do the hard thinking about all my failures. Or about all the areas of my life that need to improve.

In reading this account, what would happen if we said, “I’m just like the nine who never said thanks.”

If we read the Bible seeing ourselves as the good guy who always agrees with Jesus, it’s quite possible to read the entire Book and never learn a thing. To always imagine ourselves standing at Jesus’ side in righteous agreement with everything He says is to miss the point. Apart from Christ, we are the antagonists. We are the bad guys. The Bible goes as far as to say we were born the bad guys. David says in Psalm 51, “in sin did my mother conceive me”. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that you and I by our very nature are “children of wrath”. Which is to say the only good in us is there because of Who Jesus is.

Here’s an idea. From now on when you read your Bible, identify the person or persons in the text who have the most to learn. Whatever their particular fault is, be they short-sighted, obstinate, arrogant, self-righteous, ungrateful, legalistic, or just plain opposed to God…line yourself up with that person. Line yourself up with the antagonist and say, “That’s me.” Then read the account again and ask God to show you what He wants to teach you.

Oh, and about that account of the ten lepers Jesus healed? The ending has a twist.  The one who came back to say thanks?

He was a Samaritan. A sworn enemy of Jews like Jesus.

It was the bad guy who came back to say thanks.

Could it be we’ll all experience a better ending if we start reading the Scriptures from the perspective of the bad guy?

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

In a sentence…I have allowed my burden to become an idol.

For my readers who don’t know me, four years ago my spouse chose to walk away from our marriage. I didn’t want that. My daughters didn’t want that. We were (and continue to be) left bouncing in the wake of the consequences created by her decisions.

The burdens I’ve been carrying since; burdens of abandonment, betrayal, loneliness, starting life over from scratch without a network in a new state is but a short list of what has dominated my thoughts. Not to mention the constant fear she would again someday pick up and relocate our children again. I have allowed these burdens, by the amount of time spent fretting and obsessing over them, to become an idol. By definition, an idol is something to which time and devotion are paid. I have paid too much time and far too much attention to my burdens of the past four years. They have become idols at the expense of time and attention focusing on God’s sovereignty over my life.

Are my burdens real? Absolutely. I can’t begin to describe the profound loneliness of beginning life over in a place you never wanted to live where you know no one, leaving behind 14 years of deeply invested friendships, ministry, network, jobs and every good thing that feeds your soul. Add to that the burden of single parenting, a job God never intended in His original design of family, cover it all with a daily feeling of being “on the outside looking in” and it’s a small start in communicating what a head-banging process this has been.

My burdens are real. They are heavy. And they may not go away anytime soon. Yet in focusing on them, both knowingly and unknowingly, I have allowed these burdens to become an idol. Like a man examining a stain on his necktie, my vision has become myopic. I’ve become oblivious to the larger environment around me, the environment over which God is fully sovereign. Focusing on my burdens has created in me a spirit of fear. I’ve been waiting and worrying over the next bad thing that could happen instead of acknowledging God and His perfect love that casts out fear. To, even in one’s mind, relegate God in any way as subject to one’s circumstances is sin.

One would think a seminary graduate would have this figured out. But there is a big difference between head knowledge and heart assurance. At some point all of us will experience a life event that forces us to decide whether or not we will “own” our theology. When life is full of everything happy and circumstances are favorable, it’s easy to pay lip service to the goodness of God. When life kicks you in the head and takes away most or all of what you value, the question is unavoidable. Is God still good when life is not?

In the wake of my spouse walking away, my friend Jerry Sittser told me, “In God’s big-picture drama, people who walk out of your life are small players. As painful and horrible as this situation is, there is nothing anyone can do to thwart God’s purposes for your life. Or for the lives of your children.” This is a true statement. Yet in my pain I lost sight of this. God, in my mind, became subject to the decisions of my ex-spouse. Instead of rightly seeing God as in control of His universe (and mine) in the middle of my awful situation I viewed Him as subject to my rotten circumstances instead of sovereign over the details of my life.

Psalm 34 calls us to “magnify the Lord and exalt His name” and that in doing so God will “deliver us from all our fears.” In allowing my burdens to become an idol, I’ve done the opposite. In magnifying my fears I have minimized God. That in itself is grievous. Yet the arrogance of this sin is magnified by the irony that my spirit of fear has been cultivated while surrounded by God’s blessings. I’ve lamented to God the burden of moving to and surviving in a place where I knew no one, while across the room sits a cabinet full of customer files, every one of them a stranger until God brought them into my life. I’ve lamented to God the burden of leaving behind the bonds of an established church family, while the members and friends at Turning Point Church, many of whom don’t even know me that well, have consistently prayed for me and cared for my daughters as if they were their own. I’ve lamented to God my burden of loneliness, and in doing so treated God as if He hasn’t been here for every tear and every sleepless night.

While I’ve been guilty of treating God as though He is subject to my circumstances, true to form God has been incredibly patient and kind with me. He has, in ways big and small, used these same circumstances to remind and encourage me that He transcends everything I can see and imagine. He really does “cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose”. After disappointments in my job, He surprises me with unexpected sales. Or sitting in church, missing all my friends and ministry in Arizona, a hand on my shoulder and a voice saying, “You’ve been on my heart a lot. Let me pray for you.” Or in moments of deeply felt insignificance someone saying, “Thanks for what you said in your sermon. God really used it in my life.” And even in ways far outside the box like a guy named Bob at Sam’s Club in Roswell, New Mexico who offers to pray for me while filling my car at the gas pump.

If I’d spent as much time looking for God in the details as I’ve spent focusing on my fears, how different would my life look?

So there you have it. My confession. And my resolution to stop living from a spirit of fear. God’s arm is not too short to save. There’s nothing that will happen in my life that He’s not already aware of. The fact that I am still here is proof of His provision. He promises to give me a hope and a future. He promises not to quit working on me. And He promises to “restore all the years that the locusts have eaten”. I have no idea how He will do that, but I look forward to seeing it.

In the meantime, my burdens may not get lighter. My situation may not change. It may get worse. But it doesn’t matter because God is on His throne. He loves me. I don’t know why. But He does. And His promises are bigger than my fearful circumstances.

Or as He says, “If I (God) am for you, who can be against you?”

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

It’s bedtime. Past bedtime, actually. Being a bad Dad or good Dad, depending on your perspective, I had allowed Annie and Emma to finish watching the movie they had started.

Thankfully, my girls don’t fight sleep. Most nights it’s an easy transition from eyes open to eyes shut. In fact, Annie falls asleep faster than anyone I’ve ever known. If we had a “who’s out the fastest” contest between Annie and any light switch in your home, Annie would win every time. She falls asleep so quickly that if I have a question for her I have to ask while she is still vertical. Because a microsecond after her head hits the pillow, whatever it is has to wait till morning.

Emma, the other half of my twin tornadoes, has her own routine to ease into sleeping. She changes it up from night to night, but mostly variations on a theme.

“Daddy, tell me a story.”

“Daddy, I’m thirsty.”

“Daddy, …. ” followed by a pause as she quickly tries to think something up.

On this night they are tucked in. We’ve said our prayers. Annie is out in .047 seconds. Emma is laying on her back, hugging a purple pillow with her left arm. What will it be tonight? A request for a story? A glass of water?

“Daddy, my ice is big again.”

“My ice.”

I’ve been following their thought trails now for going on 10 years. I know them. But I’ve got no clue how to track this one.

“Emma, what are you talking about?”

“Ughhhhh!!! Daddy! Don’t you remember what you told me?”

Remember what? Ice? Huh? Maybe it’s true. Maybe parenting makes us slowly lose our mind so we can’t remember what we’ve said.

“Honey, I love you but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Emma is exasperated now. I’ve seen this look on her face before. It’s the “my point is so obvious that I can’t believe I have to explain this to you because you’re the grown up and you’re supposed to get it” face.

She sits up.

“Daddy, you told me! You said that every day is a new day and that any bad things are in the past. So 12 AM is a new day so my ice is big again! It’s big! You know…thick!”

Click.

Several days before Emma was pushing the limits and I warned her, “Emma Elizabeth, you better knock it off because you’re on thin ice.”

And several days prior to that incident was a discussion following her being disciplined. I had explained to her that what’s done is done, she received her discipline and that Daddy wasn’t angry with her because it was all over.

“It’s in the past, Emma. And every day is a new day.”

Midnight marks the new day. And with the new day, “thick ice” on which to skate.

Emma had connected the dots. I was astounded and humbled in this moment. God is at work in my daughter’s life.

Wow.

The prophet Jeremiah put it this way, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope; because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24)

We are God’s children. And from time to time we all skate on thin ice. Thanks to God’s mercy, His compassion never fails. He shows it to us in many ways, not the least of which is to give us “big ice” at the start of every new day.

Which, as Emma will tell you, starts at 12:00 AM. Or midnight. Whichever you prefer to call it.

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Everything good dreams are made of.

TapTapTapTapTap.

Each poke of her little index finger on my shoulder hit the elevator button on my slumber, bringing me up from a sub-terrainian Stage 5 sleep to the lobby of reality.

Ding.

“Huh? Hey, Emma…what is it, baby?”

“I have a headache and my stomach hurts.”

So much for the happy place. I’d love to close my eyes and go back. But on this day I’ve been tapped out of my dreams.

Dreams. We are fascinated by them. So much so that they are part of our speech. “You’re dreaming”, we say to someone we think to be living in La-La Land or are hoping for something impossibly out of reach. To which they may reply, “Oh well, I can dream can’t I?”, expressing that hope really does spring eternal.

“Dream with me!” says the team leader at work when he wants to inspire thinking outside the box, or cubicle, as it were. And when the cumulative results are presented to the boss, she may say, “This is what happens when we dream big!” Or she might say, “Nice try. But it’s a pipe dream…” a poetic way of saying you’d come up with better ideas after an all-nighter in an opium den.

Guys hope for their “dream girl”. Girls hope for their “dream guy”. And in the dreaming neither stop to consider that even if and when they find them they will be creatures who squeeze the toothpaste in the middle and leave wet towels on the floor.

People speak of their “dream job” and their “dream vacation” knowing that if they can ever figure a way to combine the two they’d be “living the dream”, a phrase that suggests there’s no point in sleeping because what you see with your eyes open beats anything you’ll see with them shut.

Dreaming is the hope for something better. Something grander. Something that takes us beyond ourselves. Out of the mundane mud into the golden glory. Wherever we find ourselves, we long to live and exist on a higher plane. A tall order in this broken world, but we still try because inherent in each of us is a desire to be more than we are. We all want to live the dream.

It’s the broken world part that gets in the way.

Some 55 days ago my friend Greg was living the dream. Beautiful wife, three precocious children, and a job he enjoys. Because of a senseless, thoughtless driver, Greg’s dream was shattered when his wife Leigh Ann was killed.

My high school friend Crysti watched her Mom pass away last week after a long battle with cancer. She already lost her sister to that disease.

A few days ago one of my Facebook friends sadly posted, “Baby Jackson lost his fight to survive today. At 6:52pm today, Jackson Thomas Watt took his last breath on earth & his first breath in Heaven…he’s with his Maker now…we love you little man…”

When it comes to dreams, Greg and Crysti and Jackson’s parents are all tapped out.

Maybe you are, too.

Psalm 121:4 tells us that God never sleeps. Nor does He slumber. And in that verse the Psalmist describes God as “Israel’s protector”. There’s a degree of security in having a body guard. But even they need sleep. Imagine a protector who never tires and never needs a nap? Better, imagine that same Protector as the One protecting you?

In this broken world, some of our dreams will turn to nightmares. They are awful and terrifying. Yet even in these, God is our protector who never sleeps. When our dreams are broken, when our dreams seem impossibly far away, God is wide awake; always paying undivided attention to the details of our lives. We may toss and turn, yet God is here for us with the divine calm that comes from having everything under control.

I did manage to go back to sleep. That happy place was just around the corner. I could feel it.

TapTapTapTapTap.

Ding.

“Daddy…I had a bad dream.”

“No worries, Annie. It’s all good. God’s right here.”

“I will lie down and sleep peacefully, for you, Lord, make me safe and secure.” – Psalm 4:8

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

I go in hopes that Bob will be on duty.

It’s supposed to be a three hour drive from Lubbock to Roswell but it’s funny how the wide open spaces make 65 miles per hour appear so very slow and 75-80 miles per hour appear so very reasonable. On my first trip to Roswell last year I pulled into Sam’s Club to refuel. When I look up, the attendant is standing there. I’ve never seen an attendant at a Sam’s Club gas pump. Usually they are holed up in the little cinder block building watching TV. Yet here he stands. Baseball cap, mustache and the blue Sam’s Club vest with an I.D. badge pinned to it.

“I see by those Texas plates that you’re traveling somewhere. Is there anything you need prayer for?”

My first reaction is to look around. Isn’t that curious? Am I on camera? I’ve been to Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club more times than I can count. I expect low prices. I don’t expect their employees to pray for me.

I give Bob a closer look. He doesn’t look like a nut job. He looks normal. More importantly, he seems sincere. And with his question, definitely a cut to the chase kind of guy. I like that.

“Now that you ask, I sure do. It’s been a tough day and I could use all the prayer I can get.”

With no more small talk, Bob launched into a prayer. He prayed for me. For safe travel. For God’s intercession in the problems of my life. He asked God to bless me. Then he said, “Amen” and told me to drive safely before turning his attention to the next car.

As I opened my driver’s door I couldn’t see him but I heard him ask someone, “Is there anything you need prayer for?”

From that initial visit God has blessed me with a growing number of customers in Roswell. Wonderful, encouraging people and more reasons to return. Without fail, I always go to Sam’s to fill up my tank because I want Bob to pray for me. He prays for so many people that I’m not sure he even remembers that he’s prayed for me multiple times before. But it doesn’t matter. While the digits on the pump keep track of  the gallons and dollars and cents, Bob prays. He’s prayed for me, my kids, my safety in traveling, that God would intercede in circumstances beyond my control, and that God would bind the enemy from doing evil in those same circumstances. And every time I drive away blessed that someone cares. That someone has lifted me and my concerns up to God.

Though I can’t imagine why, not everyone wants prayer. I’ve seen people smile awkwardly and respond to Bob’s offer to pray for them with a, “Nope, I’m fine” or “I’m good, thanks.” But it doesn’t stop Bob from asking. And I bet it doesn’t stop Bob from praying. He will pray for the self-assured guy in the Chevy Avalanche anyway. Prayer doesn’t have to be loud to be effective. Who knows how many of these same people chalk up their good fortune or near misses to dumb luck, when in reality it was Bob’s silent prayers for them as they drove away that made the difference?

Roswell has plenty of good churches. We expect ministry to happen in church. That is as it should be. Yet I wonder if people realize that the gas pumps at Sam’s Club are a place where earth touches heaven? A place where problems and hurts and worries and fears are lifted up to God? A place where kind words and encouragement are spoken? A place where strangers are welcomed and cared for?

Who wouldn’t shop at a place like that?

Come to think of it, who wouldn’t go to a church like that?

And if our churches aren’t like that, why aren’t they like that?

We expect ministry to happen in church. That is as it should be.

Wherever we are and whatever we do, we can pray for others.

That is as it should be, too.

Be a Bob.

“Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving…” – Colossians 4:2

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Pulling into the parking lot, I ask my 9-year-old twin daughters the same question I ask every week.

“Girls, what are we here to do?”

“Galoshes 5:13b.” (We’re still working on the reference part.)

For the past two years, Annie, Emma and I have been bringing flowers and hugs to the residents of Carillon House and Vista Care, a skilled-care center and in-patient hospice. God uses our simple act of service to teach us many life lessons, like the power of encouragement and the frailty and brevity of life. It’s also allowed us the privilege of witnessing the final chapters of beautiful love stories.

Say to any couple, “Tell me how you met,” and you’re guaranteed a fun and fascinating story. Beginnings are full of romance and anticipation.

Sadly, romantic beginnings do not guarantee happy endings. If only couples could be glued together like the souvenirs in a wedding album. Some thrive during seasons of “better”—times of health and wealth. Yet when the “worse”—sickness and poverty—happens, their commitment wanes.

“How we met” stories are many. “How we stayed together” stories are much rarer.

There are many love stories among our Carillon friends. Ray and Margaret had been married 65 years when she died last month. Mr. Williams is a steady presence at the side of his bride of over 50 years. He watches helplessly as Alzheimer’s assaults her memory.

What choices do you make when “for worse” will never get better? Buddy and Shirley were married 50 years when he went in for a hip replacement two years ago. Complications from the anesthesia have left him bedridden ever since.

My Emma asks me, “Daddy, is Shirley with Buddy every day?”

“Yes, honey.”

Emma pauses before concluding, “She loves him.”

Indeed.

Dub stares at a photo of himself and his wife, Cody. “She was the pick of the town. Everyone told me how lucky I was. A kind and godly woman of high moral character. Everyone loved her.” After combat in the Pacific Theater during World War II, Dub came home and proposed. They built a life together as West Texas cotton farmers.

Through better and worse, God was good to them. He blessed them with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As he speaks, Dub doesn’t want to cry. Yet with the memories come the tears.

“I had a stroke 18 years ago,” he says. “I was dependent on her. She was so good to me. No matter what, she made sure I got out of the house twice a day. She would drive me to McDonald’s, and we’d sit and have a 37-cent cup of coffee and talk.

“I had to have a hospital bed in our bedroom. When I woke up, I always looked over at her. She’s been gone for over a year now, but when I wake up, I still look that direction.”

When your eyes have awakened to the same beautiful face for over six decades, how could you not keep looking and hoping she would be there? Dub and Cody were married 62 years when she died.

“Those 18 years after my stroke were the best years of my life because I got to see her every day. If I hadn’t had that stroke, I’d have been out playing golf or out fishing and I would have missed that time with her,” Dub concludes.

Sometimes it takes the worst to teach us what is the best.

Ecclesiastes 7:8 tells us, “The end of something is better than the beginning.” Maybe Solomon was saying that however something starts, finishing well is more important. Better a beautiful final chapter than a happy first paragraph.

My daughters know the reason we come to Carillon is to “serve each other with love.” I hope someday they realize the Dubs and Codys they met here succeeded in marriage for the very same reason.

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

“Hi, I’m Greg.”

“I’m Todd. Good to meet you.”

Dr. Oberholtzer opened the class by asking everyone to introduce themselves. When it came around to our table, my new acquaintance said, “I’m Greg Tonkinson…and I’m scared out of my mind.”

I liked him right away.

We were all scared. But Greg voiced what everyone was feeling. How can you even begin to see the end of a 94-hour Master’s degree on the first day? We had no idea what was ahead.

The unknown becomes known, one day at a time.

Over the next few years we spent tens of hundreds of hours together riding back and forth to seminary classes, sitting in class, talking ministry and theology over coffee, working on staff together at FBC-Tempe, planting a church, and playing in worship bands together.

Today my friend Greg is once again scared out of his mind. His beloved wife Leigh Ann was killed in a car accident on Saturday night. Leigh Ann was only 35 years old. I don’t remember ever seeing her without a smile on her face. A kind and gentle spirit, she was a nursing supervisor at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. More importantly, a godly wife to Greg and amazing Mom to three children.

Everyday we drive our cars and trucks down streets and roads and freeways, and almost always our minds race faster than the wheels we ride on. Schedules, work assignments, kids, to do lists, errands to run, and people to call. We multi-task at 60 miles per hour and our thoughts are almost always focused on what we are going to do next.

Only a series of painted white and yellow lines separate us from life and serious injury. Or life and death. We count on the fact that the other person will stay on their side of the line. And when they don’t it all comes to a tragic screeching halt.

And life is never the same.

Can I say it? Even Bible verses sound trite in times like this. Romans 8:28 promises that “God works all things together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.” True. And I believe that. But I hope no one says that to Greg for at least a year. Because from where he stands it’s impossible to see how losing your wife and best friend and mother of your children in a horrific accident could ever be worked into anything positive.

Psalm 138:8 promises that “God will accomplish everything that concerns me.” True again. Yet this side of heaven how can anyone who knew Leigh Ann comprehend that God accomplished everything that concerned her when she leaves behind a grieving husband and three young children?

Inherent in God’s sovereignty is that it will rarely make sense to us.

God’s promises are there. And they are true. And we take comfort in them. If not now, eventually. Yet for now, in these moments and days of stunned shock and disbelief, there are no words.

My friend and Pastor Duane Cross is no stranger to grief. He and his wife Sheri lost their 10-year old son Tyler in a car/bicycle accident. A couple of their closest friends were missionaries in Africa and were unable to return for the funeral. They sent a letter of condolence in which they said that within the African tribe they were living with, their word for “grieve” means “to sit in tent with”.

How profound. No words. Only “to sit in tent with”.

My friend Greg is scared out of his mind. How can you even begin to see the end of the rest of your life on the first day without your best friend? He has no idea what’s ahead. He will need people to “sit in tent” with him as his unknown becomes known, one day at a time.

Leigh Ann’s death makes no sense. There’s nothing good about it and everything bad about it. In our anger and sadness and confusion and agony and grief…God and His promises are there.

Even, and perhaps especially, when there are no words.

Greg, I love you, brother. I promise to keep you and yours in my prayers every day.

“God is near to the brokenhearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit.” – Psalm 34:18

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

“Yeah, Dad. I know. I’ll remember.”

It was daylight when I left for Fairmont, the closest “big town” for us just across the Iowa state line into Minnesota. I was 16 years old and thoroughly enjoying the independence of my newly acquired driver’s license. And the Oldsmobile was a sweet luxury ride. A big engine and padded velour seats, it felt like you were driving a La-Z-Boy down the road.

I ran my errands and stopped at Hardee’s for two Big Twin burgers, one roast beef sandwich, fries and a Coke. It would all get run off at basketball practice. Then I headed for home.

About five miles out the Olds started sputtering.

Ugh.

I forgot to remember.

I’m out of gas.

Shifting into neutral I let it coast as far as it would go before pulling onto the shoulder on Highway 15. With my Dad’s words ringing in my ears, I started walking toward a farm house up the road about three quarters of a mile.

It was about 9 PM on this December night. Frigid cold, but no wind. A coal black sky full of sparkling stars. I would have appreciated the beauty were my face not freezing.

I rang the bell. The farmer warily opened the door. “Uh, I, uh…Hi. My name is Todd and I was wondering…I, uh, ran out of gas up the road.” He didn’t say anything, just reached for his coat and came outside.

Walking over to a shed, he got a gas can and pointed me to his pickup. “I’m really sorry about this. Thanks for helping me. I’ll be happy to pay for the gas.” He shook his head no.

He’s not talking. He must be mad. I’d be mad, too, if someone got me out of my toasty warm house to haul gas for some teenager who can’t remember the difference between “E” and “F” even when it lights up. “I’m really sorry for getting you out here on a cold night”, I said. The farmer said nothing. He just drove down the road.

I hate this.

He did a U-turn and pulled up behind the Oldsmobile. Then he opened the gas cap and poured a full five gallons into the tank, about four and a half gallons more than I deserved. Again, I offered to pay and again he shook his head “no”. I thanked him profusely. Then he spoke his only sentence.

In a kind voice he said, “Son, it’s just as easy to keep the top half full as the bottom half.”

He got in his truck and pulled away, probably wondering if I’d be smart enough to remember his advice.

I did remember. And aside from having never run out of gas since, the thought occurs to me that there is an application of this truth to my relationship with God.

If I’m honest, too much of my relationship with God has been lived from the bottom half of the tank. Too often I’ve allowed myself to run on fumes. Too much time without prayer and without time reading God’s Word. Not enough time spent with other believers. Then, when life gets cold and harsh, I ring God’s doorbell and foolishly wonder out loud to him why I’m not capable of handling the situation with confidence and strength?

God always listens, then kindly points to my empty tank.

The farmer’s advice is true. It’s just as easy to keep the top half filled as the bottom half. Being disciplined to pray, worship, study God’s Word, and regularly learn from others older and wiser than myself keeps my tank full. And when my tank is full, I’m better able to handle life when circumstances turn cold and harsh. Life is hard, but it’s harder when we’re running on empty.

Praying that we all focus on the top half of the tank.

Go fill’er up.

“I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have revived me…Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” – Psalm 119:93;105

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Perhaps more importantly, when’s the last time God stretched your thinking about how He can speak to you?

I grew up in a Baptist church in small town Iowa. It was great and I wouldn’t trade the experience. There was a familiarity about it. The service order never changed. Prelude. Call to Worship. Two or three songs from the hymnbook; first, second and fourth verses only. The offering. The sermon. Closing hymn and benediction. And I can still hear Margaret Franks playing “Take The Name Of Jesus With You” on the organ as everyone headed for the door.

Worship style was piano and organ and hymnbooks. I liked it fine and now that I’m much older I realize the excellent theology I learned from those old hymns of the faith. Yet my worship perspective was severely limited.

Fast forward a few years after college. I flew to Los Angeles to visit Charlie, a college buddy from my Northwestern days. On a Friday he took me to a worship night at the Anaheim Vineyard Fellowship. I knew it was going to be an interesting evening when walking through the parking lot I saw the church custodian’s white Chevy pickup. On the door and side panel, painted in red letters it read, “Anaheim Vineyard Fellowship …Where The Real Angels Play”.

A full rockin’ band was already deep into a set of uplifting worship. Looking around the room there were people standing and singing. Some were sitting on their chair, heads bowed in prayer. Some stood at the front, hands raised. Others lay flat on the floor.

The music was amazing. Rich worship that pointed me to God. It was an electric experience for me. Not that anyone could tell by my expressionless midwestern demeanor, but inside I was moved. On the outside I wasn’t moving at all. Growing up Baptist like I did, if you move too much people might think you are dancing. I may have looked like a statue, but this worship experience is definitely stretching me.

The pastor gave a brief meditation on worship. He was a big guy. A former New York Giants offensive lineman who’d gone on to seminary. He quoted Jonathan Edwards and cautioned against judging people in worship by what you see on the exterior, because God works on the heart.

Then the band kicked in and the pastor started moving through the congregation. He got closer to me and my grip on the chair in front of me tightened. There was no one sitting in the row ahead of us. Moving past Charlie, the pastor stopped right in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders.

Understand, guys from the midwest need about a 36″ buffer zone in their personal space or we will explode. This guy’s infiltrated my space big time…and he’s got his hands on my shoulders.

He didn’t even ask if he could pray for me. He just started praying. It was an incredibly encouraging prayer. And in the prayer he prayed about things that there was absolutely no way in the world he could have known about me. Specific things that were going on in my life at that moment, issues that I was wrestling with God about. This guy didn’t know me from a bale of hay, yet he was praying for me like he’d been looking in on my life.

He said, “amen” and moved on. I was stunned. How could this night be any more stretching for me?

Over my shoulder I noticed a 20-something girl come in. She looked like she’d just come from dance class. The spandex outfit and skirt, hair pulled back in a pony tail. She carried a canvas tote bag. Reaching in, she pulled out a pair of toe shoes. Ballet shoes. After putting them on and tying them up, she slipped to the open area at the back of the room and began dancing. Elegant, graceful, skillful ballet moves. I was transfixed.

Turning back toward the front I said out loud to God, “I am so not in Iowa anymore.”

If all that we are familiar with is what’s familiar to us, we are missing out on beauty and blessings God wants us to experience. When we step out of the comfort zone and allow God to stretch us, we see more of Him. And since God is infinite, there’s a whole lot for us to see.

God is so much more than what we are familiar with.  He wants us to experience Him fully. It starts with going beyond what’s familiar to us. Let’s allow God to stretch us. In our worship style. In our thinking. In our ideas of Who He Is and how He relates to us.

Simply put, let’s allow God to define Himself and His relationship to us by His terms…and not ours.

“…I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” - John 10:10

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Do you have a green thumb and grow beautiful plants? Are you a whiz in the workshop, building lovely pieces of furniture? Are you a talented public speaker or a great cook? An expert teacher in your discipline?

How did you become good at what it is you’re good at?

Whatever it is we’re good at, part of the reason is that we learned from someone else. We were instructed. We were taught. Pick any field of study or any skill and you can be certain that the best and brightest didn’t get there on talent alone. The most talented surgeon learned techniques from other surgeons while in medical school. The most learned scholar was challenged to think by elementary, high school, and college teachers. The best jazz musicians, like Wynton Marsalis, studied technique and listened to the recordings of jazz greats like Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie.

Isaac Newton, one of the most brilliant men who ever lived said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

We are who we are because we’ve learned from someone else.

What about God?

The prophet Isaiah asked the rhetorical question, “Who taught God how to be God?” (Isaiah 40:13-14)

In theology, it’s known as “the freedom of God”. God is completely free and independent from His creatures and creation. Perfectly independent. To answer Isaiah’s rhetorical question, no one instructed God. God had no teacher. No one enlightened Him. Words you’ll never hear God say…

“So that’s how you do it!”

“Now I get it!”

“With a little practice, I think I’ll have it down.”

Or, “I have a question…”

We are who we are because we learned from someone else.

God is who He is because…He is Who He is. God is God. And He learned from no one.

Besides being an interesting theological concept, how does this relate to you and me? The freedom of God has everything to do with His relationship to us. Because God is self-sufficient, He is not obligated to us. We can never put Him in our debt because we have nothing that He needs. God will never owe us anything. We contribute nothing to Who He is. God is the only One who can stand on stage with the award in His hand and say with complete integrity, “I’d like to thank no one. Because it’s all about Me.”

When thought about in those terms, it can make God feel distant. A perfectly self-sufficient God who is independent and completely free from His creatures and creation. The correct assumption is that God does not need you or me. And it is this very freedom of God that blasts meaning into our relationship with Him.

God does not need a relationship with us. He wants a relationship with us.

God doesn’t love us out of obligation. In the freedom of His self-sufficiency, He chooses to love us with all of His being. God doesn’t watch over us and take care of our daily needs because we bailed Him out of a tough spot and He’s paying us back. God takes care of us because He wants to. God doesn’t stick with us because we helped him through a difficult period in His life and feels He owes us a debt of gratitude. God sticks with us because He wants to.

One might wonder, “If God is here with me because He wants to be and He doesn’t owe me anything, what’s to say He won’t leave someday?” God won’t leave us, not because of His lack of obligation to us, but because He is bound by His own perfection. 2 Timothy 2:12 says that “even if we are faithless, God remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.” God is bound by His own perfection. His volition is permanently attached to His perfect integrity. So when God says, “I will never leave you or forsake you”, it’s an eternal promise.

God doesn’t love you because He has to. He loves you because He wants to. In His freedom, the God who doesn’t need anything wants an intimate relationship with you. And with that desire, He brings everything He has to the relationship. Friendship. Courage. Peace. Forgiveness. Patience. A plan for your life that is grand and goes beyond what you can see. And it’s all wrapped up in a loyal love that will not let you go.

If we see further by standing on the shoulders of giants, how much further by standing on the shoulders of God?

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

For this Minnesota Vikings fan, the two pictures I saw recently were worth at least that many. And no small number of them were cuss words.

No worries. I didn’t say anything. Not out loud, anyway.

I was hanging out with my daughters at The Main Event. After the bowling and arcade games I was in the redemption store where one cashes in their tickets and points earned. In the corner of the store, within one matted frame were two 8×10 black and white photographs. The inscribed pewter plate read, “The Hail Mary Pass” – December 28, 1975″

The first picture: Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach unleashing a desperation pass in the face of the fierce rush of the Minnesota Vikings Purple People Eaters defense.

The second picture: Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson with arms outstretched. Waiting for the pass? Yes. But those arms were outstretched because he just finished pushing off on Viking defensive back Nate Wright, also in the picture, on his way to a face plant into the frozen turf.

The most offensive of offensive pass interference in the history of football.

For Vikings fans, there’s no need for a third picture. The nightmare image is laser burned into our memory. Drew Pearson, carrying the ball on his hip into the end zone like a kid caught with both hands in the cookie jar. He was looking over his shoulder for the flag that he and everyone at Metropolitan Stadium and everyone in the national television audience knew was coming.

The penalty flag he deserved.

The penalty flag that never came.

The biggest no-call in the history of Vikings football.

I’ve seen plenty of pictures of that game. But these two poured ink in my wound. They were autographed. Roger Staubach with a Sharpie attesting to his dumb luck and Drew Pearson signing a photographic confession of his guilt.

That Pearson later admitted he shoved his opponent down is of no comfort. Instead of going home to cry in their Texas-sized pillows like they should have, the Cowboys advanced in the playoffs while my worthy Viking heroes were deprived of their victory.

In talking with my friend Ed about my feelings on this travesty I said, “I think my tombstone is going to read, “Drew Pearson pushed”.

Though you don’t want to say it around longsuffering Minnesota Vikings fans, football is just a game. What happens when the penalty flags don’t get thrown in real life?

What happens when the money that is owed to you in a business transaction never comes because someone schemed and connived to steal it from you?

What happens when the promotion you have earned by hard work, education, achievement and proven track record is given to someone else…because they have the “right” last name?

What do you do when the person whose criminal actions do harm to your loved ones, yet they walk on a legal technicality?

What happens when someone purposely and falsely damages your reputation in order to prop up their own image?

It’s natural to be infuriated by the injustice. Where’s the flag? Somebody throw the flag!

But the flag never comes.

Worse, there appears to be no attitude of contrition on the part of the offender. It’s as if they have no conscience. God’s Word talks about this. Psalm 10:4 says, “The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks, “God won’t hold me accountable; He doesn’t care.” It’s that lack of accountability that makes us crazy for justice. We want the price to be paid and we want to see everything made right. And we want to see it made right …right now.

The difficult truth is that God doesn’t settle His accounts immediately. How we wish that He would. But He doesn’t. Will He eventually? Absolutely. God is a God of perfect justice. His character will not allow Him to ignore wrongs done. The day will come when every wrong done, big or small, will be made right. We can rely on God’s perfection for that.

The difference between us and God in matters of payback is that while we would punish the offender out of anger, God will judge fairly from His perfect justice. It’s impossible for you and I to equally possess opposite character qualities without compromising one or the other. As fallen human beings, We can’t be perfectly loving and perfectly angry at the same time. Something’s gotta give. In His time, however, God will judge our offender with
perfect justice without compromising the perfect love He has for that person.

So what to do while we wait for that day?

Resist the urge to play mental games of retribution. While there are momentary pleasures in contemplating the many possibilities of the word “smite” with regard to our enemy (e.g. Steinway pianos falling from the sky onto their head, etc) it’s best we leave that to God. In fact, it’s best for us to just plain “make room for God”. Among the most difficult acts of our will is to trust God with the judgement of those who have greatly damaged us. Yet God honors our yielding to Him with a peace that passes understanding. Someone bigger and infinitely more qualified will settle the account. We can forgive and go forward, knowing that God will someday make everything right.

Understand, “making room for God” is an ongoing process. Drew Pearson pushed off 34 years ago. It still makes me nuts to think about. And that was only a football game. Imagine our conversations with God regarding the deep wounds inflicted on us by another. We never get used to injustice in our lives. Yet making room for God makes it possible for us to live the abundant and abiding life He desires for us.

Stop looking for the flag.

Make room for God.

Then live in the space you made.

God will take care of your enemies.

“Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give place to God’s wrath, for it is written,  “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.” – Romans 12:19

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Do you sing? Do you play a musical instrument? Do you pray? Do you read the Bible? Do you dance?

These are all appropriate expressions of worship. (Yes, my Baptist friends, even dancing.)

Yet it seems that the best act of worship is one we often fail to do. Or even think about.

Our best act of worship is to be the person God made us to be.

It goes like this…

If we are created in the image of God (Genesis 1) and God had all our days written down in His book before there was yet one of them (Psalm 139) and He has prepared good works in advance for us to walk in as His workmanship in Christ (Ephesians 2) and that as His workmanship we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139), then being the person our Creator designed us to be with all our God-given gifts and talents and abilities (1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4) would be our best personal act of worship.

Think about the memorable people in your life. What do we say about them? We say, “There’s nobody like Susie.” Or “Jim is one of a kind”. Or “God broke the mold after He made Liz.” We say these words because these memorable people, in some way, are expressing their lives as only they could do.

What we don’t say about the memorable people in our lives is, “Bob. He’s so normal and average. He blends in perfectly. He’s so much like everyone else that it’s amazing.” No. Memorable people stand out because they display their unique personalities.

Yet how many of us spend enormous amounts of time trying to be like everyone else? How much time do we spend chasing other people’s dreams? To drive the car that everyone else wants to drive? To live in the big house and wear the same designer clothes? The irony of everything “designer” is that it makes us the same as everyone else sporting that label. The things we seek to set us apart just make us more like everyone else.

What if tomorrow everything “designer” disappeared? What would your world look like if everyone you know, including yourself, were truly being the person God made them to be? If everyone expressed themselves with a divine purity that captured the full palette of colorful personalities as God intended? What if everything we did to “be like someone else” so we could fit in and belong…ceased?

What would our world look like if we found our identity in Christ and our confidence in being the unique person God created us to be?

What would churches look like if preachers stopped trying to be like each other and started being themselves? What would missions organizations look like if the missionaries took their unique gifts in full expression to the lost they try to reach? What would church look like on Sunday morning if we all stopped putting on airs and started reflecting the image of God in our uniqueness as He designed us?

And I wonder…what would happen to the advertising industry if everyone suddenly became content with who God made them to be?

Your best act of worship is to be you. Not a cheap imitation of someone else. You glorify God when you are who He made you to be. With all your charm and quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Be the person God made you to be. It’s your best act of worship.

“God, I start this day by giving You my uniqueness. Use it any way you see fit. Help me to discover my uniqueness in You, to fully express the ways I am truly and fearfully and wonderfully made. That I would be a blessing to others by being the person You designed me to be. That I wouldn’t miss any opportunities by trying to be something I’m not, but rather experience the abundant life You promise by being fully who I am the way You made me.”

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Reflecting later on our visit, I realized that there is a common denominator for every person we wondered about. Our mental picture of that person is based on the status of our relationship with them at the time we last saw them.

A “freeze frame”, if you will.

When we last saw him he was the college prankster whose greatest resume notation would be “3-Time All-Dorm Butt Slide Champion”. 20 years later at the reunion we realize that somewhere along the way he learned to tie a Windsor knot and is now Vice-President of his company. Our mind tries to reconcile the person standing in front of us detailing the challenges facing his marketing department with our memory of him wearing underwear on his head while toasting everyone in German before chugging a macho mug of beer.

When we last saw her she was packing to study abroad, saying marriage and kids were fine for other people but not for her. 20 years later we find her on Facebook and discover she’s happily married with 5 children that are the joy of her life. As we stare at the profile photo of her beautiful family in matching jeans and white shirts we realize the picture we had in our mind is very different from her present reality.

Our lives, and the people in it, ebb and flow. People come and people go. We don’t do it consciously, but quite naturally “freeze frame” people in our mind. The image is frozen on the last thing we remember of them. That freeze frame can be good or bad, silly or sad.

It can also be dangerous.

If the note we parted company on was a sour one, we’ve likely spent a lot of years remembering them as the person who hurt us. Deceived us. Broke our hearts. Damaged us. Abandoned us. Their wrong done to us is a freeze frame in our mind.

As individuals who look at ourselves in the mirror each day, we’re constantly aware that we are in process. Constantly aware of where we are growing and where we are stuck. We are aware of how much we’ve changed and what God has done in our lives. We aren’t the person we used to be.

Neither is the person we freeze framed.

With everyone, and particularly with those who have wronged us, we need to allow for and extend the same grace we extend to ourselves. The grace that says we aren’t the same person we used to be. We’ve grown and we’ve changed. God is making us into something better.

God is likely making them into something better, too.

And if 20 years later we discover the one who wronged us hasn’t changed a bit? If we discover our freeze frame is an accurate image of the hurtful, deceiving person we remember…what then? Did we waste our time giving them the benefit of the doubt?

Nope.

Nothing wasted.

All we did is spare ourselves 20 years of anger, grudge bearing and unforgiveness.

When we extend grace we always come out ahead.

One way or another.

“For I am convinced that God will continue to perfect the good work He began in you until the day of Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 1:6

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

It is an ordinary moment in the kitchen. Standing and talking around the island. We should probably sit down in the living room for a conversation such as this. But that’s the thing about a home…no matter how many rooms there are in the house, everyone always ends up in the kitchen.

It’s an ordinary kitchen moment at the end of an ordinary Wednesday. Not unlike countless ordinary kitchen moments this couple will experience in decades to come. Lindsey just home from work, still dressed in her scrubs. Philip, running late because air compressors don’t care about your schedule and will break down when they feel like it.

Here they stand, side by side; him holding Asher and she leaning close.

They met at Krispy Kreme. Co-workers who for a couple years experienced a secret crush for each other. Says Philip, “I saw how friendly she was with the customers. Wherever I was in the store I could look over and see her smile.” He pauses to switch Asher to his other arm. “Her smile…it melts me like butter.”

Lindsey smiles big at this and I watch to see if we’re going to have melted Philip all over the floor.

“Lindsey is everything I’ve ever looked for in a girl. She has such an upbeat attitude and she’s so sweet.” And he’s right, of course. She is so sweet.

His compliments are wonderful to her. Yet perhaps not unlike the sugary Krispy Kreme donuts, too many too fast and it’s more than one can handle. Lindsey doesn’t know what to do with his praise. She appears lost for a second. When it comes to compliments, it’s easier to give than to receive.

Philip isn’t done giving, though. He looks me in the eye and says, “She inspires me to be a better person.”

Could anything better be said about you? That you inspire someone to be a better person?

When I ask Lindsey to tell me about the man who will become her husband in a couple days, she says, “He’s the best guy I’ve ever met. When I’m with him, I’m happy. He is an amazing father to Asher.” Hearing herself describe the admirable qualities of her man, the mist in her eyes turns to rain.

Philip leans in and kisses her cheek. With gentle kindness he smiles and says softly, “You’re salty.” She laughs and wipes her eyes and they give each other a squeeze.

No doubt the friends and family witnessing this wedding have an abundance of wisdom and life experience to offer this young couple. Philip and Lindsey will do well to seek it out and apply it to their lives and relationship. Yet I can’t help but think that just maybe they have in this moment demonstrated the best wisdom any of us could offer.

If at the end of every day, be it ordinary or extraordinary, red letter or mundane, they will stand together in the kitchen, lean up against the counter and tell each other every wonderful thing they appreciate; that they will for a moment indulge in love and compliments till they blush and tears come. That soft words will be spoken and hugs will happen until the stress of life is squeezed away. If at the end of every day what happens in the kitchen is so wonderful that whatever happens outside the kitchen won’t matter.

Or as Philip said as he pulled Lindsey close, “I just know that if I’m with her, everything’s gonna be good.”

An ordinary moment in the kitchen. An ordinary moment of extraordinary love. No matter how many rooms there will be in your house someday, I pray you’ll always come back to the kitchen for moments like this.

God’s biggest blessings to you on this your wedding day. In the months and years to come, I hope we all get to come to your kitchen and see you side by side, the couple that God has brought together in love.

For love.

For always.

“We love because God first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Some said it was an easy call. All one had to do was look at his life. The bizarre behavior. The out of court settlements in the face of multiple child molestation allegations. Others said there was nothing to indicate he was a believer in Christ. Never heard about him going to church. And hey, what about the apparent addictions to drugs and his obsession with plastic surgery?

Still others said there was no “fruit” in his life that would indicate he was “saved”.

For sake of discussion, let’s suppose that all these observations of Michael Jackson’s life are true.

My question is: How does any or all of that qualify you or me or anyone to arrive at the conclusion that Michael Jackson didn’t go to heaven?

I find it interesting that the Biblical truth of “man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7) is easily pushed aside by Christians when they want to judge someone whose lifestyle is radically different than their own. Case in point, I didn’t hear anyone speculating about celebrity TV pitchman Billy Mays going to hell. To read the newspaper accounts in the same week, we don’t know any more about his spiritual condition than Michael Jackson’s. I guess it’s easier to make assumptions about someone who dresses weird and is accused of child molestation than it is about someone who made big money hawking OxiClean.

Does anyone, especially a Christian, really want to go there? Do we really want to put ourselves in a position to speculate, let alone say with certainty, that someone has gone to hell?

Think about it. If hell is as horrible as we think it is and heaven is as wonderful as we hope it is, why would anyone, especially Christians, work so hard to argue that someone went down instead of up?

That’s the part that stinks to me. Christians who seem bent on wanting to claim that someone went to hell based strictly on what they see or think they know. Where does that attitude come from?

What is it in us that makes us want to believe the worst instead of the best when it comes to the eternal destiny? Especially the eternal destiny of someone whose lifestyle we don’t approve? If we’re going to speculate, why not give God and Michael Jackson the benefit of the doubt? Since we can’t possibly know, why not say, “I hope Michael made his peace with God at some point in his life” instead of “There was obviously no indication that he was saved.” Wouldn’t hoping for the best be the Christian thing to do? Especially since to be genuinely “Christian” is supposed to mean being “Christ-like”? Wasn’t it Jesus who said He came to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10) and that God’s desire is that “no one should perish” (2 Peter 3:9)?

If we desire to have the heart of Christ, this judgmental thinking makes no sense. So there must be something in it for us when we’re determined to judge in this way.

Some say quite strongly, “The Bible says, “You will know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.” (Matthew 7:16-18) Those are Jesus’ words. Except in context they have nothing to do with salvation. Jesus was warning of false prophets who “come as wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15). He wasn’t talking about fruit or lack of it in one’s life as an indication of salvation.

(I know, I know…putting Bible verses in their proper and accurate context really messes up our proof-texting.)

I’ve always wondered about Christians’ desires to be “fruit inspectors”. Especially when it comes to determining one’s eternal destiny. The problems are obvious and many. Who decides how much fruit is enough? Who decides what kind of fruit is acceptable? And on the question of bad fruit, how much rottenness is enough to disqualify you? Is once in awhile sin that you confess and repent of ok? Is white lie and anger bad fruit ok as long as you ask forgiveness and don’t cross the line into drunkenness and homosexuality? What if your sin is an addiction? How much chronic sin before you’re marked with an “X” as a bad tree that gets cut down and burned up?

What if you’re doing everything right as far as you know, but the fruit inspectors from the next church over who don’t drink, smoke, cuss, chew or go with girls that do think your fruit leaves something to be desired?

When we decide to be fruit inspectors our tendency is to use the fruit on our tree as the standard of measure for everyone else. The irony is that earlier in that same chapter (Matthew 7) Jesus begins by saying, “Do not judge, lest you be judged. For whatever standard of measure you use, it will be measured to you.” In other words, if you want to hold people to a high standard, go ahead. Just remember God will use the same answer key when He evaluates you.

In wondering why we seem bent on believing the worst, is it possible that if we believe the best it takes away the pleasure we derive from judging others? If we believe another’s fruit might just be acceptable then we can’t feel superior about what’s growing on our tree.

There’s an insidious pride that can take root in the most devout Christian. We labor in holding high the standard of righteousness as we reason it to be. And if we’re not careful, in the process we end up looking down on everyone else. We begin to fruit inspect and compare sins. Comparing our sins against the sins of others is a deadly waste of time. Sin has but one degree; separation from God. The problem when we “fruit inspect” is that we confuse the consequences of sin with the degree of sin. Stealing office supplies from your employer will have different consequences than murdering someone. Yet apart from the forgiveness of Christ, the former will send you to hell just as fast as the latter. We’re all sinners and we all need Christ. Or as author and Southern Baptist preacher Will Campbell so eloquently paraphrased Romans 5:8, “We’re all bastards. But God loves us anyway.”

Bottom line truths:

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to God but through Him. (John 14:6)

To believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be saved. (Acts 16:31)

No human being can know what is in the heart of another person. Ever. God is the only One who looks on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)

No one but God knows what was in Michael Jackson’s heart. No one knows what one on one conversation the two of them may have had when he was a child. No one knows what last second prayer was or was not uttered in the final seconds of his life. No one knows but God. We would be very wise to remember that.

As to “fruit”, the thief on the cross had no opportunity to produce any. Yet Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

When I wonder about Michael Jackson, that verse gives me hope.

“It’s been said the three biggest surprises in heaven will be who’s there, who’s not there, and that you’re there.”

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

The guy in the parking lot is carrying a lot of stuff. Too much stuff. Under each arm and in both hands. As long as he doesn’t lean too far side to side, forward or back, he will keep his balance. But he’s starting to lose his grip. Instead of stopping to get a firmer one he just walks faster in hopes of getting to his car in time.

He makes it, but instead of setting all the bags down on the trunk while he pulls keys out of his pocket, he chooses to hang on to the two under his arm and the one in his left hand. That’s when his juggling act luck ran out.

Clean up in the parking lot.

Watching from a distance, it looks like a no-brainer. Set the bags down, dude. Free up your hands. But he thinks he can hang on to it all and still make it work.

Sound familiar?

In a recent phone conversation with my friend Steve Evers, Director of In-Touch Mission International, he related some of the overwhelming challenges their organization has faced in recent years. Circumstances that made him feel inadequate to the task at hand. God-sized problems that required a God-sized solution.

In sharing, Steve said something profound. “I prayed. I said, “God, make me big enough to let go of whatever it is that’s making me too small to handle this.”

Wow.

“God, make me big enough to let go of whatever it is that’s making me too small to handle this.”

Could it be that in our insistence on trying to carry it all, we’re making ourselves too small to handle the task at hand? Could it be that our refusal to let go is what’s keeping us from attaining the results and stature God desires for us?

God, make us big enough to let go of our pride that makes us too small to be genuine leaders.

God, make us big enough to let go of our grudges that make us too small to forgive and forget and forge ahead.

God, make us big enough to let go of our selfishness that makes us too small to be generous with others.

God, make us big enough to let go of our self-sufficiency that makes us too small to enjoy the blessings you want to give us.

God, make us big enough to let go of our arrogance that makes us too small to live and love with humility.

What are you holding on to that’s making you too small to handle your situation?

Ask God to make you big enough to let go of whatever it is that’s making you too small.

Then watch what God will do with your freed up hands.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.” - Matthew 11:28-30

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Now they pick their outfits on their own. Smartly dressed in pink and orange, wearing their white high heel sandals which make them feel oh so grown up, it’s off to church. I teach a lesson from Genesis 15 about God’s unconditional promise made to Abram. That no matter what, God always delivers on His promises, even if the timing seems strange to us. Then in to worship and preaching that reminds us not to lose our heart or forget our first Love, that being Jesus who saves us.

A Father’s Day lunch at Pei Wei which, given the day, isn’t crowded at all. We sit at our favorite spot on the bar chairs by the counter so we can watch them stir fry while we partake of our Ginger Broccoli and Teriyaki Chicken. And for whatever else my kids will remember about me, I think they will remember that it was always my job to put the chopstick holders on their chopsticks so they can eat their Lo Mein noodles without a fork.

A quick stop at home. The girls, being girls, want to change from high heels to flip flops. A peek at Facebook shows lots of friends talking about the fabulous Dad’s Day lunches they are enjoying. Everything from slow roasted pulled pork to Mexican feasts. When it comes to fathers, you can’t miss with food.

It’s a happy day for all I know. Or so it seems until I open an email from Steve Tracy. A friend and former grad school professor, he emails to say his father has been found unconscious on the floor of a parking garage. He is in the hospital and not expected to survive. And this less than 24 hours before Steve and Celestia are to fly to Africa to minister there.

Reading his email, I can feel his wonder about the timing of it all.

I pray for Steve and his family on the way to Carillon House. It’s our weekly visit to bring flowers and talk with our elderly friends.

“What are we here to do, girls?”, I ask the way I always ask as we pull into the parking lot.

“Serve each other with love!”, they respond in twin sync.

And serve they do. Filling vases with water, replacing the old flowers with new Astrolemerias of white, burgundy, purple, yellow and orange. They are engaging the residents and extended families alike. I tell them how proud I am. Emma looks at me and says, “Daddy, I’m on a roll.” And she disappears with vase in hand, off to greet a new patient. Of her own accord she, at home, painted over 20 handmade watercolor signs that read, “I love you! Love, Emma”. Whether she knows them or not, they get an “I love you” to tape up on their wall.

An elevator up to the 4th floor to Vista Care Hospice. It’s quiet up here today. Only three patients. We’ll be in and out quickly. The twins head down the hall with the flowers when I call to Emma, “Hey, look. You have exactly three signs left.”

A few minutes later and we are about to leave. A 30-something woman walks past the nurses’ station, carrying Emma’s “I love you” sign.

“Are you Emma? Are you the one who gave me the flowers and this note?”

“I want to thank you for that. It’s a very nice thing you did. Thank you for the flowers.”

“You’re welcome.” I glance at Annie. She is staring at the woman’s eyes. I look, too. They are full of tears. The kind that are doing everything they can to stay put.

I quietly ask, “Who’s here?”

“My Dad.”

“What’s his name?”

“Mando….Armando…”

What do you do? What do you say when someone else’s Father’s Day is watching their Dad die before the day is done?

Interesting how life and death moments transcend familiarity. We are strangers. Yet we both have Dads. Hers is dying. What more needs to be known? I give her a big hug. “I’m sorry. I’ll pray for you.”

She thanks me and gives her tears permission to run. Emma’s paper “I Love You” in hand, she heads back to her father’s room.

Today some Dads opened cards and gift boxes of cologne and neckties. Some went to church with their families and ate steak and potatoes and chocolate pie and took a Sunday afternoon nap. Others, like my friend Steve Tracy and like Armando’s daughter, spent the day by the bed of their dying fathers. It’s a sobering thought and honestly one I can’t relate to. I wonder about the timing of it all.

And in the wondering I have no answers. Just a hope and a faith that God is here. On this Father’s Day, He is here for it all. God is here for the singing at church and the family photos and the BBQ lunches. God is here for the Hallmark cards and the gifts of soap on a rope. And He’s here for the tears of the grieving for whom this Father’s Day is the last day they’ll spend with their Dad this side of heaven.

God is here for it all.

“Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” - 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more – or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.” – Revelation 21:4

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

A passerby asked, “Where do you think you dropped it?”

“Oh, I didn’t lose it here.”

“If you didn’t lose it here, why are you looking for it under this street light?”

To which the man replied, “Because the light is better here.”

In our pursuit of personal and spiritual growth it’s easy to live in the illuminated areas of our life. Our strengths are fun to operate from and even display to others. We like brightly shining familiarity. And we are comforted by the confidence that flows from operating in areas of competence and mastery.

Vocationally speaking, a gifted mechanic is never more at home than when he is on a crawler under a car, trouble shooting a problem. A surgeon is never more at home than when she has scalpel in hand. Or as one of my surgeon friends used to tell me, “A chance to cut, a chance to heal.” One who is all charm and goodness in their social graces loves the opportunity to work a room full of people, helping others feel at ease.

We like our personal strengths. They are well lit areas.

Yet what about our weaknesses? What about the genuine deficiencies in our character?

We tend not to shine a light on those. We prefer to look where the light is better.

If what we’re looking for is deeper character, a richer and more genuine relationship with God, then we’ve got to go where the light isn’t good. Those shadowy hidden places in our being where our weaknesses live. That’s where we’ll find what we’ve lost. Failings that caused us to lose our heart. Sins that caused us to lose our credibility. Blame, unforgiveness and pain that we have become addicted to. Fears that have stolen our courage.

And behind all those, the lying enemy whose evil purpose is to steal our Hope and keep us from understanding our true identity in Jesus Christ.

It won’t happen under the street light. We’ve got to go to the dark place to find what we’ve lost. Yet when we decide to go (and it is our decision to make) Jesus goes with us. He walks with us in the dark places, giving us strength to face our fears, faults and failings. And because He promised never to leave us or forsake us, we’re never alone in the dark place.

Though it might be difficult to imagine, no One wants you to experience an abundant life more than Jesus. He said Himself, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) The abundant life can’t happen without going into the dark places to vanquish the past that is holding you back from your future. It’s not an easy battle. But Jesus is ready and waiting and chomping at the bit to go there with you and kick some devil butt.

The enemy wants to keep you looking under the street lamp. The light’s great but there’s nothing to find. Jesus wants to take you into the dark place and reclaim everything that was lost and stolen so you can experience His abundant life.

Praying that you’ll choose to take the light of Jesus into your dark place.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” - Psalm 139:23-24

“Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.You’ve got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.” - Bruce Cockburn, “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

I can’t point to chapter and verse, but my conviction is that when we get to heaven we’ll get a hug from Jesus and a Krispy Kreme doughnut hot off the rack. Anything that scrumptious has to come from God’s kitchen.

If you have tasted a fresh Krispy Kreme, you understand my theology. If you have not tasted a fresh Krispy Kreme, your quest awaits you. Drive till you find one. Trust me, your road trip will be rewarded.

This morning Annie and Emma and I saw the orange light on at Krispy Kreme. That means fresh hot doughnuts…right now. If Pavlov had used an orange neon light and Krispy Kremes, his dog would have made that bell connection after only one Original Glazed.

When the orange light is on and you go inside, they hand you a Krispy Kreme. Can you believe? They hand you a doughnut. Fresh and free. Baptized seconds earlier with sweet sugar glaze, you feel the heat through the wax paper…thank you, Jesus! Could there be a better “welcome!” in a store? Where else do they do that? Walk into Joe’s Crab Shack and they don’t hand you a shrimp cocktail to munch on while you’re deciding what to order.

Annie and Emma and I are watching the entire process through the glass. The doughnuts rolled and shaped, they go into the “puffer machine”. An enclosed heated oven containing a slow moving vertical conveyor. Inside the puffer machine the yeast activated dough rises. When they leave the puffer they fall into a river of hot oil where they are fried at 350 degrees till the bottom side is done and they get flipped over to finish the other side.

Then the fun part. A waterfall of white icing. The perfect finish to the perfect doughnut.

When operating at full capacity, the local Krispy Kreme store can make 270 dozen doughnuts an hour. 3,240 circles of sugar rush. Allowing for the 3 hours in the middle of the night where they shut down to clean the equipment, they can make 68,040 delicious doughnuts a day.

Taking it all in this morning it occurred to me that my favorite doughnuts wouldn’t be my favorite doughnuts without the entire process. A hot oven isn’t a pleasant experience, yet without the heat to raise the dough, the end result would be flat and crusty. Being dumped and flipped in boiling oil? Not fun. But necessary. You can flash the orange light from dawn till dark and no one will pull in to be handed raw dough with a sugar glaze.

As a person being pressed and squeezed and swimming in the deep fryer of life right now, I’m not enjoying the process. It’s like the conveyor is stuck. I can see the frosting fountain but it isn’t getting any closer. Or so it seems. I know I’m learning. I know I’m growing. But it’s not fun. I’m tired of it. Yet God is reminding me, through His Word and through my advisors, counselors and friends, that the process is necessary. God is committed to the quality of the end product. In fact, He is eternally determined. Nothing will sway Him to compromise the process that is preparing me for His purposes.

Wherever you’re at in your process, God is committed to His perfect end result. When will you get glazed? Only He knows. Maybe He’s preparing you to be extra special, like one of those injected Raspberry filled Krispy Kremes. (But that whole injection thing is an analogy for another time…)

Hang in there. God is at work in you.

“For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes. For whom He did foreknow, these He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn of many brethren.” – Romans 8:28-29

“Being confident of this, that He Who began a good work in you will be faithful to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 1:6

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Why she picked that road, I don’t know.

And why she brought her kids along was beyond me.

From everything I could see, she didn’t have the sense God gave a goose.

Eastbound on the frontage road at the perpetually busy intersection of Loop 289 and Quaker. I’m braking quickly for one of this town’s unsynchronized red lights. Just another aggravation on a day full of frustration in the middle of two weeks of nothing going right.

As I am about to sit and seethe, she appears. To my left in the crosswalk that isn’t really a crosswalk is a momma Mallard duck, pointed south.

What the heck? A duck? Here?

And she’s crossing.

With seven fuzzy down ducklings in a straight line behind her.

Are you kidding me?

“Don’t do it! Awww….you’re doing it! You can’t cross here! No one can see you!”

To her credit, she looks both ways. That’s better than most drivers in this town.

“God, please no. My day’s already horrible. I don’t need to see something killed in front of me.”

The guy to my right is in a red Ford F-150 pickup. He’s stopped. Oblivious, but stopped.

I look to the third lane over. Here comes Grandma. In a white Crown Victoria. Why do little old ladies drive the biggest cars? Grandma is sitting so low in the seat that she views the road through the space inside the steering wheel. Worse, she’s wearing those oversized wrap around welder goggles that Walgreen’s passes for sunglasses. She couldn’t see a duck if it was riding shotgun with her.

Momma Mallard is now in the middle of the crosswalk. The ducklings are following fearlessly behind. Because traffic lights in Lubbock are all set to “random”, she might have enough time to get her kids all the way to Quick Quack Car Wash. Or in two seconds it could become the duck death march. In the stoplight world of the Hub City, you just never know.

“Dang it, God. I don’t need to see squished duck today. A little help here, please!”

Grandma got the Crown Vic stopped. She may have been able to see Big Bird in front of that car but no way a duck. She has no idea that if she punches it on the green light a bunch of little quackers will never grow up to do something as dumb as their mother.

I can’t see them anymore. The light turns green and part of me wants to just go and not look.

But I don’t go and I do look.

No feathers on the asphalt.

They made it.

How they made it, I don’t know.

But they made it.

Now that it’s over…wow. Relief. That was really something to see. I haven’t smiled in three days but I’m smiling now.

Five minutes earlier I’d been driving down the freeway engaged in angry prayer with God. Like where is He in the middle of all my junk? Could He maybe say something? Maybe speak up and let me know He’s there? And is He hearing anything that I’ve been talking to Him about for, oh…I don’t know…the last 2 years??? Like maybe He could show up anytime now to help me out?

And just to be fair, to give Him time to think about everything I just said, I’m going to pull in to the Post Office and check my mail.

Until another clueless driver forces me out of my lane and makes me miss my turn.

“Good grief, God. I can’t even check my mail without backtracking two miles! Are You having fun? Because I’m not. I need some help here! Something. My head knows, but my heart could really use some encouragement…

…I need to know you’re going to take care of me.”

And that’s when He showed me the ducks.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food , and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” – Matthew 6:25-26

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

On the way to the fireplace bricks, where we like to sit for such moments, Emma bumped her knee. It wasn’t even a scratch or a scrape and certainly nothing that merited the drama she was presenting. But then this is a kid who thinks she needs New Skin liquid bandage for a mosquito bite.

So we sit down on the bricks and I get one kid on each knee. Annie says she wants to pray first. “God, thank you for this day and for all the things you give us. I pray for Emma’s knee…

…God…I just lift her hurtness up to heaven.“

That’s it, isn’t it? That’s intercessory prayer as defined by an 8-year old. Lifting someone’s hurtness up to heaven.

In the course of your day you and I will engage with people at different levels of familiarity. Some will be intimately close to us. Others will be friends. Some acquaintances. Some strangers. Some will be point of sale transactions that consist of “press enter, please” and “thanks for shopping, have a good day.”

The common denominator? All have “hurtness” that needs lifting up to heaven.

In your life there are people who’ve just lost someone they love. A granite headstone marks the end of that earthly relationship. There’s a void in their every day. Lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There are couples you know who everyone points to as being the marriage they admire. Yet behind the white picket illusion are two people caught in the crazy cycle of conditional love and disrespect. Their relationship is spinning into a death spiral. Lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There’s a person you know who is always there for everyone. They give and give and give and always with a smile. Yet their servant’s heart is weary and they wonder if and when anyone will care enough to ask if they’ve got anything left in the tank. Write them a note of encouragement. And lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There’s a person in your church who’s all handshakes and hugs on Sunday morning who drives home in tears because she wants to go to church as a couple instead of a single. Lift her hurtness up to heaven.

There’s someone in your life who daily battles an addiction. Sometimes one minute at a time. Lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There’s someone in your life who’s doing everything they know to do yet still feel like they are losing the fight. Success is just around the corner that never seems to get turned. Lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There are people in your life in bondage to fear. Their past emotional wounds have locked them into thought patterns making it near impossible to imagine a life of joy and hope. Remind them that the future is their friend. And lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There are elderly people in your life who can no longer “do”. They can only “be”. They sit quietly alone wondering if their life is of significance to anyone. They are frustrated by minds and bodies that no longer function the way they used to. Go visit them. Ask them to tell you about their life. And lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There’s someone in your life who suffers from chronic pain. The medications that offer relief also handcuff them to dependency. Lift their hurtness up to heaven.

There’s someone in your life who’s just been severely let down by someone they thought they could count on. They feel like they are trapped in a revolving door of disappointment. Determine to be a person they can trust. And lift their hurtness up to heaven.

Often we overestimate what we can do and underestimate what God can do. When we intercede for others by lifting their hurtness to heaven, we bring their hurtness to God; the One who can do anything.

We can pray for people. God can heal people.

We can encourage people. God can change people.

We can point people to God. God will point them to Himself. In Him they, which is to say all of us, will find His abundant life.
   
As you go through your day, intercede for others.

Lift their hurtness up to heaven.

“Cast all your cares on God, for He cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:7

  
Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

“Why is it so hard for people to just admit they were wrong?”

He was venting over a recent situation in his consulting business. Someone had scheduled an appointment with him, several appointments actually, and no-showed every time. For him, as for everyone in business, a no-show costs double. The lost opportunity of the missed appointment and the lost opportunity to schedule another customer in that time slot.

“What galls me”, said my friend, “was their flimsy attempt to place their irresponsibility on me. They obviously don’t care that they stole my time.”

What is it in us that makes us loathe to take responsibility for our actions?

It is our inherent nature since the fall of man to blame someone else for our sins. Adam blamed God and Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. And as the old joke goes, the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Years ago I was entertaining some friends in my home. Their 4-year old son was playing with a stuffed animal he had brought with him, tossing it high into the air then trying to catch it on the way down. His parents noticed that it was flying dangerously close to the ceiling fan which, being the dead of summer, was spinning on high. They told him to stop. He ignored their warning and a couple throws later Mr. Bunny was G-force fan bladed into the wall.

I looked to the kid to see what his reaction would be. I expected sorrow and remorse for ignoring his parents’ caution. But instead he stuck out his jaw, clenched his teeth and with waving accusatory finger yelled, “Bad fan! That’s a bad, bad fan!”

In our current politically correct Western culture, we’ve done everything we can to change God’s black and white to shades of gray. Gray is softer on our conscience. It’s not stealing anymore. It’s “misappropriation of funds”. As if the money was simply placed into the wrong drawer and we forgot where we put it. It’s not a terrorist attack anymore. It’s a “human caused disaster”. Which, if you follow that logic, means a farmer whose barn burns down because someone forgot to put out a cigarette is on the same moral level as hijackers who fly planes into buildings. Also popular among the methods of attempting to avoid taking responsibility for our failures is to give them a psychological name and attach the word “syndrome” to the end of it. Because if it’s a sickness, then we’re not responsible.

Yet when we’re ready to get real with ourselves, we discover the most important reason for taking responsibility for our sins. Taking responsibility is the only way to fully experience the grace and forgiveness of God. Jesus didn’t give His life for us because we were sick. Jesus gave His life for us because we were dead. Dead in our sins. Or as Paul put it, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” (Romans 6:23)

We are never more liberated than when our true confession meets God’s grace.

In our dealings with ourself and others this week, let’s stop blaming the fan.

And remember who tossed the bunny.

“When we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

“It was the evening of February 3 and I had spent the past 36 hours or so traveling from Milwaukee to Colorado via Orange City. There were five others, both old and new Northwestern College friends, who traveled with me for a weekend of skiing and camping in Rocky Mountain National Park. On this particular evening I found myself standing in the moonlight in a deep valley surrounded by the high peaks of the national mountain range. We knelt, we prayed, we were passionate, and there was power – a power that I seldom feel while embedded in the mundane. Power. Violence. Passion. Whatever you want to call it, I felt it.

And then, no less than two minutes later I found myself expounding on the elk shit we had all knelt in.

Passion – and what a paradox I am to it. At that very moment I again became painfully aware of my true nature as a fallen, yet Christian man. What a commentary on my life – even my passionate moments, albeit few and far between, are lived from the dung heap. And yet it is paradox that comes to my rescue. For while by nature I am repulsive to God, He has chosen to see me as His righteousness. It haunts me yet. May grace like this haunt me the rest of my life.”

You’ve likely never knelt in elk scat. But I bet Bill’s words resonate with you, as they do me. We’ve all been there. Passionate worship on a Sunday morning and before you can get out of the church parking lot you’re yelling at your kids for fighting in the backseat…and the paradox is clear. You finish a moving time of conversation and reflection with God at 8 AM and by 10 AM the wheels have fallen off your day and the paradox is clear. You thank God for an answer to prayer and before the breath of relief leaves your lungs you get an email from a friend saying the cancer has spread. Anger and doubt roll in like a tidal wave, burying your faith and confidence in God.

And the paradox is clear.

A danger for any of us who desire to take God and our relationship with Him seriously is to believe success depends on us. We read in the Bible that we are to “love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength”. Indeed, God desires us to love Him with all of our being. He loves our passion. Yet this side of heaven we, as Bill so wonderfully penned, give our mightiest efforts as from the dung heap.

It is true that the paradox that frustrates us is the same paradox that rescues us. Grace finds us in the dung heap. We love God and others with all our imperfect heart, yet it’s God’s grace in our imperfections that accomplish His purposes. We love God with all our doubt-ridden, hurting soul, yet it’s God’s spirit living in us that gives meaning to our lives. We love God with all our feeble short-sighted mind, yet it is God’s grace and the mind of Christ that prevail for our good and His glory. We love God with all our puny strength, yet it’s God’s mighty hand that lifts us up and sets our feet on higher ground.

The paradox is clear. Our most passionate moments are lived from the dung heap. Yet God’s grace finds us, and transforms us, as we kneel there. It is grace to our rescue. Because God has chosen to see us as His righteousness.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” - Romans 5:1-2

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com