Cottonwood - Thompson Farm - Swea City, IA

Under pressure? Feeling squeezed?

Me, too.

Do you like it?

Me, neither.

Pressure. Squeezed. Pressed. In the vice. However you describe it, I hate it.

So how about we just eliminate it?

No more pressure. Badda boom. Badda bing. It’s gone.

While waving my mental magic wand, I thought about what life would look like without pressure. To not be squeezed would be refreshing. Yet if all pressure was truly gone, life wouldn’t be as we know it. In the immediate moment, I wouldn’t be writing this column on a computer. Because the plastics in my laptop had to be melted down and squeezed through an injection mold. If you knew how bad my handwriting is, you’d know how thankful to be for my typing.

In fact, everything we deem functional, useful, or otherwise serving a valuable or needed purpose has undergone some form of pressure that result in their usefulness.

If it’s made of wood it’s been sawed, carved, routed, sanded, grooved, planed, pressure treated, or cured to achieve it’s intended purpose. Metal is heated, molten and poured. And those favorite denim jeans you wear didn’t grow that way on the cotton plant. Cloth has to be woven, dyed, cut, and stitched before it becomes clothing.

Muscle grows when it is stressed to the point of being torn at the cellular level. When amino acids and proteins repair the tear, it builds back bigger than it was before. The ache you feel the day after a workout is proof that you’ve put your body under pressure.

In God’s creation, at the most basic cellular level, pressure is the norm. Have you ever wondered how a tree is as green at the top as it is at the bottom? Especially with no pump to get the water from the roots to the leaves? It’s called “turgor pressure”. It involves the adhesion and cohesion of water molecules and the building up of pressure within the individual cell wall. Water travels up the xylem tubes in the tree through this pressure. That the top of the tree is as healthy as the bottom assumes unbelievable constant pressure that causes water to flow to the top. Increase the diameter of the tree and the pressure required to keep the plant healthy increases. Imagine the turgor pressure within a Redwood that’s 35 feet in diameter and 300 feet tall.

Without turgor pressure, the tree dies. Growth requires pressure. And greater growth means increased pressure. The hard truth my comfort seeking self doesn’t want to hear but can’t avoid is that I can’t grow as a person or a Christ follower without pressure. You and I can’t have a cutting edge faith without enduring trials. No missionary returns from the field with exciting testimonies of comfortable circumstances. Without pressure, there’s no growth.

In Romans 5:3, Paul says, “we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance”. The Greek word Paul uses for “sufferings” is “thlipsis”. It means “a squeezing pressure”. Paul knew a thing or two about being squeezed. Shipwrecked, beat up, imprisoned, falsely accused and put on trial, Paul was familiar with pressure. Yet he says that this squeezing pressure produces endurance. In describing this endurance, Paul chose to use the word  “hupomone”. It’s an endurance that actively seeks to overcome the trials of life. In Paul’s life the squeezing pressure produced an endurance of character that was able to say “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

Pressure. You hate it. I hate it. But it’s how we grow. And if our aspirations are to grow taller in life and character and effectiveness then it requires even more pressure.

The good news is that if God can grow a tree, He can grow us, too. Whatever “squeezing pressure” you’re experiencing, remember it’s part of God’s plan to make you more of who He desires you to be.

And while you’re remembering that for you, maybe drop me a note and remind me of the same truth.

We’re all in this together.

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

It’s remarkable how we can know how slim the odds are and yet be so enticed by the possibility. We’ve put our coins in the slot before, certain that it would be the one to push many over the ledge only to watch it slide aside and become just another coin on the shiny brushed metal platform. How can it not work? There are coins at the precipice, literally stacked up on each other.  George Washington and 33 of his twenty-five cent friends leaning over the ledge, defying the laws of physics. How can it be that my quarter can’t give them the nudge they need to take the plunge?

I was thinking about my life the other day and realizing that, if I’m honest, sometimes when I pray I feel like I’m standing in front of the coin pusher. The blessings are at the ledge. They are stacked on top of each other. And it’s my prayer, strategically placed, that will bump the blessings into my life.

Yet sometimes it feels like my prayer just slides aside into a sea of previously prayed and still unanswered prayers. How can it be? The blessings. They seem so close. I can see them. Yet after all my effort and all my prayers these blessings stack up on the ledge of my life. How can they be so close and yet so far away? Maybe just one more prayer. Or one more week or month of petitioning God will give Him the nudge He needs to bump them over the edge and into my reality.

And still they sit. Piled up on the ledge, refusing to drop into my life.

Frustrating, isn’t it? Maddening, even.

So we think, “Maybe I’m not praying the right way.” We search and scour the Bible to see if there’s something we are missing. God says“we have not because we ask not”. So we ask. He says “not to worry about anything but with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving we are to make our requests known” to Him. So we try that, being careful to say lots of “please” and “thank you” as we go. Then we read the parable about the woman who wouldn’t stop pounding on the judge’s door till she got her hearing. So we try pounding on the door, praying with importunity.

As the frustration builds, we even scream and yell. Maybe even cuss. (Though I don’t expect you to admit that like I just did. I’m probably the only one who’s ever done that.)

We may even cry. Out of frustration. Or exhaustion.

And finally we sit in silence.

At least that’s what it’s like for me. I can’t speak for you.

And as the prayers go unanswered and the blessings seemingly taunt me from the ledge, I don’t know what else to do. Everything in my heart has been expressed to God a hundred times in a hundred different ways. There’s nothing left to say. Or as I told a friend some months ago, “I think I’m going to just quit praying for a while”, expecting him to launch into a Christian lecture on why that would be wrong. Instead my friend replied, “That’s actually not a bad idea. Maybe it would be good to take a break for a bit.”

Evidently, I’m not the only one who’s wondered why the coins are stuck on the ledge.

Before you think me or my friend as less than spiritual, what do you do when all the Sunday School answers leave your soul high and dry?

The problem, perhaps, is that in trying to bump the blessings off the ledge and into our life we are viewing our prayers as the magic token. Certainly the heretical theology of too many prosperity preachers on TV lead us in this direction. They teach that God is like a divine vending machine. If we put in the right tokens He will give us what we want. (Interestingly, they tell you your chances of answered prayers are even higher if you slide your tokens their way in the process. But that’s a column for another time.)

There is a significant difference between the coin pusher in the arcade and God. Standing in front of the coin pusher you know that the odds are against you. It’s set up to benefit the arcade, not you. The arcade is blessed when the quarters pile up on the ledge. It will let you win just enough times to keep you depositing more tokens. But when you walk out the door you’ll have less and the arcade will have more. In the end, there will always be more quarters on the ledge than in your pocket.

Standing in front of God, we know the odds are in our favor. In fact, there are no odds. He is 100% for us. Or as Paul put it,“If God is for us, who can be against us?” When we stand in front of God we are not standing in front of a capricious fickle diety who plays games with our lives. We are standing before the One who tells us to“come boldly before the throne of grace”. Grace. Unmerited favor. He doesn’t tease us with just enough blessings to keep us coming back. We always end up with more blessings than our pockets can hold.

So what of all those blessings stacked up on the ledge? There’s no denying that some of our prayers go unanswered. Or at the very least aren’t answered in the time and manner we would like.  What do you say to the person who’s prayed for years about the physical healing of a loved one? Or an estranged relationship? There’s no satisfactory Sunday School answer for that. We do each other a disservice when we gloss over heart rending realities with pious platitudes.

It comes down to a simple question, really. Do we trust God’s heart? If we do then we’ll trust Him to bump the blessings off the ledge that are right for us. Always in His time and in His way. Part of that trust means accepting that there may be some prayers that God chooses not to answer. At least in the way we want Him to. When that happens, we need to remember that it doesn’t mean God is against us. God is for us. Because He said He is for us. And God is not a man that He should lie about that. Or anything else.

I was at the arcade on Monday. A play day with my girls. I saw the coin pushers. Boy, were the coins stacked up. It looked like a good sneeze would send $30 down the chute. But I didn’t drop a quarter in. I’d like to think I’m on to them now. But who knows? Some day I’ll probably send George Washington on a mission to take Token Ledge by storm. Until then, I think I’ll keep talking with God and asking Him to help me get a grip on that wonderful truth that He is for me. And if He is for me, then I can trust Him to give me His best.

And that includes holding back from me those things that are not.

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

As Frederick Buechner wrote, “Laughing is better than crying and maybe not even all that different…(because) no matter what the immediate occasion is of either your laughter or your tears, the object of both ends up being yourself and your own life.”

Several months ago while driving on Loop 289 with my girls, Annie said out of the blue, “Daddy, we need to get you a girlfriend. We’re going to be graduating soon and we don’t want you dying alone.”

She packed three traumatic events into one sentence. I was proud of her for her efficient word usage and communicating with maximum punch. And frightened that my 10-year old sees her graduation and my passing as imminent events.

“Yeah, Daddy”, says Emma, “Why don’t you get on one of those “Date.com” things?” Apparently they’ve seen the commercials. Apparently, so have a lot of people.

It’s estimated that in 2011 the U.S. online dating industry will hit $1 billion in revenues. That’s a lot of people hoping to find the happiness they see in the commercials for sites like E-Harmony and Match. In the UK, 1 in 5 marriages of those age 30 and under are relationships that began online. And to think my parents and grandparents managed to meet and marry, all without the aid of computers. “Instant Messaging” for my Grandfather meant tossing a pebble at Grandma’s window to get her attention.

I was on E-Harmony for awhile. The sign up process made me nervous. I was very leery of this online stuff. Maybe I’m more like my Grandfather than I thought. We gave him a new radio once for Christmas. He set it up on the refrigerator in a prominent spot, while continuing to play the old radio he had stashed behind it. Technology is not to be trusted.

Not being sure if I’d like it or not, I decided not to use my first name, thinking I could change it later. You can’t. So now I’m “Rambo”. Not really. I used my middle name, “Stud Warrior”.

I took the multidimensional personality profile that E-Harmony boasts. Supposedly it will cut through the superfluous data and match me with highly compatible females who share my interests and values. I’m sure the profiles I saw represent nice people. But for the longest time it seemed the only matches E-Harmony sent me were 55-year old retired librarians who live in Missouri in a big house with 12 cats. I’ve got nothing against librarians or Missourians. But I live in Texas and I like dogs. They must have adjusted the algorithm slightly because I started getting matched with 48-year old women from Arkansas whose goal in life was to work for the ASPCA and rescue all the cats the librarians had yet to get to.

In the online environment, as in face to face environments, everyone wants to put their best self on display. Except the anonymity of the cyber world allows the opportunity to exaggerate one’s information and appearance. A recent study done in Europe found that over 55% of those involved in online dating had experienced some form of deception. Italians seemed to have the most trouble being honest with each other, saying over 70% of them had lied or exaggerated their profile. Mamma Mia! That’s putting a lot of extra cheese on the calzone.

If I’m meeting a girl in person for a first date I can’t say that I look like a young Sean Connery because before she can say “007″, she’ll be able to discern that Sean never had a forehead that high or a hairline in rapid retreat. Yet online one can post any photograph of themselves. A guy once told me that he had a chance to finally meet the lady he’d been corresponding with online. “In her picture, she looked young. When we met in person I realized the picture was probably her drivers license photo and she was on the last year of a ten year license.”

Getting to know someone in an online environment is challenging for anyone. It’s not easy being single. Harder being a single parent. And even more challenging when you’re divorced. Add to that, I’m an older single person. All these together are daunting for anyone.

But nothing is ever easy for me. I’m “divorced, older, single parent guy with a plastic eye.”

In the interest of full disclosure, how do you gently work that into an online instant message chat?

And if the relationship has potential, how do you sell that as an upside? “If you marry me, you can make faces when I’m driving and I’ll never know.” Or, “I promise to only see half of any mistakes you might make.” Or maybe, “Hey, just think! Our contact lens budget will be reduced by 25%!”

After going through the process you start to think the chances of meeting someone compatible are about the same as marrying the person who pulls up next to you at a red light. Which, now that I think about it, might not be a bad idea. People have gotten engaged, married and had their first kid in the time it takes traffic lights in Lubbock to turn green.

Single or married, divorced or widowed, God loves us. Quirks and all. How wonderful that He does. He’s right there in the middle of it all whether we’re happy or sad, connected or disconnected, joyous or grieving, loved on or lonely.  He’s always here, caring constantly about the details of our lives. However frayed our edges are, He promises in the end to tie up all the loose ends. Psalm 138:8 promises that “The Lord will accomplish all that concerns me.” One translation reads, “The Lord will perfect all that concerns me.” Which is to say however incomplete we feel, God will never leave His purpose for us undone.

Next time you see the commercials, remember not everything is as it appears to be. “Rick and Becky – matched on E-Harmony, July 2010.” Him spinning her happily around in a field of wildflowers while she laughs at the sky.

The commercial I think we’d all like to see is what happens when she meets his mother and he forgets Valentine’s Day.

That’s what you call “reality television”.

“The Lord will accomplish all that concerns me.” – Psalm 138:8

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLIfeToGo.com

On this particular day life was pouring in more than usual. Like the way I used to feel shoveling through a giant drift after an Iowa blizzard. I’d finally see sidewalk when a big chunk would bust loose from the top and I’d be up to my boots again in snow.

Some days you just can’t shovel fast enough.

I was telling God about my plight and wondering out loud why it seemed to me that He wasn’t as aware of my situation as I thought He should be. I mean, God, if you’re not going to help me shovel can you at least keep the stuff from pouring in so fast?

A little help here, maybe?

It was time to go pick up my kids from school. I opened the door about half way and that’s when it caught my eye. The mirror. I closed the door and looked again. Nothing there.

Ok, I know I only have one eye but thanks to a contact lens, it works reasonably well. I know I saw something in that mirror.

I opened the door and glanced again at the mirror, this time the way I used to look at the old 3-D baseball cards that came in the cereal boxes when I was a kid. Up, down, sideways. And there it was. There were words on the mirror. Almost invisible, and because of the light in the room I couldn’t see it unless I looked from an angle and even then the letters only faintly showed themselves against the reflection of my black t-shirt.

“Serve the Lord with all your heart and consider the great things He has done for you.” – 1 Samuel 12:24

Whoever stayed here before had scrawled this verse on the mirror with lipstick or some other oil based marker. The mirror had since been cleaned, yet at the right angle in the right light, the message remained.

This verse, in context, is the prophet Samuel exhorting the people of Israel during the coronation of King Saul. In his speech he reminds Israel of God’s faithfulness to them through every generation. From Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Aaron, God had remained faithful to them in spite of their sins and disobedience. Even their asking for a king was a sin against God, preferring a human leader instead of God as their King.

Samuel makes the point that even in their short-sighted and often stubborn disobedience, God’s love for them continues. Because God is faithful to Himself, He is faithful to them. Through it all, God did great things for them.

Back in 2008, I was starting life over from scratch in a new place and with a new sales job. I do dinner shows for people and sell high-end cookware. In following up on a contact, the girl on the other end of the phone asked me if I traveled to Snyder, Texas. I said, “I sure do.” Now, I’d never heard of Snyder let alone have a clue how far away it was. But when you’re starting over, you do whatever you have to do. That dinner generated my first customer in that area and led to more dinners which led to many more customers in Snyder, TX. And with each dinner God put me in front of some of the kindest, good-hearted, hospitable and encouraging people I’ve ever met.

When last year I was unsuccessful in my efforts to prevent my daughters’ mom from moving them away from me, I was incredibly discouraged. Instead of being 5 minutes across town, they would now be attending school 85 miles from me. I have equal time with my daughters, but how would it work? Where would I stay when I came to be with them? How would we have a place to be together?

Back in 2008 I thought Snyder was just the place God had me working for a season. I thought I was just meeting new people in the course of my job. I had no idea that He was preparing for what would happen to me two years later. God was preparing future relationships that He would use to encourage us in ways we could not imagine.

The mirror with the ghost writing is in a guest house in Snyder, Texas, the town in which my daughters attend school. It belongs to dear friends who started out as customers back in 2008. When I confided my situation to them last year, they said, “We have a place in our backyard. You and the girls can stay here anytime you want.”

“…and consider the great things He (God) has done for you.”

Is God aware of my plight? The ghost writer left behind the obvious answer to that question. “Consider the great things God has done for you.” God is more than aware. He is involved. His faithfulness toward us never ceases. His love toward us is constant. His attention to detail is complete. God, forgive me when I fail to consider the great things You have done for me. Give me eyes to see You and the works of Your hands in my life.

As much as I like things squeaky clean, I’m only going to Windex the bottom half of that mirror.

Some messages should never be erased.

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

In December of 2007 I’d been living in Lubbock for several months after 14 years in the Phoenix valley. I was a not by choice divorced single Dad living in a place I never wanted to live. Somewhere in the middle of the month I realized that this would be the first time in my life that I’d be alone for Christmas.

It was a pretty awful thought.

I volunteered to help with my daughters’ school Christmas party. Among the other parents there was a lady wearing scrubs. I asked her where she worked and she said, “Carillon House”. I didn’t know what or where that was. She explained it was a skilled care facility. “It being Christmas time I suppose they get lots of visitors up there”, I said. She shook her head. “Sadly, no. Even a lot of the residents who have family here in town don’t get visited on Christmas.” That’s sad, I thought. I went back to passing out candy canes and overly frosted cookies.

Christmas Eve afternoon I was starting to lose it. I’ve always been with family and friends on Christmas. Lonely was what other poor souls struggled with during the holidays, not me. “Lonely at Christmas” was an article I read in a magazine, not what I saw when I looked in the mirror. Now lonely was me.

Lonely sucks.

Ever feel like running and you don’t know where to go? I got in the car and started driving, trying to remember where I saw a thrift store. It was about an hour before all the stores closed on Christmas Eve when I found the Savers store. I went in and bought all the vases I could find, then drove to Wal-Mart and bought some ribbon and several bunches of roses. That night I prepped all the flowers and vases and went to bed.

Christmas morning I drove to Carillon House. I hit the elevator button for the second floor. When the door opened I walked to the first room on the north side, took a deep breath and went in.

“Merry Christmas. I’m Todd. Here’s a flower for you.”

The gray haired lady in her hospital bed looked at me with a mix of surprise, gratitude and suspicion. “Why…thank you. Do you have someone up here?”

“Nope. Just here to say hi and give you a flower. How are you feeling? What brought you in here? Are you getting better?”

In case you ever wondered, I’m the best in the world at asking questions. It’s because I’m genuinely interested in people and their stories. And it’s a control/defense mechanism. If I keep people talking about themselves, they won’t have a chance to ask me about me.

And so I went, room to room. I spent over four hours at Carillon passing out flowers and hearing people’s stories. The time passed until it was Christmas past.

A few days into the new week I starting thinking about the roses in the vases. They’d be drooping by now. Few things are sadder than a rose browned and bent over in a vase. They’d have to throw them away. And the vases would be empty.

It was one of those private “come to Jesus” moments. If I didn’t go back to Carillon, then my Christmas day visit would be a pure act of selfishness. Sure, I took flowers. Sure, I visited with people. But the truth is I was there because I didn’t want to be alone. If I never went back, what would that say about me?

So on New Year’s Day I said to Annie and Emma, “Girls, we’re going to go visit some people.” We got more vases and roses and off we went. We’ve been going ever since. With the exception of several out of state vacations and the girls having the flu, we’ve been there every week for the past three years. After the first several months Emma asked me, “Daddy, what’s on the 4th floor?”

“That’s Vista Care Hospice”.

“How come we don’t go up there?” I didn’t have a good answer so after that conversation we’ve been there every week, too.

Over that time we’ve met many fascinating people and heard the stories of their lives. My girls have learned what it means to “serve each other with love” (Galatians 5:13b). At ten years old they are completely comfortable around the elderly, their wheelchairs, walkers and canes. They talk and visit and laugh and I couldn’t be prouder of them. We’ve gotten to know people, developed rich friendships and grieved when they left for heaven.

Christmas is in a couple days. With due respect to my dear friends here, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t still a sizeable loneliness in my life. There’s no getting around the fact that the holiday season magnifies what’s broken in a person’s life. I still deeply miss my family and friends in faraway places and wish that I could be in their kitchen laughing and eating and sitting by their fireplace. Yet from that long ago dark night when the angel announced the Good News to shepherds in the hills of Bethlehem, Christmas comes to us where we are. And where I am, like it or not, is here.

It’s Christmas in a couple days. We’ll go to Carillon House to visit our friends who also know something about “lonely”. They’ll be thinking about their spouses who died this year or last, about all the friends they’ve outlived,  and how they probably never imagined spending Christmas in a skilled care center. We’ll spend time together, encouraging one another and hopefully remembering that Christmas comes to us where we are. And in the coming, it brings the hope that someday we’ll all be in a place where lonely is nowhere to be found.

Wherever Christmas finds you this year, remember that Jesus comes to you where you are. And that He can take even desperate acts of self-preservation and redeem them for something good.

Merry Christmas.

“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For behold I bring you glad tidings, good news of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord!” – Luke 2: 10-11

Todd A. Thompson – 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

One email came from VJ, a good friend with whom I was on staff at First Baptist Church-Tempe during my seminary days. VJ says, in part…  

“My dear sister Charla has joined the heavenly chorus as of August 29th of this year. Her body just began to fail in many different areas and God in his infinite grace brought her quickly to Himself. As family we had the reassurance that Charla was ready when she told us (in April) “I just want to see Lord Almighty!” We weren’t talking about her sickness or heaven or anything that would have prompted that thought. It has been a great comfort to us.”

Charla was developmentally disabled. She was also confined to a wheelchair, at least every time that I saw her. VJ would sometimes bring Charla to the church during office hours to spend some time while waiting to be picked up for adult day care. I remember her attitude as happy and joyful, a delightful person to be around. She would sit in her wheelchair and greet with a smile everyone who walked by.

What I remember about Charla was that she made me ask questions. Oh, none that I would voice out loud. Rather, silent introspective questions like, “Why her in that chair and not me? Why do I get the benefit of a reasonably sound mind and the opportunity to further my education while Charla will be forever stuck at this level? How is it that I can walk about, fully ambulatory, while she depends on others for transportation and daily care? How fair is it that she doesn’t have a say in changing her condition?”

Obviously there were no satisfactory answers. The questions would linger in my mind for a brief moment, pushed quickly aside by the tasks at hand.

In Matthew 20, Jesus tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard agrees to pay the workers he hires in the morning a day’s wages. He hires more workers in the third, sixth, ninth and eleventh hours, telling all of them he would pay them what is right. And they all agreed to work.

At the end of the day when they line up to collect their wages, the eleventh hour people are paid a full day’s wage. Those hired in the morning see that and think they will be paid more since they worked longer. But they are paid the same day’s wages, just as they had agreed to.

The point of the parable being, the owner of the vineyard has the right to be generous if he wants to. Jesus finishes the parable by saying, “So the last will be first and the first will be last.”

I’m not sure even the best Biblical scholar knows for certain the full meaning of that sentence. If you would ask me for my two cents, I think it includes people like Charla. Down here she didn’t have the benefits of good health, the opportunity to expand her knowledge, to mature in social relationships. Charla didn’t get to experience the joy of running full tilt down a green grassy hill on a spring day. She didn’t get the satisfaction of living independently, being able to say,“That’s OK, I can do it myself.” She didn’t experience the pride of accomplishment in earning a college degree, a promotion in her career or raising children.

Down here, Charla didn’t get to do a lot of things. Up there, I think it is a much different story for her. I have to believe that Charla discovered on August 29th that, in heaven, she is one of the “firsts”.

When I would see Charla in her wheelchair, sitting in the office at FBC-Tempe, I’d think of Jesus’ words about the “last being first”. And I’d wonder if, just maybe, I was looking at the person who might be my supervisor in heaven.

I guess someday I’ll find out.

If she is, I hope God is putting her in charge of the rose gardens.

Because that’s where I want to work.

Todd A. Thompson - www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

“When I grow up I am going to be the world’s greatest hockey player. Then I will be a famous scientist, marry a perfect wife and have 5 kids. In the end, I will die.”

Being a strong believer in the value of a liberal arts education, I appreciated his understanding that he can indeed excel in both hockey and science. With the right approach he can transition his career from slap shots and body checks to titrations and electron microscopes. And I loved his innocent naiveté in believing that there exists such a creature as a “perfect wife” (or husband). A precocious kid like Ryan may be well on his way to accomplishing everything on his list, though someday that “have 5 kids” thing will require some serious co-operation from his perfect wife.

However it turns out for him, he nailed one truth to the wall.

“In the end, I will die.”

I can’t help but think if Ryan keeps that fresh in his head, everything that comes before the end will be rich for him.

When we acknowledge each day that there is an end to life on earth, it helps us live with a sense of purpose.

According to the actuarial table used by the United States Social Security Administration, my life expectancy extends another 33.28 years.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html

I can probably add several years for not being a smoker, a drinker or recreational drug user. And the family genetics indicate that 80 plus years is a good possibility. But my cholesterol and blood pressure are a little on the high side, I tend to worry too much and wherever I go I seem to be surrounded by crazy drivers. So it’s probably a wash. All things considered, if I escaped city traffic and moved to North Dakota, I could probably fire up a Cohiba, start drinking Guinness and still come out ahead. But I’m an average guy and the average 44-year old guy lives another 33.28 years.

I’ve never been good at math. But I can see the obvious. Statistically speaking, my life is more than half over. That in itself is sobering. Not that 44 is old. But it isn’t 34. Or 24. Or 12. It’s 44. I’m closer to the end than I am the beginning.

We’ve all heard or been posed the hypothetical question, “If you knew you only had a year to live, what would you do?” Such a question sends us rushing to prioritize. What’s worth my time? What’s not? What would I do more of? What would I do less of? What would I not do at all?

Of course, the follow up question is, “If there’s things you’d do more and less of if you knew you only had a year to live, why aren’t you living that way now?” Junk mail is junk mail, right? Opening it is a waste of time whether we have terminal cancer or have another 50 years on the planet. That the people in your life know you care about them is important all the time. So why wait for a tragedy to say “I love you”? Especially when telling them now will enrich the relationship for whatever time you have left?

The “what would you do if you knew you had a year to live” question is a healthy exercise if it reminds us to live with purpose. The danger lies in thinking the question is hypothetical. Because whatever the Social Security Administration’s actuarial table says about our life expectancy, there’s a more important statistic to keep in front of us.

1 out of 1…dies.

It’s just a matter of when.

There’s a difference between living with a sense of panic and living with a sense of urgency. The former is based in fear. The latter flows from confident purpose. God desires that we live with a sense of urgency because He created us for a purpose.

In Psalm 139 God tells us that He “had all our days written down in His book before there was yet one of them.” And in Ephesians 2:10 God says that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He has prepared in advance that we should walk in them.” Simply put, we can live out each day knowing that God has our life in His hand. He has a plan for us. A life of good works that He has prepared for us to do. If we live fully each day, how much time we have left becomes irrelevant. Because all we can do is make the most of the time God grants us.

And He grants us one day at a time.

So whatever you’d do more of and less of, start doing it and not doing it. Live with a sense of urgency.

Thank God for writing all your days down in His book.

Then ask Him to help you make the most of this one called “today”.

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” – Psalm 90:12

I’d be on a plane to Chicago before you could say “deep dish pizza”.

Several years ago I had opportunity to attend a preaching/teaching conference at Willow Creek Church with my friend and pastor Duane Cross. When it was over we had some time before catching our plane back to Phoenix. So we drove downtown to the Art Institute of Chicago. My favorite place in my favorite city. One of the world’s best collections of classic art. Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Picasso all under one big roof.

I actually got misty seeing the lion statues that guard the entrance to the museum. Perhaps you have a place you go to that is good for your soul. The Art Institute of Chicago is good for my soul.

Keep in mind that when it comes to art, I can’t draw a straight line if you spot me a ruler. So I’m sure I can’t appreciate the complexity and genius of these masterpieces the way a true artist would. But I go and stand in front of them and am moved by them just the same.

We had limited time. Duane asked me what I most wanted to see. I told him that if all we did was go and stare at Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon”, it would be worth the trip. It’s my absolute favorite.

Seurat, a mere 25 years old when he painted this defining work, had spent previous years studying theories of light. The painting technique that he employed was based on those theories. Unlike the broader brush strokes of mixed colors that other Impressionist painters used, Seurat developed a new technique called “pointellism”. Or, as he preferred to describe it, “divisionism”.

As to size, it is a huge painting – the canvas stretches 7 feet x 10 feet. This masterpiece took 2 years to complete. From a distance what you see is the picture. The images of the people enjoying their Sunday afternoon on the Sienne River in France. What you don’t see from a distance is that the entire painting is made up of tiny dashes and dots of pure color paint.

For the first year, Seurat painted nothing but horizontal dashes. The dashes are each one detached from the others. Then he added the dots of pure color paint. As you might imagine, this was a tedious and exacting process. The project was so intense that during the two years it took him to paint it, Seurat refused to have lunch with his close friends lest they distract him and break his concentration.

Up close, the dashes and dots look like, well…dashes and dots. Yet as you step back from the painting to a distance, the dashes and dots combine optically in your eye to form the desired image.

For two years, nothing but days and days of dashes and dots.

Dashes and dots.

How could dashes and dots make a picture? It doesn’t make sense that detached horizontal dashes and dots of paint can combine to make a masterpiece.

But they do.

What are the dashes and dots of your life? What of those thousands of detached horizontal lines of seemingly disconnected events? When you step back are they really all that disconnected? When you step back far enough can you see how God has painted them in such a way that they form the picture of your life?

Was it really chance that you took that job in a different city? Was it just coincidence that you met that certain person? Was the career you felt trapped in really a waste of time? Was the serious illness really a stand alone event that led nowhere? Was the tragedy in your life the end of a dream? Or was God preparing you for something bigger?

Standing less than a foot away from Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon” and staring at the canvas, you think, “No way does this make a picture. It’s just dashes and dots of paint. No rhyme, no reason, no pattern.” And up close, you’d be right. It looks like one big random mess.

Only when you step back does it begin to make sense. 5 feet. 10 feet. 15 feet. 20 feet. And then the random mess becomes a beautiful Sunday afternoon picnic.

Friends, if you’re like me, you might in the middle of a mess that makes no sense. All you see are dashes of dread and dots of pain. You want to make sense of it but you can’t. Not right now. We’re too close to see what God is painting. This close it’s just dashes and dots. The disappointments and heartbreaks, how can these be part of a beautiful picture?

With brush strokes of grace, God the Artist makes sense of our dashes and dots. Let’s remember to step back from time to time to see how He is bringing them together into the beautiful picture that is our life. Because whether we see it or not, He’s doing exactly that.

God promises to continue perfecting the good work that He began in us. Which is to say He will continue dashing and dotting until the masterpiece is complete.

“For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28

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

“Grandpa, I don’t want to be 4. I want to stay 3.”

“Why is that?”

“Because after you turn 4, then you turn 5.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Because when you turn 5 you go to kindergarten and they make you spell hippopotamus…and I don’t know how!”

We’ve all been there. The unknown. We look ahead. We wonder. We worry. What waits for us? Will we be ready? Are we up to the challenge? Little Nathan was doing the “double jump ahead”; fearing an unknown twice removed from his present moment. We laugh at the story because we’ve done it, too.

President Calvin Coolidge said, “If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.” The wisdom being “don’t borrow trouble”. While President Coolidge’s advice is comforting, if you’re like me, instead of being relieved that nine troubles are dead in a ditch, you worry like crazy about the one trouble that will end up making the trip. What will it be? What will it look like? How will it affect me? We “what if?” ourselves into a tizzy.

What if…?

What if…?

What if…?

Allowed to run unchecked, our minds are masterful at creating imaginary crisis. Yet unless we’re terribly neurotic or boringly rich, rarely do we sit around and manufacture crisis out of thin air. Our worry usually stems from genuine present moment troubles. That one trouble that makes it down the road to our door. A chronic health problem. Financial pressure. An unstable job situation. A teenager running away with their desire for independence. A relationship that’s headed for the point of no return. These troubles are all very real.

I’ve been battling worry a lot lately. With due respect to President Coolidge, I have one or two or twenty troubles right now that ignored the ditch and are parked in my driveway. They don’t look like they’re moving on anytime soon. I’d like to say I’ve handled my worries well. But it’s been paralyzing at times.

So what to do?

I’m learning. Slowly, painfully, tearfully, imperfectly. I’m learning what God is trying to teach me about worry.

And trust.

“Todd, here’s the deal…

I told you that I’ll never leave you or forsake you. Others may have promised that and bailed, but I’m not them. I’m Me. I’m God. And I am not a man that I should lie. Simply put, you’re never alone. Ever. You might feel like you are, but you’re not.

Next, you need to understand that I understand your worries and your fears. I know that life is hard. I’ve never sugar coated that. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” is how I put it in Psalm 34. You’re living in a broken world. Being a Christian doesn’t make you immune from that. Your problems are real. That is not lost on Me.

You need to understand something else. And it may not make sense to you. But everything that happens in your life, good and bad, passes through My sovereign hand. If I allow it, I have a reason for it. That doesn’t mean I cause bad things. It means I work all things, even the bad things, for good in your life. There are no loose ends in your life not connected to my perfect purpose.

You’ve asked me a few times, “Why am I allowing this @#$% to happen?” It’s a fair question. If I love you, why don’t I spare you? You might not like this, either. But there’s more at stake here than your present circumstances. See, I care more about your character than your comfort. I need you to come to grips with your faults, the things you need to change for your good and My glory. I need you to learn to trust Me with the injustices in your life. I need you to go through this. Not around it. The hard stuff, the pain, it’s all part of the process of making you like Jesus. 

And you have no idea how committed I am to that process. Does the phrase, “never stop this side of heaven” ring a bell?

I know heaven seems far away right now. That’s why I need you to believe Me when I say take life one day at a time. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. The things you need, I’ll provide. I promise. It’s about depending on Me every day. That’s why Jesus called it “our daily bread”.  Just do the next thing in front of you and trust me. Don’t waste your time on the “what if’s” about tomorrow. I’m already there. And I’m working in ways you can’t see or understand.

So keep talking to Me. All the time. It’s the best thing you can do. Don’t polish it, don’t edit it. Don’t spiritualize it. Just bring it. The angst. The tears. The passion. The needs. Just bring it. Your worries plus you equals fear. Your worries plus Me equals peace. And my peace passes all understanding.

Whether your circumstances get better or worse…and yes, they could get worse, remember that nothing separates you from My love. Come hell or high water, I love you. I’m for you. Do I need to state the obvious?

If God is for you, who can be against you?

I’m for you.

So keep going.”

- God

If it wasn’t for the person who threw the beer bottle on the street Monday night, I wouldn’t have gotten a flat tire.

And if it weren’t for the person who designed the impossible to remove wheel covers on my car I would have been able to change the tire myself. I say “person who designed” but significant end-product stupidity is usually by committee. This one asked every possible wheel cover question except “what if it ever needs to come off?” A little more American ingenuity like that and the owner’s manual for my next car will be in Japanese.

A broken beer bottle leads to a flat tire leads to some sweating and swearing with a tire iron that I’d like to introduce to some wheel cover engineers in Detroit. Which led to a call to my roadside assist service, which led to them dispatching a tow truck to haul my car and me to Discount Tire.

Which led to meeting Bill.

It’s never wise to stereotype, but somehow I usually feel better when the person responding to my need for help looks the part. Bill’s face is weathered brown, like an old football that’s been kicked around year after year and never brought inside. He wore a new pair of jeans. But the faded blue company T-shirt and the scuffs on his work boots suggested the only reason for new jeans was the last pair plain wore out. A reddish blonde bushy mustache matched the color of the ponytail sticking out the back of his trucker cap. I’ve never seen a tow truck driver with a diamond earring before, but like I said, it’s never wise to stereotype.

“Thanks for coming. How’s it going?”

“As good as it’s gonna go. Back that thing out here so I can get at it.”

In less than five minutes Bill had my car on the flat bed of his truck. ”You gettin’ a ride there or are you goin’ with me?”

“Goin’ with you.” 

It’s three miles to Discount Tire. A bit less if he takes the side street I mention to him. He ignores me and turns the truck around. “I always go out the same way I came in.”

“You been busy today?”

“Not really. But I was out on calls till 2 in the morning. I’m tired.”

“You like your job?”

“Job’s ok. Money’s ok. Just a lot of time. 70 hours a week most of the time.”

“Wow. You ever get a day off?”

“Wednesdays.”

“What do you like to do when you’re not working?”

“Sleep.” 

Great question, Todd. He puts in 70 plus hours a week and you ask him what he likes to do when he’s not working. Brilliant. There may be a future for you in wheel cover design.   

“So are you native to Arizona?”

“Born and raised. Grew up in Tucson.”

“Have family around then?”

“Nah. I got nobody. They’re all either dead or they disowned me.” Bill gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared straight ahead.

“You got any friends?” I was hoping for a “yes”. A co-worker. A girlfriend. A drinking buddy. A dog. Something.

“Nope. Don’t need any friends.” Of course, I don’t believe this. But he sounds like he believes it. His tone is steady and cold, like the air coming out of the dashboard air conditioning vents.

The engine groaned a little as he braked for the red light on McQueen. Maybe it’s because I can’t imagine my life without friends or because I didn’t believe him, I asked the same question a different way. “You got anyone to hang with when you’re not working?”

“Nope. I see people all day long. Why would I need friends?” What he really wanted to say was, “I have to play nice with customers like you 70 hours a week. Why would I want more of that on my day off?”

A few seconds of silence. I look around. The clipboard with the paperwork. The dirty gray upholstery of the seat. The smell of diesel and the open pack of Camel cigarettes in the cup holder. This is a tow truck, all right.

Except for the music. Vivaldi. Very un-tow truck like.

Wanting to jump start the conversation I said, “Nice music. You like the classical stuff?”

“Yep. Played it for years. Junior high, high school. In college.” 

Moments like this always shame me. Because it’s never wise to stereotype and yet somehow I always do.

“Really? What instrument?”

“Bass. Played it since I was twelve.”

“I play the drums a little. I love the bass but I could never figure out how to get my fingers where they needed to be.”

“Practice. Lots of practice.” I looked at Bill’s hands. Thick, strong fingers black with grease and brake dust. Fingers that toss log chains and cast iron hooks 70 hours a week. Without asking, who would know these same fingers can run off a string of flying arpeggios and syncopated bass lines? Fingers that know the delicate feel of a horsehair bow?

“Where did you go to college?”

“In St. Louis.”

And in naming the city it’s as if Bill realized this conversation was looking a little too much like friendship. “Where is this fucking Discount Tire place anyway?”

A quarter mile later and we were there. He dropped the car off, I signed the obligatory paperwork and he drove away.

One thing leads to another. And sometimes it feels like the thing it leads to is a dead end. Or a waste of time. Or the temptation to think that it’s all in our head, this idea of connectedness. That in the middle of random events there is a bigger purpose, a grander plan that transcends the broken bottles and flat tires of our life.

There is a bigger purpose. I have to believe that because I believe in God. Logic says if we believe in God with a big “G”, then He is all-everything. Including all sovereign. Which is to say if we believe in a big “G”, there’s no such thing as chance encounters or random events. Or as Albert Einstein put it, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

I couldn’t begin to guess what God’s purpose is for Bill and I to have a five minute conversation in a tow truck. But one thing leads to another. Who knows what it led to for Bill.

It led me to think about God. And what one thing might be coming next.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”, declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:8-9 

One thing we see a lot of in the store is tattoos. From the small, understated rose on an ankle to full arm images of mythical dragons. Nicknames on knuckles. Names on necks. Some in multiple colors, some with plain black ink. All applied with a needle. Which is why you won’t find any tattoos on me.

Last week during halftime of the Suns/Mavericks game, a 20-something guy came in the store sporting a tattoo unlike any I’d seen. It was a dandelion. About ten inches long from top to bottom. The kind of dandelion you blow the fluff off of. It was expertly done. Some of the seeds in flight, as if it had just been bumped by a light breeze. But this tattoo also showed the root of the plant, deep into the ground. And where the green stem stopped and the root started, a gray cross section of concrete, smooth on the top and jagged on the bottom. 

I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “There’s got to be a story behind this. What is it?”

He looked at the tattoo and then at me. “Years ago someone asked me what my favorite plant was. I said the first thing that popped into my head. “The weeds that grow through the cracks in the driveway.” It was a random answer, but it kind of stuck with me. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. You know, growing in a hard spot. Perseverance. That kind of thing. So when I decided to get a tattoo I knew exactly what I wanted it to be.”

Pointing to his arm he added, “I just had the concrete added this week. I think it turned out great.” 

It sure did.

Growing in a hard spot. Thriving in difficult circumstances. Blooming where you are planted, even if where you’re planted is an unforgiving rock hard place. There are plenty of days I wish I had the perseverance of a dandelion.

In God’s design you and I are higher in the created order than a dandelion. Though we’re sometimes hard pressed to see it in our rough and tumble world, we are created in the image of God. Psalm 8 says that we were “made a little lower than God” and that He has entrusted us to rule over His creation. All that to say we are very valuable to God and He has a divine purpose for our lives.

And that’s the rub. In the middle of our gut wrenching, heart shredding, head banging hard times, we don’t see the purpose in it. How can anything that hurts so much be for our good? Caring friends might attempt to encourage us with a card that says, “God has a plan for your life”. They mean well. And it’s true. God does have a plan. So we smile and nod and say “thank you”, while our pain thinks about how satisfying it would be to put the entire Hallmark section through a paper shredder, one platitude at a time.

We may know in our head that God has a plan. Psalm 139 says that “all our days were written down in His book before there was yet one of them.” In our hurt, our hearts wonder if He’s looking at the wrong page. Yet the only way we can grow in a hard spot and thrive in difficult circumstances is to remember that every difficulty in our lives is attached to a higher purpose. In God’s economy, our pain is never for free. It’s always attached to the higher purpose of conforming us into the image of His Son Jesus Christ, who suffered all things that you and I might be made complete.

God never promises that our pain will make sense to us. We may die confused. God does promise that everything has a purpose and no experience is wasted. 

So in the middle of our pain, much better to ask “what?” than “why?”. The “why?” may never be answered. Yet the prayer, “God, what will you have me learn from this?” is one He never fails to answer.

Growing in a hard spot. Thriving in difficult circumstances. Blooming where you are planted, even if where you’re planted is an unforgiving rock hard place.

Persevere. Your pain isn’t for free. God is growing something good in you.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son…” – Romans 8:28-29

Please forgive this note from someone you just met and were only briefly introduced to, but I think I would regret not telling you this.

You mentioned in your conversation with your friend Rachel today that you just turned 18 and that you had a baby when you were 16. You said you had given up your baby for adoption. You were surprisingly honest about the reasons behind your decision, among them not being prepared to care for a baby. And how you’re not close with your parents anymore because they didn’t want you to go through with the pregnancy.

Being on the fringe of the conversation anyway, I had to turn away as I was close to tears. About 7 years ago after a seemingly unending ride on the fertility doctor merry-go-round, I was coming to grips with the possibility that being a Dad may not be God’s plan for me. It was very hard.

On September 25, 2000 at the point of being physically, emotionally and financially drained we got a phone call from a stranger in Spokane, Washington. She knew my wife’s sister. She called to say she heard about a woman in her area who was pregnant with twins and was going to give them up for adoption.

It was such an impossible pipe dream that I got angry. We had a license to have a dog. But nothing that said we could foster parent, let alone be adoptive parents. Yet with a “we have no chance but I’ll write one anyway”, I emailed a biography to the family. In closing, I said, “Bottom line, we want these babies to be where God wants them to be. If it’s with us, we will be thrilled and humbled.”

On October 4th we met with a social work agency who agreed with us. There’s no way we’d have these babies because everyone else who wants them will already be certified to adopt. So we took an information packet and settled on the fact that it would take at least a year to get through the process.

Three days later on October 7th we got a call saying that the birth Mom had picked us. Seven couples wanted the babies. All of them were certified to adopt but us.

The babies’ due date was December 8th. Not much time but at least a couple months to try and get ready. Ten days after the call to say they picked us, I was sitting at a Sonic drive-thru waiting for my Cherry Flurry when my cell phone rang with a bizarre area code. It was the birth Mom’s sister. In a chipper voice she said, “Just wanted you to know my sister’s water broke. The babies will be born tonight. Can you get here?”

In the history of freakdom, no one has freaked out more than me in that moment. Six hours later we had my wife on a plane to Spokane. The babies were born the next morning. They were preemies, born seven and a half weeks early. Annie Quinn was 3 pounds 9 ounces and Emma Elizabeth was 3 pounds 14 ounces.

We went from zero kids to 2 kids in 23 days.

The entire experience has been like riding a wild tiger. You can’t steer and you can’t get off. It’s been the wildest adventure and only God could put it all together.

I share this with you because you need to know and understand as best you can that you, Allie, are a hero. You had a choice to make and you chose life. And even at your young age you made an extremely difficult and wise decision. You will never comprehend this side of heaven the difference you have made in the lives of countless people you will never meet.

Every person who is touched by your daughter’s life; by her smile, her laugh, her talents, her caring, her acts of kindness, and later the fruits of her labor in her chosen field; every person whose life is better because of your daughter….is better because you chose life.

There are no words to describe the joy and delight that my children bring to me. That I have the privilege of being their Dad, the privilege of watching them grow, is because their birth Mom chose life. My life is changed forever because of Annie and Emma. There are no words to describe the depth of that emotion, either.

I wanted you to know that in my mind you are ten feet tall. A hero. I am terribly proud of you. Thanks for making an incredibly wise decision. Even if you didn’t understand the consequences at the time, you have blessed the world by what you did.

Please accept these thoughts with my deepest respect.

God’s biggest blessings on your life -

Todd Thompson 

“For you (God) created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, and my soul knows full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written down in your book before one of them came to be.” – Psalm 139:13-16 

It was quite simple in construction. A base platform mounted on a center spindle containing sealed and well greased ball bearings. As for handles, they were simple, too. Just a burn your hands in summer, freeze your hands in winter bare metal bar. They all started out new with shiny paint but after a season or two of being grabbed and jumped on, always ended up back to a dull gray primer color. No seat belts, no safety harnesses and no warning stickers or disclaimers to ward off litigation in the event of injury. Just an old fashioned self-propelled joyride.

When you’re a grade schooler the merry-go-round is just another fun piece of jungle gym equipment. Yet it was really an unknowing exposure to the laws of physics. The mass x acceleration stuff. As even the beginning rider soon realized, the speed of the merry-go-round was in direct proportion to the force exerted upon it. If you were the lone 2nd grader taking a solo ride you grabbed hold, hunkered in your 7-year old shoulders and pumped your little Levi legs as hard as you could to get it started. It moved, slowly at first then gradually gaining momentum. A couple times around the circle now you’re past a trot and starting to run. The bottoms of your Keds are beating the circular trail of rock hard dirt, pounded into pavement by a million pairs before you. Now it’s not work anymore. You’re running as fast as you can. Instead of getting the merry-go-round to keep up with you, you’re trying to keep up with it. Your sweaty hands still have a grip, but just barely, until that moment when you jump…..and land on the platform, throw your head back and watch the world spin.

It’s a great ride. But like all great rides, after a few times the thrill isn’t what it used to be. By yourself, you can only get it spinning so fast. It can and will go faster when you’re a 6th grader. But who wants to wait four years? Then you figure out that there is more than one way to make the merry-go-round go faster.

Get somebody bigger than you to spin it for you.

They spin, you ride. What a deal.

For many kids, the somebody bigger was often their Dad. And the first time you raise the idea to your Dad that he should spin while you ride, he would kindly oblige. But Dad, being older, has a better understanding of physics than you do. They know their mass x acceleration has considerably more oomph than your mass x acceleration. So they spin you. But not very fast. They’re being safe. They don’t want you to lose your grip. They don’t want you to fall off. After all, how would that look? Dad knows that if you come home bleeding with a playground road rash Mom isn’t going to be understanding when she finds out you got G-forced off the merry-go-round by your own father. So Dad is cautious.

But you; you don’t like caution. You want speed. If you wanted slow you’d spin it yourself.

Faster. Make it go faster.

You can see the look in His eyes. He’s smiling. But like a governor on an engine his pace stays constant.

Faster, you say. You want to go faster. “C’mon Dad! Make it go faster!”

You’re not sure if he changed his mind or if you convinced him you could handle it or if he just got weary of hearing you plead for speed. But Dad finally responds. He throws his weight into the next grab and pull and release and before you have time to think he’s grabbed and pulled and released again. And again. And again. Each time thinking the merry-go-round speedometer has topped out and then realizing with a white knuckle grip as the blurred image of your Dad flashes past that you were mistaken. You catch your breath and an involuntary scream escapes your throat as you feel the thrill you knew was there to be had.

This is new territory.

When you’re your own power source, you’re always within yourself. But this is something different. The power source is beyond you. Your head is thrown back and the world is whirling. This is the thrill you couldn’t get without the help of someone bigger doing the spinning.

It all happens in a flash. A micro burst of excitement. And a sudden fear that your grip isn’t what you thought it to be. A second guessing of your wishes. Your plead for speed becomes a cry of “No! Slow!” You’ve never figured the merry-go-round as something you wanted to jump off yet you’re now entertaining the thought. But you’re relieved of coming up with an escape plan when Dad stops the spinning. He sees you’re at your limit. So he stops grabbing and pulling and releasing and lets the momentum spin itself out. With every slowing rotation he comes clearer into focus. You got what you asked for. A speed you couldn’t attain on your own. You just need someone bigger to spin you.

The merry-go-round. We’re all on it. For some of us it’s barely moving. It may even feel like it’s stopped. For some, it’s spinning fast. It feels like we’re losing our grip and we’re about to fly off. For others of us, we’ve gotten the speed we’ve been pleading for and though not regretting, we’re rethinking our request while marveling at the power of God and His ability to spin our merry-go-round. In September of 2000 I was standing on my merry-go-round looking at God, alternately crying and cussing and pleading for speed after years of futility in my desire to have children. One grab and pull and release from God and I was spinning in stereo with twins. No kids to 2 kids in 23 days. I don’t regret for a second my repeated requests for speed, but I confess a new respect for God’s ability to answer prayers and deliver unimaginable blessings. That’s something good to remember in times of darkness and uncertainty, when life looks scary.

However fast or slow your merry go round is spinning, God wants you to know that He is your “someone bigger”. He isn’t spinning and leaving. He’s in control of your ride. And far from being a playground policeman who wants to kill your fun and stop your adventure He wants you to throw your head back and watch the world whirl as He spins your merry-go-round with His divine purpose.

“Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.” – Psalm 147:5 

“I’ve come that they might have life and have it more abundantly” – Jesus (John 10:10)

There are other players in the Christmas drama that you don’t find in the nativity scene. These are significant, yet lesser known characters. People standing in the shadows of Christmas. The Bible talks about two of them. An elderly man named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth.

Zechariah was a priest. Elizabeth was a godly woman. Though they were both faithful servants of the Lord, they were advanced in years and unable to have children. To be childless in the Jewish faith was a disgrace. It meant no chance for you to be parents of the promised Messiah.

Imagine what that must have been like for Zechariah and Elizabeth. In our modern technology we know all kinds of reasons for infertility. Back then they didn’t have a clue about blocked Fallopian tubes or endometriosis or low sperm counts. We know from the text that it was Elizabeth that couldn’t have children. But all Zechariah and Elizabeth knew, and all that their neighbors knew, was that they were a couple who had asked God for children for a very long time and didn’t have any.

They lived in the hill country of Judea. A small town. Small towns are a blessing because everyone knows you. Small towns are a curse because everyone knows you. You can bet this couple was a the topic of more than a few dinner table discussions over the decades. “Zach is such a good guy. And a priest, too. I wonder why he and Liz don’t have kids?” It was a burden Zechariah and Elizabeth felt everyday.

As it happened, on the biggest day of Zechariah’s professional life, an angel of the Lord appears with a news bulletin. Elizabeth is going to have a baby. A son named John. He will be great in the eyes of God, one filled by the Holy Spirit. One who will “prepare the way of the Lord.”

To Zechariah, this is too good to be true. Oh, he wants to believe it. But he reminds the angel Gabriel of the obvious. He’s an old man. Elizabeth is an old woman. Gabriel in turn reminds Zechariah of the obvious; this message comes on orders from God Himself. And Gabriel should know because he was standing right there when God said it.

In a round about way, old Zach was asking for a sign. And he got one. A loving rebuke. He would be unable to speak until the baby was born.

Just as the angel had said, Elizabeth became pregnant.

Zechariah and Elizabeth prayed for years to have children. God answered them at a most unexpected time. His answer was more than an answer. It was an invitation to participate in God’s drama.

In your prayers, are you asking God for the desires of your heart? Are you prepared that His answer will be more than an answer? That His answer will include your playing a role in His plan for the world? God loves you more than you can imagine. Whether you realize it or not, God has an appointed role for you in His divine drama.

In spite of the fact that Zechariah doubted the angel’s message, God went ahead with His plan to bless. God is not discouraged by our doubts. He sticks with us and lovingly convinces us that we are of infinite value and significance.

Standing in the shadows of Christmas are ordinary people. People like Zechariah and Elizabeth. And Mary, God’s chosen to be the mother of Jesus. We know by reading Luke 1 that Mary spent three months living with Elizabeth and Zechariah. It takes us but a moment to read the passage. Yet what were those three months like for them?

For three months, one particular house in the hill country of Judea was home to three of the most incredulous people in the history of the world. Zechariah…an elderly priest whose once in a lifetime career moment was one-upped by an angel delivering a sneak preview of a birth announcement that left the holy man literally speechless. Elizabeth…an old woman who has rocked in her chair and read her Bible everyday for decades while gazing down the hall at the nursery she never got to use, but is now placing orders with Babies-R-Us.  Mary…a poor teenage peasant girl but by the favor of God Himself, richer than any palace queen.

How many discussions did they have about angelic visitations? About the miracle of becoming pregnant by a husband on Medicare? Or becoming pregnant completely apart from being intimate with a man? What was it like to try and interpret Zechariah’s sign language?

Three surprised people in the same house for three months. Absorbed in their personal wonder yet unable to escape the Divine momentum pulling them beyond themselves into world changing history. An old woman and a teenage girl sympathizing in one another’s morning sickness. A dumbstruck old man writing furiously on a piece of paper trying desperately to keep up his end of a conversation about the reality of angels.

And at the end of the day, two expectant mothers lying down to sleep, running one hand in a slow circle over their womb, filling the darkness with their silent prayers and questions.

Three of God’s chosen together for three months in a simple Judean home. Thankful they are not alone in their miracles and their visions. Scared about the timing and thrilled about the nearness of their God. Three very humble, unknown, and incredibly significant people.

If those walls could speak, what a story they would tell.
 
What is your story this Christmas? Are you asking God to break through your doubts with His blessings? Are you still waiting for an answer to prayers you’ve prayed for years? Are you prepared for an answer that is more than an answer? Are you prepared for God to use you to accomplish His plan?

God cares. Human obstacles of age and time and circumstance make no difference to Him. Or, in the words of the angel Gabriel, “nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37)

If you feel this season that you are standing in the shadows of Christmas, remember this…

God has not forgotten you. Joy and gladness await you in His perfect time.

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.” – Isaiah 12:2

Six years ago tonight I was working in the Kid’s Team Shop at America West Arena. It was a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game. I was standing in the middle of the store when my cell phone rang. It was Sara. She was screaming. I couldn’t get what she was yelling about.

“Slow down! I can’t understand you! What’s going on?”

“They picked us!”

“Who picked us?”

“They picked us! The birth Mom and her family! They picked us!”

She rattled on, something about a December 8 due date. But to me it was all Charlie Brown teacher “wah wah wah, wah wah wah” in my head. I hit the end button on my cell phone, stared at the green backlit screen and realized my life had just changed.

October 7. December 8. Two months. Two months till twin babies. After years of waiting and multiple disappointments hoping for one child, now two babies in two months? This is fast.

Ten days after the phone call in the Team Shop my cell phone rang again. This time I was sitting at a Sonic drive through in Tempe waiting for my large Cherry Flurry. A strange area code on the caller ID. It was the birth Mom’s sister. In a chipper carefree voice she said, “Hey! Just wanted you to know my sister’s water broke. The babies will be born tonight. Can you get here?”

Get here? It’s only October 17th. What happened to December 8th?

Fast just got faster.

We were two first-born, organized, step by step, we love sequence, A + B = C, don’t throw me a curve ball, I like things in order kind of people. I had a DayTimer. Sara had a DayTimer on steroids. I guarantee she had nothing written down on October 17th that said, “get phone call at noon, twins to be born today, take leave of absence from school, fly to Spokane at 6, stay for a month.” Nope. The only plan that was in place was God’s plan. And that’s precisely the point.
 
In my journal I wrote, “This experience is reminding me once again, perhaps as never before, that DayTimers and Palm Pilots are, at one level, high tech human tools of denial. They may keep us organized but they also fool us into thinking we have some measure of control over the events of our lives. Being smart and making decent decisions gets us a little further down life’s road. But rarely, if ever, do we begin our DayTimer moments acknowledging that God could throw our 7-ring into a divinely appointed tailspin. We don’t like to admit the reality that God controls everything and we control nothing.

Certainly there is something to be said for time management. Stewardship extends to time as well. Yet when God unfolds His plan, the DayTimer is the first casualty. We learned that this last month. Everything that has happened to us in the last 30 days has been upside down, backwards, premature, surprising, unexpected, unusual, unplanned… and all God.”

When we speak of “God’s timing” more often than not we think of it as far removed from the urgency of our circumstances. We tend to view God as a slow moving, deliberate deity. A divine curmudgeon who holes up in a big dark paneled office, seated behind a giant desk poring over every request, petition and prayer, taking them all under advisement. Compared to our desperate desire for progress, God moves with speed of a tired sloth. Or so it seems. We’re anxious for results and we see nothing from Him. God must not be listening or He must not care.

In retrospect, I think part of God’s purpose in having us endure long seasons of waiting is that we learn to cling tighter to Him. It’s in this season of waiting that we develop the grip we’ll need to hang on when God decides to go fast.

No doubt there are periods of our lives when God’s timetable is slower than we would like. But sometimes God goes fast. Really fast. Circumstances and situations where He accelerates the timetable beyond our imagination. And before you know it, you’re getting more than a taste of what you asked for. You’re drinking from a fire hydrant and God’s the one holding the big wrench.   

God isn’t always the God of “slow down and wait”. Sometimes He’s the God of “hurry up and go!” In the waiting and the rushing, He is working out His higher purposes for our good and His glory. Fast or slow, He’s always lovingly in control.

Can God go fast?

No kids to twins in 23 days. From a standing start.

Yep. God can go fast. Really fast.

How’s your grip?

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:11-13

Of all the delightful kids who come to Aqua-Tots for swim lessons each week, Megan is my favorite. The joy she expresses in the water is unbridled and genuine.

Beautiful. Smart. Strong. Stubborn. Expressive.

Megan is all of these.

She’s also a prisoner. Trapped in her own body. She can’t walk on her own. Nor can she talk. The best she can do is make noises. She relies on a wheelchair and a digital communicator to interface with the world around her.

According to her Dad and the medical team in California that saved her life at birth, Megan is a miracle kid. Severe complications during her delivery have left her with a form of cerebral palsy. The most hopeful prediction was that she would live her life in a vegetative state.

Her Dad says to me, “Megan knows exactly what’s going on around her. She sees the other kids her age and knows what she should be able to do. She wants to be running with them.” He says it with a brave face and an optimistic smile that can’t hide the pain he feels for his daughter.

When it’s time for Megan’s lesson, we look for each other. Not because she needs me. Because I need her. Her smiles make my week. When we see each other Megan always leans out of her chair, excited, arms open to give me a hug. I don’t know why. They say you can’t fool kids and dogs. I’d like to think it’s because she knows that I really love her.

Inevitably, it seems, she arrives for her lesson just after I’ve gotten off the phone with a parent who hasn’t gotten the memo that the world doesn’t revolve around them. In the world of customer service I make them feel as if it does and when I hang up the phone wonder if a reality check wouldn’t have been more honest than reinforcing their belief that they are the center of the universe.

One day I was kneeling in front of Megan in her wheelchair as she was waiting for her swim lesson to start. We were face to face but she was looking past me, over my shoulder to the gymnasts who were practicing their tumbling runs. A sprint, a handspring, launching themselves up and over, twisting and flying into the foam rubber pit.

She knows.

She knows that’s what she should be doing. I could see it in her expression. The sadness and the longing. The “why not me?” in her eyes.

Selfishly, I wanted to distract her from reality.

“Megan, it’s great to see you today! How are you?”

She brought her attention back to me with an extra large smile. She awkwardly tried to bring her hands together. With her thumbs and index fingers she made a triangle.

“Megan, you’re a lot smarter than I am. I don’t know sign language.”

She leaned forward and extended her hands toward my face, as if to make the sign more visible.

Her Dad said, “You asked her how she is.”

“So what’s she saying?”

“She’s telling you she’s perfect.”

I felt like someone dropped a Steinway on my chest.

Ask me how I am and my healthy, mobile, verbose body will give you a half-hearted and sometimes discontented, “I’m fine”.

Ask Megan how she is and she’ll tell you she’s perfect.

And she is.

She so is.

Perspective comes to us in many ways. The best way is when the life lesson takes us outside ourselves, far away from our selfish, self-absorbed lives. In 43 years I’ve received many doses of perspective. None more powerful or life-impacting than Megan’s sign.

We all have challenges. Megan’s challenges are off the chart. The difference between Megan and me is I can discuss my challenges. I can give voice to my complaints. I can whine and grumble about how I’ve been inconvenienced or hurt or slighted. I can get up and walk or run away from situations where I am angry or frustrated or overwhelmed.

In short, I have freedom to move through life fully ambulatory and fully vocal about every blessing I think I deserve but don’t have. And every injustice I have suffered but didn’t deserve. All the while oblivious that my whining and griping and walking away is made possible by a body… that works.

God must appalled by my chutzpah.

Megan, my friend, I owe you more than you will ever know. You are a continual source of inspiration and perspective for me. God will be pleased if I can someday attain the maturity of attitude you possess.

You come to Aqua-Tots each week for a lesson. Thanks for coming.

You’re a great teacher.

“O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.” – William Shakespeare

I was blessed to live near all my grandparents. I got to see them all the time. Grandpa and Grandma Thompson lived the closest. A short half mile down the gravel road on the farm. In the summer of 1981 they had been married for 56 years. That the marriage happened at all was a tribute to my Grandfather’s considerable charm and persistence. In a letter my Grandmother wrote to my cousin, she said, “I once told your Grandfather it would be a cold day before I would ever marry him. And it was. 34 degrees below zero on Christmas Eve in 1924.”

Grandpa Thompson was quite a character. A gifted conversationalist. A skill that served him well as a salesman and in talking his way out of speeding tickets. He had a dry sense of humor and a keen wit. He was a great story teller. An excellent woodworker. He taught himself to paint in his 70′s. He had a green thumb, loved to grow raspberries and roses. Best of all he was a quietly strong Christian role model. A Grandpa who was a wealth of wisdom and seasoned life experience for his grandkids.

About a month before he passed away, a big storm blew through. Summer storms in our part of Iowa always came from the northwest and this one had been building all day. It wasn’t a matter of if it was coming, but when it would arrive. We knocked off work at 4 pm, poured some lemonade, watched the horizon and waited. According to the radio, this one wasn’t some wannabe wind. This was going to be a “head for the basement and it wouldn’t hurt to pray” kind of storm.

The clouds were more ominous than anything I’d ever seen. Rolling, dark blue, then fading to black. The radio station said this weather cell had spawned a couple tornados and was leaving a trail of serious damage. I stayed out by the field taking pictures until I felt the air temperature quickly drop. Then it was a sprint to the house with my Shetland Sheep dog right on my heels.

Everyone went to the basement but me and my Dad. We looked out the window and watched the wind flip the switch to high. It was as impressive as it was sobering. Then just as quickly, the switch flipped off. Completely off. It was the first and only time I’ve literally experienced the “calm before the storm”. Everything outside in an instant went eerily still. Not leaf moved. There was no sound. The sky was a scary green gray. The air felt charged. It made my skin crawl.

Dad said, “Look out. Here it comes.”

Wham!

The storm after the calm shook the house. Trees bending, shingles flying and it sounded like a train was rolling through our living room. We went to the basement to ride it out. Time passes. Slowly and fearfully when you’re thinking your house could blow away.

After the noise died off, we went upstairs. The house was still there. But outside, what a mess. We’d be cleaning this up for days.

My cousin Jack, in a voice of urgent concern, said, “Man, we better get down the road and check on Mom and Pop. I hope they had time to get to the basement.” They were 81 and 82 years old. Trying to navigate those stairs in a hurry would be dangerous for them.

We jumped in the truck and headed south. All the way down the road we zigzagged to avoid the debris. Heading up the lane we saw chunks of corrugated steel roofing draped over power lines like laundry hung out to dry. A couple small buildings had fallen in. The tornado had hit the edge of Grandpa’s farm. It tore the roof off the hay shed and sent it screaming across the acreage. There was a ten inch hole in the siding where the wind had javelined a tree limb into the side of the house. A huge branch was blocking the front door. Jack and I scrambled to lift it out of the way.

Flinging open the door we instinctively headed for the basement but there was no light on down there. Curious. We poked our heads around to look up into the kitchen. There sat Grandpa and Grandma at the table, drinking coffee and having an afternoon snack.

Jack went off. “Pop, what the heck are you doing up here? Why aren’t you in the basement?! Didn’t you know it was storming outside?”

“Yep.”

My turn. “Then why the heck are you up here? Don’t you know a tornado lifted the roof off the hay shed and blew it over your house? It knocked your chimney down!”

“I thought I heard somethin’.”

“Heard somethin’?! You’ve got a hole in the side of your house! Another two feet over and that tree’d come right through the window and killed you. Why aren’t you in the basement?!!!”

He looked at us and without pause graced our 18 year-old questions with an 82 year-old answer.

“Because if you’re gonna go, you may as well go eating pie.”

And with that he put down his fork.

I can’t speak for Jack. But in my memory that was perhaps the first time I realized that in the sovereignty of God, when it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. The best we can do is make sure we’re living life to the full every day, even in the storms, until we go. In this, we have a choice.

Several weeks later the entire extended family was gathered at our house for dinner. We grilled steaks and hamburgers, ate sweet corn, drank iced tea and enjoyed being together as we had so many times before. Grandpa Thompson was at the table, relishing the conversation and the laughter and his family when he fell out of his chair and died. A massive stroke or heart attack. I think he was gone before he hit the floor.

He was drinking a cup of coffee.

And eating a piece of apple pie.

“Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.” – Psalm 39:4

Each of us have been shaped by our backgrounds. Some of us grew up in church. Some of us didn’t. Some of us went for awhile but stopped because we had a bad experience or because we didn’t like what we heard. Some of us grew up in a home where God was shoved down our throats and as soon as we were old enough to shove back, we pushed away.

Without exception, all of us, in some form or fashion, define God by our own terms based on our experiences.

We can try to keep God comfortably stashed within the box of our human ideas and traditions. But sooner or later we realize God’s grace can’t be contained by our narrow ideas or even the four walls of a church. In Luke 5:27-39 Jesus breaks the mold of our human ideas of religion and spirituality by offering His friendship and radical grace to a hated IRS agent named Levi.

Sooner or later we all have to face the questions:

Am I going to continue to define God by my experiences? Or will I allow God to define Himself by His own terms?

(Presented to Hope Covenant Church – Chandler, AZ – 7/9/2006 )

It’s dry in the desert. That’s why they call it a desert. On a good year, the Phoenix valley receives only 7″ of rain. This hasn’t been a good year. Until God turned on the faucet last Saturday, it had been 143 days in a row with no rain. The last time water fell from the sky was October 18th. My twins’ birthday. When you’re 5, not seeing something for 143 days can make you forget you ever knew what it was. Annie looked out the window with disbelief and asked, “Daddy, is that rain?”

Rain here is a tease. Sometimes it’s spotty. It might be pouring buckets at your friend’s house a half mile away while you’re washing your car under sunny skies. Rain is especially fickle here during monsoon season. It’s a seasonal weather pattern of hot, moist air that blows up from Mexico during July and August. You see the clouds form in the late afternoon and you think it’s finally going to pour. More often than not, all you get is a dust storm; a wall of wind whipped dirt followed by 12 drops of rain on your windshield. A little mud in your eye as it laughs going away.

Saturday was not a tease. It really rained. The clouds rolled into town, took off their coats and stayed awhile. In a place where the sun shines 330 days a year, a day like this is more than a treat. It’s an event not to be missed. Gray skies. The steady sounds of water dripping off bougainvillea leaves onto the sidewalk. The splash of tires rolling through puddles. The smell of water in the air. The feel of raindrops on your face. The sight of accumulated dust and grime being washed away clean.

I worked the Suns game that Saturday night. Fans came through the doors from the parking garage and the street, coats damp and dripping, no one complaining. When you’ve been dry and dusty for five months, you welcome the shower. Wet rubber soles squeaked on the floor and folks stopped to wipe off their glasses before moving along the concourse. It was easy to see the rain made people happy. It had been 143 days. Now the wait was over. The rain came.

Waiting.

We do a lot of waiting.

In Phoenix, we wait for rain. In Seattle, they wait for sunshine. We all wait in line at the grocery store. Some waiting is expected. No one in their right mind ever goes to the Social Security office or the Department of Motor Vehicles expecting to be in and out in five minutes. Some waiting we plan for.

It’s waiting when we didn’t plan to wait that is the hardest.

Like waiting for a job when we’ve been unemployed two months after the savings runs out. Waiting for the doctor to say this round of chemo therapy finally worked. Waiting for a baby to place in the nursery that’s been ready, and empty, for years. Waiting for that estranged relationship to be reconciled.

This is the waiting that exasperates and exhausts us. And if we’re honest, it is a waiting that frustrates and angers us. Because deep down, whether we admit it or not, we realize we’re waiting on God. He could do something about it if He wanted to. So why doesn’t He? Why doesn’t He do something? Anything to show us a glimpse of forward progress?

Most of the time we want our waiting to be over because we’re ready for a change of scenery. We want to be delivered from our immediate circumstances. All we can see is what’s in front of us. God has a different vantage point. He sees the big picture.

Though it pains me to say it, our waiting may be God’s working.

Abraham was an old and childless man when God promised him a son. If it was a hilarious thought that at 75 years old Abraham would be shopping for bottle warmers and a bouncy seat, then it was beyond incredible for him to be in the delivery room at age 100. But that’s what happened. God promised Abraham a son. And delivered on His promise 25 years later. They named him Isaac. It means “laughter”. Being a new dad when you’re 100 is pretty funny.

We can read the account in the book of Genesis and we can wonder about the wait. But God must have had His reasons. Albert Baylis put it this way,

“It appears God wants to do more with Abraham than drop promises on him. Abraham had received an irrevocable promise from God. But being God’s candidate for blessing is not a trip to Disneyland. Because God is going to bless Abraham, he’s going to make him into a man of faith. Because He is going to make Abraham a blessing, God will take whatever time is necessary. And God has never let time bother Him.”

Time bothers us. But it doesn’t bother God.

If you’re waiting, know that God is working. It’s ok to yell and scream about it. It’s ok to wonder how and why. The Bible is full of people who, in the middle of their dry dust wait, threw up their questions to God. No worries. He is big enough to handle them. You may not get the answers you like. You may not get answers at all. But this much is true. God always delivers on His promises. In His time and in His way. And always for your good and His glory.

Hang in there.

The rain is coming.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” – Proverbs 13:12

“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.” – Lamentations 3:25

“No, Annie. You’re five now. Happy Birthday!”

For weeks Annie and Emma have been talking about how they would soon be five years old. Now that the day is here, they seem a tiny bit wistful pondering that being five means they are no longer four. I understand that. We look forward to arriving and when we do we can’t help but look back.

Driving them to pre-school, we stop at Fry’s Grocery to buy some cookies to share with their classmates. Annie and Emma announce to the checkout clerk that today is their birthday and they are now five years old.

“Really? If it’s your birthday then you need balloons!” An attentive employee walking by hears the conversation and is back in a flash with two balloons, one pink and one orange. The girls giggle, toss a thank you over their shoulder and bounce out the door.

We are pulling out of the parking lot when my Dad calls. He can barely find the words to say that Steve Logemann, a high school acquaintance of mine, has died in a farm accident.

Steve was a couple grades ahead of me at North Kossuth High School. I didn’t know him well except to say hi to him in the hall between classes. He was very tall and very nice. The kind of person your parents would describe as “a good kid”.

Two years ago and 23 years removed from our high school days I received an email from Steve. Somehow one of my “Slice of Life” columns had found its way to his inbox and he asked to be added to the distribution list. Steve and his wife Gail now had four kids and a family website with pictures of their Iowa farm and of their children. The website is called www.twinkleye.com, a not so subtle reference to the Biblical passage in 1 Corinthians 15 that speaks about how believers in Jesus Christ will be changed in the “twinkling of an eye” when He returns. And that because of Jesus’ death on the cross, “death is swallowed up in victory”.

Pressing the end button on my cell phone, I turn right on to 40th Street. Annie and Emma are chattering happy twin talk in the back seat. Driving a little slower than normal, I look around. Palm trees are swaying and gray clouds are rolling on an unusually cool and windy Phoenix day. A phone company technician bends over a junction box, making repairs. Kids with packs on their backs and I-Pod’s in their ears head for the bus stop. A McDonald’s semi truck on its way with a supply of everything needed to make Big Macs and Egg McMuffins. Two ladies aerobic speed walking down the sidewalk. A Dad pushing a stroller. And me driving my kids to preschool on their 5th birthday before going off to work.

The thing about death is that it happens in the middle of life.

Pulling into the school parking lot the kids unbuckle their seat belts and we do what we always do. We have a little talk. We talk about how important it is to be a good friend to others, to be respectful of their teachers, to take care of each other and to remember that they can talk to God anytime about anything. On this day I add that 5 years ago my whole life changed when God blessed me with their lives. I tell them how proud I am of them and how much I love them. We hug for a little longer than usual.

Getting out of the car, Emma says, “Daddy, let’s let the balloons go and watch them go high in the sky.”

“Is that ok with you, Annie?”

“That’s a great idea! I go first!”

“Ok, go ahead…no. Wait Annie. Please. Just a second. Daddy needs to get something.”

Maybe it’s because today is their birthday. Maybe it’s because I’m thinking about Steve’s wife and kids and how terribly much they are going to miss their Daddy. Maybe it’s because with all my formal theological training I don’t have a single satisfying answer as to why bad things happen to good people. Maybe it’s because all of the above makes me remember that life is short and oh so unpredictable.

Whatever it was made me grab the camera.

“Ok, girls! Let ‘em go!”

Annie was right. It was a great idea. We watched them dance into the clouds and out of sight.

Happy Birthday, Annie and Emma. I love you more than you’ll ever know.

See you later, Steve. Thanks for reminding me to look forward to the “twinkle eye” time. You’ve arrived. I’m sure there’s lots to do on your first day in heaven, but if you happen to see a couple of pink and orange balloons float by, just know they’re from friends in Phoenix who are looking forward to the day of no more looking back.

“Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.”
-Psalm 39:4

“Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 15:57

We’ve all been there. The not so proverbial “fork in the road”. A choice to make. Which path to take? Is one right and the other wrong? If so, how do we know which is which? How do we discern God’s will for our lives?

Much as we would like it to be, God’s will is not a formula to be followed. It’s an adventure to be lived.

A brief discussion of the questions we have when trying to discern God’s will.

Everything I know about this topic I owe to Dr. Jerry Sittser.

(Presented to Hope Covenant Church – Chandler, AZ – 9/25/2005) 

Swea City’s a small place. About 700 people, provided everyone’s home. “I’ve been there. In fact, my aunt used to live there.” I ask her aunt’s name. “Gladys Hanson.” I tell the lady that Gladys was a member of my church for as long as I can remember and one of my Grandparents’ closest friends.

I’m at an outdoor art festival in Scottsdale, Arizona. I strike up a conversation with a young couple who say they are from Seattle. It rains a lot there but it doesn’t snow like it does in the place they grew up. “Where is that?”, I ask.

“Iowa. The Sioux City area. Actually, a small town called LeMars.” LeMars.

“Did you go to LeMars Central High School?” They did.

“Do you know Glendon Peterson?” They said he was their favorite teacher.

“Glendon is my uncle.”

I’m at my day job in Phoenix, Arizona, on the phone with a lady in Bismark, North Dakota. Reviewing paperwork she has faxed me, I notice that she’s written for a couple magazines that I’m familiar with. “I go to a writer’s conference every year in Glorieta, New Mexico”, she says. I ask if she attended this past fall. She was there. “Then you’ve seen me. Remember the band who did the music for the conference? I was the guy playing percussion.”

Of everything I learned in my undergraduate major of psychology, one study has always intrigued me. A group of researchers got together to test the “small world” theory. They gathered phone books from all over the country. Opening one at random they would blindly point to a name. “John Jones in Tampa, Florida.” Then they would open another phone book and randomly select another person. “Marie Morrison in Holbrook, Arizona”. They would send a letter to Marie Morrison with John Jones’ name and address and these instructions: “Don’t send this letter directly to John Jones. Just send it to any person you know and have them send it to any person they know until someone says, “Hey, I know John Jones!” They repeated this experiment hundreds of times.

Guess how many times, on average, the letter had to be mailed before someone knew “John Jones”?

Five times.

Only five times before someone said, “Hey, I know that person!” It really is a small world.

When we go beyond the immediate fascination that only five or six degrees separate us from every person on the planet, we see the incredible impact we can have on our world. Even if we live our entire life in one place. As far as I know, Gladys Hanson never left our small town. Yet years later and 1,500 miles removed I was able to tell her niece of her godly example and treasured friendship to my Grandparents. My Uncle Glendon spent his entire teaching career at one school. His passion for excellence in the classroom is an unforgettable example to his students who now live all over the country. I doubt he would ever have thought he’d be the topic of discussion between two strangers at an art festival in Scottsdale.

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, He talks about the positive influence we can have on those around us. He likens us to a lamp that is put on a stand so it gives light to everyone in the house. Jesus goes on to say, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) A lamp doesn’t run about trying to illuminate the entire world. It stays in one place and lights up the room it’s in.

What you do makes a difference. Your influence extends far beyond your awareness. You may live and die within 100 miles of your birthplace, yet you’re still only five people removed from everyone else on the planet. In that light, there’s really no need to be famous. We need only be faithful.

When we’re faithful to be kind, when we’re faithful to do our best with the talents and abilities God has given us, when we’re faithful to be who we are where we live; the ripples of our life well-lived will roll across the ocean of humanity. Guaranteed.

Because it only takes five postage stamps before someone says, “Hey, I know you!”

It really is a small world. In your corner of it, be faithful to make a difference. You just might be the topic of conversation for two strangers waiting for their Jamba Juice.

There’s a difference between thinking and reflecting.

We think all the time. We run countless checklists in our head every day. But when’s the last time we took time to reflect on God’s purpose for our life?

How a trip to Chicago, time spent viewing the works of the Old Masters, and dashes and dots give pause for a season of reflection.

(Presented to Hope Covenant Church – Chandler, AZ – 11/7/2004)

For the Roman soldiers walking the perimeter, it’s all in a day’s work. Some people push pencils and keep records for a living. Others sell groceries in the market. For these men, keeping order during riots and overseeing ghoulish public spectacles is part of the job description.

They aren’t here by choice. They are part of an occupying force hundreds of miles from their home. They’d rather be back in Rome. Someday they’ll go home. And when they do they plan to march straight down to the recruiting office and have a hands-on conversation with that guy behind the desk who said joining the Roman army meant they would experience adventure and see the world. He didn’t tell them it meant pulling duty in a backwards place like Jerusalem.

And to them, it is backwards. Take this crucifixion, for example. Back in Rome, you’d need a very good reason to put a fellow Roman to death. There would be a trial. The testimonies of the witnesses would have to corroborate. To convict would require hard evidence. The judge and jury would be unbiased. The verdict would be fair. However it turned out, the process would be logical.

To these Roman soldiers, the Jews, at least some of them, aren’t logical at all. When given a choice, they begged and screamed for a convicted felon named Barrabbas to be set free so they could put to death one of their own. That’s backwards. To execute a guy whose only crime it seemed was being too popular with the people. If this happened back in Rome, someone would be put to death all right. But it wouldn’t be this guy on the middle cross. It would be the ones who couldn’t get their story straight and gave a false witness.

But in the end, it’s not their problem. To the soldiers it’s just another day on the killing hill. Three criminals getting their just desserts. Supervising crucifixions is ugly business and gambling for a criminal’s clothing while He hangs dying just a few feet away seems morbid, but it’s a welcome distraction from the moans of pain and gasping sounds of death.

Maybe the next tour of duty will be easier.

After three years of earthly ministry, it ends here. Jesus nailed to a cross. It ends right here. Or does it? Say what you will about this man Jesus, that He was a troublemaker and a rabble rouser, a burr under the saddle of the religious establishment; or say that He was a good teacher sent by God. Either way, you had to admit that He was different. Really different.

How did they put it? “He was one teaching s with authority.” That’s one way to put it.

“Backwards” is another way to put it.

He said we are to be kind to those who hurt us. To turn the other cheek toward those who would hit us. To not refuse those who want to borrow from us. He said the fastest way to become truly wealthy is to give away our worldly possessions. He said if our desire is to become great then we need to assume a humble position. And if we want God to smile on us we should do our fasting and our praying and our giving in secret.

Crazy as these ideas are, most backwards is Jesus’ idea that the best way to make peace with our enemies is to forgive them.

He said it that day on the side of the mountain while preaching to the crowds. “Love your enemies”, He said. It’s one thing to be magnanimous when you’re the center of attention. It’s easy to be bold when you’re free to walk about under the big blue sky. Yet, here is a man pinned to a piece of wood saying “Forgive them.”

“Forgive me, God”, now that’s a phrase I can understand. Forgive me, God because I’m a total screw up. Forgive me, God, because I fail. “Forgive me, God”, is a phrase that makes sense to me. Because I know me. But “forgive them”? Especially when the “them” are my enemies? That’s backwards.

You’d think that being stripped naked and nailed to a cross when you’ve done nothing wrong would cause one to rethink their theology. Changing your position to one of revenge and retribution when you’ve been unjustly convicted of crimes you didn’t commit, well, who could hold that against you? Say what you will about this Jesus. He remains consistent, and backwards, even to the end.

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus is backwards even to the end. Asking forgiveness for short-sighted people who could no longer compete with His truth. Asking God the Father to forgive the ignorance of their actions. Nailed to a cross in excruciating pain Jesus doesn’t ask for His own deliverance.

He asks for ours.

Gambling for the clothing of one dying on a cross just a few feet away seems morbid. If I had been one of the soldiers that day I’d have probably taken my turn at tossing the dice. It would have been a welcome distraction from the moans of pain and gasping sounds of death coming from the backwards man on the middle cross.

The one asking His Father to forgive me because I didn’t know what I was doing.