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How To Manage The Ups And Downs In Life

 

From time to time I republish an old post I’ve written. This post is from July 15, 2014. Enjoy.

My golf game the other day resembled life to a large degree. And, like my game, life is filled with ups and downs.

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When I was in my early twenties I played golf every Saturday morning.  It was like clockwork, unless I had a late night the night before and then I sometimes got a few pebbles thrown at my window to nudge me out of bed.

Well, this past Saturday was a blast from the past for me. I had an early 7:05 am tee off time with a couple of buddies.

It’s been years, but I still remembered the quietness of that time of day, and the stillness of the air. The dew was thick on the grass and the sun breaking through the trees created breathtaking patterns of light and shade on the fairways.

That’s a nice picture, isn’t it? Well it stops right about there because, for some reason, I couldn’t hit the golf ball on Saturday.

I started with a 6, and if you don’t know anything about golf, let me tell you, it doesn’t matter if it’s a long hole or short hole, a 6 is never a good score!

I posted another 6 on the next hole, and when I got my third straight 6, I glanced over at the score card my partner was keeping and I could see the pattern. My card read 666 and you know what that’s the sign of!

That’s maybe why I was kind of relieved when I scored – yup, you guessed it – another 6 on the next hole. With four sixes on the first four holes, it was very obvious I was having a terrible round. But at least now no one was going to confuse me for being the devil.

The rest of the front nine holes were up and down – a couple of good holes but also a couple of bad ones.

Then things changed around on the back nine. I don’t really know why; no one gave me a pep talk or anything. I just started to hit the ball better. I parred the next 5 holes in a row.

And if you don’t know anything about golf, that means I got the ball in the hole in the correct number of shots.

I had one little hiccup on the 15th hole but then I parred the next two. That’s seven pars on the back nine. That’s a great score for me, and I would say for most people.

Then came the last hole. I don’t know what happened to me, but I choked. I didn’t get a 6 though – I got a 7! I had such a good back nine but then one hole sunk it.

But you know what? As I stare at my score card now, I can’t wait to try again.

Here’s the thing: Life is sometimes bad – sometimes really bad – but it’s also sometimes very good. Often we can’t explain why it is so, we can only take what we get. We have a tendency to blame God for the bad, and just bask in our own glory during the good.

The Bible says everything comes from the hand of God, so we should be looking to God in the good and the bad. We should be seeking to know Him more in all of life. So whether life is good or bad, we should want to get up each morning and try again.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you handled the good and bad in life? I’d really like to hear from you; you can leave your comment below.

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Like A Frog Who Grows Accustomed To Hot Water

Have you ever grown accustomed to something that isn’t very good for you?

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Sure you have! In fact, there is probably something that you think is fine and it’s really not.

The other day, my wife and I were out shopping for mattresses. It’s only been twenty-five years since we’ve had a new one.

… And that’s my point. I’m used to my mattress; I sleep on it every night. But when I laid down on some of the mattresses in the store, I realized my mattress is not doing me any favours.

At one time it was a good mattress. But how could I go so long lying on a mattress that no longer had any support?

The answer is that it didn’t go bad all of a sudden. It took time; it happened incrementally so that I adjusted to the bed as it got older and weaker.

It’s like the old frog in a pot syndrome. Frogs can’t live in hot water. … I learned that as a boy.

One time we were down at the river by our house and caught a bunch of frogs. We had about 6 or 8 of them.

When we got back home, we filled a basin up with water from the outside hose. The only problem was that the outside hose was filled with hot water because the sun had been beating down on it all day.

Well, we filled the basin up and threw in our frogs.

To our surprise, those little leaps died instantly, spread eagle style! It was too much for their system.

But if you put a frog in cool water and gradually warm it up, the frog won’t jump out as it gets hotter. It will stay there until it’s too late, letting itself get cooked.

Same thing with us. We get so used to the incremental changes that we don’t even notice them.

Well, that is until we lie on a bed in the store and realize what a pile of junk our bed really is!

Our son is in the market for a mattress and Lily suggested he take ours. He laid on it for about three seconds, laughed and said, “Not a chance!”

While we were in the store, I found a mattress with a remote control that raised the head of the bed almost to a sitting position. I suggested to Lily that maybe we should get it. She just shook her head as she lay on the bed she wanted.

Just then the salesman came by. I turned to him and said, “I’m taking this one and she’s taking that one.” … We would have had wall-to-wall mattresses if we did that.

I’m looking forward to my new mattress. I only have to put up with the lousy mattress we presently have for another two weeks.

I guess I’ll be able to make it; it’s only been a quarter of a century putting up with it.

And to think that a week ago I thought our mattress was just fine.

Here’s the thing: We really need to evaluate our life from time to time. Are there things in our life that we’ve grown accustomed to that are detrimental to our spiritual growth, and may be hindering our relationship with Christ? Take stock of what they may be and make a change. Don’t keep living in a way that is detrimental to your spiritual health.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you grown accustomed to that may not be all that good for you? Leave your comments below.

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Near Painless Method For Keeping Your Kitchen Clean

This week I found an almost painless way to keep a kitchen looking clean all the time.

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If you know me, you know I’m not really the guy you would naturally go to for tips on anything in the kitchen. I can boil an egg though. I proved it this week – two actually, and they were delicious.

My kitchen and culinary skills have never evolved to any extent and it may be due to always having someone in my life who had those skills.

It’s not that I dislike cooking, it’s that I don’t really know how to do it. I’m okay with a BBQ, and that’s probably what saved me this week.

I was away at our cottage ALONE doing my yearly planning, so I had to fend for myself in the kitchen. Almost all my meals consisted of using the BBQ.

The meals turned out tasty … with all the food groups represented in some sort of fashion.

However, with cooking there also comes cleaning. I never thought they went hand in hand before, but that was because we had a dishwasher.

The dishwasher is neat; you put the dishes in it and the kitchen looks clean.

There was a time when our dishwasher broke down and I was forced to do dishes with my wife. It was a trial and it was traumatic. I wrote a few blog posts about it (you can read them here).

This week I started off ignoring the fact that I needed to wash the dishes. I soon realized you can only do that for a couple of meals. Then the dishes pile up in the sink until you can’t get any more in and they spill over onto the counter.

So I decided to try something. When I started a meal I would run water in the sink and throw some dish soap in. Then, as I made my dinner, when I was finished with something, I would run it through the water, swish it with a cloth, and place it on the drying rack.

By the end of the meal, I only had a few things to clean up. I would quickly wash them and then dry them all with a towel.

It was simple – almost painless. I never stood over the sink for more than a few minutes and best of all, the kitchen virtually looked clean all the time.

It was amazing. I never went by the kitchen trying to avert my eyes from the mess. I never got that nagging feeling of “I’ve got to get at the dishes”.

Like a home with a built-in dishwasher is how my kitchen looked. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happier with a dishwasher – and I don’t even mind what kind of dishwasher – either the built-in model or the live-in kind.

I’m not going to push my luck though. My new method is something that might be helpful to someone else in my family.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been reading through the Bible each year for the last 17 years. Sometimes I would get really far behind and have to exhaust myself trying to catch up. I’ve found it best to set a time and read a little bit (about 4 chapters) every day. That way you can keep up and you never have that pile of scripture that you have to clean up all in one sitting.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has keeping up with something helped keep you from being burdened with it?  Leave your comments below.

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I Lacked Discipline This Vacation

I’m realizing that I let myself go this year on my vacation. What I mean is I wasn’t very disciplined in exercising or in what I ate.

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There are reasons for what led me to this, but the bottom line was I ate way too much junk food and didn’t get out biking nearly as much as I should have.

I don’t know why I didn’t look back half way through my vacation and change my actions to find some discipline, but I didn’t.

That’s the whole thing, isn’t it? I wasn’t disciplined enough to want to do anything about how I was living.

So why now? I’ve come to the end of my vacation and now I start to reflect on how unruly I’ve been in the areas I needed to keep together.

I think it’s natural that when we come to the end of something we start to reflect. For example, at the end of each year, TV networks and sports stations have their year-in-review, broadcasting their top ten sports moments, and the biggest news events of the year.

So, it’s natural to look back on my vacation and think, “Wow, Paul, you really let yourself go!”

I think I ate more candy in the last few weeks than I have all year leading up to this point. When it comes to exercise, this vacation I’ve biked less and golfed less than I have in quite a few years.

I could blame it on the heat, that relentless, energy draining humidity that zaps the life right out of you, that sun the beats down on you to the point where all you can do is lie on a beach chair, or couch and ask for someone to pass you the bonbons.

I could blame it on the weather, but I’m not going to. This was the hottest, sunniest, best vacation weather we have had in about six years. I’m not about to start complaining.

It didn’t help that there was a candy store by the beach that sold imported exotic candy at ridiculously low prices.

And it didn’t help that I stayed up late at night so that I didn’t get up early each day to bike in the cooler temperatures.

As I look back, I could have done a few things differently.

I could have been stronger; I could have thought more of the consequences. … I could have left my money in the cottage when I went for my evening walks to see the sunset.

Now here I am, on the verge of leaving my vacation, and having some remorse for how I conducted myself during the time I’ve been away.

I feel like one of the Canadian Olympians who had a disappointing finish in his last swim race. He said he had trained well, and prepared the best he could for the games. He was simply disappointed that all his training and preparations didn’t produce better results.

That’s me. I came into the vacation thinking I was in good shape. Somehow the different setting – the sun, sand and surf – called out to me to let loose.

And that I did. I’ll be rolling back into town soon … literally rolling in. Then I will get back to my discipline.

Here’s the thing: It’s easy to get off track in your time with God, especially when you change your setting or routine, like on vacation. When that does happen, don’t beat yourself up. Simply make moves to get back to spending quality time with God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What gets you out-of-sync with your disciplines? Leave your comments below.

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I Have Special Privileges

I’m sure that the people I talked to yesterday think I have special privileges with God.

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Everyone knows it’s been a dry summer in southern Ontario. It’s been warm and hot so far, and when you add in the humidity, this summer rivals any warm spot south of the border.

It’s been so dry that at our cottage the grass is pretty much gone and only the weeds are flourishing. We needed to do something or all we would have left is sand and weeds.

So with my brother’s help we put in an irrigation system. And no, we didn’t bury 50 feet of garden hose in the process, but you can read about that story in this post (click here).

The installation of the system didn’t take much more that a few hours. Getting all the parts we needed took longer. I think the sprinkler manufacturers try to make it difficult to hack their system and make it a lot cheaper.

I don’t think it hurt us working with bone dry, sandy ground either. It made digging the trenches for the tubing fairly easy. The edger went into the ground like butter.

When we finished the install, I hooked it all up and tested the lines; it worked like a charm.

Our plan was to put down grass seed all over our property and then water it like crazy with our new system.

That was the theory. That was the plan. That was what we were going to do.

But since it was Sunday morning, first we were going to church.

On our way out of the park that our cottage is in, I noticed a white piece of paper hanging from the security gate.  As we approached, the words on the paper startled me.

The words burned in my mind as they raised with the arm of the gate to let us out of the park.

The words read, “watering ban in effect” … Whaaaaaaaat?!

We just finished putting in a sprinkler system to give us a lawn and keep our property from turning into a dune or a beach volleyball pit, and before I get to use my new watering system there is a ban on watering.

What gives with that?

After church, we did put seed down on the lawn. I went over to my brother’s place and there were some people there who knew what we had done so they kind of mocked me.

They joked that it was on account of me that the watering ban was on. So to counter them I said, “I’m praying for rain.”

Well, we haven’t had rain in a week or so. Everything is dry. But as the afternoon went on it looked more and more like it might rain.

That evening the humidity was thick, the air couldn’t hold the moisture any longer and it rained.  In fact, it rained for a good portion of the night.

Those people know I’m a preacher; they heard me say I was praying for rain. Now who’s laughing? I felt a little like Elijah, except without the false prophets, sacrifices, and fire from heaven (check that story out here).

If they thought I had an inside track to God before, they really think that now.

Here’s the thing: God is faithful; He gives us just what we need.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you seen God’s faithfulness in your life? Leave your comments below.

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The Grass Is Not Greener Over There

We are having a pretty dry summer so far and that has good and bad side effects.

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On the good side, there are not many days my outdoor activities get rained out.

I can get my golf game in and my mountain bike rides in without worrying if I’m picking the best weather days; most days of the week the sun is shining.

In the spring, when it was raining a lot, the soaked mountain biking trails would often be closed so we wouldn’t destroy them. Now if it rains, the trails are so dry that they suck up the rain and we never have to miss a day of biking.

Another good side is I don’t have to cut the grass that often. With the little rain we’ve had in the last month, my grass is not really growing; it’s turning brown … except for the part where they installed a fibre optics cable junction!

Last fall Bell Canada made a mess on my front lawn doing their installation. They finally re-sodded the little area this spring and have been faithful watering it ever since. That’s the only really green part of my lawn now.

… Which leads me to the downside of not having any rain. The grass doesn’t grow but the weeds are in fine form! They seem to be able to stay green and flourish under these drought-like conditions.

While I may not have to cut my grass every week, I still need to cut the weeds if I want to keep the lawn looking even.

So we’ve been thinking maybe we should look into putting a sprinkler system in our yard so that we can give the grass a fighting chance against the weeds. (One year we came home from vacation and our lawn looked completely brown except for thriving, foot high cactus-like weeds, spastically placed all over it!)

 

If we were getting a decent amount of rain, I’m sure we wouldn’t be looking into underground sprinklers at all. But in order for the weeds to not completely take over, we did a little investigation.

After we completed the online planning guide from one company, we looked at their end cost and started wondering if a green lawn was worth taking out a second mortgage on the house!

I’m leaning towards considering that brown is the new green.

We’ve already had to make adjustments like that. When they banned the use of chemical weed control in our city, dandelions became a beautiful yellow flower of spring.

Almost every home sports them and they’re cheap – you don’t have to buy them and they come up every year.

Maybe I just need to look at that brown grass and think of how nice it looks that way. Maybe I just have to ignore the green weeds.

For sure, I can embrace brown grass if it means more time in the sun and less interruptions from my outside activities.

Here’s the thing: You can get used to allowing a certain sin in your life. If you live with it long enough, you may even get to the place where you think it is perfectly fine. But don’t fool yourself! Grass is supposed to be green and you are to confess your sin and turn from it. There’s no other way of looking at it.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What in your life have you come to accept but instead should cut out? Leave your comments below.

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Waiting For An Outcome That’s Worth It

Sometimes the outcome is worth the wait … and sometimes it’s not.

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That’s what I found last night when we went to the buskers festival downtown.

I’ve been to them before and seen all kinds of acts. It truly is remarkable what some people can do with their bodies and a few props.

On this trip to watch the street performers, Lily and I mostly witnessed juggling in various forms.

There was the guy who could juggle and eat an apple. There were the guys who juggled between each other, one on a unicycle and the other on a ladder, completely unsupported.

We also saw a guy who juggled two fire sticks and a sledge hammer – that was pretty remarkable.

Being a juggler myself, I found that fascinating. I can only juggle three objects and Lily still won’t let me attempt to juggle eggs from the fridge. … I guess I’m not quite ready to join the cast of performers making a living off the street.

As we moved from one busker to another, we noticed that many of them used similar jokes and lines. I personally found there was way too much similarity between the acts. It would have been nice to see more variety.

All the acts work on the same premise. They have one big trick, feat or demonstration that they are going to show the crowd.

That one thing probably only takes about two or three minutes to perform. They make their living off people donating to their act so, to get people to pay up, they need to build some rapport, and give people something more than a two minute reason to spend $5 or more.

What the buskers do is develop a whole act that takes about thirty minutes, leading up to this one main trick everyone is waiting to see. By then you’ve expended a significant amount of time with them and and they have been able to charm you into being generous with your money.

What I found, however, is that most acts really left you thinking, “Please, get on with it”. I didn’t say it because I’m Canadian, but I had thought of shouting out, “Okay, let’s get to the big trick!”

With most of the acts, I thought they were putting in time. But there was one act Lily and I both agreed kept everyone entertained. I never felt like I wished they’d get to the finale.

I found it to be a lot like preaching. You have a point that you want to make, and then you inform the congregation, illustrate the point to emphasize it, draw some conclusions to it, and hopefully are able to do it in a way that keeps the congregation engaged throughout, and not just hoping you’d get to the end.

Maybe I do have some street performer in me.

Here’s the thing: Following Jesus shouldn’t be like most of those busker acts where you are all focussed on the final feat (heaven). It should be more like that one act we saw, where you are engaged with Jesus and interacting with Him all through life. Christ doesn’t call us to an ending; He calls us to come along with Him in relationship.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What kind of relationship with Jesus do you have? Leave your comments below.

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My Hockey Season is Finally Over

We just celebrated Canada’s birthday, and this morning I finally hung up my skates for the season.

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That’s Canada … hockey till July! No wonder some folks down south believe we live in igloos. Those same people probably think we are still skating outside in July.

This is actually the latest I’ve played hockey in several years. There are other things that get in the way, things like golf and mountain biking.

I only have time for so much; something had to give.

I will tell you though, it’s kind of nice showing up to the arena wearing sandals, shorts and a T-shirt … and I’d much rather come out of the arena to temperatures of +25 C with the sun high in a blue sky than -25 C with the wind howling and the snow flying.

It was time to stop; the numbers were getting low. I guess people have other things to do on a Saturday morning.

We only had three aside and two goalies yesterday. It was like playing overtime in the NHL, except we did it for an hour and 10 minutes!

We even made a trade part way through the game, and my team acquired my son in a one-for-one trade.

We made a killing on the trade, and improved our team and chances by a considerable amount.

For the last game of the season, it was nice to be on the same side as my son and set him up for a few goals.

Normally, we are on opposite teams because he refuses to put a white jersey in his hockey bag. … The teams are usually chosen by light and dark sweaters, so he’s on the other side most of the time.

Before I even had kids, I remember dreaming about being able to play hockey with my children when they became adults.

Since I was in my 30’s before we started, I wondered if I would still be able to skate by the time they reached an age where we could play on the same level.

Well, it’s kind of nice now. I just turned 60, my son is 25, and we were able to dangle some moves together that hypnotized the goalie.

Lily has mixed emotions about the end of the season.

On the one hand, I leave to play at 6:30 in the morning so it’s no hassle for her because she’s still sleeping. But on the other hand, now that the last game has been played, I just added all my hockey sweaters, socks and underwear to the pile of laundry … laundry just increased by a few loads this week.

Without hockey on Saturday, I’ll be able to get at things earlier on Saturday mornings – Lily should be happy. She’ll have more of my time to coerce me into projects and tasks around the house.

Then there is some vacation time up ahead and there’s not much room for hockey when the beach is taking up most days.

It’s a good time for a break, to focus on some other things, and do some dreaming of next season.

Here’s the thing: Different seasons or times of year bring different schedules and commitments. In the changes, your time with God can get put on the shelf. As one thing stops and something else starts, be sure that you keep your time with God – that season never ends.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What seasonal activity has impacted your devotional time? Leave your comments below.

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That Project Left Me Feeling Incompetent

The project I worked on yesterday left me feeling fairly incompetent, until I watched a program that changed my mind altogether.

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I was replacing some wall sconces at our cottage … we had four, all the same, but Lily decided she wanted some more modern-looking ones.

She found the perfect fixtures and, a few weeks ago, I had the task of changing them.

The amazing thing was I didn’t get electrocuted!

Unfortunately, the new fixtures didn’t fit very well. I tried to modify the attachment plates but they still didn’t fit snugly to the wall. They didn’t look quite right but I ran out of time and left them.

Yesterday I took another stab at it, trying to find a better solution. I was just about to drill a couple of new holes to make it work, when I got another idea.

This idea involved a hacksaw and cutting through a metal plate.

Now, in the past I’ve had some issues with saws of various kinds. There was the time I was trimming off the bottom of a door and I made a nice starter cut at the base of my first finger on my left hand.

That manoeuvre sent me directly to the hospital. The doctors were amazed I didn’t cut a nerve. That finger still feels a little funny to the touch, however.

It wasn’t more than about six months later that I was trimming a panel for a sliding door in our basement. I was using a utility knife to slice the fine board, only I got slightly off course and sliced into myself.

And you can guess, it was my first finger on my left hand. This time it was at the top of the finger.

Well, that was all in the past because this time I didn’t cut anything … well, except the metal plates.

My problem this time was I kept doing things out of order and then would need to take everything all apart to put in a couple of forgotten screws or to trim some insulation.

I had four sconces and it wasn’t until the fourth one that I was able to do things in the right order without having to attach and unattach it from the wall two or three times.

Oh yah, I was able to complete the job unscathed but I still felt like never doing a home project again. I made so many mistakes, the time it took wasn’t worth it.

Feeling like I was done with home repairs from now on, I settled down to relax. Lily was watching some reality TV home show where contestants had to compete against each other, doing things on a construction site like manoeuvring a wheel barrel, hammering nails, painting panels.

After watching how pathetic those people were at doing their tasks, I was feeling like a professional!

I looked over at the wall to see my handiwork and thought the job looked great. I immediately forgot about my frustration and thought I could take on another project some time.

… Well, we’ll see.

Here’s the thing: When you find that sin has tripped you up, maybe for the umpteenth time, and you’re feeling pretty bad about it, with self talk like, “What’s the matter with me?”, remind yourself how God sees you. He does not see you as a failure who falls to sin; He sees you as a son or daughter whom He loves and picks back up after you fall down.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you rebound from being down on yourself? Leave your comments below.

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Parking Downtown Can Be An Adventure

If you drive a car at one time or other you are going to face some parking issues. The bottom line is that there are more cars in the world than parking spaces.

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I remember when they were building the hockey arena downtown in my city; the cry from the people was that there was no parking. Where will people park?

At my church, during the week, we allow two businesses to use our parking lot. On Sundays we use their parking lots because we don’t have enough room for all the cars.

On Friday I had a lunch meeting downtown. As I drove I thought, “It won’t be easy to find a spot.” I decided that I wouldn’t try to be greedy and look for a spot right outside the restaurant I was going to.

The first spot I found, however, fooled me. There were lines suggesting it was permissible to park there. I got out of my car, looked, and decided I needed to back up a little more to really be between the lines.

Since I was out of the car, I thought I’d pay the meter first, so I went over and threw in all the change I had, figuring that would be sufficient to cover my meeting.

When I came back to the car to put the parking pass in the window, I noticed a street sign right at the tail end of my car.

I thought maybe I should check out what that sign said. I was suddenly a little disappointed with the city! On the road they had markings for a parking spot but on the sign above they took the spot away with a no parking sign from that point on.

Now I had a parking pass but no spot to park in. I got in my car and looked around trying to figure out what I was going to do.

I looked back behind me and on the other side of the road there was a parking space. I checked the traffic and, when it looked clear, I swung out of my spot and did a three point turn (perfectly, I might add) in the middle of a busy downtown street and raced for the vacant parking spot.

I pulled in and, since I already had my parking pass, I was pretty pleased with myself.

I got to my meeting and it was not only delayed, it went longer than I had anticipated. When I got out I hurried to my car, fully expecting to see a parking ticket on my windshield.

There was no ticket – I beat the system! In fact, I was two for two that week … which I think is a much better percentage than my son has.

… I get his parking tickets addressed to me on a regular basis because the car is in my name … I’m not sure his Star Trek cloaking device is working all that well.

Here’s the thing: I’ll take a chance on finding a parking spot and, at times, even take the chance I’ll get back to my car before the ticket officer arrives. But I’m not going to take a chance at getting into heaven. I want to be sure I have the right ticket. That ticket is my faith firmly placed in Jesus Christ as my saviour and my Lord. Oh, and there’s no trouble finding a parking space there.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What kind of chance are you taking with God right now? Leave your comments below.