It All Changed in an Instant

They say things can happen in a spilt second.  One moment everything is fine, and the next everything has changed.  That happened to me this week when I put my back out.  I was feeling good, keeping up with my aerobics and weights, and looking forward to playing hockey later in the day.  Then in one moment, aerobics, weights and hockey were all put on hold.

Sometimes things don’t happen quite so fast.  I remember a time shortly after getting my driver’s license, when I was returning home with my brother after a late night hockey practice.  It had lightly snowed while we had been practicing and there was a fresh, thin blanket of snow on the road.  Everything looked so peaceful.

As we left the arena, we turned onto an access road that took us to the main street.  It was a short, two lane strip of road, with no one in sight, and not one tire mark in the snow.  I thought I would show my little brother how to fishtail the car down a street.

We were driving my dad’s ’74 Buick LeSabre, with a 350hp engine, and rear wheel drive.  Looking back, it was a Sherman Tank without the caterpillar tracks!  As I started down the road, I began fishtailing the car back and forth.  Then . . . I gave it a little too much gas, and the car started to fishtail too far.  I panicked and jammed on the brakes with complete inexperience.

The fishtailing stopped but we started sliding, heading straight for a fire hydrant.  It was like slow motion.  There was no way to deviate from the course.  My life flashed before my eyes – not because we would die in the crash – because I knew my dad would kill me when I wrecked his car.  It seemed like an eternity, as we just kept sliding closer to the fire hydrant.

And then a miracle . . . the front tires hit the curb just before the hydrant and the car bounced back.  That was a long time to experience very little change.  I told my brother not to say anything to Dad and that was that.

The other day, however, feeling fine, I bent down to pick up a knife I had dropped.  In a split second I knew the next few days would be uncomfortable.  I got this sharp and stabbing pain in the base of my spine.  It was like that knife had been dropped into my lower back.

Immediately I realized my error.  I had bent with my back and not with my knees.  I’ve heard of people putting their back out by bending over to pick up a sock or something that weighs next to nothing.  I’ve seen Lily put her back out, without picking up anything.  I always thought that was weird.

Now I know what it’s like.  It sounds funny, “I put my back out by picking up a knife”.  But it wasn’t funny to me and it changed my life for the next few days.

Here’s the thing:  Sometimes we can see outcomes unfold from the decisions we make, and sometimes they happen so quickly we can’t anticipate the outcome.  If I am in a regular habit of bringing my decisions to God, and then following His direction, it will cut down on those times I find myself edging towards a big disaster, or suddenly appearing in the midst of trouble.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  What’s your plan for ensuring your decision-making doesn’t lead to trouble?  Leave your comment below.

Does a Seminar Count as a Date?

This past weekend, my wife and I attended a marriage seminar.  We had been planning on going for some time, though truthfully, I wasn’t super excited … maybe I would have been if it had meant a weekend away in a nice hotel with my wife!

I know what happens at seminars: someone talks for long periods of time, you take all kinds of notes, and leave feeling overwhelmed, not knowing where to begin.  Often you get right back into your life and work, and don’t have time to process it all … so you end up doing nothing.

Afterwards, people ask you how the seminar was, and you reply, “It was great; I learned so much and the speaker was so good.”  But the reality often is that you didn’t do anything with what you heard.

A week earlier, I had been to another two-day seminar with ten speakers talking about leadership.  Talk about overload!  I decided there were three things that three different speakers said that I wanted to pursue further.  Still, it’s a struggle to take the time to incorporate them into my life, so that it makes a difference.

I have to say, this marriage seminar was more than I thought it would be.  Not that I found out things I didn’t know before, but I came to understand the “why” of what I already knew.

Let me explain:  I know that when I bring flowers home, it does something to melt Lily’s heart.  I don’t know why.  I look at flowers and they don’t do anything for me. The reality is the flowers are in the process of dying and will be dried out in a week or less.

Still, she marvels over them, and feels something when she looks at them … and I know those feelings are directed towards me!  I don’t understand it one bit; I just know flowers work this way on Lily.

Well, what this seminar did was help me understand why Lily works the way she does.  It gave me context to her thinking, actions, and responses.  In the end, women came away feeling good about being women and men felt good about being men.  Now that’s something amazing in this men-bashing culture we live in!

Still, the key is not just understanding each other, and feeling good about being a man or a woman.  The key is in the follow up, what you do with what you now know.  For that seminar to make any impact on my marriage, I need to implement some things.

Here’s the thing:  As good as that seminar was, as funny and insightful as the speaker was, it all comes down to what I will do with what I learned.  I need a plan, or I need to commit to doing a couple of things or it won’t have been a help.  The same principle applies with sermons, devotions, small group study.  If I don’t take something from the message and do it, or commit to it, then God’s Word won’t help me.  It will just be good information.

By the way, the seminar was called “Love and Respect” (you can google it),  and ran on Friday evening and Saturday morning … and guys, Saturdays morning was the best part!

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  How do you ensure that you implement what you learn, whether from a book, a sermon, seminar, Bible study or your personal time with God? Leave your comment below.

Ya, It’s Nice to be Back!

Recently I went back to playing hockey.  I felt good enough to play, but since I did have a heart attack after the last time I played hockey, I also felt a little weird about it.

Since I left the hospital back in March, I have had to carry a nitroglycerin spray … just in case.  I haven’t had to use it, but when we got to the bench, I told my son Mike where it was in the dressing room, in the event I might need a little shot.  I just felt it would be good for someone to know where it was.

When I got onto the ice, I found that my skates didn’t fit right.  I don’t understand how a heart attack could affect my feet, but my skates which have fit perfect for the last 18 years put my feet into agonizing pain.  It didn’t matter whether I was on the ice or on the bench, my feet just hurt.  That lasted about 45 minutes before the pain went away.

I’ve never experienced that before, nor have I experienced aching muscles around my hips when I skated before.  But that, too, seemed to be a relatively new change for me.  I feel I have aged over the last seven months.

And then there were all the “mothers” that showed up to play.  It was a little embarrassing.  Every time I came to the bench, someone would ask me how I was feeling.  If I looked out of breath or in a little pain, if I slipped or got bumped by someone, these big guys dressed in full hockey gear got all tender on me and asked, “Are you okay?”  One time I answered back, “Yes, dear” and I don’t think he asked me again.

I also had to get used to a new routine.  Apparently, hockey is kind of hard on one’s heart.  That’s why they have installed defibrillators in all the arenas in the city.  It’s not that hockey isn’t a good way to exercise, but when you go from racing up and down the ice to sitting on the bench, your heart rate rises and drops rapidly.  Well, that’s not ideal.

So, now I have to coast at the end of my shift, or walk a few laps around the bench before I sit down.  Let me tell you, that gets a few looks and comments from the other guys.

But in the end, I felt good that I got that first game under my belt.  It was great to be on the ice again.  Hockey has been the last thing I’ve returned to after my heart attack.  Now I’m back participating in everything I used to do.  I just do it at a slower pace, I think.  But maybe that will get better too.

Here’s the thing:  When we get off track with God in some way – whether it is sin in our life, or just a drifting away from Him – coming back to God may seem a little awkward, not as natural as it did before.  It may mean trying something different or new, or changing something in you life.  But coming back to God, seeking His forgiveness, knowing you are right with Him, feels good.

It gives you a peace, a comfort, a knowing you’re in the right spot, that you’re in a good place … you feel like you’re back where you should be.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  What has caused you to feel distant from God?  What keeps you from moving closer to Him?  Leave your comment below.

Live vs. Prerecorded

This week I attended a conference on leadership.  It was the annual Global Leadership Summit that Willow Creek Church puts on.

Years ago if you were to attend this conference you had to travel to Chicago to be there in person.  Then they made it easier for people by having simulcast sites all over North America so you could still attend the conference “live”, in your home town, or at least close to where you lived.

I’ve done both in the past, and though being there live is kind of special and you get the real feel of the conference, I have become pretty comfortable watching the speaker on a screen.

What helped was realizing that even when I was in Chicago, because the auditorium was so big, I found myself watching the screens there.  You could see the speakers better that way.  So being somewhere else watching a screen wasn’t a difficult adjustment – at least you knew it was happening in present time.

Now this conference has taken things to a new level.  Not only do you not have to be in Chicago for the conference, but now you don’t even have to attend when the conference is taking place.

I attended this week, but the conference actually took place and was recorded in the middle of August.  This week, Bill Hybels (the host speaker) was probably speaking some other message, somewhere on the other side of the world, while we were taking in the conference like it was happening live.

The host sites do a good job, though, of keeping it fresh, and “live-like”.  We had a live band to lead us in some songs and a live host, who lead us to the all important refreshments at break times.

But we were also encouraged to respond to things like it was happening live.  For instance, at the end of a message, the audience in Chicago (back in August) all clapped.  We were encouraged to do the same, but our clapping was pretty feeble, since we were only clapping to a screen.

At the very end of the conference, Bill Hybels challenged everyone to pray and give our all to making the local church the hope of the world.  He asked us to pray a set prayer for the next 30 days, and if we agreed to do it, to sign the card the prayer was on … and to do it in the presence of a witness.

And that is when any sense of it being live fell apart for me.  He said “If you don’t have someone who will witness you signing your prayer card, I will be up here at the front and would be happy to witness it for you.”  I looked, and I hung around at the front for a moment; Bill wasn’t there.  He was in Chicago, or Zimbabwe, or some place else.

Here’s the thing:  I’m good at pretending something is live when it has really been recorded.  For the most part, I don’t miss the live action.  God, however, is live all the time, 24/7.  When I want to respond or need a response, with God I’m never left hanging around, waiting for someone who’s not there to show up.  I never want to take for granted how much better my live God is.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  How often do you take advantage of God being live, 24/7? Leave your comment below.

Mystery Phone Calls

The other day I had a phone message, but I didn’t recognize the name.  My secretary said he asked for me by name and seemed to know me.

I went to my office and hesitated making the call, not being sure what this person may want from me.  Instead, I made another call, just to warm up to the idea of returning this message.  It didn’t help.  I again looked at the message, to try to figure out who this person might be, and how I might know him.  I decided to give it a shot; I made the call.

Some people answer the phone and start talking like you know them, and if you don’t immediately make it clear that you have no clue who they are, the phone call becomes awkward.

It’s agony when that happens. You strain to pick up on any tip the person may drop as they talk.  About a month ago, I was five minutes into a conversation before I figured out who I was talking to.  During that time I thought it was one person and then I thought it was someone else.  When I eventually figured it out, what the guy was saying finally made sense.  I was sweating on the other end of the line.

Thankfully, this guy didn’t leave me hanging.  He could tell I didn’t have the slightest idea who he was and asked, “You don’t know who I am, do you?”  When I said “no”, he gave me some context to place him in.

I had played shinny hockey with him years ago. In fact, except for one game of hockey he played with me about a year ago, I probably haven’t seen him in about 5 years.  Let’s just say he hadn’t been in my circle of associates for a long time, and I had only known him by his first name.  He phoned me because he knew I was a pastor and thought maybe he could talk some things over with me.

The guys I regularly play shinny hockey with all know that I’m a pastor.  Somehow it comes out.  When they find out, their language usually changes for a while, and when they slip up they usually apologize … at first.

Even though I’ve been playing hockey with some of these guys for years and years, not often am I asked for anything other than a pass on the ice.  This call was pretty unusual, especially given the fact we had been out of touch for so long.

We talked about setting up a time to meet and then ended the conversation.  When I hung up the phone, I just sat in my chair for a moment, thinking about how that guy came to call me at this particular time in his life.

Here’s the thing:  What we do today may not seem like it makes much difference.  In fact, one day may not make much difference.  But over a long time, being genuine to those around you may trigger something in someone, years from now, in their time of need.  That’s when being a consistent Christian example before them will make a difference.  God reminded me this week, through this phone call, that the testimony of my life has no expiry date attached to it.  So, I need to keep living a life God can use.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: How has your life, your testimony, your example made a difference years later?  Leave your comment below.

Maybe “Jersey Shore” is on to Something

I have never really been into fitness, though I have always exercised in some fashion.  You see, I don’t like lifting weights or doing aerobic exercises.  You wouldn’t find me taking out a gym membership or dressing in tight clothes, wearing a head band, moving in front of a TV, and following an instructor who has way too much energy and enthusiasm for one person.

I’d rather play hockey, ride my bike on trails, or have my golf clubs with me when I go for a walk.  In fact, if there is some kind of game associated with an exercise, there’s a good chance that I would enjoy it.

But for the last two weeks, and at least for the next 14, you can picture me in those tight fitting exercise clothes (please don’t) doing some movements, or pumping iron, or going for power walks without golf clubs on my back.  That’s right, I’m a fitness guy now.

It’s not that I want to be a fitness guy, but the cardiac rehab clinic is trying its hardest to turn me into one.  Every day I have to go for a power walk, as well as either do an aerobic workout or weight training.  They give me Sundays off … small comfort.

I haven’t even met with the nutritionist yet, but when I do at the end of the month, I’m sure she’ll slap me with a few dietary restrictions that will officially turn me into a nuts and berries kind of guy.  She just better not pull meat from my diet!  (I don’t consider it a meal if it doesn’t include meat.)

Thankfully, when I exercise in a way that I enjoy – like playing hockey or mountain biking – I can count that.  That’s why on Saturday, instead of doing my thirty minute aerobic exercise, and going for a thirty minute power walk, I went for a two hour bike ride through the woods near our house.  I listened to tunes playing through my ear buds, took in the amazing view of the coloured leaves, and negotiated the slippery, leaf covered trails.  It was an awesome ride!

With everything I’m being instructed to do in a day, I’m starting to feel like I’m on the reality show “Jersey Shore”.  A typical day for Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is GTL which stands for Gym, Tan, Laundry.  He doesn’t have much time for anything else in his day.  I’m beginning to feel the same way!

I know in time I will fit these new things into my daily pattern of life and they won’t feel as forced as they do right now.

Here’s the Thing:  This past Sunday, I spoke about giving control of one’s life to the Holy Spirit.  It has to be something I give myself to on a continual basis or I’ll take back control.  In order for the Holy Spirit to influence my thoughts, words, decisions and actions, I have to allow Him to be in control every day.

That means I have to make some adjustments in life to allow Him room to direct.  That’s not easy.  It means other things might need to be eliminated, or at very least rearranged.  It takes a while to discipline oneself to accommodate those changes, but in time, being controlled by the Holy Spirit will not seem forced.  Rather, it will be my natural pattern of life.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  What needs to change in your daily routine to allow the Holy Spirit control? Leave your comment below.

Anyone Need Their Grass Cut?

Sometimes you start a simple task or job and it grows into something bigger. I have certainly experienced this at times in my life.

One time we had a water leak in our vacation trailer.  I decided to see if I could fix it myself.  I checked and found the problem needed to be fixed from the outside, which meant peeling off the metal shell at the front of the trailer.  I started at the bottom and noticed the problem extended a little higher so I took off the next strip, then the next, and the next.  When I had the whole front of the trailer removed, with just the wood frame left in place, I stepped back and thought, “What have I done?!”  It was way more work than I had thought.

Another time we had a leak in our basement.  I thought I would dig a hole outside and patch the foundation where the leak was.  In the end, the hole I dug was over 5 feet deep and about 12 feet long.  Again, that job got way bigger than I had first thought!

Reading about those two experiences, you might think they weren’t that bad, and that I must be a handy guy.  That’s where you would be VERY wrong!  I’m not that handy, and for all the handy work I have done, I don’t really like it.  It takes me too long; I don’t have the right tools; I make mistakes; I get frustrated; I get discouraged; I cut myself (another story).

Recently, we were at our cottage on a rainy weekend, when we happened to get a break from the rain for a few hours.  I decided I’d better take the opportunity to cut the grass since we wouldn’t be back for a few weeks.

It’s such a small piece of lawn that the job really doesn’t take much time.  But, as I was running the lawnmower over our grass, I thought about my brother’s lawn.  He had left his cottage a few hours earlier in the rain and I had noticed that his lawn needed a cut.

Since he’s up at his cottage almost every weekend and often cuts our grass (because we don’t get there all that frequently), I thought it was my chance to return the favour.  So, when I finished our lawn, I walked over to his place and started to cut his grass.

As I got close to finishing, I started to think about my brother’s neighbour who’s wife had just had surgery and was in intensive care at the hospital.  I thought, “That guy doesn’t need to be bothered with his lawn”.  So, as I finished with my brother’s lawn, I just kept going and worked on his neighbour’s.

As I walked back to my place pushing my lawnmower, I realized this was one of the few times a job that got bigger didn’t become frustrating or discouraging.  In fact, I walked with a sense of satisfaction that I had, in some small way, been a help to others.

Here’s the thing:  One of the greatest ways we can show the love of God to others is not by telling them but by showing them.  The problem is it takes time and, for many of us, time is precious.  We don’t have a lot of extra time to allow the task or job we are working on to become any bigger.  But sometimes that is exactly how we are to “love one another as I have loved you” John 13:34.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: What kind of “loving one another” acts have you done recently?

Here’s Your Weather Warning!

Here’s a declaration I’ll admit: sometimes the weather man is correct.  The other day I went golfing with my son.  The weather was calling for rain, but since it hadn’t rained all day, I figured the evening would be rain free as well.

I have come to trust in looking outside to predict the weather rather than checking in with the guy who’s paid to give us 37% (approximate) accuracy on any given day.  But this day I didn’t look outside.  It was an opportunity to golf with my son so I jumped at it.

When we started, the sky was a little overcast but there was no hint of rain in those clouds.  By the time we got to the fourth hole, I was noticing some rather dark clouds coming our way.  But we kept going, as if somehow the clouds would part and go on either side of us, leaving a dry channel for us to golf through.

By the time we stepped up to the sixth hole, we were staring at black clouds that were now not that far in the distance.  There were rumblings of thunder which should have been a clue to us.  But we kept going.

It was no big deal – we were just carrying 13 lighting rods apiece in our golf bags, and when we pulled a club out of the bag, it was like saying, “Come on lightning, try to hit this little club.  I’ll swing it a few times to make it a hard target for you to track.”

We were brave, and stupid, but really brave.  We finished the hole, with the clouds almost over top of us.  Though it was only 5:45 pm, it seemed like it was about 7:30 pm with not much daylight left.

As we waited on the 7th tee for some people to clear the green, we saw some flashes of lightning followed quickly by thunder.  Mike took his shot and then I took mine.  It was a short par 3 so we got to the green in no time.

I walked to my ball on the green; Mike was already by the hole when I thought I heard something in the distance.  I bent down to check my ball, and I heard what sounded like a hundred horses running towards us.

I said, “What is that?”, then looked at Mike and yelled, “The rain’s coming!”  I took off running for the cart.  I don’t normally golf with a cart but I wasn’t complaining at that moment.  I jumped in just as the rain came pouring down.

Mike pinned the petal to the floor, but golf carts only go so fast.  With the wind and the angle of the rain, we got soaked.  We were driving through puddles, with rain and hail coming down all around.  When we made it back, Mike beached the cart by the overhang of the patio, as if that would keep us from getting more drenched.

It was like a flood; some guy was walking through a puddle that was over his ankles. Someone else said it would clear in about 15 minutes.  We went straight in to get a rain check.  Neither Mike nor I had any desire to preserve our rounds.  It would be best to start again another day.  At least we didn’t get hit by lightning.

Here’s the thing:  In life, God gives us warning signs that we are going down the wrong path or making a wrong decision.  Sometimes those signs seem so far off in the distance, rather than reacting to God’s warning, we keep going, feeling like we still have time.  What happens is we get comfortable living with the warning and even braver as they get closer.  We need to act on God’s warning signs early, because the storm comes in quickly and hard.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  How comfortable have you become continuing on in spite of God’s warning signs?  Leave your comment below.

I like Nostalgia Night … Once in a While

When I think of my ability to remember things, sometimes I find it amazing!  Sure, there are lots of things I don’t remember, like each week when the garbage has to go out … I still need a reminder for that.  Sometimes I need more that one reminder.  If you’re driving by my house at midnight on Tuesday (or, is it Wednesday?), it’s possible that you might see me putting the garbage out to the curb.

When you think of it though, on so many things our ability to recall is astounding.  Take phone numbers, for instance.  Some people can remember not only their own phone number, but they know all their relatives’ phone numbers and many of their friends’ numbers as well.  My wife Lily is like that; she’s my personal yellow pages if I need to call someone in our family.

The other day I was flicking channels on the TV and PBS had a special on the Ed Sullivan show.  (If you’ve never heard of that show, it was an entertainment show that ran from 1948-1971.)  This particular PBS special featured musical acts from the 60’s, so I tuned in.

It was great to see some of the bands perform from way back.  But what struck Lily was that I knew the words to many of the songs.  At one point she said, “You were 11 when that song was out and you know every word!”  I thought about it later, and I don’t even know how I learned the words.  They just got stuck in my memory.

Lily didn’t stay too long.  So there I was, alone, singing away with the likes of Herman’s Hermits, The Beatles, Jerry and Pacemakers, Lulu, and yes, even Tom Jones.  I was asked to shut the basement door as if that would create a sound barrier to my singing, that apparently got louder and louder as I got more into it.  What Lily was really hoping for was the “cone of silence” from “Get Smart” (another 60’s TV show).  When I came upstairs later, Lily had an ice pack on her neck.  She said that her neck had been bad for weeks, but I’m wondering if maybe my singing finished it off.

I did enjoy myself though.  I could even remember guitar solos, drum beats – I sang them too.  For about an hour my memory was digging deep, bringing song after song to the front of my mind.  I guess I overtaxed it though, because I couldn’t remember where I put the remote when it was over.

Here is the thing:  God says that when He forgives us, our sins are gone, taken away “as far as the east is from the west”.  So when we have confessed our sins to Him, and then still feel guilty for them, it’s not God punishing us, or needling us with those sins.  It’s our own excellent memory that keeps them coming back!  What we need to do is be a little more selective with what we remember when it comes to our past sins.  We need to treat our past sins more like taking out the garbage or remembering where we put the remote control.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: How do you prevent your past from plaguing you with guilt?

 

Confessions of a Culinary Master

I’m not much of a cook; in fact I would say I don’t really cook at all.  Those who have the same kitchen skills as me might be able to say, “I make a mean Mac’n Cheese”.  But I don’t like Macaroni & Cheese, so I can’t even say that.

I do make my breakfast each morning that consists of cutting up half a grapefruit with a special knife that reduces the preparation time in half.  Along with that, I make a small bowl of Oat Bran Cereal that involves boiling water, 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt and a 1/4 cup of oat bran.  You know, just writing that, I feel, makes me sound like I can cook.

Then recently when I was alone at our cottage, and had to cook for myself, I made a meal that looked so good, I took a picture of it.

I know what you’re thinking looking at that picture, it’s got “Chef Silcock” written all over it!  When I put together this meal, how it looked on the plate impressed me so much I was compelled to record it so I could share it with others … at the very least, brag to my wife and daughter who probably wouldn’t even give me a passing grade at cleaning up the kitchen after a meal!

When I ate the meal, it was even better than it looked.  I savoured every morsel of it and when I was done, I sat back and marveled at how it had all turned out.  I didn’t get a passing grade on the clean up though.  I tossed everything in the sink to wash up sometime later.

Now for the confession:  Although I made the salad and cooked the beans, the meat had been pre-cooked by Lily about a week earlier.  She knew I was going to be alone the next week so she prepared it and put it in the freezer.  All I had to do was nuke it (however, I did that to perfection).

For the salad, the lettuce came in a large container.  I just reached in, grabbed a handful, plopped it on the plate, and added some croutons from a box and dressing.  The beans, well, that’s where my experience making Oat Bran came in.  I’ve been heating water on the stove for years!  A little water in a pan, tossed the beans in after cutting off the tips, finished with a little butter on top … de-lish.

Here’s the thing:  I can’t cook, but by all appearances from the picture it looked like I could.  By withholding information on how the meal came together, and by using words that suggested I had cooked it all myself, maybe you had an opinion of me that wasn’t true.  So, how often do we present ourselves or use words to give an impression of our spiritual state that isn’t quite accurate?

We shouldn’t give the impression that we are doing well spiritually when we are not.  On the other hand, we shouldn’t downplay the condition of our relationship with God to others either.  God desires us to live a life of integrity.  If spiritually you are struggling, don’t cover that up.  Get busy and work on it.  If you’re doing well spiritually, let others see and be influenced.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: How do you struggle with integrity before God?  Leave your comment below.