Uncategorized

by

Seriously, Something Is Wrong Here!

Today’s blog post comes from my wife Lily. She is the one who edits my posts and every once in a while she get inspired to write a post of her own. I hope you enjoy this post.

Even though the weather this week doesn’t feel like it, I know summer is coming … I’ve been dreaming about it … flip flops, scorching heat, a refreshing glass of cold lemonade and carefree days!

Ahh, those images take me back to my childhood …

When I was growing up, it was common place to either see or to have a lemonade stand on the hot, humid days of summer. Well, actually it usually wasn’t a lemonade stand but a Kool-Aid stand.

You remember Kool-Aid, don’t you? … “Kool-aid’s here bringing you fun, Kool-Aid’s got thirst on the run. Get a big, wide, happy ear-to-ear Kool-Aid smi-i-ile!”

I think Kool-Aid stands were our mothers’ faults. After all, they were the ones who would repeatedly spout the phrase, “Go outside and play.” Eventually, we’d get tired of skipping and biking and jumping on pogo sticks. We’d run out of scenarios for playing cowboys and indians (ya, I’m that old!). We’d finish soaking ourselves with water guns while playing cops and robbers. And there were only so many freezies we were allowed to eat before supper.

After sitting with siblings and friends on the curb for a while, racking our brains for ideas, someone would invariably suggest selling Kool-Aid. Even before the logistics were worked out, we’d be arguing how we’d spend our fortunes.

Logistics boiled down to someone running home and begging Mom to make a jug of the finest colour of Kool-aid in the house, and someone else ravaging their pantry for plastic cups …. which weren’t hard to find back in the heyday of Tupperware!

Of course, some kind neighbours would always oblige and purchase a glass or two, and the ever-loving moms would buy a glass of the drink they had just moments ago pulled from their own cupboard and mixed for us … Could there ever be people who love others more than moms?!

Today’s kids, however, are missing out on all that. Our country has gone berserk in bureaucracy! Remember that news report last summer about two sisters, aged five and seven, whose lemonade stand was shut down because they didn’t have a permit and weren’t following the bylaws? And they were selling lemonade to raise money for a summer camp for kids with cancer! Can you imagine?!

Seriously, for starters, who would report two little girls for trying to raise money for a cancer camp? What bylaw officer would actually follow through with shutting them down?

In the end, they are allowed to reopen their stand, but guess what? They had to change their adorable, crayon coloured “lemonade” sign because the word had to be written in both official languages!

What have we done to our kids? When are we going to stop reacting to every complaint and problem by creating more regulations and rules?

… Makes me nostalgic for the old, carefree days of summer where everything wasn’t regulated and kids didn’t have to be bubble-wrapped before venturing outside to play.

I think I’m going to go buy some Kool-Aid.

Here’s the thing: God has given us some rules to live by. But when we fixate on the rules alone, we can go berserk in Christian bureaucracy. God never intended us to live by rules, but by love. Our lives should be lived in response to God’s great love for us, and what Christ did for us by dying and taking the punishment we deserve.

That’s Life!

Lily Silcock

Question: What rules have you gotten fixated on? Leave your comment below.

by

I Just Finished Three Weeks Of Ribs

I thought it would take a week, but it’s taken three weeks for my ribs to feel better.

Usually when I get hurt, a week will do it and I’m back to normal – but not this time.

Three weeks ago I had a nasty fall off my bike and bruised some ribs (read here). I naturally thought I would be back on my bike in a week.

It’s taken a lot longer!

In that time I’ve slept mostly in another bed; in that time, I also had a short bout with a cold. But all the while I still managed to get a half hour of exercise in each day.

A couple of years ago we got a new mattress. Lily preferred an extra firm one, whereas I liked one that had some cushion to it. … It turns out that a firm bed isn’t so great when your ribs are sore.

I ended up spending a few nights on the couch because it was so much softer. Then I moved to our spare bedroom. That bed has a memory foam topper, which used to reside on our old mattress.

Wow, I’d forgotten how nice it was to sleep on that thing! Even with wrecked ribs, it was so nice to sink into it again.

… I think I stayed there an extra night before I moved back to our bed.

The cold I got was unappreciated, and it came courteous of Lily. She had picked up a cold about a week into my rib ordeal and hacked all the way home from our cottage – that’s five hours of recirculating germs flying around the car while I was trapped inside.

How could I not catch something?

But man, did I ever pay for it! With every cough I needed to hold onto my ribs for stability.

And sneezing – that was the worst. It felt like my heart was on fire, and the burning in my chest resonated for about ten seconds after each sneeze.

It was a good thing that cold was short-lived.

The only setback I had – other than sleeping in my own bed the first couple of nights – was one exercise session.

I found that riding my stationary bike didn’t really hurt my sore ribs. It’s mostly a leg workout and I could always bike hands-free when I felt some pain from stretching out to hold on to the handlebars.

It was the treadmill that was the killer. I got back on it way too soon. I started slowly and at first it wasn’t too bad. But by the end, I was holding my ribs because they felt like they were bouncing around inside me – not good.

… That’s all in the past now. It’s been three weeks to the day and I’m not only pain free walking on the treadmill (even jogging), but I just pulled off ten minutes on the rowing machine.

Today, I’m going back to the trails and hopefully I’ll stay on my bike this time.

Here’s the thing:  For many of us, staying consistent at something is not easy. There are all kinds of things that can disrupt even the best routine. When our routine of spending time with God is interrupted, we can get discouraged, frustrated to the point of giving up. Don’t give in to defeat; don’t dwell on the interruption, whatever the cause. Get back to your time with God; with Him you can pick up again like it was yesterday.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What unexpected thing has interrupted a routine you need to get back to? Leave your comments below.

by

I’m Back Droning On About My Drone

Several weeks ago I wrote about my traumatic loss of a newly purchased drone (read here). It was like losing a close friend or pet (kidding).

What you often do when that happens is go out and get another one. You look to make a new friend or go shopping for a new dog or iguana or whatever … not a cat, though.

Well, as I pondered the loss of my drone out on the waters of Lake Huron, I decided that I couldn’t wallow in my sorrow. I needed to start looking for a new one … one that wouldn’t fly away on me, or at the very least would return to me when I lost control of it.

My brother was also in the market for a drone, so we started looking online for the perfect one for us.

We found one that was not too expensive – another important criteria.

We are not experienced and in case we flew the thing into something hard and broke it, or – dread the thought – let it get away on us over a large body of water, we didn’t want to be out a lot of money.

It also had to be easy to fly and have features that let you take your hands off the controls while maintaining a certain height without hovering higher and higher.

Lastly, it needed to be able to return to us if it got out of range or the battery got low.

The one we found was really advanced for the price and, as a bonus, came with GPS.

Within a few hours of each other, we locked our orders into the same website that would be sending them to us from China.

I know that China is far away from Canada … If I booked a flight from here to Beijing, it would cost $800 on sale and take about 13 hours.

If I took a ship to China it would take 6-7 days.

I knew we weren’t going to get the drones in a couple of days.

So we waited and kept checking our tracking numbers.

We noticed a flurry of activity at first. The orders were processed, they were delivered from one city to another in China and then they departed China for Toronto – all in a matter of a day or two.

Then we waited. The tracking information stopped; nothing was happening. Supposedly, the drones left China by plane.

For many days there was nothing new to report. Finally my brother’s drone was delivered about 12 days after we ordered them.

Mine? No news; the shipping status didn’t change. I checked every day and got the same information.

Remember when you were a kid and you ordered something from a cereal box? It always said it would take 4-6 weeks. Those 4-6 weeks felt like 46 weeks!

Well, that’s how I felt. Days went by; weeks went by. Two full weeks after my brother got his drone – a full 25 days after ordering it – it arrived.

That was a long time. Now I can finally get droning.

Here’s the thing:  We ask God for things all the time. Our request might be just something we want, or it might be to see God work in some way, something that is really needed and for a good cause. No matter what it is, we can get very impatient waiting for God to answer. The best thing is not to micro-manage God. When you leave your request with God, the key word is “leave”. Trust Him with the request and don’t be anxious. He will answer in His time.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need patience for when it comes to God? Leave your comments below.

by

Exercising Every Day For a Month – Not Bad!

Going into my vacation, I was concerned about one thing – exercising.

You see, I had gone almost six months without missing a day of exercising at least thirty minutes per day. Who wants to break a streak like that?

When I’m at home, I have options. There are always outside activities that I can do like mountain biking, golf, or baseball. But I have a backup when I can’t do something outdoors. I have a home gym that I can work up a sweat in.

Being at the cottage for an extended period of time, I only had the outdoor option … and this summer’s weather had not given me much confidence in my ability to get thirty minutes of outside exercising in every day.

Looking back, it rained every few days. We would just be getting into a pattern of sunny, warm weather when the clouds would roll in and dampen everything – literally.

Somehow through all this I was able to exercise every day.

There were a couple of times my exercise took the form of a power walk, but walking along the beach really fast is not my idea of enjoyable exercise. If I’m going to walk the beach, I want it to be a little more like a slow stroll.

So mostly I rode my bike. When the mountain biking trail I ride was too wet and nasty, I was able to find time between the rain drops to get a half hour ride down to Sauble Falls and back.

I’ve never looked at my weather app as much as I did on this vacation. I’d get up in the morning, look outside, check my app and think, “Okay, if I get my ride in at 10 o’clock I’ll beat the sprinklers.”

… I remember playing golf years go, early in the morning or late in the evening, before they had underground watering systems.

There were hoses and sprinkler heads on the fairways, with water spraying in a circle like a ticking clock.

If your ball landed in one of the spray zones, you would wait for the spray to pass by and then quickly move in to take your shot before the sprinkler came around again.

You had to dodge the water system in those days.

That’s what I was doing on vacation – dodging the big water system in the sky … even down to the last day!

My plan was to get up and get in one last ride on the trails before I packed the car and left for home.

But no way; the rain started at 7 am. That meant exercising on my last day of vacation would have to happen at home. Well, at least it was there waiting for me, with no weather conditions to consider.

My biggest concern going into vacation was being able to somehow exercise every day outside, regardless of the weather.

I did it! I got wet a few times, I caught a few breaks, and even on those days I just didn’t feel like doing much of anything, I still got it done. Not bad at all.

Here’s the thing: In life there are challenges every day. You don’t know when or what form they will take so you can’t avoid them or even make contingency plans. You just have to deal with them as they come and figure out a way through them. When you know this is true, it only makes sense to seek God every day for His wisdom and direction through the challenges.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What challenge are you facing today? Leave your comments below.

by

Fickle Fans And Me Don’t Mix

In some cities fans are fickle; it doesn’t take much for them to give up.

I don’t get it – maybe because I grew up in Toronto, that hasn’t seen a Stanley Cup outside the Hockey Hall of Fame for 50 years.

I was 11 when the Leafs last won the Cup, but the thing is I still cheer for them like they’re going to win it this year.

… I figure I have at least a couple more years before I see that happen again.

But I know other cities – some that I’ve lived in – that are pretty quick to give up on their team if they aren’t doing well.

Those are fickle fans. A real fan is a fan through the good and the bad, the long and the short haul. The bottom line is you don’t turn on your team.

That’s what’s got me concerned about the city I live in right now. What kind of fans live here?

Some are whiners, some are only good time fans, some are complainers. Not many, apparently, are true fans.

The biggest hockey action in my town is OHL hockey – these are the kids that are feeding the pro ranks.

In my town, the Kingston Frontenacs are the top bill.

Last year the team made a run in the playoffs but fell short. This year was a building year. The team wasn’t supposed to do much, and were expected to finish near or at the bottom of the league.

Well, they surprised everyone – maybe even themselves. They ended up 4th in their division, giving them home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Not too shabby in my books.

They did all this, mind you, with 13 sixteen and seventeen year olds, 4 of them on defence. That’s on a roaster of 23 guys.

To say they overachieved is a bit of an understatement!

But that doesn’t seem good enough for Kingstonians. The first two games of the playoffs saw smaller attendance numbers than an average regular season game this year … which was a far cry from last year’s attendance.

People blame it on many things: past experiences, higher ticket prices, waiting to see if they make it to the next round, and they don’t like where the arena was built. These are all excuses of fickle fans.

It’s almost like the fans said, “You had your chance last year and you blew it. We’re not doing that again.”

There are some people who wish for the good old days. They liked watching hockey then; those were real teams.

I remember my dad, at about age 70, was asked by another senior if he was going to attend a seniors’ service at his church.

He said he didn’t think he would go. The man replied, “We are going to sing hymns like the good old days.”

My dad’s reply was, “The good old days were not that good.”

We build the past up to be bigger than it was. The present is where it is at. Be a fan, not some fickle version of it!

Here’s the thing: When you make a commitment to Jesus Christ, it’s not some half-hearted, in the good times only commitment. You are trusting your life now and forever to Him and you need to give Him your all – not some whiny, looking back at the past, fickle version of it. Live your commitment.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How would you describe a real commitment? Leave your comments below.

by

I Didn’t Realize How Precious Quiet Is

My house is quiet right now. Normally at 9:30 on a Saturday morning there is the sound of footsteps on the hardwood, the sound of dishes pre or post breakfast being put in the dishwasher.

But not this morning.

It’s just me at home; Lily has gone to Toronto to visit our kids. Sitting here right now, I am very aware of the quiet.

Now it’s not completely quiet – there are the faint sounds of cars going up the street, and the chirping of birds every once in a while.

But it’s quiet and that is rare for me.

For Lily this would not happen because, though she is home alone most days, and could possibly experience the quiet that I am right now, she has tinnitus so she always has a background track of static or white noise going on.

It’s interesting that she has this ear condition and not me. In my late teens and early twenties I went to a lot of rock concerts where the sound left your ears ringing when it was over.

I went to one concert – Emerson Lake and Palmer (ELP) – that was actually outside in a football stadium. My seat was half way back from the stage and it still left my ears ringing for three days afterwards.

Yet here I sit in silence … except now the hum of the furnace is kicking in.

I wonder how much we take note of the quiet. Mostly we are surrounded by noise. We turn on the TV or play our music, not really to listen to it, but to have a background track to our life.

When I go biking, if I’m alone I will often put my earbuds in and listen to tunes. Rarely will I just ride unaccompanied.

Even yesterday when I had finished writing my sermon, and I was finishing up some work that didn’t require much focus or concentration, I turned on some music to fill the air with sound waves that just added a little distraction to the routine work I was engaged in.

In the quietness of the present, I remember the days when our children were young and they wouldn’t interrupt the silence … they were the background track to our lives.

There was always noise from them, and if there wasn’t, that was not a good thing.

But here I am – no kids, no TV, no iTunes – just me and the clicking of the keyboard.

I have to say, it’s pretty peaceful; it’s calming, unhurried, unforced.

And those words remind me of verses in the Bible, in Matthew 11:28-30, that Eugene Peterson interpreted for “the Message”.

It may be one of the most peaceful passages in the Bible:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

You might want to read that again, slowly. We could do with a little more peace and quiet in our lives.

Here’s the thing: I don’t need to say much more. Find some quiet in your day – five minutes, ten, whatever you can eek out – and spend some unforced rest with God. It will bring peace into your noisy life.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to find some quiet time? Leave your comments below.

by

I Experimented This Christmas

My Christmas experiment is over – well, sort of.

Christmas experiment

Every year I put something fun in our Christmas stockings. Often times it is some kind of gun that fires foam bullets or flying discs … and for a few minutes early on Christmas morning a war breaks out.

But some years I have put other things in the stockings. There was the year that we all got tattoo sleeves. I wore mine all Christmas Day and felt like I was a biker or something.

But probably the best was the year I got us all hand grenades. I thought they were a great idea, but my wife, Lily, didn’t like them at all.

She didn’t like them even before we tossed one. But after we did, she tried desperately to negotiate a cease fire, even going as far as threatening sanctions (to stop cooking).

But there was no stopping us. By mid-morning there was shrapnel (exploded baking powder and water residue) on the hardwood in the living room, on the walls, and into the kitchen.

That may have been my best year.

This year was tougher, perhaps because I started looking late and all the good stuff was gone … or maybe it was the Liberal government’s fault.

With making our armed forces more of a peace-keeping military than a fighting one, maybe the whole nation is going passive.

Anyway, what I came up with this year was eggs. That’s right, everybody got eggs this year – not Easter eggs but dinosaur eggs.

These were eggs you had to put in water in order for them to hatch. They contained dehydrated animals that expand in the water until they break through their shell and “hatch”.

The only problem was that this was a very slow process. No wonder some scientists think that the dinosaurs lived millions and millions of years ago. It took that long for one of these things to hatch!

In other years we opened the gift and started firing. Not this year! We sunk those things in water and watched and watched, and pretty soon ignored them.

It was supposed to take 24 – 48 hours for them to work, but our guys were pretty shy and it took a week for them to fully come out of their shells.

It wasn’t the gift that keeps on giving; it was more like the gift that keeps you looking.

Well, they’re out of their shells and have reached their full size … I’m not sure what the scientists would say about that.

Our kids have both gone back to their homes so we took pictures for them to see what happened.

But now Lily is ready to throw them out. These guys have just spent one day out in the wild and Lil’s ready to chuck them.

I prefer to let them shrink back to their original size, and then maybe watch them grow again.

… Lil’s giving me opposition, but hopefully I can save them from extinction for a week or two.

Here’s the thing: We like things that are ready to go; we want things to be instant. When it comes to our relationship with Christ, it’s the same. But growth takes time and we have to keep at it and be patient. Take time to grow closer to Christ this year. One suggestion is to read through the Bible this year. Yes, it will take a year and about twenty minutes every day, but you will grow and that takes time. In the end, it’s worth it.

That’s Life,

Paul

Question: How are you going to grow this year? Leave your comments below.

by

How Did We Let This Happen?

From time to time I have guest writers contribute to my blog. This post was written by Lily Silcock. Not only being my wife and the editor of my blog, Lily is mom to two grown children, and works for a start up company as a virtual executive assistant.

Seriously, something is really wrong here!

lemonaide stand

When I was growing up, it was common place to either see or to have a lemonade stand in the hot, humid days of summer.

Well, actually it usually wasn’t a lemonade stand but a kool-aid stand. You remember kool-aid, don’t you? … “Kool-aid’s here bringing you fun, kool-aid’s got thirst on the run. Get a big, wide, happy ear to ear kool-aid smi-i-ile!”

I think kool-aid stands were our mothers’ faults. After all, they were the ones who would repeatedly spout the phrase, “Go outside and play.”

Eventually, we’d get tired of skipping and biking. We’d run out of scenarios for playing Cowboys and Indians (ya, I’m that old!). We’d finish soaking ourselves with water guns while playing cops and robbers. And there were only so many freezies we were allowed to eat before supper.

After sitting with siblings and friends on the curb for a while, racking our brains for ideas, someone would invariably suggest selling kool-aid. Even before the logistics were worked out, we’d be arguing how we’d spend our fortunes.

Logistics boiled down to someone running home and begging Mom to make a jug of the finest colour of Kool-aid in the house, and someone else ravaging their pantry for plastic cups …. which weren’t hard to find back in the heyday of Tupperware!

Of course, some kind neighbours would always oblige and purchase a glass or two, and the ever-loving Moms would buy a glass of the drink they had just moments ago pulled from their own cupboard and mixed for us … Could there ever be people who love more than Moms?!

Today’s kids, however, are missing out on all that. Our country has gone berserk in bureaucracy.

I recently saw a news report about two sisters, aged five and seven, whose lemonade stand was shut down because they didn’t have a permit and weren’t following the bylaws. They were merely selling lemonade to raise money for summer camp and trying to learn about money and business. Isn’t that better than playing video games all day?

Seriously, for starters, who would report two little girls selling lemonade on a hot summer day? What bylaw officer would actually follow through with shutting them down?

In the end, they are allowed to reopen their stand, but guess what? They had to change their adorable, crayon coloured “lemonade” sign because the word had to be written in both official languages!

What have we done to our kids? When are we going to stop reacting to every complaint and problem by creating more regulations and rules?

… Makes me nostalgic for the old, carefree days of summer where everything wasn’t regulated and kids didn’t have to be bubble-wrapped before venturing outside to play.

I think I’m going to go to the store and buy some kool-aid.

Here’s the thing: God’s given us some rules to live by. But when we fixate on the rules alone, we can go berserk in Christian bureaucracy. God never intended us to live by rules alone, but by love. Our lives should be motivated by love in response to God’s great love for us, and what Christ did for us by dying and taking the punishment we deserve.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What rules do you live by that need to be replaced by a response in love? Leave your comments below.

by

I Don’t Want To Be The Backdrop To Your Stage

For some people, every environment is nothing more than a backdrop to their personal stage. They are the centre of attention wherever they go.

693a05a040654b66a62421143a99c23c

That’s all fine and good; let them be the focus everywhere they go. What I don’t appreciate is being sucked in to their audience.

A perfect example was at the hockey game last night. My wife, Lily, and I took our seats just before the preliminaries, ceremonial puck drop, and singing of the national anthem.

Right away I noticed that there was some chatter behind us. There were two women having a conversation.

I thought maybe they had arrived separately and were just catching up with each other.

I had some different thoughts once the game started. About 45 seconds into the game, one of the women stopped talking long enough to ask, “Has the game started?”

The puck and players were down in the far corner of the rink – it was pretty obvious that the game was on! Somehow she missed the face-off at center ice with all the players lined up.

I honestly thought the woman’s eyesight was impaired and she needed help following the action.

No, that wasn’t the case. She was a non-stop talker and had been busy telling a story about a relationship issue she had with another women, I believe who worked in the same office she did.

… If you’re think that you didn’t need to know that information, that’s how I felt as I watched the game on the ice and got a play-by-play of office politics.

These two women took the stage like pros, barely breathing between sentences, speaking trivial dribble like it was sensitive information that would later be reported on the 11 o’clock news.

I didn’t look back, but I am sure that thermal imprint my brain took of the scene behind me was of these two women in their thirties, turned slightly towards each other in their seats, with not an eye turned to what was happening on the ice.

It was brutal to say the least! Lily couldn’t stand it; she wanted to sit somewhere else. She immediately stood up when the horn went to end the period; she had to get away from the two performers behind us.

These women had no interest in the game. It was all just a backdrop to their conversation, which they were sure everyone around them wanted to get in on.

And sure, why wouldn’t I go to a hockey game to hear about why a guy ignored a woman in the office after she had apologized for the thing she had said in the presence of several other coworkers?

I don’t think he was being fair either. Except for the fact that, if I was that guy, I wouldn’t just ignore the woman, I would be asking my boss for a transfer, looking for another job, or doing pretty much anything else, just so I didn’t have to listen to her anymore!

Here’s the thing: Sometimes when we pray, we use that as a backdrop to our own stage, where we do all the talking, and never stop asking. When our prayer is done, it’s like the curtain closes, the lights dim and the audience leaves. Prayer is not a backdrop for our performance. It is a conversation that should involve more listening than talking. When we pray we should be sure we are allowing room on the stage for God to speak into our lives.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you manage your prayer time to give room for God to speak to you? Leave your comment below.

by

Politics and Influence

Politics is dominating the news these days and there is no shortage of influencers out there. During election campaigns all the parties and all the candidates hope we will be influenced to vote for them.

09476904-cp

Influencers try to sway us to vote one way, rather than another. But what I find is that many of them are simply preying on our emotions.

The media is the biggest influencer and, though their mandate might be to report the news, they are all about emotionally influencing the population either toward or away from candidates.

It’s not the news they report so much as it is their presentation of the news they are focussed on giving us.

But this past week there were a couple of other influencers that caught my attention. Toronto was in the middle of TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), and the stars were out to promote their movies.

Donald Sutherland and his son Kiefer were there, proudly proclaiming their love for Canada and their film. We consider them both great Canadian actors, so when they speak they have a platform. People listen; they influence.

But they are actors and actors give interviews, sound bites and quick comments.

Donald was asked about the election and he fervently criticized Stephen Harper and his government, saying he’s got to go. His main focus was on the arts, support and funding.

It’s a narrow focus he used to influence the million or so people who watched the impromptu fifteen seconds of passion and authority. But I’m sure he influenced a number of people.

Then later in the week, Wayne Gretzky – our Canadian hockey icon – was with Prime Minister Harper. He also was interviewed briefly and shared his thoughts about how great a leader Harper is and how well he has lead our country through economic uncertainty.

Like Sutherland, Gretzky has influence because he is famous and admired by many. But many of the people who will be influenced by what the “Great One” had to say, will be so on an emotional level. … They admire Gretzky, and if he likes the prime minister, that’s good enough for them.

We are being influenced emotionally to make decisions that should be based on thought, fact and reason.

We are being influenced to take the easy way out and make our decision based on what the news reporters say, or a celebrity dishes out.

The more we listen to the influencers, with their quick little comments, quips, outbursts, and passionate pleas, the more we short circuit the work we should be doing to really determine who we will vote for.

To be honest, I don’t share the same passion or perspective as many of the influencers out there, so why should I get emotionally charged by them in making my decision?

Here’s the thing: We are influenced the same way to response to God. We hear something, or someone we respect holds a particular view and we believe it too. Influencers move us emotionally but they should move us to seek out answers for ourselves and not just take their word. Influencers should motivate us to search the Bible for answers, spend time with God in counsel, contemplate the research of real experts (commentaries) so that we are influenced on more than just an emotional level. We shouldn’t parrot the sound bites of others; we should know God’s heart and follow Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you taken from someone else that you should investigate for yourself? Leave your comment below.