Christ

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Going The Extra Mile

This last week my daughter was in town. Well, her car was in town. She was on a road trip with her mom.

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It was mother and daughter to Montreal for work and sightseeing. What I got out of the deal was the house to myself for a couple of days and Karlie’s car.

It wasn’t a bad trade off, her car for mine. Though her car is about six years older than ours, it had all the necessities needed to get around town.

However, there were a couple of things that were lacking or at least a little inconvenient, like no roof rack for my bike, so biking was out of the question. The trunk was pretty small and I could barely get my golf clubs and cart in it.

Then there was this squealing sound that announced itself when you turned on the air conditioning, and every time you stepped on the gas after stopping at a light.

Other than that, it was enjoyable to drive. … I guess I should say it was enjoyable until I had to do a highway trip.

I noticed the car would lose power for several seconds as I drove. It was strange and I didn’t know why. The worst thing about it was I knew Karlie was going to be driving back to Toronto later that day.

Something that I might wait a day or two to check out if it was my car, became an emergency because it was my daughter’s car.

I didn’t like the thought that she would be driving alone at night, for two and a half hours to get back home.

My mind started to produce scenarios like, “What if the car died on the way?” I sure didn’t want her being stranded on the highway in the middle of nowhere!

So I gave up a golf game I had arranged earlier in the day to make sure her car was working.

I called up my mechanic in the middle of the afternoon and pled my case that my daughter had to drive back home that night.

I knew he had daughters around the same age as Karlie, and I knew he was a sucker to do anything for them when they needed help. So I hoped those emotions would kick in when he heard my case.

Sure enough, he said, “How fast can you get it in?”

I answered, “I’m on my way now.”

You know if it had have been my car that was acting up and I had a golf game to go to, I would’ve dragged that car to the course and hoped I could get home later.

And if I had to take the car in first, I’d have been very upset about missing my game with the guys.

But for some reason, I felt I needed to take care of this issue. I didn’t mind missing something of mine in order to ensure my daughter could drive safely home.

Here’s the thing: I would do anything for my daughter or my son when they need me. And I don’t consider it a hardship. God has chosen to use us to do His work on earth. So what lengths do you go to to help Him in the work He is doing? Have that same attitude toward serving God as you would helping out your children or loved ones. Consider serving as a privilege and responsibility; be in it all the way.

That”s Life!

Paul

Question: What work is God doing that you could join Him in? Leave your comment below.

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What Golf Can Teach Us About Handling Pressure

This week my son treated me to a game of golf – not the usual game; we actually attended a PGA Tour Canada event.

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I walked the course and never swung a club. We were watching young professional golfers who hope to one day make the big tour.

Instead of playing for million dollar prize money, these guys were hoping to take home $31,000 if they won … still not a bad paycheque for a week’s work!

A week of work playing golf on a beautiful, well-manicured course – I think I could get used to that.

We ended up following one of the Canadians in the tournament for the back nine. When we picked him up, he was about 17 under par.

I kind of thought the reason these guys were playing on this tour, and not the US tour, was because they couldn’t shoot low enough scores. But these kids could rip up courses just like the guys who are making ten times what they make in a year.

I discovered the difference between the two tours as we got closer to the 18th hole.

The guy we were following was hot; we saw him make birdies on three of his next four holes.  We kind of thought we might be watching the eventual winner.

He seemed like he was cruising, his shots were right on, he was hitting the ball long. He looked calm and confident as he made his way around the track.

But then we got to the 14th hole. He missed a 4-footer that would have got him to 21 under.

Not a big deal. However, on the next hole his tee shot took an unlucky bounce that left him with a tough second shot.

Immediately you could tell his confidence was not what it was. He still made par, but he was scrambling for it now.

For the next two holes you could see that the pressure was getting to him. He was gripping the club a little tighter and not making the shots as precisely as before.

It all came down to the last hole. We figured our guy was tied for the lead or one shot back. He needed to score a 3 on the par 5 to have a chance to win.

When the pressure is on, it’s difficult to step back and calm yourself down, to block all the voices in your head and hit the shot you want. … He didn’t hit a great shot.

He put his second shot in a sand trap behind the green. Then he imploded. He took three putts to get the ball in the hole – a bogey 6.

In the end, he went from potential winner to outright second place finisher, to ending up settling for a six-way tie for second.

Maybe one of the reasons these guys aren’t on the big tour is the mental game. They can hit the ball and putt, but when the pressure is on, they sometimes fold.

Here’s the thing: Living the Christian life can be similar to these golfers. We can be cruising along in our lives, but when the pressure comes, that’s when we need to be real pros and be able to live strong in the faith.

Prepare yourself in advance to deal with the pressure. Know God’s Word, meet with Him regularly, plan how you will respond to certain scenarios so you can whether the storm of pressure and come out victorious.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What potential circumstance could you make a plan for in advance? Leave your comment below.

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Memories … Old, Faded Memories

Memory is a very powerful thing. It can access long stored information in an instance.

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Last week my wife, Lily, and I were in Toronto celebrating our wedding anniversary. We checked into our hotel, and when we got to our room, we found it overlooked City Hall.

Our vantage from the 33rd floor allowed us to survey a large portion of real estate below.

As we gazed out the window, my eyes gravitated to a spot just behind City Hall. From what I could see, it looked very different than I remembered.

“See that street down there?” I said to Lily. “I think it’s Elizabeth Street. When I was a kid we would eat there at the Nanking Restaurant on Saturday nights.”

It was the first restaurant I ever ate in. I believe I was just a month or two old when my parents took me for my first Chinese dinner.

I’m sure I didn’t taste a delicious egg roll directly, but I definitely got it second hand.

Lily wanted to go down to the street and take a picture of the huge “TORONTO” sign that was a remnant of the Pan Am Games held there just a month ago.

After we got down to street level and Lily had her picture taken sitting in the “O” of “TORONTO”, I kind of wanted to see if I was correct on that street I spied from our hotel window.

We walked around to the back of City Hall and sure enough, it was Elizabeth Street. When my family started eating at the Nanking, City Hall wasn’t even there. But now everything has completely changed.

The Nanking wasn’t there and it seemed like there was no trace of anything that I remembered. There was no Lichee Gardens on the other side of the street – just all new buildings.

But I wondered about the building where the Nanking was. It looked different. It was a government office now … the department of environment or something.

I was trying to figure out if it was the same building, but Lily thought the outside looked too new to be 60 plus years old.

I was still curious. I walked through one of the doorways, and my memory was pricked; it was foreign yet there was something that seemed to fit.

I motioned to Lily, “I’m not so sure this is a new building. I think the entrance was here and you could either go to the right into a smaller lounge or to the left into the large dining room” … which probably wasn’t as large as I remembered as a child.

Lil didn’t think I was right. There was a stucco kind of treatment on the building that gave it a 70’s look.

But as we walked past, down the side street, and turned to look at the back of the building, sure enough you could tell by the back, where there was no updated exterior facade, that this building was old.

Just as I remembered! I hadn’t accessed that information in years, hadn’t been on that street for 45 years, yet I could recall it all. Amazing memories we have!

Here’s the thing: Your memory of how God has worked in your life can encourage you, give you hope that He will continue – even give you determination. But don’t rest on just those memories, only use them to fuel knew adventures with God. Don’t get stuck in the past.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What past memory has kept you from moving forward? Leave your comment below.

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How To Get News Out Before It’s Old

When you hear about something can have a profound effect on how it impacts you. What I mean is, if you hear about something right when it happens, as opposed to six months after the fact, you process that information differently.

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Quite often when we hear about something long after it happened, we blow it off as not important or relevant any more … like if you heard that the government was going to remove all tax at the gas pumps for just one day on July 15 … and you heard the news on August 24th.

Today’s gas prices without tax would be around 55 cents a litre! It’s a far cry from the 34 cents a gallon I paid when I got my driver’s licence, but wouldn’t 55 cents a litre be nice right now?

Not only is that news irrelevant after the fact, but you’d feel a little annoyed just hearing about it now since you completely missed out on the greatest gas prices since about 1986.

On the other hand, your reaction would have been hand-rubbing, night-before-Christmas-like, if you had heard this information two days before the sale.

Not all old information is irrelevant, however; sometimes old information makes you think “what if”.

That’s what happened to me the other day. I was at my usual wing joint, picking up a pound of hot wings with Franks’ Red Hot Sauce (they’re the best), when I bumped into another customer who I knew and had played hockey with a few years back.

He told me that one of the guys we played with had recently died. I was shocked, but it hit me even harder to find out he had committed suicide.

Now I didn’t do anything outside of hockey with him, but we were buds on the bench. We always chatted while we were playing and in the dressing room. We talked about family, health and my work.

I probably played hockey with him about two weeks before he died. All I knew was he had to start taking pills for high blood pressure and we had compared medications.

I didn’t hear this about Leo until six months after he passed away, but it left me deeply saddened. I began to wonder if I could have said something or should have said something that might have made a difference.

I wondered if I had missed an opportunity to share Christ with him. I checked my calendar to see what I was doing around the time of his death.

This old news bothered me. It bothers me now.

This guy seemed content with life. He had retired just a couple of years before and seemed pretty happy and easy going.

This was old news that has made an impact, old news that caused me to think, “what if”. But it’s old new and I can’t do anything about it.

Here’s the thing: At some point the message of the gospel will be old news; it will be irrelevant. That day will be the day someone dies without Christ or Christ returns. Until that time in a person’s life, the gospel message is current and relevant. Who would this news – this good news – make a difference to today, or tomorrow or next week? Get the word out. Jesus is saving lives today!

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who do you need to talk to about the good news of Jesus? Leave your comment below.

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Every Man Wishes For A Close Shave

Today I cut the grass at my cottage; it had been five weeks since it had been clipped. As I got out my weed whacker and started trimming the edges, I thought, “Man, I wish I could trim it a little shorter.”

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That’s when I realized that one of the things men want most in life is a close shave. It doesn’t matter if it’s on our faces or the grass at the edge of our lawns, we just want a close shave!

We are always in search of something, some gadget or gimmick that will get us a closer shave.

The other day, I saw a commercial for a blade you can put on a weed whacker that’s supposed to get closer to the edges, trim down further, even get in-between the slats in your fence.

I found myself thinking, “I’ve got to get me one of those. I need to shave my lawn closer.”

We do it with razors, too. Gillette keeps coming out with more blades, pivoting heads or slippery stuff that moves the blades along. And it’s all to give us a closer shave.

We want to feel like we don’t have to shave as often. We want to go two days before someone says, “Hey, you didn’t shave today, did you?”

There are all kinds of razors out there, even ones you can take in the shower (not sure why you’d want to) that come with micro blades that whirl around to give you a pretty close shave.

I bought an electric razor because sometimes I don’t want to get out my blade razor and take the time to lather up. Sometimes a quick once-over the face with an electric will do the trick.

I have one that has triple-action floating heads. It purrs like a kitten. The first time I used it, I got a close shave – maybe too close … the next morning my face still stung from the feeling of having a thin layer of skin removed from the surface.

But that’s okay, I’m not complaining. I like that I got a close shave – that’s what we men are looking for.

And I know that we haven’t arrived at the closest thing yet. We still know that, out there somewhere, someone has an idea that will get us even closer!

I know that when someone designs a tool that will get me a few microns closer, or when a blade comes on the market that will clip those hard-to-get-to places on my lawn, I’ll be wanting it.

Some day I can picture us using lasers to clip hairs from our face and cut our lawn painlessly and in one swoop.

Oh, wouldn’t that be nice to get your face up close to a device that removes your hair right to the nubbies … and then you could just turn the dial up a few notches if you wanted a facelift.

Here’s the thing: We may never be satisfied with how close a shave we can get. We may always be looking for something closer. Well, that’s how we should be with our relationship with Christ. Have you become satisfied with it? Is your relationship with Christ “close enough”? That should never be. We should always be searching, looking, striving for how we can develop a closer relationship, closer walk with Him.

That’s Life!
Paul

Question: What part of your relationship with Christ are you not satisfied with? Leave your comment below.

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How To Capture What Your Eyes See

My new iPhone still doesn’t capture pictures the way I’d hoped it would. I’m not saying the camera in the phone isn’t very good; it takes great pictures, but it can’t capture what my eye sees.

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Most of the time, we are too busy to notice the difference. Something grabs our attention so we take a quick picture, or we’re somewhere special (or not) and we take a selfie to memorialize the moment.

It’s all good, standing on a beach looking out at a sunset that spans the world from edge to edge … to try to capture that on a cell phone camera is impossible.

The scene is before you in all its glory. Your eyes span such a wide spectacle, it takes time to let the details of the colours, the images, seep into your mind to be processed by your senses.

And though your mind is a great hard drive that records and recalls beautiful and amazing images, there is an urge to stop and frame it on a camera so you can do more than just remember it in your mind. You want see it again and again even when you are not there.

That’s when the camera let’s me down. I want to have a photo of what I’m looking at – all that I’m looking at – but the camera can only give me a section of it.

Lily and I hiked in about two kilometres to the Grotto up on the Bruce Peninsula. The path takes you through a wooded area that is filled with beauty in its own right.

There were several times when we were tempted to stop and take some pictures along the way. But when we got to the end of the trail and walked out of the woods to the edge of a cliff, well I just want to show you a picture of what we saw.

The problem is I can’t because I couldn’t take a picture that did justice to what I was looking at. I kept taking pictures, in hopes that the next one would be the one that would capture it all.

Sadly, when I look at all those pictures they just look the same and they don’t reproduce the full jaw-dropping beauty of the vast panorama that was below me and before me.

We even tried to use the panorama feature on the camera in hopes that it would do it, but it only distorts and changes the persecutive into something far less spectacular than the real thing.

In the end, I’m left with a less than perfect picture and my own memory to build a model of the real image I took in that day.

Here’s the thing: We have this same problem with Christ. We only see a poor picture of what He is like; we don’t get to see Him in all His glory. I read in Colossians 1:17-18 that Christ is before all things and holds everything together, that He has supremacy over everything. It dawned on me that my image, my understanding of Him, is so limited that it is only a fraction of what He is really like. We only have something like a photo to go on to comprehend Christ’s glory, His majesty, His magnificence. We have to wait for the jaw-dropping moment when we actually see Him. But then we will never need a picture again.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What amazing scene do you will wish you could capture in its fullness? Leave your comment below.

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What To Do When You’ve Misheard Something

When we don’t hear correctly, it can cause all kinds of complications or problems.

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However, it’s pretty normal to have to say, “Pardon me, could you repeat that please?” You often hear people saying something like that … and the older we get, the more often we have to say it.

It doesn’t help that some people mumble or let their words trail off, making it hard to hear what they’re saying. It gets embarrassing to have to stop people and continually ask them, “What was that again?”

Often we just carry on and go with what we thought they said. We can make up pretty great stories when we do that!

Years ago on the TV show, Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner played a character called Emily Litella. She was a senior citizen who had an opinion spot on their news segment. Emily’s problem was she didn’t hear very well.

For example, she gave her opinion, with all kinds of emotion, about violins on television. She got rather upset and irate that they were showing violins so late at night on the tube. She thought they should be shown earlier so children could watch and get a little culture.

After about a two minute rant, the show’s anchor interrupted Emily to tell her that the issue was “violence” on TV and not “violins”. Litella faced the audience, paused and responded with “Never mind”.

Not hearing can cause problems or it can have a funny result. … But what happens when you mishear God?

Recently, our daughter had planned to move to another apartment; plans seemed to be going well. She found a great place that looked like it would be perfect, and made the proper arrangements with her present landlord by letting him know she was moving.

Then things started to fall apart with the new place. There was a request by the new landlord that didn’t seem right. When Karlie said she couldn’t agree, the landlord didn’t respond or say “no” right away.

Karlie was still hopeful, until she was almost out of time at her present place. Then she was informed the new apartment was given to someone else.

She had asked God to provide a place for her, but now it looked like she wouldn’t have a place at all! Almost every other accommodation she checked was already rented.

Karlie had thought that she was following God’s leading, listening to what He wanted her to do.

She had two final possibilities. She decided that if they didn’t reply to her calls, texts and emails within three days, she would then go to her landlord and ask him if she could stay. She heard nothing.

When she went to her landlord, he told her that he had not had one single phone call regarding the apartment. Karlie asked him if she could sign a new lease and he even agreed to the shorter term that she wanted.

Here’s the thing: When we misread God or mishear Him, we can get ourselves going in the wrong direction. From there it’s easy to make more wrong decisions or draw wrong conclusions from what we think God might be saying. If we have misheard God, it’s important to be willing to take a step back, listen again and then follow through on what He makes clear.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question:   How have you misread or misheard God? Leave your comment below.

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Why Cover Bands Never Get A Recording Contract

Right at the end of our vacation each year, Sauble Beach puts on a festival called Sandfest. It’s a weekend with activities for the whole family, right on the beach.

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There is a sandcastle building competition that brings in some professionals (I never knew there were pro sand events), and amateurs alike. Everyone gets a plot of sand and about eight hours to build something.

It’s pretty amazing and creative what some come up with.

There is also an antique car show involving a couple hundred old cars parked on the beach. They’re judged by officials and the crowds of people walking the rows of cars, taking pictures and oohing and awing at them.

Some of the cars I’ve seen don’t look like antiques to me – in fact, some of the models I drove when I was younger! … That’s when you realize that you’re an antique too, so you just keep quiet about it, say “nice car”, and move on.

There is always music that is a focal point of the weekend. They usually have bands Friday and Saturday.

They’ve had bands that are starting out and trying to get noticed, old bands that just do gigs on the weekends, but also some bands that were once well known and had songs on the radio.

But probably by far, most of the bands at Sandfest are cover bands – you know, bands that try to imitate a famous group from the past.

These cover bands, or imitations in some cases, look like the original band members, talk like them in between songs, mimic their mannerisms while singing, and, of course, try to sound like them vocally and musically.

I watched bands that dressed like the original band, but after that weren’t that close to the real group’s sound. Then there were those whose voices sounded pretty much like the original, but they weren’t dead on with the music. They just didn’t have it instrumentally.

The thing about cover bands is they try hard to look and sound like the real group, but there is something that isn’t quite right.

There is always something that is off. And where you notice it the most is how they carry themselves, how they conduct themselves onstage.

They are acting; they are not themselves, and just don’t come across as the real thing. The real group doesn’t act; they are just themselves, and not trying to be something they are not.

There is a sense of authenticity that the real group has that a cover band can never manufacture.

Even when they are able to get so close to the original, they are not being themselves. They are pretending to be something, someone they are not. And everyone knows it.

Here’s the thing: We must be very careful that we are not merely imitating a real Christian – looking like one, acting like one, even talking like one, but just performing to please an audience who expects to see and hear a certain presentation. The only way to be  sure you are the real thing is to look inside yourself. Are you interacting with God, applying the things He says to your life, then living that out for everyone to see? If so, you are authentic, and people can tell. If not, you’re “covering” the Christian life and no matter how good you get at it, you’ll just be a cover band, and you’ll never make it with the true audience, God Himself.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: In what part of your life do you find it easier to imitate than be real? Leave your comment below.

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The Future Is Not What You Might Think

I’ve seen the future and it doesn’t look too bright. … Of course, that may have been because I saw the future in a dimly lit movie theatre.

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I don’t go to the movie theatre all that often, and even less to a matinee, but my wife and I were on vacation and we decided to do a movie and dinner.

Shortly after seating myself in the high-backed, swivel chair with my armrest ready to be loaded with a 40 oz cup of coke, I saw the future. Maybe it wasn’t my future, but it was definitely the future!

I started to notice that the people sitting around me were all quite a bit older that Lily and me. And as others came in, I noticed it took them a long time to walk up the stairs to their seats.

Some of them stopped half way to take a breather, others used the handrail like they had just dropped off their walkers and were in need of a little support.

There was some guy behind me who was rustling a bag of something that he probably smuggled into the theatre. I’m sure he couldn’t hear the constant noise that bag was making but  it was definitely not music to my ears!

At that point, it dawned on me how much we had paid to get in. When it seemed like we were only being charged for one ticket, I had questioned the cashier on the price. The girl assured me that it was cheap Tuesday.

I started to put it all together. I never really knew who went to matinees before; I had thought they was mostly for kids’ movies. I suddenly realized that it’s seniors who go to matinees – and not just young seniors, it’s those who are in their seventies and up.

The cashier must have taken us for seniors and charged us the seniors’ rate for cheap Tuesdays.

And now you too know the future: some day going to a matinee will be the normal thing to do.

It’s practical because there are no lineups and there are lots of seats to choose from. Movies are loud so no need to turn on that nasty, bothersome hearing aide. And you get out in time to have dinner at the seniors’ residence or at least before the evening rush at the restaurants.

The whole thing was an eye opening experience. It was the first time I came out of a movie theatre squinting because I’d just spent a couple of hours in the dark and the sun was still high in the sky.

It wasn’t a bad experience; in fact, some day I can see it being all the rage.

Here’s the thing: When we look to the future, we usually look ahead 5, 10, 20 years from now. We imagine and plan for what might be or what we want life to be like. But when we look that way, we miss the future we should be focussing on. In the book of Colossians, chapter three and verses one and two, it tells us to “set our hearts and minds on things above.” We often limit our thinking, planning and preparing to what’s coming ahead in this life. But God wants us to be thinking, planning, preparing and living with our whole being focussed on what’s above – on heaven. So in your future planning, think of things above as you prepare and live out your days here below.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you usually focus on when thinking of the future? Leave your comment below.

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How Persistence Works Wonders

It’s amazing what persistence brings. We might not have the same ability as someone else but if we persist the results will be good.

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We haven’t had much rain at our cottage over the last little while. I don’t usually mind though because we go long periods of time between visits, especially during the spring.

When we’re not there, my brother cuts my lawn for me. I don’t really want it growing like crazy so he doesn’t have to cut it as much.

The problem with that is, by the time the summer drought comes, my lawn is all brown, with mostly sand and a few green weeds. There’s just not much else.

To give you an idea of what my lawn is like right now, I haven’t cut it in three weeks and it still doesn’t need cutting. It looks like it is in a semi-desert climate! All I need to do is take a whipper snipper to a few weeds that are raising their heads above the dirt.

However, my brother’s lawn is lush and green; his grass is thick with no weeds at all.

The difference is a stark contrast. His cottage looks like it is in a little oasis surrounded by a parched and weary land.

Now my brother is no landscaper, and he’s not some kind of super horticulturist. All he does is put water on his lawn, and not just now and then, but regularly, every day.

He has been persistent to the point of installing in-ground sprinklers on timers. So every day, whether he is at his cottage or not, his grass gets the water it needs to thrive and grow thick.

On the other hand, I bought a soaker hose a few days ago and watered my lawn for a couple of hours … It looks just the same as before.

It’s not just the water, it’s the persistence of putting the water on the lawn that makes the difference.

In fact, persistence has made my brother’s lawn respond to water better than mine does.

Yesterday we got a downpour. The rain came down so hard we had puddles all over the lawn. My lawn got more water in the first fifteen minutes of that downpour than it did in the two hours I watered it the day before.

So today I thought I would see a difference, maybe just a little more green, maybe a few more patches of grass starting to spring up. No, it looked like it did the day before and the day before that.

It reminded me of the dream Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh in the Bible, where the skinny stocks of corn ate the thick full ones and still looked as skinny and scrawny as they did before.

Over at my brother’s place, after that rain last night, even the one patch of grass that doesn’t get quite as much water as the rest had responded and was now as green as ever.

Here’s the thing: We may not be the greatest prayer warriors, or be able to dig the deepest into the riches of a Bible passage. We may not be theological giants like some. But persistence in praying and reading your Bible will pay off in a lush, rich understanding of God and result in a vibrant relationship with Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to be more persistent in? Leave your comment below.