How Mistakes Can Become Opportunities

From time to time I repost an article I’ve written some time ago. This post was written in December 2012. Enjoy

Sometimes mistakes can turn into opportunities.  A week ago, a man came into the church and asked if I could help him with some grocery money.  This is not an unusual occurrence – on a weekly basis, people make the same or similar requests.

I can think of one guy who has come in enough over the years that we’re on a first name basis.  One time he asked for grocery money or vouchers, and when I didn’t have any, he asked for a computer.  When I told him I didn’t have a computer to give him, he asked for a guitar.

I actually did have a guitar I could give him!  I had just bought a new one and my old guitar was taking up space at home.  When I gave him the guitar, he right away thanked me, and then, with hardly taking a breath, asked me if I had a case for it!

A couple of days later, I saw him walking downtown on the main street, with my old guitar in his hand (no case).  But about a week after that, he came to me again and asked if I had another guitar, because the one I gave him was stolen.  I had to break the news to him that I had run out of old guitars.

He accepted the news quite well.  I say that because some people don’t take a negative answer very well.  Sometimes they get upset, so I’m careful not to promise what I can’t deliver.

That’s how I made my mistake a week ago.  There was something about this man who had asked me for grocery money.  As I listened to him briefly tell me his situation, something about his story seemed to stick with me.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to give him at the time.

I told him to come back the next day and I’d have a grocery store gift card for him.  That was all fine, except I forgot to purchase the gift card.  So, when the appointed time came, I still had nothing for him.

I quickly looked around to see, if by chance, there was a card we could give him . . .  nothing.  Then my associate, offered to go and purchase a gift card while the man waited at the church with me.  It seemed like our only solution, so of he went.

I decided to use the time to get to know this man a little bit.  We had a conversation about his life, what had gone wrong, and his plan to get back on track.

Then I just started sharing about how God loved him and wanted to help him in his life.  I explained to him who Jesus was, what He came to do, and what He has offered us.  By the time my associate came back with the gift card, we were talking about how he could have a relationship with Jesus.

In the end, I prayed with him, gave him a Bible and the grocery gift card.  He left satisfied on a couple of levels.

Here’s the thing:  If I had not forgotten to get that gift card, I would have had a brief conversation with that man and sent him on his way.  But my mistake led to an opportunity to share Christ’s love with a man who really needed it right then.  I need to remember to always look for opportunities … even in mistakes.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question:  What mistakes have you made that turned into opportunities for you?  Leave your comment below.

I’m Feeling The Christmas Pressure

It must be time to put up the Christmas lights; I’m feeling the pressure.

Today I’m watching Lily decorate our upstairs Christmas tree. That’s right, we have an upstairs and a downstairs Christmas tree.

The upstairs one is hers. She decides what goes on it, and she does all the work. The downstairs tree is sort of the family’s tree; it has home-made decorations that we have given each other over the years.

Lily pretty much … well, actually completely puts that one up, too.

My line is that she takes care of the inside and I do the outside.

Just watching her do her thing puts the pressure on me to get moving with the outside lights.

But that’s not the only place from which I’m being pressured to get my task done.

There are several neighbours who already have their lights up. And when I drive down the next street, the homes there seem very much into the Christmas spirit.

About seven years ago I started thinking that people were putting more effort into Halloween decorations than they were Christmas. Now I think people are putting the same effort into decorating for Christmas as they do for Halloween.

For generations Christmas lights have basically been the same. You figured out a pattern of lights that worked on your house and you put them up every year. The only thing that you changed was the bulbs when they burned out.

Now there’s way more stuff!

They have big blow-up Christmas characters – I’m not talking about the baby Jesus and wise men; I’m talking about Frosty and Santa. Some of these blow-ups are as tall as a house!

There are also elaborate laser light shows that change rapidly and cover the whole front of a house.

It’s a big deal! And it seems that every year it’s getting to be an even bigger deal.

Not for me though. I’m old school; I have my pattern of how the lights go up and I just repeat that every year. I’m not trying to add anything new. I just hope that I can find the same eavestrough hooks I used last year.

What’s got me feeling the pressure to get my lights up today is that so many of my neighbours have their lights up, but I’m the Christian guy.

I’m the one who is really supposed to be into Christmas and I feel like not having my lights up yet is saying to them all that I don’t care as much as I should.

There is one other pressure and that’s the weather. It’s a nice day out there today – a balmy 8° Celsius (46 Fahrenheit). The chances that it will stay this warm for much longer are slim.

So between my wife, the neighbourhood, my perceived neighbours’ expectations of me and the weather, today’s the day when the lights go up.

I’m feeling the pressure.

Here’s the thing:  We feel pressure to do outward things, but do we feel pressure to do inward things? It’s hard not to give in to what we see in the world around us or what others are doing. But are you compelled in the same way to respond to what God wants you to do? The pressure to do outward things like put up the lights comes from within; we pressure ourselves. We should put that kind of pressure on ourselves to respond in obedience to what God wants us to do. Faith without obedience is not much good at all.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What should you put pressure on yourself to be doing? Leave your comments below.

The Music Captured My Attention

Music has a way of capturing your attention and putting you in a mood. I guess that’s why the soundtrack of a movie is so important.

If you’ve ever watched a movie with no soundtrack and just the actors’ lines, you really feel like there is something missing.

The background music draws out the emotion in you that the scene is trying to create, whether it is tension or laughter or joy or sadness.

A scene with a car cruising down a beachside freeway will boost the emotions when the music is something like the first 20 seconds of Steppenwolf’s, “Born To Be Wild”.

You can instantly imagine yourself in the car, taking those curves, looking out at the waves crashing on the beach below you.

Well, the other day my wife, Lily, was watching the opening song for the country music awards.

I wasn’t watching but from the other side of the room I said, “That sounds like … like … like (it took me a while) Hootie.”

Then it came to me. It was a song by Hootie and the Blowfish and the lead singer – who is not Hootie but Darius Rucker – was featured in that all-star cast rendition of “Hold Your Hand”.

It was a fond memory and the song was so good it hooked me in.

I spend the next hour or so on YouTube listening to different renditions of that song and others by Darius Rucker’s band.

I can’t really explain it, but listening to that song highjacked my evening and got me in a mood to listen to more of the same.

That’s what songs do. They capture your emotions and reel you in so that you feel something you weren’t feeling just minutes before.

When you think about it, music has a great power.

When Lily and I went on our honeymoon, we drove to our destination at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, about a 16 hour drive away.

We had lots of time in the car and there were a few songs that really captured our attention. We can both still remember those songs today.

That was 32 years ago, yet when we hear those songs now we both look at each other, smile and remember that drive.

Music has such a profound impact on emotions that you can find it being used everywhere to put people in the right mood …  whether it is in an elevator, a department store, a commercial, your car, or even at the hockey arena.

A few years ago, I think the rink where I played hockey was experimenting on us. They pumped happy, easy-going music into the dressing rooms and the arena.

I think it was to see if it would calm us down and keep the altercations to a minimum.

I never did find out the results of that study … if it was one.

Music is around us most of our day; we are rarely without music in our lives. We wake to it, fall asleep with it and it is a soundtrack to our day.

Here’s the thing: God created music to move our emotions. And some of the time our emotions should be moved towards God. Don’t neglect ensuring that your emotions are stirred towards the God who loves you, cares for you and has given His precious Son, Jesus to die for you. Whether secular or spiritual, your music on a regular basis should draw you to give God glory and worship Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What song stirs up your emotions? Leave your comments below.

We Need More Insiders In Our World

Insiders can really make a difference in explaining things that the general population doesn’t know or understand very well.

This past week I watched an NFL game on TV; the colour commentator was Tony Romo.

For those who don’t have a clue who Romo is, he just retired as quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. You could definitely consider him an insider to the game of football.

For most of his life he’s lived and breathed football. Most of his waking hours found him playing or thinking about the game.

It was his job.

Now it’s his job to give insight to the viewers into what’s happening on the field.

Romo is amazing at it! He gives insights into what the offence and coaches are thinking and going to do next. He provides information – almost like a guru – on how a defence needs to react to the play that’s being called.

And he lets you in on what is going through the head of the quarterback as he calls plays and stands behind the center, ready to receive the ball.

He is amazing at his job! – did I say that already?

I found myself totally into the game he was calling, watching for what he was predicting was going to take place. The game I watched was such a blowout, however, that in the fourth quarter the network switched the telecast to another game.

I was more disappointed to miss Tony Romo’s insider information than I was to see the end of the game.

Football is not the only place we have insiders, though. It seems like there are insiders in every walk of life, speaking to almost everything that takes place.

Sometimes those insiders only give us gossip that may or may not be true … but it sure seems like it’s correct when they are telling us.

There are also insiders who speak about things even though they don’t seem to fit the insider model … like when a movie star gives his or her political, moral or religious view about something.

For some reason they come across as insiders even on topics that aren’t their field of expertise.

For someone to be a real insider, he or she needs to have some kind of experience or learning, or even better – both.

Like Tony Romo – he immersed himself in football from a young age and continued to learn and play the game through high school, college and at the professional level.

When you hear him call a game, you know he didn’t just play a position; he has studied the game and knows it inside out.

He’s an expert … That’s what an insider really is – someone who has so thoroughly immersed him or herself in something that he or she gives amazing insights.

Romo is a good reminder to me to be particular about who I consider an insider: someone I want to take commentary from and believe it to be the truth.

Here’s the thing: If you have faith in Jesus Christ, you are an insider because you have experienced something that changed your life. You know something that many people don’t know about and have not experienced. But you will only show yourself to be an insider if you immerse yourself in your faith. You have to be a student of God’s. Learn God’s word, read it, study it, memorize verses. Then when the game is on, you can give insights that will truly enlighten, amaze, and help.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you an insider to? Leave your comments below.

I Wouldn’t Say You Can Never Go Back

They say you can never go back, and I would say that is only half true.

Recently I had a chance to go back to a place from my childhood. I got there alright, but it wasn’t the same.

When I was a child, my family used to go to Muskoka (Ontario, Canada) to a Christian conference centre. It was a summer resort for people who liked to go to church at least once a day … just kidding, but half serious.

The place was called Canadian Keswick Conference, and it was in the heart of the Muskokas on Lake Rosseau.

If you know this area it is an amazing summer cottage paradise.

And Keswick was an amazing place: it was luxury in the heart of astounding nature.

On a lake that is deep and large, Keswick was situated on a point that led into a bay. It had a swimming area with a big slide in the middle of the bay and a large boat house with those old wooden inboard boats … though they weren’t all that old back then.

The main building was a large hotel with a fancy dining room. You had to dress up just to eat in there. On the bottom level was a tuck shop.

The name “tuck shop” didn’t really do it justice. Sure, you could get ice cream and candy there, but this place had rows of crystal and fine ornaments that kept kids like me on our toes so we didn’t break anything – besides, it was my aunt who ran the tuck shop; I had to be good!

In the early 70’s Keswick fell on hard times and the bank took it over. For many years it just lay vacant.

But last week my wife, Lily, and I happened to be going to a retreat near there so we decided to make a detour to try to see the property.

When we got there the gate was closed. We drove a little further and found a gate that was open, so we decided to drive in. I thought it might be part of a private golf course or something.

There was a crew there working on the property, clearing tree limbs and blowing leaves. We drove around the property like we owned it and no one stopped us or asked us any questions.

We got out, walked around the swimming area, and then along the dock. Everything had changed so much I was slightly unsure this was really the right spot.

I walked up and around where the old main building had been, now replaced with a beautiful, palatial structure overlooking the lake.

I took pictures and video and then we got back in our car and drove up towards the gate that was locked. As we approached, it automatically opened for us.

That was cool.

To confirm that we had found the right spot we stopped at a real estate office in Port Carling. We inquired and found out that the property is now a private summer cottage.

The palatial structure we saw was the cottage … more like a multi-million dollar mansion!

The real estate agent was very surprised we had gotten in. Well, getting in was nothing; we had walked all over the place, taking pictures and video.

It was great to go back to Keswick, even though the landscaping had changed, the appearance was different, and all the buildings had been replaced.

I went back, but it wasn’t the same.

Here’s the thing: When you find faith in God, you might have occasion to go back to things that held your gaze before. But they won’t have the same sparkle or provide the same emotion as they once did. God has made a change in you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What past thing no longer holds your interest like it once did? Leave your comments below.

I’m Not Sure I Should Be All That Comfortable With Comfort

All of us like to be comfortable; we all have an idea of where our comfort zone is.

Maybe more than most people do, I like comfort … like with the clothes I wear. I don’t want to be wearing something that pinches and is so tight I have difficulty breathing.

… Except maybe with skates. I do wear very small skates – about 2 1/2 – 3 sizes smaller than my shoe size. I will put up with some discomfort there if it will make me feel more in control on the ice … but that’s another issue.

Before we go outside, we check the weather in order to put on the appropriate amount of clothing so that we are comfortable.

Lily used to make fun of me years ago when I lost some weight because I wore a fleece jacket in the house and at work; I hardly ever took it off. … Well, I took it off when I went to bed, but most of the day and evening I had it on.

I wore it because I was cold all the time. That fleece jacket kept me in my comfort zone.

We like to be comfortable with people as well. That’s why we tend to gather with people we know rather than introduce ourselves to people we’ve never met before.

When you are with your friends, that’s your comfort zone. Your blood pressure is down; you are relaxed and engage in conversation without worrying about what the other person is thinking about you.

When you meet someone new, your stress level goes up, your hands may get sweaty, and you have a harder time thinking on your feet because you just aren’t comfortable.

We also have things we like to eat that we label as comfort food. For some people that’s ice cream. When they are down, or lonely or sad, they grab a big ‘ole bowl of double fudge ice cream and go at it.

For me it’s hot wings, particularly with Frank’s Red Hot sauce.

Now that’s comfort food!

We like to be comfortable in our surroundings, in our office or our home. So we buy a house that fits our idea of comfort and fill it with furniture and accents that make us feel comfortable there.

A year ago, when my wife, Lily, and I were looking for a car, one of the biggest things we were looking for was comfort. We wanted a car that would be quiet on the highway, with seats that were comfortable for long drives.

We were looking for comfort more than performance or what the car looked like or what make it was.

Comfort is a big deal. We want it, and we like to stay in that comfort zone when we’ve got it.

Here’s the thing: I was listening to a message this week and I was challenged about my comfort zone with God. We can become so comfortable with our relationship with Christ that we stop following Jesus where He wants to lead us. Our comfort keeps us relying on our own strength and keeps us from relying on God. It’s comfortable, but it makes for a boring life. Do you want more than comfort in life? Do you want to experience more than you can do on your own? Break out from your boring existence. Step out of your comfort zone and follow where God is leading you. Trust Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: In what way do you need to break out of your comfort zone? Leave your comments below.

I Had An Urge I Could Not Let Go Of

I think we all have urges to do something for others. They’re not “all the time” urges, and they’re certainly not “anyone” urges, but we get the urge at times to help someone out.

It might be someone you don’t know, or maybe a neighbour. It could be some cause that stirs you to do something.

It might happen often, or those times may be few and far between.

But when it happens, we can’t help but do something; the urge is overwhelming and we have to act.

I remember years ago starting out on our first day of vacation. We had our van loaded and we were towing our travel trailer to our vacation spot.

We probably weren’t more than twenty minutes on the highway when I saw smoke in my side mirror. I quickly pulled over and found that one of the trailer tires was shredded to bits.

We were on the side of a major highway; it was early morning with people in a hurry to get to work. You could feel the trailer sway when the cars and especially the trucks whipped by.

I started to change the tire on the side of the road and probably was no more than five minutes in and a guy from our church pulled up behind me to help.

He had seen it all, driven to the next exit, turned around and, in order to get to us on the divided highway, drove back past us in the opposite lanes, turned around at the closest exit and came to help.

Amazing! That’s that urge that causes us to do something for others; when everyone else is flying by, we have the urge to do something.

This week I got to spend one night at both my daughter’s and son’s places.

There is something about helping out your kids that you can’t resist doing, even though they are on their own, and have jobs to support themselves.

I found myself looking for ways to help out. What did they need? What could I do to give them a hand?

My daughter needed to get a few groceries the night I stayed with her, and though I added a few things of my own to the basket, I had this urge to pay for it all.

She’s my daughter; I’ve been providing for her her whole life and it’s difficult to turn that off now that she’s an adult.

The next night I had dinner with my son and, of course, I paid for dinner. But back at his place I noticed there were a few things he needed. Before I left in the morning I hit up a hardware store and Walmart and got him set up.

These were all things they could have done themselves but I had this urge in me to help.

It happens sometimes; it happens with family and sometimes with complete strangers.

The bottom line is those urges make a real difference to people. We should never ignore them.

Here’s the thing: After God created people, it took no time before we rejected Him for our selfish wants and desires … and humanity has been on that path ever since. Yet even though we rejected Him, God had the urge to help us, to bring us back to Him. We call that love. He acted on that urge by sending His Son, Jesus, to die for our rejection of Him – our sin. That urge not only can help us now, it can help us for eternity. Aren’t you glad God acted on His urge to do something for others? Reflect on that.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When was the last time you acted on the urge to do something for others? Leave your comments below.

I’m Good At Wrecking Shoes

I came close to wrecking an expensive pair of shoes the other day.

I normally keep my shoes in good shape for a few years, but this pair I almost lost within six months of buying them.

When I was in my teens I remember my mom complaining that I wrecked running shoes (sneakers) in no time. But that was when I was young and foolish.

This week I got a call that there was a flood at our church. And when I was putting on my shoes to leave, I remember Lily saying to me, “You shouldn’t wear those; wear something old.”

But I thought that the call about the flood was an exaggeration so I said, “Don’t worry about it; they’ll be okay.”

Since then Lily has reiterated several times that she told me not to wear those shoes.

Okay, so she was right.

When I got to the church the flood was definitely a flood. In places the water was pooling on top of the carpet, and there was a little lake that spanned a hallway into two other classrooms.

The job was way too much for the one shop vac that we have, so I immediately called our carpet guy to get him on the job – fast.

The thing about flooding is you’re not usually the only one who’s flooded and so we had to wait a few hours for the carpet guy to actually arrive.

I figured I would do some prep for the professionals.

I had a helper who was madly using the shop vac in one hallway. But in the rooms we had all kinds of furniture that needed to get to dryer ground and out of the way for the carpet cleaner.

I decided to be the mover while we waited for water suction reinforcements.

The problem with that was it meant I had to walk through the pools of water in the various rooms to get the furniture out.

By the time I was done, so were my shoes. They were soaked through but looked okay.

When I got home, I told Lil that my shoes were really wet. And that was the first time she said, “I told you not to wear those shoes.”

Well, after letting them dry for two days, I still needed to blow some some warm through them.

When they were finally dry, they also looked ruined. The leather uppers had lost some of their shape, and there were white marks all over them.

That was the second time Lily said, “I told you not to wear them.”

But graciously she also said she would try to do something with them.

That evening she brought me my shoes and said, “Look at how well they turned out.”

I was amazed! They looked basically as good as they did before the dunking. I thanked her for all she did, and she reminded me one more time that I shouldn’t have worn them.

… But I’ll probably end up wearing them for something else I shouldn’t – that’s why, way back in the day, my mom was right when she said I was good at wrecking shoes.

Here’s the thing: It’s great to get another chance, but God has given us more than a second chance. He is so patient that we get multitudinous chances to trust our life to Him. And then He continues to forgive us of our wrongs. Now that’s a second chance!

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need a second chance with? Leave your comments below.

This Time Change Is Really Affecting My Rhythm

I never really noticed how the time change affected me before, but my sleeping sure has been altered in the last two nights.

I like the fall change because you get an extra hour of sleep … or at least that’s the theory.

In reality, it’s a license to stay up an hour longer … but even that turns into more like two hours.

So I actually get less sleep but only half as much less sleep than if I had stayed up two hours later the night before the time change.

I usually like to get to bed early on Saturday night because I have to preach the next morning. I don’t know why, but this Saturday night I was wide awake, so I stayed up a little longer than I should have.

For some crazy reason, however, I woke up way earlier than normal – at 4:30 a.m.! And I’m not that guy who gets up by my internal clock. I need an alarm or I would keep sleeping.

I just lay there going over my sermon in my head. By the time 6 a.m. rolled around and it was time to get up, I had basically rehearsed my whole sermon in my mind.

If you’re doing the math, no, I don’t preach for an hour and a half; there were gaps and times I struggled to remember what came next.

Surprisingly, when I got up, I didn’t feel tired or like I hadn’t gotten much sleep that night. I did, however, take a rather long nap Sunday afternoon.

I thought it was a fluky thing until this morning. Again I woke up very early, and again I rolled around in bed, this time without a sermon to keep my mind occupied.

I thought of random things for about an hour until my alarm went off and it was time for me to get up.

Now I’m thinking that the time change has affected my sleeping patterns and I hoping it won’t last too long.

I also found out that this time change is a lot more dangerous than I ever imagined it would be.

It turns out there are more accidents on the roads the Monday after a time change.

And then there are the physical problems! Apparently studies show there are more heart attacks, strokes are more frequent, and cases of depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) also rise.

… Not to mention headaches for those who suffer from them.

They say it all has to do with our circadian rhythm being disrupted. Your circadian rhythm regulates your 24-hour internal clock and it does it based on light.

I don’t know much about all that stuff but I want my rhythm back before something disastrous happens!

Here’s the thing: There are many things that can disrupt your walk with God. It might be sleep, it could be sin, or it could be some distraction that you are focussing on. My advice is to stick with a routine of meeting with God, continue to confess your sin, keep praising Him, keep looking into the scriptures for what He’s saying to you. You will get your rhythm back. Check out what Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message by Eugene Peterson); its all right there:

“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.”

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What gets you out of your rhythm with God? Leave your comments below.

How To Pay Attention To The Alarms Of Life

From time to time I will publish old blog posts. This is a repost of an article I posted back in November 2013

Alarms go off around us all the time. Some are not that noticeable, others are unmistakable.

The other day, Lily bought a new alarm clock. She wanted something a little more modern, a little smaller, a little more stylish. My question is, do you want the alarm clock to wake you up? If so, what the alarm sounds like is the first concern.

Lil’s new alarm does a couple of things to wake you up. It glows in changing colours when the alarm goes off. And believe me, the glow is pretty bright. It cycles through several colours.

You may wonder how I know this. Well, the other day, rather than getting up out of bed to read the Bible and do my devotions, I decided to do them in bed.

There I was sitting up in bed with my iPad, hoping the glow from it would not wake Lily. I shouldn’t have worried. When her alarm went off, I waited for her to click it off but nothing happened. She didn’t move, and for two minutes I watched the light change colour to green then amber then blue … etc.

There was an audible alarm that went off as well, but it wasn’t a loud noise. This alarm has sounds, and the sound Lil picked was a babbling brook. Other than the fact that I felt like I needed to go to the washroom, it was a very nice sound.

… It didn’t wake Lily, but it was soothing. This two minute routine happened three times over the next 20 minutes until I gently woke her up by saying, “You need a new alarm clock.”

She immediately thought it had not gone off. But I assured her it had gone off three times with her face basking in the glow of the alarm’s changing light each time.

It doesn’t matter how nice an alarm clock looks, or what kind of features it has, an alarm clock – to be worth anything – has to wake you up!  If it doesn’t, it’s no good.

Personally, my alarm has to be loud enough and annoying enough to wake me up. Over the years that’s not always been enough for me. I’ve had to put the alarm far from my reach so I had to almost get out of bed to shut it off.

I could never use the snooze button either or I’d keep hitting it for hours. I have to get right up. No music for me; I would enjoy it too much in my half woken daze and just stay in bed.

No, for me an alarm has to startle me, rattle me, make me jump … like the security alarm we have at work. When I’ve mistakenly set it off, it blasts so loud your heart jumps out of your body, your heart dings a bell in your head, and your pacemaker restarts itself. It’s frightening.

Lily either needs to turn up the sound on the babbling brook alarm clock so that it’s a crashing wave sound, or look for an alarm that will do what it’s supposed to do … wake her up.

Here’s the thing: God often uses alarms to get our attention. Sometimes the alarm doesn’t start out to be very loud and we don’t hear it. Then, when it becomes a little annoying, we are tempted to hit the snooze button. But don’t hit snooze; rather, listen intently to God’s alarms.  React to the alarm by getting up and following what the Lord wants you to do.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What kind of an alarm do you need to wake up to? Leave your comment below.