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Losing Is Not An Option

I don’t like losing things. Maybe that’s why I keep my things close to me. 

I’m not the kind of person who puts my keys down on a table. I don’t pull my wallet out of my pocket unless I’m paying for something … and now that I use my watch for many transactions, I don’t even have to pull the wallet out that much.

I know where my things are so I don’t have to look for them. 

But there are times when things get misplaced, or you do something you don’t normally do and forget where you put that thing.  

Fortunately, in those circumstance, I’m pretty good at remembering my last steps. Usually within a minute or two of tracing my steps I can find what I’ve lost. 

I know people who are always putting their keys or wallet down and, as a result, are regularly looking for them.

Some people are not good at remembering where they put things, or they’re not very observant and don’t see things right in front of them. 

I remember when my sister was young, I could ask her to get something that was in the middle of a room and she would come back empty-handed. She’d say she couldn’t find it, and then I’d go into the room and locate it right away.

The other day, however, I was biking and lost my bike computer. I was surprised because this watch-sized computer locks very securely onto my bike. 

The biggest hindrance to finding it was that I didn’t know exactly where I’d lost it. I hadn’t noticed it was gone right away and when I did, well, let’s just say I’d covered more than several kilometres of trail.

And that’s the other thing … it’s not like it was on a road, or a clear surface. I ride on trails that are uneven, hard-packed dirt, covered with leaves, twigs and the like. It would have been easy for the computer to even bounce off the trail and be covered by foliage. 

I remembered hitting the end of my handlebar hard against a rock cliff outcropping that gave me a good jolt. Maybe it was there that the computer came off. 

I spent an hour going back very slowly over the trail but didn’t find it. 

A few years ago, I had lost a fitbit off my shorts while biking and never found it either. I figured that this computer would be the same, that I’d never see it again. 

Then, three days later someone posted on the bike club’s facebook page that he found it. 

Like finding a needle in a haystack, somehow this guy found my bike computer. Obviously he had greater observation powers than my sister.

I still don’t like losing things, but now I have a second chance with this little gizmo.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we can lose our way, get off track, and not know how to get back. We are lost. Never forget that no matter how lost you feel, how far from God you have become separated, He doesn’t stop coming after us. God never loses sight of us and if you will stop where you are and look, you will be found by Him. What has caused you to lose your way? Give it up; confess it. He will pick you up and you will find your way.

That’s Life,

Paul

Question: Is there something that’s gotten you off track? Leave your comments below.

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Contrasts and Comparisons

There are some contrasts that automatically illicit a comparison.

The other day when I was talking with friend in Calgary, he mentioned that overnight they had gotten their first snowfall. It left just a light dusting over the ground and probably by midday would be all gone. 

But this was September 14th, and it made me feel kind of sad for him. In fact, I felt so bad about that snow report that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what the weather was like in eastern Canada. 

It was 9:30 in the morning and the sun was shining in my window. It was 24°C outside, but felt closer to 30° with the humidity. I had the air conditioner on in my office.

Then he told me it would probably get up to 6 or 7° that day. I just couldn’t rub it in.

I felt for a moment like I was in Florida and it was the middle of February or something. I almost mistook the evergreen tree out my window for a palm tree.

The contrast was just way too much for me to say anything. 

Besides, it’s September and the cold weather will be coming to us soon enough. I just didn’t want to jinx what we were experiencing here in Kingston.

Yes, I know that sounds superstitious, and I know there is nothing to it. 

… But when my hockey team is winning 3-0 near the end of the game, I don’t say the word “shutout” until the game is over … I’m just say’n.

It’s not like I turn my ball cap around backwards, or flip up the brim when my baseball team starts a comeback. 

… Oh wait, I have done that … never mind.

Relax, I really do know there is nothing to all that.

It was still impossible to avoid comparing my region’s temperature with his.

The contrast in weather in different parts of the country only really makes a difference when you know someone in that part of the country. Then you compare. 

I compare the weather I’m experiencing in Kingston to what my son and daughter are experiencing in Toronto. 

And I do the same with Lily’s family in Ottawa. 

I even compare the weather when I’m at our cottage with the weather back home in Kingston. 

I always feel better when it is nicer where I am than in another region. But that doesn’t mean I have to gloat or make someone feel bad for experiencing poorer weather than me. 

I don’t have to verbalized a comparison of the contrast. They might be perfectly fine with the weather they are experiencing. 

I could tell my friend was embracing his weather. And that was another good reason for me not to burst his bubble with my +19° difference.

It’s all good.

Here’s the thing: It’s almost impossible to not make a comparison of contrasts. And if the contrast has to do with a spiritual condition, there’s often an immediate and natural reaction of feeling better than them. But remember, if it wasn’t for Christ in your life, you would be where they are. Let that thought stop you from comparing and cause you to put yourself in their shoes. After all, you’ve been there. Then respond to them without comparing. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you been comparing lately? Leave your comments below.

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Can You Really Love Enough?

According to Hughie Lewis, “Love is a Curious Thing” – that was the title of one of his songs from the 80’s.  

But love is also complicated. 

Last week when I was writing my sermon, I was struck by an aspect of love in a fresh way: When you love someone, that love must grow or it will die. 

In other words, if you don’t continue loving more, you will end up loving less and less. 

Love decays if left unattended.

That is true with everything in this world. 

You leave metal out … it rusts. You leave grass alone … it gets full of weeds. You leave food out … it goes bad. You leave a pond without any water flow or some kind of filter … it gets stagnant. 

Pretty much everything decays, rots, or spoils if you don’t treat it, take care of it, or help it along in some way. 

There is plastic, however … it seems to last and last and never go away. Landfills are full of it; the oceans have flotillas of it. But even with plastic, scientists are finding that if you leave a plastic bottle of water in a warm environment long enough, it will produce cancer-causing molecules in the water. 

Nothing stays the same. 

Mountains erode; natural disasters get more disastrous. Why would we ever think that love can just stay the same, that it doesn’t change? 

There is an old joke about a couple who went to see a marriage counsellor. The wife complained that her husband never told her that he loved her. The man replied, “I told her I loved her on our wedding day and, if anything changes, I will let her know.” 

Unfortunately, that’s not true. Your love can’t stay the same; it will either increase or it will decrease.

When a couple gets married, they can look in each other’s eyes and say, “I love you with all my heart” and it’s true. 

But after a few years, that couple has shared many experiences – some really good ones and some not so good. 

If knowing each other more through those experiences doesn’t cause each one to increase their love for the other, it will produce a decrease. 

The more you know, the more you have to love or you will love less because you now know more. 

Perhaps we have so many marriages that end in divorce because people are still loving their spouses with the same amount of love they did when they got married – only that’s not enough love to hold a couple together after a few years. They need to love more.

For love to increase in the wake of experience, you have to embrace the good and you have to deal with the bad. 

You must determine to expand your love, nurture it, care for it, and constantly attend to it. 

You can’t love enough. There is always more.

Here’s the thing: If you recognize that God loves you, and sent Jesus to save you from hell, and your reaction to that is to love God in return, that is truly a great thing. But unless you love God more than the day you gave your heart to Him, you will love Him less. As you get to know Him more and experience more with Him, you have to love Him more, or you will love Him less. It’s that simple; love doesn’t stay the same. You can’t love enough. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How are you going to love God more? Leave your comments below.

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The Perfect Match Is A Myth

I think it’s a myth that two people can be a perfect match. I don’t think two people can ever be perfect together. 

Do you remember the old fairy tale of Goldilocks and the three bears? In that story, Goldilocks stumbled into the bears’ house and tested out several things in the house: three bowls of porridge, three chairs and three beds. 

Each time she discovered that the little bowl, chair and bed was “just right”. 

This story is so far from reality, no wonder it’s a fairy tale! … Forget the three talking bears, and the fact that they lived in a house, made and ate porridge, sat in chairs and slept in beds. That wasn’t the wild fantasy. 

The real fantasy was that some of that stuff was “just right” to Goldilocks! 

That doesn’t happen in real life. There is never a perfect fit. 

We can get close, but it will never be perfect. 

I’ve been married for 33 years now and you would think that my wife and I would become more and more of a perfect match over the years. 

Not so. 

Recently there have been two glaring examples how we are not a perfect fit. 

The first example is with clothing. You would think that by now if Lily asked me to comment on her outfit that I would be able to tell her what I thought and it would help.

It doesn’t. 

I don’t know how to comment on her outfits. If I say it looks really nice, I may have said it too quickly or without looking at her long enough to make an informed decision. Maybe my facial expression wasn’t quite congruent with the comment I was making. 

At any rate, whatever I say it is not “just right”. 

There is no perfect fit here. 

And then yesterday, Lily and I were walking across a parking lot to enter a store and she exclaimed, “I can never figure out how we can walk together.” 

She was walking fast and trying to adjust to my slower pace. Sometimes, however, she has a hard time keeping up with me. 

Lily just wants us to be able to walk together at the same pace, but it’s never “just right”.

I’m not trying to move out of step with her; my stride just changes with where I’m walking to, and the purpose of our walk.

For instance, yesterday we were walking into a store. I can’t tell you how unexcited I was about doing that. Thinking about shopping makes me tired, so I’m not walking too fast into that. 

On the other hand, earlier in the day we were going for a walk in a park and Lily was having a hard time keeping up.  

For the record, at the time, I didn’t know she was working hard to keep up with me.

In that instance I was looking forward to getting out of the heat, so my mind was set on getting through it with few delays.

You see, we are not a “perfect” fit. It’s never “just right”. … but we’re really good together!

Here’s the thing: When you are evaluating your church, or your small group, or maybe the ministry you serve in, don’t evaluate it for a perfect fit. It’ll never be “just right”. Don’t wait for God to make it perfect or bring something perfect along. Trust Him to make you good together. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: With whom have you found you are good together? Leave your comments below.

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I Just Couldn’t Find it

This article was originally posted in 2012. 

Have you ever looked for something that you were certain of its location, but still couldn’t find it?  Don’t those times drive you insane?  

I find myself living out the definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.”  We probably all do that at times.

You either dig around in a drawer or a room, searching the same spots over and over,  hoping to find what you are looking for.  

You start talking to yourself, your blood pressure rises, you get angry with yourself, and then at the thing you’re looking for, until you don’t even want it anymore.  In fact, you hate it now, but you just HAVE to find it!

We’ve all been there; it’s not a pretty sight.  Your family starts out sympathetic, even helpful, but as you start to get frustrated, they start to vacate the area.  

As you start to sound like Gollum (from the Lord of the Rings), your family members look for things to do, errands to run, other places to be.

The other day, while preparing my sermon, I had three illustrations I wanted to use: one was a personal story, and the two others came from books.  I could remember some of the details for one of the illustrations, and even remember the book I had read it in.  

I had seen the title of the book the day before on one of my shelves, so I went directly there.  With the book in hand, I sat down at my desk and started looking for the story.

I looked at the beginning of each chapter because often times they started with a story.  That didn’t help.  I looked at the chapter titles to see if any of them would ring a bell.  

I was sure the story was in this book, but I wasn’t having any luck finding it. 

I was getting a little frustrated and I lost my confidence that I was even searching the correct book.  I got another book out by the same author and started looking through it, even though I didn’t think it was in there.  

Then I turned to the internet.  I googled the gist of the story with the author’s name.  I had to change my search three times before I got some results that seemed promising.  I looked at several hits but none of them were helpful.  

Then I discovered a document someone posted referencing the story.  Finally some hope.

The bad news was the document didn’t have the story details.  The good news was it confirmed that the story was, in fact, in the original book I had been looking in.  So I set to work to find the story.  I started at the back of the book this time.  I looked on pretty well every page for mention of it.  I finally found it . . . in the INTRODUCTION! 

Here’s the thing:  Sometimes I get all caught up in what I’m doing.  I know what to do, and it’s usually something small, within my power.  What I don’t do is ask God for help right away.  I fuss and stew instead of turning to the One who can guide me right to what I need.  Don’t wait until you’ve exhausted every avenue before you seek God, turn to him first. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question:  What have you learned from frustrating times like I described?  Leave your comment below.

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Why You Should Share Your Embarrassing Moments

From time to time I repost an article that I have written in the past. This post is from the summer of 2014 enjoy.

We all have them. Embarrassing moments when we do dumb, stupid things that we wish we could take back.  

It might be something we said or did, but the result is the same: red-faced, head down, too shamed to look up or around to see if anyone noticed.

Embarrassing moments on You Tube go viral. It’s all good … except for the person who’s embarrassed.

I once took a picture of a vehicle stuck on top of a snow pile. The owner was so embarrassed she begged me not to post it on You Tube. I didn’t post it, but I did blog about it (read it here).

Well, what goes around comes around. The other day I was coming back from a bike ride with my bike on my car roof carrier.

As I drove by the back of my house, I hit the garage door remote button and, by the time I pulled onto my street and into my driveway, the door was fully open.  

So, like I do every day, I drove right in . . . that is until I got some resistance and heard this crunching sound!

Immediately, I realized what I’d done. I backed up and then my bike came bounding off the top of the car. Just to add to the embarrassment, it clipped my side mirror which is now wobbly.

I sat there, in my car for a moment, thinking I’d wrecked my bike, my bike rack and my garage. And most of all, I’d embarrassed myself. 

When I got out and assessed the damage, my bike seemed to be fine, and the top moulding of my garage only had a little mark on it. 

The mirror, well, it was wobbly and will probably need to be replaced. The bike rack … broken pieces and bent parts. Me … bruised ego. 

I was embarrassed. I wondered who saw it, which neighbour would bring it up at our street BBQ. I wanted to hide.  

But you know, as embarrassed as I was, the next day I told a friend what I did.  

Mind you, I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I looked down or away from him most of the time,  until he commented after my story. He said “Ya, I’ve done that twice”. 

All of a sudden I had company in my embarrassment, and it wasn’t so embarrassing any more. It was more like I joined the club of guys who’ve smashed their bikes into their garages.

I got so bold that two days later I told a couple other friends and they started telling their stories of crashing things attached to their vehicles.  

It turns out I’m not the one and only idiot to forget I had a bike on my roof. There are lots of us and I found healing for my embarrassment when I shared it.

Here’s the thing: When we sin, there is, often times, shame that goes with the sin. That keeps us from wanting to confess it to God or others. We feel alone in it, like we’re the only one who has ever sinned that way. But the truth is, that’s Satan’s way of keeping you in your sin.  

Confession frees you from shame – first because it’s no longer hidden, or a secret; second, because you find that you’re not alone; and third, because confession is the first step to turning from your sin. Don’t remain in shame; confess your sin.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What embarrassing moment have you shared and then found comfort in? I’d really like to hear from you; leave your comment below.

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You May Not Be As Strange As I Think

 

The other day I came to realize I’m as strange as other people.

I think most of us think we are normal and everyone else is a little weird … or, at the very least, that other people have odd quirks about them that we don’t.

That’s not correct. I see now that we all have our little bits of oddness; we are all odd.

… Which reminds me of a club in my city – it’s called the Odd Fellows. Now there is a group that has embraced the fact that they are not like most people. They are okay with being strange, a little off-centre, even weird. And they have banded together to accept one another. 

I guess that’s what we should all do. 

I came to my realization of being odd during a conversation about the strange eating habits of other people. Granted it was almost dinner time, the BBQ smelt delicious and I was hungry. 

I mentioned that I knew a guy who didn’t like his food to touch and who ate his food one item at a time. 

My friend jumped in at that point and said, “What’s wrong with that? I don’t like my food to tough either and I always eat my food in an order.”

My first thought was, “Wow! There are two of them out there.” 

But that was really nothing compared to this guy I know. When he would eat pizza, he would separate all the parts. That’s right, the toppings (eg. pepperoni) would each go in separate piles, the cheese in another pile, leaving the crust bare. Then he would systematically eat each pile until that pizza all came back together in his belly. 

They say that when you eat, your food gets all mushed together, but when you eat like this guy I think your food actually reforms to its original prepared state!

That description even made my friend, who identified with this guy, exclaim, “Wow”, as in, “That guy really is weird.” 

But this is where it started getting spooky for me. I kept thinking and talking about how I eat some foods. 

For instance, when I have corn-on-the-cob with my meal, I always eat it first. Before I eat or taste anything else, I finish off my corn. But if the corn is already off the cob as kernels on my plate, then I eat them with everything else.

When I eat Chinese food, I always eat my egg roll first. I never leave it to the last, or eat part of it and save some for the middle of my meal. I down that thing first.

When I eat at Swiss Chalet, the first thing I do when I get my meal is butter that bun and eat it. I don’t touch the fries or the chicken until that bun hits the bottom of my stomach.

And It was right about then that I realized, “I’m as weird as the guy who eats pizza like it’s a  three course meal!” 

I don’t think I can handle the idea of me being weird so it must be that we are all a little odd … which actually makes us all the same.

Here’s the thing: We are all in need of the same saviour because, though our sins may be different, and some sin may SEEM worse than others, the fact is we are all the same in that we all sin. Never excuse your sin as being normal. We’re all in need of a Saviour – Jesus Christ – and His forgiveness.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What sin have you excused yourself of because you view it as normal? Leave your comments below.

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The Years Have Not Changed A Pattern

It’s been over 30 years but nothing has changed … between me and my golf partner. Recently I played golf with him, the one who got me hooked on the game.

When I was in high school he belonged to a private golf course, but would play golf with me at a municipal course close to where we lived.

At first I would hit more bad shots than good ones, but over time it seemed that the good ones stuck with me and I forgot about the bad shots I made.

I think it’s something like giving birth: a mother forgets what the pain was really like so that she is eager to have another child. … Okay, it’s nothing like giving birth, but somehow the good shots I made – as few as they were – kept me coming back for more.

I think I was a slow learner because this friend would give me a lot of tips each time I duffed another shot about 20 yards down the fairway. 

He didn’t do it too much, though, because too many suggestions can really get annoying after a while. … I know because I’ve helped Lily with her golf game. I have to catch myself or she gets a little angry with me.

Over the first few years I started to get better at the game until I was making more good shots than bad ones.  

I would still have some holes where I blew up and shot an eight or something, but it always seemed, by the end of each round, that I had made a really good shot that caused me to think I could do that every time. 

As I got better, I started playing more with my friend and even eventually joined the golf club where he was a member. 

We had a few really great years of golf there before I moved out west to go to school and then work.

In those years that we played together, he would do something interesting. He would club me on almost every shot. 

I don’t mean that he took a golf club and whacked me over the head with it; he just told me what club I should use. 

He did it when I first started learning the game and he never stopped. 

It got so routine that sometimes I would just look at him and he would say, “use a 7 iron”. I would pull it out of my bag without a thought of questioning his suggestion.

He was right about 95% of the time … that’s if I hit the ball well.

That was our pattern. But that was also over 30 years ago. 

When I recently had the chance to play with my old friend again, I noticed something interesting. When I would get to my ball he, like clock work, as if it was automatic, would say, “use a 7 iron” … and I just pulled it out of my bag. 

There were even times when I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him and he would tell me. 

It was like we’d never stopped playing together; he was still helping me play better.

And somehow I had the same effect on him. He had his best round of the year so far.

Here’s the thing: Get in the habit of asking God for help, even with the little things in your day. If you start to include Him more and more in your decisions, and really listen for His response, then years from now when you are making some crucial decision, or even a minor one, God will whisper in your ear which club to pull. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who have you come to count on for help? Leave your comments below.

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A Tick On The Loose

A clock goes tick-tick, in movies a bomb will tick down to detonation, and at times I have been ticked at something or someone. 

But the other day, I came face to face with a plain old tick – that’s right, that little critter that has become feared by even the strongest of men. 

Lily spotted it first and called me over. We both looked at it and determined that, yes, it was a tick. 

It was crawling on the wall behind our stove. How it got there we have no idea. But it was a little unsettling … especially when Lily, who really wanted to kill it fast, lost it behind the stove. 

She went to scoop it up in a paper towel but somehow the slow moving tick evaded her attack. 

These things don’t travel very fast. After we spotted it, and stood looking at it for a few minutes, I took a few pictures of it. We looked it up on the internet and, in all that time, it had not moved more than a few inches, despite the fact that it never stopped crawling. 

When we lost it, we had to move the stove out and look to see if any of the tiny little crumbs that had collected there over the past year of so were moving. 

Lily thoroughly mopped the area and hoped we got it. 

“Hoped?!”, I said. “You mean we don’t even know if we got the little tick or not?” 

He could be crawling around the cottage looking for someone to snack on. 

How it got in we have no idea.

We have three main theories: I could have brought it in on my biking clothes. A couple of days before I had been walking through the woods, scouting out where to make a new trail to bike on. 

I could have brought it in on my clothes when I washed the cottage siding. I was rubbing against a big tall cedar hedge for about a half hour. 

The other option is that it got in when Lily was cleaning the windows.

We don’t really know if any of these theories are right, but what we do know is that every little speck that we see in the cottage we have to stare at. 

We get up close and personal with every crumb to check it out to see whether it is moving or not. 

They say that finding a needle in a hay stack is difficult; well we have that beat – we don’t even know if there is anything in the hay stack after all!

Why couldn’t Lily have just been more careful in squishing that tick? Now we have these bad dreams that a tick is going to crawl on us at night and give us lime disease. 

One major inconvenience for me is that apparently none of my biking clothes can enter the cottage any more. They have to stay outside on the deck. 

Supposedly a tick can live for 2-3 days indoors before it dies. We will just have to wait it out and check ourselves to see if it has found a home.

Here’s the thing: Some people are more afraid of being bitten by a tick than of what they will face at the end of their lives. A tick bite might affect the rest of your life on earth, but not being concerned or taking precautions about your eternity can be eternally devastating. It’s best to be proactive with God, and ensure you have a relationship with Him now.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has a potential life-altering experience changed your outlook on life? Leave your comments below.

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I Wish Clothing Sizes Were Consistent

I thought the idea behind clothing sizes was to provide a universal standard so you could easily find things that fit. 

Obviously, I was wrong in my thinking. 

It’s been over a month since my birthday and I’m finally able to wear the shirt my daughter gave me as a present. 

Getting the right size should have been easy, but obviously people have different comfort levels when considering the fit of something.

For instance, I normally take a size 8 to 8.5 shoe, but when I buy skates, I look for a size five … not because skate sizes are all messed up, but because I like to cram my foot into my skate with no space at the toe and no room for even a thin pair of socks. 

It’s just personal taste. 

I’m not talking about personal taste here, though; I’m talking about the same size in one brand not being the same as the same size of another brand. 

Are you following me? 

Some clothing companies size their clothes differently than other manufacturers. It destroys the whole concept of size and gives the customer absolutely no confidence in what size a shirt he or she should buy.

For my birthday my daughter bought me a size small shirt. But when I tried it on, it was very tight – way too tight! 

So I exchanged it at the store for a size up. The clerk at the counter had another employee go get me the same shirt in a medium. We filled out the paper work for the exchange and away I went, happy that it was all going to work out. 

When I got home, I put the shirt on to show Lily, and to my amazement it was too small as well. 

I know what you’re thinking, that I’ve gained weight and don’t want to admit that I’m getting bigger. 

On the contrary, in the last year and a half I’ve lost some weight and have had to downsize a lot of my clothes. 

Leaving the store I was confident that a medium was the right size. I had thought medium would be the right size even before I tried on the small my daughter had bought me. 

When the medium didn’t fit, I was shocked …. Me? A large? It didn’t seem right to me. 

So back to the store I went … again. This time I was taking no chances; I wanted to try the shirt on before I left the store. 

Amazingly the large fit perfectly. I hope the sizes go up to quadruple XL or a lot of people won’t be able to buy that shirt. 

There is something wrong with the clothing industry if they can’t get sizing right. An inch is an inch; a centimetre is a centimetre. Use rulers, people, and get your sizes right!

Oh, and why this all took over a month to solve is because we don’t have this particular store in Kingston. I had to travel to Toronto twice to finally get the right size.

Here’s the thing: Unlike some clothes we buy, God is consistent. He will not deal with you with different standards or in a way you can’t predict. God also knows you so well that He will fit you with a purpose, plan, and help that is perfect for you and your shape. Seek and trust Him daily for everything you will encounter.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you perfectly fitted for? Leave your comments below.