direction

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Exercising Every Day For a Month – Not Bad!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You had to dodge the water system in those days.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s Life!

Paul

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

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It’s Time To Look Back And Reminisce

Have you ever done something for a long time and then looked back and reminisced about it?

20th-anniversary

Well, I did that this week. On April 1st I celebrated 20 years as the pastor of my church. It sure seems like a milestone to me … and that’s no April Fool’s joke!

Nineteen years didn’t seem to be that big a deal, but twenty does. There is only one place in which I have lived longer, and that’s Toronto.

At 25 I left Toronto for school in Regina to be a youth pastor … with many questions and fears, but no other desire than to work my whole career with junior and senior high students.

Being five to seven years older than most of my freshmen class, however, I wasn’t so sure becoming a youth pastor at 29 would be something anyone else would think was a good idea.

All along the way though, my call continually reminded me that this was not something I had dreamed up for myself; it was God’s idea. Whenever I got to wondering about my future, there was always some confirmation that kept me going.

After getting to my first church, I didn’t think I was going to last there very long … the first two years were pretty tumultuous. Again God worked and I ended up being one of my senior pastor’s longest serving assistant pastors, and the longest lasting youth pastor he’d ever hired.

During my time there, I worked with over 25 pastoral staff, and over 30 office and secretarial staff. It wasn’t an easy decision to leave there after eleven years.

God once again was so clear in His direction, however, that I had to pursue a role as a senior pastor.

I remember being interviewed for the position at my present church, and at one point I was given an opportunity to ask some of the congregation how they saw the church in five years.

I will never forget the first answer someone gave. It was simply, “looking for another pastor”. I quickly responded to her by saying, “I hope not”.

Well, that was a long time ago, and I’m still here. I’m not sure, though, where the person is who made that comment.

I remember as a youth pastor when I was given opportunities to preach, I was always up really late the night before trying to finish my sermon. In those days I still had my full time work to do and had to squeeze sermon prep into an already busy schedule.

Still, coming to Kingston, I was concerned that I would be burning the midnight oil on Saturday nights, cramming hard to get that last illustration into my message. I was concerned enough to tell God I wouldn’t be able to do the job if that’s what would happen.

Now as I look back, there may have been a few times – but less than 5 in 20 years – that that happened, and all because of extenuating circumstances.

The last 20 years haven’t all been easy, but I’ve clearly seen God’s hand on my life and ministry over that time. Thanks, Lord.

Here’s the thing: The most important thing I did 20 years ago was obey God’s voice and the direction He gave me. If you will hear God speak, and obey what He tells you, I’m confident that God’s hand will be on your life and ministry too, whether that is in the market place or as a full time vocation.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you known when God was telling you to do something? 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.

emily latilla

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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How To Ensure Your Direction Is Right

Usually, I feel that it’s other drivers who prevent me from getting to my destination. But yesterday it seemed there was a whole conspiracy at work that had nothing to do with other drivers.

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It was more like a government conspiracy, I’m sure. It could have been something like Orwell’s “Big Brother” is watching, or a group that my dad would always rage about, “the Bilderbergs”.

Now I don’t want to begin another fearmongering rumour, but there was definitely something going on that was a little like the Twilight Zone show . . .

I was coming home from my annual planning week up at my cottage. The trip had been pretty painless coming into Toronto, when suddenly the traffic started to get heavy and then slowed down to a crawl.

I thought I was in rush hour traffic, but it was Friday night at about 9 pm – it should have been clear sailing!

As I inched my way to a connector highway (which, by the way, would take me the rest of the way home), without warning – no sign, no detour route, nothing – it was closed.

I had to go west, in the opposite direction of my home. I had planned on a 2 1/2 hour drive home from there, but that wasn’t going to happen now.

What made it worse was that there was a road worker who looked like he’d just finished putting the pylons out to block my way.

That wasn’t going to stop me. The next exit was a familiar one and I knew I could get off and back on heading east to go home. I took it and thought, “This is not going to cost me much time at all.”

As I crossed over the highway to get going east, I noticed a road crew guy putting out pylons on that ramp as well. I couldn’t believe it! How did they think people were to get home?

I needed to go east, but instead I was forced to go west, and now I was going south! I got on an eastbound street as soon as I could and then came to a route that would take me back up to my homeward-bound highway.

But as I made my way towards the ramp, it was closed too and I was forced to continue north, past the highway I wanted, and basically coerced into taking a toll highway east towards home.

(If you’re feeling a little hypnotized right about now, you can imagine how I felt!) It was right about then that it dawned on me: They are trying to funnel us all onto the pay-as-you-drive highway to get a cash infusion towards their conspiracy plans!

I never saw that road crew guy again, but I’m sure he’s taken some blood oath of some kind to belong to some dark, unknown, secret society of asphalt workers somewhere.

Here’s the thing: We can be led by circumstance, friends, cravings and opportunities to go in directions we never intended to go in. It’s not like we started out with the thought of going there or doing that, it’s just one turn led to another and, “Oh look where I am now!” The only way we can protect ourselves from that happening is to monitor our direction with God. Let God navigate your direction, and, if you get lost or off course, check in with Him to get you back on the right road.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What has been your worst road closure experience? You can leave your comment below.