faith

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Twice Is Too Many Times For Me

They say lightning never strikes twice, but I’ve heard of people getting struck by lightning more than once.

twice is too many times for me

I remember golfing with a buddy when we were on the 16th hole down in a valley when the warning siren blared throughout the whole course. With our lightning rods – I mean umbrellas – raised, my friend Mike began walking up the steep cart path. 

I turned to say something to him and saw a flash of light that almost blinded me. The worst part, however, was the sound of the thunder that boomed about a second after the lightning. 

We knew it was close, looked at each other, said in unison, “Let’s get out of here!” and started running. 

No one wants to be hit by lightning, or even get close to it … but it does happen. 

In Canada there are an average of over 2 million lightning strikes per year, yet only 100 to 150 people are injured each year by lightning. That tells me that lightning is not all that accurate. Still, it claims about 9 or 10 lives per year. 

It’s rare to be struck by lightning more than once, but don’t tell that to Roy Sullivan. He was struck seven times!

Well, my golfing lightning story was the closest I’ve ever come, but something happened the other day that reminded me of being struck by lightning twice. 

When I was in college I got injured playing hockey. I was skating up the ice with a good head of steam and scooped at the puck along the boards. The plastic strip at the base of the boards had a join right where the blade of my stick made contact with the puck. The join wasn’t even and acted as a full stop for my stick. 

I drove the butt end of my stick into my upper thigh and it lifted me right off the ice, until the stick broke in half and I came crashing down. 

It was probably the most pain I’ve experienced in my life.

I’ll never forget it. I had clipped a small artery, just missing the main artery in my leg by a couple of millimetres. The result was a hematoma about twice the size of a golf ball that appeared in mere seconds. 

I ended up having surgery to tie off the artery and drain the blood. 

Fast forward 40 years later. … Last week I was skating with the puck and went to go around a guy right by the boards. It was tight, yet somehow the blade of my stick wedged into a gate – how it got in there, still amazes me.

All I know is the butt end of my stick hit my upper thigh and I was flying in the air.  

I had a déjà vu moment as I landed on the ice.

Thankfully it wasn’t serious this time, just some bruising and tenderness for a few days.

All I can say is, I hope I’m not the Roy Sullivan of hockey rinks.

Here’s the thing: There are some things that we don’t want to have to experience twice, or want another chance at. But God gives us multiple chances to respond to His invitation to begin a relationship with Him through His son, Jesus Christ. Don’t wait for another chance to come along. Put your faith in Christ today.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is something you hope you will not experience again? Leave your comments and questions below.

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My Great Experiment Is Built On Faith

Tomorrow I’m going to try an experiment, and I am hoping the results will prove my point. I’m not totally sure that they will and that makes me a little nervous. 

my great experiment

I am going to conduct this experiment in front of about fifty people. If I don’t get the results I am hoping for, well, the conclusion or the point that I am going to be making will be wrong. 

In fact, I won’t have a point to make! 

I sure hope my plan will work out, but I have no way of knowing beforehand if it will or not. 

This will not be a controlled environment at all … unlike, say, the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). 

WWE fans watch their favourite wrestler go up against an opponent whom they hope will be defeated. As they watch the ebb and flow of the match, they don’t have any idea who is going to win. Sometimes it looks like their wrestler is going to lose because he’s in a choke hold or he’s been hit so hard he can’t stand up. But then the tables turn and he starts to get the better of his opponent.  

It just goes back and forth until the final bell and the winner is revealed. 

In actuality, the wrestlers know from the start who will win. All their holds and hits are just to create tension and excitement; everything’s been choreographed before the match begins.

It’s all rigged to give the fans as much hype and emotion as possible.

I used to do this very thing with my kids when they were young. We would play football in our family room and it would alway be Karlie and Michael against me … and it was tackle. 

In reality, I could tackle them but, of course, they couldn’t tackle me, so I had to fake like they did. 

I would decide in my mind what the final score would be. I would let them get a big lead and then slowly make a comeback. They would get so frantic that I might beat them. 

When I could see they were getting too frantic, I’d let them get a touchdown to give them some hope. Then I would create some tension for them, that they could hardly stand, before letting them win in the end. 

… And, wow, were they ever excited when they won! 

I would just chuckle inside at their joy in defeating Dad in such dramatic fashion. … But I knew the results before we even started. 

Well, I can’t do that with this experiment tomorrow. It has to play out the way it will go. 

I think it will go my way. I hope it will go my way. But if it doesn’t, I will not have a point to make to the fifty people who will be listening to my talk. 

I can hardly wait.

Here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure that my experiment will work; I only have faith to go on. In this world you can try to figure out your future, your eternity. But when it comes down to the day you cross over from life to death, there is only faith that you believe the results will prove you right. God has given us so much help, beauty, wonder, a precise ordered world, a guide book (the Bible) and his Son, Jesus – all to give us confidence in Him. But it will all come down to your faith. Do you believe Him? It’s your big experiment. … My faith is firmly placed in Jesus Christ. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you put your faith in? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I Lacked Something Really Important

This week I realized I lacked something most people would assume I had. 

We sometimes assume that a store will have a certain item we are looking for, only to find when we get there that they are out-of-stock or worse – they don’t even sell that product at all. 

Not long ago I needed to purchase a wooden end plug for a new hockey stick I had bought.  The store I usually get them from was out-of-stock at the time.  

I thought I would see if I could get one at another sports store. 

When I couldn’t find even a spot for these plugs on any of their shelving, I asked an employee. His initial reaction told me they didn’t have them. He had no clue what I was talking about, so he checked his little handheld computer to discover the store didn’t even carry them.

I wasn’t that surprised to find they didn’t have them at this time – after all it is summer – but I did assume they would carry the product since hockey is one of their specialties. 

Then this week I found myself not only lacking a stick plug, but something more important.

For the last ten months we have been dealing with a leaky roof at our church. The ability to stop the leak has eluded the roofers for the umpteenth times they have tried to fix it. 

In the mean time, our caretaker has made two elaborate troughs to catch the water and keep it from hitting the carpet. These troughs are each about six feet long and very noticeable. 

The other day our caretaker said to me, “Maybe we should put the troughs away for now.”  

We haven’t had any leaks for the past three weeks and the last time the roofers came they fixed a large section that they discovered might be the problem. 

Since then we haven’t had a leak, but we also have not had much rain to really test it. 

I hesitated and said, “I’d like to believe it’s fixed but I’m not holding my breath.” … We’ve had high hopes before, only for them to be dashed a short time later when the roof started leaking again. 

I finally replied, “Well, let’s just move one trough out of the way underneath the coat rack.” I wanted it close by so that if it started leaking we could put it back quickly.

My caretaker wanted to get both troughs out of sight, but I didn’t really want to go that far.

Then he wanted to sit the other trough inside the one we put under the coat rack, virtually removing any leakage protection we had. 

To that I said, “You have more faith than I do.”

I got to thinking … I’m the guy most people would think would have the faith to believe that our leaky roof has been fixed. Faith is the basis of my job as a pastor. But here I was low on faith for something my caretaker had no problem with. 

Here’s the thing: I don’t lack faith in God, but I did lack faith in what God would do for us in this particular situation. When you lack faith, your actions or non-actions will give you away. That’s when you need to think a little more about your lack of faith. Figure out why you lack faith for something and then take steps to apply your faith in God for that thing. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is something in your life you realize you have lacked faith for and really need to trust God with? Leave your comments below.

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Dad’s Day – What A Memory

It’s Saturday and I just got a Canadian Tire ad on my phone for Dad’s day.

The ad said I only had one day left and they had gift ideas for every type of dad.

It got me reflecting on what type of dad I was. As my mind wandered around our local Canadian Tire store, I thought, “Am I an automotive type of dad, or a fishing and hunting type of dad?”

I could be a hardware, fix-it-yourself type of dad or maybe a gardening and outdoor living type of dad.

Out of all the sections in that store, I would have to say I’m more the sports type of dad.

But Canadian Tire is just selling products a dad might like; that is not really the type of dad I am.

When I look back on how I’ve interacted with my kids, that would be a better indicator of what type of dad I am. Now that my kids are adults, there’s a lot of time to look back on.

I spent time playing with them … even if some of that play time was them playing on and around my body while I napped.

I read stories to my kids at bedtime … so what if I changed the stories a bit and got them all hyped up instead of settled down to sleep?

I helped my kids with a whole variety of things from learning things, to figuring out things, to making things. … That “ab dolly” Mike and I made – though it didn’t turn out so well as a workout machine, it has come in handy over the years assisting in moving things from one spot to another.

As a dad, I showed up to games and tournaments to cheer on my kids. I even did some coaching in the early years. It was always great to watch my kids compete and play hard at whatever sport they were in.

My kids got to see me at work more than most kids get to see their dads, and they also spent time with me while I did my devotions early in the mornings.

I’ll never forget when my then 5 year old son sat next to me one morning while I was writing in my journal. When I’d written over a page he asked me, “Dad, why are you scribbling?”

I replied, “I’m not scribbling, I’m writing.” He shook his head and said, “You’re scribbling, Dad.”

… There are still adults who think the same thing about my writing.

When I look back though, what stands out to me is that the time went by too fast and I missed doing way more than I did.

And one more thing, I should have talked to my kids more. I answered a lot of their questions, responded to them and showed interest in what they were doing, but I didn’t share my heart with them as much as I should have.

They could have gotten a better understanding of my relationship with God than I let them in on.

You can’t go back, but I do have the future. I need to let them in on that side more.

Here’s the thing: We can’t go back and do things differently, but we have the future and we can start from here to do things with our kids, to help them and share our hearts with them so that they know what makes our faith tick.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to start doing from now on with your kids? Leave your comments below.

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Live Life By The Codes

There used to be unwritten rules that you lived by. I’m not sure, but maybe some of those codes are changing – certainly some are disappearing.

iihs-study

We all know some unwritten rules, things you just do or don’t do. No one has to say anything; it’s just the way things work.

When I was a kid one of those codes was that you didn’t tell on your brother. Nobody told me to do that; it was just what you did.

There are all kinds of these unwritten rules that we follow to help one another out, to be on the same side.

But some of these rules or codes that we live by aren’t being followed anymore.

In hockey there used to be an unwritten rule that you didn’t go after the superstar of the team. You didn’t try to hit him too hard; you didn’t cheap shot him.

But that code started to disappear so they had to put a tough guy on the same line as the superstar as a deterrent. It was like a warning: you lay a finger on Wayne Gretzky and you will pay the price of having Dave “Cement Head” Semenko come after you.

Now it’s a free-for-all on the superstars of the team. The game has changed and the enforcers are not there anymore.

And maybe that’s what it’s like everywhere … times have changed and it’s just different.

There used to be a code among drivers that a car coming the opposite way would flash their lights to warn you if there was a police radar up ahead. It was common practice.

It’s illegal now – maybe it always was – and people don’t do it anymore.

There is no code of the road for drivers to look out for each other. It’s no longer us against the speed trap.

But I got a break the other day.

I was going up a hill on a highway, maybe going a little fast … maybe. There was a line of cars coming down the hill the other way. In the middle of the pack I thought I noticed a car flash his lights. I almost missed it because it was so unusual.

I took my foot off the accelerator. As I got to the crest of the hill and started down the other side,  there he was – a black and white OPP waiting for me.

Well, thankfully he wasn’t waiting for me because someone on the other side of the hill remembered the code and warned me.

We were on the same team; it was us against them. I kind of doubt that many others caught the same warning I did. We just don’t live by that code anymore.

The unwritten code of the road is you look out for your fellow drivers. It’s a great code. Unfortunately, most of us drive in such a way that our fellow drivers are our competition or enemies on the road.

… Driving might be a whole lot more enjoyable if we followed the codes.

Here’s the thing: There are faith codes as well. When someone confides in us, the unwritten code is to pray for that person or issue – not just once, but to keep that person in your prayers. However, with our busy, more self-centred lives, we often fail to live by the code. Get back to praying for the needs of others who bring their concerns to you … and keep at it.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What unwritten code would you like to bring back? Leave your comments below.