reality

by

Live the Dream or Live the Reality

When it comes to weekends, there is the dream and then there is the reality.

The dream we have for every weekend in the summer is to soak up the sunshine and warmth. You want to be outside in the garden, at the lake, or on the links. You want to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin; you want to be wearing shorts and T-shirts.  

On the weekends, you plan to get out camping, be out on the boat, enjoy dinner on the patio, or a walk by the lake. You want to BBQ with friends and sit outside until the mosquitos drive you insane. 

You want to live as much of the weekend outside as you possibly can. 

That’s the dream; that’s what you want every weekend. But the reality seems to be very different from that.

The reality is clouds, overcast, cool, and rain. I don’t know how it can possibly work out this way but it seems that that pattern is the standard weather for weekends.

You have great hope every week that the next weekend is going to be amazing, but by the time that weekend rolls around, you are looking out your front window changing your plans to doing something inside.

As I’m writing this blog post, the sun is shining as bold and bright as it can possibly be. I can’t see one cloud in the sky from where I’m sitting. 

The temperature is rising and it looks like an amazing weekend day … except for the fact that it’s Monday morning. 

The forecast for the rest of the week looks great as well. 

And by the way, last week we had great weather too, with lots of sun … except for the weekend – it didn’t have any. 

Saturday the cloud cover was about eight miles high. It was dark; it rained; it was cool – not a great day for a weekend. 

Then there was Sunday. It looked like it was going to rain at any moment; the sky was dark, and the clouds kept rolling through. 

It just happened to be the day of our church picnic.

It’s too bad the weather couldn’t have been like today or Friday. We would have had a great picnic outside in the sun and shade.

Instead, we had our church picnic inside. 

We tried to fix it up to look very picnic-like. We even moved some pews back to have some open space at the front of the sanctuary so people could sit on blankets and pretend they were attending the service on the grass. 

We had a few picnic tables in our gym that made it look a little different than a regular church lunch. We had a sun tent set up in our foyer and a couple of beach umbrellas to give an atmosphere of the outdoors.

But from start to finish the church picnic day was all inside. It was going to be all outside, but we didn’t get dream weekend weather. We got reality.

We did, however, create the dream inside the church, and no one went home disappointed.

Here’s the thing: You live out your reality, but God has a dream for you that is far greater than the reality that you are living. Tap into God’s dream for you by asking Him to open your eyes to His dream. Then seek to live it out and make it your reality.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What would you like to change about your reality? Leave your comments below.

by

I’m Facing A New Hockey Reality

This morning I faced a reality that I knew had been coming for some time – I broke my hockey stick.

I know many of you are thinking, “Big deal; just get a new one.” And you’re right; that’s all I have to do. But there is a little more to the story than simply picking up a new stick.

First of all, I’ve had this stick for about four years – that’s a long time in stick years. Pros break their sticks on an almost weekly basis. But I have protected this stick by taping the entire blade and rubbing a heavy layer of stick wax on it.

Another thing that has kept this stick going so long is that I don’t take slap shots. I play mostly shinny hockey and that really isn’t a place for taking many slap shots.

Besides that, I cut my sticks down so that I take away any of the flex in the shaft, making my relatively poor slap shot even worse.

Getting a new stick is not a simple process. I’ve known this day would come and so, from time to time, I’ve check out hockey equipment stores to see what might be available. My biggest problem is that I can’t find my curve any more.

It seems like no one in the NHL uses a heel curve any longer, and I have been using the same one for about thirty years. It’s not something I’m looking forward to switching.

Finding a stick that I’m going to like and be happy with is not going to be fun or easy … or cheap.

Sticks are expensive. Four years ago when I bought this stick it cost $300. Now at the time it was on sale and I had $100 in Christmas money that I also put towards it.

I still paid $100 for that stick.

The stick really owes me nothing. It’s been an awesome stick and I’ve scored a lot of goals with it. But it’s time to move on.

I only wish it was as easy to move on as it was when I was in my teens.

Back then all sticks were made of wood, and Canadian Tire had a crazy return policy. If you had the receipt, you could take your stick back for a replacement up to two weeks after you bought it. (Their previous replacement time frame was a month!)

Wooden sticks broke quickly and there was one year that I think I only paid for two sticks all year. The rest of the time I simply took my broken stick, with its receipt, back to Canuck Tire and they gave me a new one.

… That was awesome! It was also back in the day when a good stick cost about $18. Now they’re hundreds, but with all kinds of technology built into them; they are feather-light and last a long time.

All I have to do now is dig deep into my pocket for some serious change and hope I can find my curve somewhere.

Here’s the thing: When you’ve been spending time with God in the same way for a long time, you will get to the place where you need to make a change. That time with God either won’t be long enough, or it’ll become very routine. You’ll get to the place where your devotional time is stale and dry and uninspired. That’s when you know it’s time to make a change. You need to do something different, add something, search for a way to make your time with God fresh again.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you tell when you need to change something up? Leave your comment below.

by

When Thankfulness Goes From Oblivious To Reality

In raising children, it’s easy to get the idea that your kids are oblivious to what you do for them. This week I learned that, despite the exterior finish of being absorbed in one’s self, underneath there is a high gloss coat of reality.

money:toilet

I think what gets parents believing that our kids are not in touch with reality is because they start with a warped, small view of the world around them.

At first their world consists of just Mom and Dad. It’s years before they go off to school and begin to expand their understanding of how the world works.

Time is all about them … and they can’t even tell time. They do slowly learn the notion of hours and minutes and get it eventually – especially if you give them a digital watch and don’t try to confuse them with the big hand, little hand concept … let’s not even mention that sweeping hand!

Distance doesn’t compute with them either. They don’t get that something is far away.

… I remember when we moved from Edmonton to Kingston. It took us four days of driving to get there. You would think that being cooped up in a car for more than eight hours a day for that long would be etched upon the little minds of children. No!

A week after we arrived in our new city, our five year old wanted to have his best friend over for his birthday party. That best friend now lived 3700 kilometres away, but our son thought we should just pick him up and drive him over. When we said it would take too long, he said to fly him over.

Which brings up another concept young children don’t appreciate outside of their world of want – money. Kids have no clue of the value of money. To them the value difference between a quarter and a loonie (dollar coin) has to do with the size and sparkle of the coin and not its purchasing power.

When we commented to our son, who was three at the time, that we couldn’t afford to get him a certain toy, he promptly said, “Just put it on layaway”.

We had never done that before, so we questioned him on where he got that idea. He heard about it on TV and had no idea what layaway was except it seemed to him that he could get what he wanted, if we did that.

After years and years of living with your children’s concept that the world revolves around them, it’s difficult to perceive them understanding the bigger picture. You wonder if they will ever get to the place of appreciating the world outside of themselves.

Well, I got a Father’s Day card yesterday that proves they really do have a grasp on reality.

The front of the card read, “I finally found a Father’s Day card that really captures the experience of raising a son like me . . .”  On the inside, as you opened the card, there was a toilet with a $20 dollar bill sliding into it. The caption read:

“Amazing, isn’t it? Don’t think about it, and have a great day.”

Thanks, Son.

Here’s the thing: God gives us so much, and we so often forget to think of how much comes from Him – things like family, provision, health, possessions, work, rest, relaxation, abilities, skills, spiritual gifts, etc. Take some time to think about all God does for you and thank Him. It really is amazing.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you most thankful for today? Leave your comment below.