relationships

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Get Out of My Way!

I’ve been known to get a little frustrated in traffic. City traffic infuriates me, but highway traffic, it infuriates AND bewilders me. I don’t understand how you can be driving at, let’s just say a little over the speed limit, on a 4 – 6 lane highway and have traffic come to a complete stop.

I understand a lane closure or an accident would cause it, but when there is nothing to block the lanes from moving freely, how can I go from traveling at 120 km/hr down to 0, and then have to putt along between 0 and 40 for what seems like forever?  There are no traffic lights on the highway, people! (If someone can explain the science of this, I’d appreciate it).

Recently, I was traveling through Toronto up to Sauble Beach.  I planned to stop at the Apple Store at Yorkdale Mall right beside the highway … but I left a little late.  I knew I would have to make good time on the road to get there before the store closed.  When I started, traffic was moving well.

By the time I was half way there, I was optimistic that I would make it to Yorkdale in time.  The traffic had been light and, let’s just say, I was making pretty good time.  Then my world caved in.  Being late Sunday afternoon, people were returning from their cottages and every route was funneling a ton of cars onto my highway.  Sure enough, seconds after passing a major on ramp, I saw brake lights and my car literally came to a stop.

I drive a standard so the constant speed up and slow down is rather annoying, especially if you have to do it for a good 40 minutes.  I kept looking at the clock and my hope of making the Apple Store was fading.  But just when I had almost written off the possibility of getting there on time, the traffic picked up.  Why?!  I have no idea, but I was ecstatic and it bugged me all at the same time (you see, I really need that explanation).

I drove as fast as I legally could – well, maybe a little faster – and kept looking between the road signs and the clock to judge my timing.  I knew it was going to be close.  But there was another hitch:  the off ramp from the highway to Yorkdale was closed.  I would have to exit off another street and negotiate my way back to the mall.  I looked again at the clock . . . I only had 10 minutes.

It was then that I had to give up and realize I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t get off at another exit, make my way along the streets, park the car and get inside the mall to the Apple store in just 10 minutes.  I kept driving.  I looked at Yorkdale from the highway as I passed by.  I was so close, if it wasn’t for that blasted traffic.

Here’s the thing:  When life throws us a roadblock, we look to blame someone and often times we look to God.  Why did God do this to me?  Blaming doesn’t help; it makes us even more angry, and it doesn’t move us to a solution.  What we should do is pour out our sorrow to God, let Him know how we feel, and seek His help.  Ask Him for strength to go through the roadblock, and/or a solution to get past it.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: Who do you blame most when you hit a roadblock in life?

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I’m Messy; Deal With It!

I’ll admit it:  I’m kind of a messy guy.  It’s never hard to tell where I’ve sat at a table for a meal.  There are usually more than a few crumbs that escape my plate and leave clear evidence.  However, I’ve never seen crumbs form the word “Paul” so one could argue that someone else was sitting in that spot.

I’ve been messy as long as I can remember, and it may even be a genetic trait.  My dad was a notorious spiller.  I could share many-a-story of his spectacular spills – stories our family still gets a good chuckle over years later.  All I have to do is mention the word “marinara” and a smile appears on the face of everyone in my family.

My son has a good chance of proving the messy gene theory because, when we eat at the same table, sometimes it’s hard to determine who sat in what spot.  But my wife, Lily, says I’m messy because I don’t eat properly.

Somehow, in all my years, I never learned to eat right.  If you ask me, this is a major slam against my mother who, after all, was the one who taught me how to eat in the first place.  But the curious thing is, it also incriminates Lily because she’s the one who taught our son to eat … and apparently he hasn’t learned to eat properly either!

Lily says the problem is simply that I don’t have my plate close enough to me, and therefore, things spill.  I am either sitting too far away from the table or my plate needs to be closer to the edge.  In fact, the other day she actually pushed my plate closer to me … and I promptly spilled something on the far side of my plate.  If she hadn’t have moved my plate I wouldn’t have spilled.  I get the blame but I’m telling you, it was her fault.  I wanted to pick up the food I spilled and place it on her placemat, but I restrained myself.

And, by the way, placemats are overrated, especially for messy guys like me.  A hard, smooth surface is much easier to clean and to quickly hide the evidence (one quick swipe, if you know what I mean) than fabric where the crumbs get stuck and remain for the CSI team (Lily) to investigate.

It really doesn’t matter if I’m spilling something on my shirt (and becoming more like my dad every day), or if I leave a ring of crumbs around my plate when I eat, that‘s who I am.  I’m messy.  If I’m going to be eating at your house, you have to be prepared for that, or reconsider having me over.

Here’s the thing:  We like to change people, but the reality is we can’t.  We can get quite frustrated with people who don’t want to place their faith in God.  We can try to change them, but it won’t work.  We can just walk away and not have anything to do with them, or, we can just accept them as they are and allow God to work in them.  Who knows?  God might even use you to push the plate a little closer to them.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: How hard is it for you to just accept people whom you want to see changed?

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I Hate Borrowing Stuff

Don’t you just hate it when you borrow something and then break it or damage it in some way?  That’s one reason I would rather buy something than borrow it.  I really hesitate asking anyone if I can use something that I could possibly damage because I am pretty good at breaking things.  In fact, when we were young, my mother once told my brother and me that we should go into the wrecking business when we grew up because we were so good at it!

Well, against my better judgment, I borrowed a neighbour’s sledge hammer to put landscape ties around a garden at our trailer.  Really what can you do to a sledge hammer?  It’s made to take a pounding; the word “sledge” makes you think of something that inflicts damage, not gets damaged. It’s strong, heavy, and has been called a persuader, punisher, the big guy.

I borrowed an 8-pound sledge – not the biggest you can find but there was no question that it would do the job.  We had twelve inch galvanized nails to go through two landscape ties … no problem.  However, I managed to break the handle.

I’d like to say that it was my brute strength that powered through the nails and put such force on the sledge hammer that the handle couldn’t compensate for the torque I put on it and, therefore, it broke (sounds good, doesn’t it?).

Well, it didn’t happen that way.  I had hammered in the first nail only to realize things weren’t aligned properly and I needed to take that nail out and start again.  Rather than use a pry-bar, I grabbed the nearest thing and wedged the sledge between the two pieces of wood.  Using my brute strength, I yanked on the handle with such force that the sledge hammer couldn’t compensate for the torque I put on it and it broke.  Ok, so basically I used the sledge hammer as a wedge instead of a hammer.

Now I had done two things I didn’t want to do:  I didn’t want to borrow the sledge hammer in the first place, and I certainly didn’t want to break it.  So, it was off to the hardware store to either purchase a handle or buy my neighbour a complete new sledge hammer.  When I saw the $40 price tag for an entirely new one, I decided to buy a handle for only $12.

I’m not going to write about changing the handle as I have yet to process that brutal experience, but here’s the thing:  Sometimes when we pray we try to get God to agree with what we want Him to do.  We try to put God in a place of having to respond to our request or need the way we want Him to.

Often times we get upset when God doesn’t respond the way we think He should.  We should get upset, however, because we are praying the wrong way.  It’s like we are breaking our prayer.  Prayer is meant to align us with God’s will, not get God to align with what we want.  When we use prayer in the proper way, it works really well.  When we don’t, and use it for our own purposes, we’ll find it breaks.

By the way, when I used the sledge to hammer the nails, they went in like butter.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: When you pray, how can you align yourself with God’s will rather than forcing your will on God?  Leave your comment below.

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Don’t Let the Sun Go Down

It is interesting to me that every night people gather at the lake to look out and watch the sun go down. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, if it’s cloudy, or even stormy.  They still show up at the beach, and gather like droids.  I know, because I’ve done it.

People line the beach with their lawn chairs, cameras, and video recorders.  They sit in the sand or just stand and stare as this orangey red ball slowly sinks below the horizon.

They’re mesmerized by a sight that happens every day.

It’s the same thing, you know – the sun always goes down.  You can count on it; it never does anything different.  It doesn’t’ go back a bit or stop and leave everyone in suspense like it did in the Bible once.  No, it does the same thing every night: it goes down and drops below the horizon.  Yet people come every night to see it happen, almost as if it wouldn’t happen if they didn’t come.

People don’t just do this at Sauble Beach (though it is pretty phenomenal there).  People do it everywhere, by oceans, lakes, mountains, even on cruise ships.  People stop and just watch, sometimes in silence, gazing at the sight.

The thing that is different, the thing that keeps people coming back each night is the sky.  On a clear night with no clouds, the sky is colourful.  But when you add a little bit of cloud – wow! – the sun does an amazing job of painting the sky in incredible colours and shades.  It’s like there’s a new canvas every night.

I personally have probably over a hundred pictures of sunsets at Sauble Beach.  I’ll take several every time because the colours, and the painting created on the canvas of the sky, changes moment by moment.  Even though there is a new picture every night, for some reason I, and many others, feel the need to capture the one we’re looking at so we can view it again and again.

Some people don’t care about capturing it.  They just take it in, are fascinated by the sky and then satisfied that it will be different and just as spectacular the next night.  Some people dream as they stare at it, while others get all romantic and want to hold hands (Lily).  Some linger and others turn and walk away, occasionally looking over their shoulder towards the sky and horizon.

Here’s the thing:  Every day we have opportunities to gaze upon what God has created, and appreciate it, think about it, dwell on it and acknowledge where it came from.  But how often do we take a moment to go beyond the beauty that we see to give a nod to God for it, to respond to Him for the million dollar painting before our eyes?  After all, the painter is the one with all the talent; the painting is just his creation.  I want to be a little more responsive to God and His paintings from now on.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: What grabs your attention, causing you to acknowledge God’s creativity in the world?  Leave your comment below.

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Living in Transition

I was thinking the other day that I’m not really living my life; I’m waiting in transition.  It’s not that I don’t feel settled in my home, work, or my relationships.  No, they’re all good.  But I still feel like I’m in transition.  And then it dawned on me, it’s my kids’ fault!

I’ve always been great at blaming my kids for things that have gone missing or stopped working, like when I couldn’t find the remote control, or when the car broke down just after they drove it.  However, blaming my kids for me feeling like I’m in transition takes me to a new level.

It all started in my devotions.  I was praying for my kids when I started to think about what I was praying for.  Basically, it was that they would get through this time in their lives and get settled in careers and all that goes with that.

Both my kids are in their twenties and I’m discovering that waiting for your kids to emerge out of this preparation stage of life takes way too long.  I never felt this way when Karlie and Mike were little, or in elementary school; I didn’t even feel this way when they were in high school.  But now, let’s get on with life already!  They have me feeling like I’m in transition, waiting for them to move into something more permanent, more settled.

I know that one day I’ll look back on this time and think it wasn’t very long …  although if my son stays in school as long as I did, it will be like forever!

Somehow I have to get through this and, as I was thinking about it, it dawned on me that they don’t necessarily feel like they’re in transition. They are just living life as it comes day by day.  So what I need to do is enjoy this stage of their lives and not try to impatiently endure it.

I’ve always enjoyed the other stages of their lives – except maybe teaching them to drive a manual transmission (that poor Honda Civic).  I need to embrace this stage as well, even though to me it seems like a transition stage and life will start when they are done it.  I prayed that God would help me live life with them and not get ahead of them.

Here’s the thing:  the verse in my devotions was Psalm 32:8, “I will instruct you and teach in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.”(NIV)

How God does all that (instruct, teach, counsel) is secondary to what He is saying about me in this verse.  He desires to patiently care for me; He’s concerned for me; He has high hopes for me.  God is not feeling like I’m in transition and wishing me quickly on to the next stage.  God is with me where I’m at, patiently caring, concerned, and with high hopes for me … at this stage right now.

That’s a good attitude to have with my kids as well.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  How can you model God’s outlook and actions with those you’re in relationship with?