trust

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You Can Trust Your Memory

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always trust my memory. I find I more readily trust what I’ve written down or am able to look up somewhere.

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Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I don’t trust my mind with the information I gather. I feel I must write it down or I think I will forget it. The truth of the matter is I probably will forget it.

The process of writing something down seals it in my mind so that I don’t have to worry about using my mind to remember it at all.

But my mind is more powerful than I give it credit for. This week was proof of that …

I was in the research phase of sermon preparation, gathering information and gaining insight and understanding of the passage I would be preaching from on Sunday. I was recording this information, making notes on my computer.

At noon I stepped out for lunch and, when I came back, my computer was off. I hadn’t plugged it in and the battery had run down. My computer is six years old now so the battery doesn’t last as long as it used to.

I plugged it in and turned it on. Often in this case, the computer has just gone into a deep sleep, like a hibernation. It’s not really turned off, but it almost takes as long to boot back up as a fresh start up. The difference is all the programs are still open when it’s comes back on.

Not this time. I had to start up my computer and then open my programs again. When I did that I found I had lost all my notes.

It reminded me of the early days of computers when, if you didn’t save your document regularly and your computer crashed, you lost whatever you hadn’t saved.

I learned through many losses to save every time I paused from typing.

Now word processing apps save data automatically … but I don’t use a word processor to record my sermon notes.

I lost it all.

The great realization I made, however, was that I could remember a lot of the notes I had made.  The next day I was able to retype them and continue from there to make more notes.

I made triple the amount of notes I had typed the day before, but then had to leave for a meeting.

By the time I came back to my office, my computer had shut down again. And once again I lost all my notes.

Yes, everything! – the retyped notes from the day before and all the new notes I’d made in the morning.

On my third attempt to record my commentary, I made sure that I closed the program before I left my computer alone. Again I was amazed at how much research I remembered as I reentered my data for the third time.

The process of writing something out locks it into your mind more securely, which in turn allows you to trust your memory with that information.

Here’s the thing: Many people say they can’t memorize or remember scripture passages. You’ll find you are able to remember far more scripture if you write it out. If there is a passage you want to remember, write it out a few times, say it several times and you will find it sticks in your mind better than you thought it would.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is your method for remembering scripture? Leave your comment below

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Why You Can’t Trust the News

Lately I’ve been bugged by the news. Actually, I’m regularly bugged by the news. My son says “Why do you even watch the news? It’s so negative and depressing.” And he’s not wrong in that.

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The news media claim that they are reporting the facts, which is true. They do. But they also add their political bias and even religious spin to it, which actually skews the facts to be something other than fact.

Years ago I had some blood work done and when the doctor gave me the report he was a little puzzled. He told me that they couldn’t calculate my bad cholesterol because my triglycerides were so high.

Let me say that again in words I understand: There was junk in my blood that prevented the lab from being able to decipher what my true bad cholesterol count was.

Relating that to what the newsmakers do, they mix their junk in with the facts so that you can’t really tell what the facts are.

I realize that this isn’t anything new. It’s been going on for a long time. All the while, the news media defend their right to inform us, the public, of the truth … except we are not getting the truth – their triglycerides are too high!

I don’t like how they slant their stories against the government, or Christian religion. But when you get such a steady diet of the same spin, you begin to take their word as normal, it’s the way it is.

It’s just like me and my blood test. I didn’t feel bad; I couldn’t tell my blood wasn’t in good shape.  I needed someone to look at it and tell me there was something wrong there.

However, it’s pretty difficult to convince the newsmakers that there is something preventing us from getting the facts and that something is their political and religious views … I just call them their triglycerides.

Recently when we had the shooting on Parliament Hill, the news – and even some politicians – were quick to give us the facts: there was a shooting; it was a terrorist attack. They even figured out how the gunman did it.

But then we were told over and over that this attack was ideologically and politically motivated.

We were assured that this was not connected to religion or religiously motivated at all.  However, the gunman had converted to Islam, and according to the RCMP commissioner, had recorded a video before the shooting in which he made remarks about Allah and expressed Jihadist views.

News correspondents, media personnel, and even one of our national party leaders, have gone out of their way to defend Islam as a peaceful religion, stating there is nothing in the Quran that would insight violence.

My first thought is that these people are just ignorant, and are not doing the proper investigation. They are going on what they have been told.

… You know, I didn’t realize that the things I was eating were causing my triglycerides to rise in my blood. But when I found out, I did something about it.

What our media is doing is ignoring the fact that their triglycerides are high, reporting skewed facts to us anyway. And that’s not ignorance, that’s manipulation.

Here’s the thing: Your number one source for growth in your relationship with the Lord should be your Bible. You see, God the Holy Spirit directed and guided the writers of the scriptures. We can be confident that what we have is what God wanted to give us. Everything else comes with some “triglycerides” added. Use those as second sources, not first.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you use to help you in your quiet time with God? Leave your comment below.

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When They Grow Up, They Get Smart and Everything

A few months ago I wrote a blog I called my replacement blog. I had written a blog that my editor (wife) didn’t want me to post. She felt that it was not fare to the person I wrote it about.  So instead I wrote the blog that appeared on July 13th called “My Replacement Blog”.  Since that time my daughter Karlie as given me permission to post the original blog I wrote back in July.

 On that special day when your first child is born, you really don’t have any idea what will transpire over the years. Sure, you may look right into her scrunched up closed eyes and dream about things to come. You might even take that little wrinkly, slippery body in your arms and begin to make plans.

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But you really don’t have a clue what the next few days will bring, let alone the next several decades.

My daughter, Karlie, is coming home after living on the other side of the country for the last six years. No, she won’t be living in our home, but Richmond Hill is under 3 hours away, and not the 36 hours of straight driving distance that she’s living now.

She should arrive next week … that’s if she doesn’t do anything foolish. Ha, like that would happen! My daughter is responsible, sensible and very determined.

But … she’s also adventurous. So, when she goes for a motorcycle ride with a friend and after the ride the friend says, “Hey Karlie, you want to try riding this bike? She says . . .

The responsible and sensible Karlie says, “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  But the adventurous and determined Karlie says, “Ya, sure I’ll try.”

Now if you were going to try to ride a motorcycle for the first time, you would probably pick some really open area with no obstacles around. When I taught Karlie and Mike to drive, we went to a big parking lot, and to streets that had no cars on them.

That’s the sensible thing to do. Karlie and her friend, well, they chose a parking garage. There weren’t many cars around, but there were cement posts in the vicinity. But with some careful instruction on what to do, Karlie got on the bike with no helmet.

Did I really say she didn’t have a helmet? That must have been a typo. After all, she’s sensible, and in a parking garage. It wasn’t a long ride; short, in fact. Her friend described it as “I’ve never been more scared in my life watching that.”

Somehow she found one of those cements posts in the parking garage. She ran right into it. She wrecked the bike, got a ride in an ambulance, and got a $300 fine. Not bad.

The amazing thing is she’s alive! … and received only a few stitches on her cheek, a black eye and swollen face. No broken bones, concussion or death. We’re praising the Lord right now for His protection.

I love this girl; she’s my daughter. I’ll take her adventurous side as well as her sensible, responsible side. But I wouldn’t have dreamed 24 years ago – on the day Calgary won the Stanley Cup – that my little squirmy, wrinkly baby (who looked very similar to the babies on either side of her in the nursery) would be sporting the same beat up face as one of the guys contending for the Cup!

Here’s the thing: It would be nice to be able to protect those around you, to keep them from harm, or at least weigh in on the decisions they make. That may be a reality when a child is small, but is impossible as they get older. We can become relegated to worry about them and for them. However, God can care for them better than we can, no matter how far away they are. Our job is not to worry, but to trust. Trust God with those you love. It’s really all you can do, and the best you can do.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What’s the scariest story your child or loved one has told you? Leave your comment below.