Moving On

The faster we can recover from our failure, the faster we can succeed. 

Awkward in life is unavoidable. For example, a few years ago, while at a fast food restaurant, a man I never had met before made an indelible impression on me.  I was minding my own business eating with my family when a man came out of the bathroom area and readily admitted that he gone into the ladies restroom by accident. 

“I’m from Portland,” is what he uttered loud enough for all to hear.  Then he tried to explain that in Oregon they have men and women’s bathrooms on the opposite side.  It was understandable that he had made an honest mistake and that next time he should just pay closer attention when entered the bathroom.  With that being said he should have just moved on, sat down and ate his fries.  However, he refused to stop talking about it and instead just drew unneeded suspicion to himself. 

A few months ago, I saw the proper response to an awkward moment, albeit a bit rude.  While out of town at a holiday festival my older daughter and I decided to get some lunch for the family at a small pizza shop.  The line at the quaint establishment was about ten people deep and we were just barely able to squeeze inside the front door due to lack of space, like sardines in a can.

“Watch out,” is what I heard next, and then I felt a walker pressing up against my backside.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw an elderly lady and I got me and my daughter out of the way immediately.  When I turned back around she was gone.   I guess fair warning had been given and I was in the way.  Places to go, people to see I suppose, and they were moving on, so to speak.

What a great lesson to learn in life.  The faster we learn to rebound from hardships and stop letting it get the best of us, the better off we are. Fair or not fair,  what we learn from life’s mishaps often prove the most meaningful.

Moving on or staying stuck, the choice is always ours to make.

Swavel

Shine Bright

The choice in how we live life is ours: living color or black and white.

Herein is my latest quandary.  It is January and I still have my Christmas lights up in my work cubicle and the unavoidable task of putting them away is upon me.  However, this season before I put them away allow me to share a few things I learned from them.

Don’t jump to conclusions. In December, I decided to bring a string of seldom used Christmas lights into work from home.  So, I asked around to get the OK and then hung them up.  Then after the fact someone mentioned that I needed to go online and make sure this was not against company policy.  Frustrated, my first reaction was to take them down because my ill-conceived perception was that they either could be a fire hazard or considered offensive. Neither was the case, so up they remained.

   

Look on the bright side. This past month has been busy and full of uncertainty with the business climate and potential layoffs looming nationwide.  So, I just wanted to cheer myself up and put up bright lights. It gave me comfort, but I couldn’t put my finger on it why.  Then it dawned on me, after my 7 year old daughter died fourteen years ago she had left her Christmas lights up in her bedroom.  We left them that way for a long time, I believe just as reminder she used to live there.  Consequently, sometimes toward the end of the day in the last month or so, I would turn off the room lights and bask in the glow and flash of the bright lights and cry happy tears.

Remembering is good.  It is a firm belief of mine that is good to reflect on positive things that happened to us, like I did in the preceding paragraph. It is not good however to stay stuck, but rather to take a good memory with you instead.  Kind of like a folded note in your back pocket you can unfold whenever needed to remind you that all is not bad in the world. 

Continue to shine. Keep in mind, your light must keep flashing even when it’s dark.  When you do shine bright it will brighten up the room, like fireworks do to the sky on the Fourth of July. Matthew 5:16 says, “Let your let so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

J.J. Watt, an outstanding defensive NFL player once said, you can’t get today back.  What I believe he meant was don’t be dim in your effort; shine bright in whatever you do.

When it comes to telling others about Jesus, better to shine bright, than to be a dull annoyance.

Swavel.

 

High Above

 

 

No matter how far you travel you can never escape God. 

The above thought is one of great comfort to me.  As I have grown older I have begun to reflect on my life, mostly on how I am still alive.  All kidding aside, far too often I forget I can do nothing without God.

Have you ever wondered about what remains constant regardless of where you are or where you go in life? To me it’s obvious, it’s the sky.  It is so big, so blue, so vast, so endless, and so high above.   Despite whatever country, city or suburbs you may find yourself, all you need do is look up.  Far too often we are looking too hard when all that is required of us is to “Be still and know that I am God.” 

It was 1983, but I can still vividly remember seeing the biggest sky I can ever recall while driving out West during a church youth group trip.  On one particular day we drove for hours through New Mexico and it was visually unbelievable.  The sky so blue, the clouds so big they seemed to cast shadows, almost as if they were chasing one another.  It left me in awe of God and His creation and me feeling so small.

This reminds me of another time when God felt like He was right next to me.  My family and I were in Guangzhou, China in 2012 to finalize the adoption of our youngest daughter.  What I most remember of that second week in China was I would regularly be out and about walking  the streets alone to get dinner for the family. I was struck by the crowd noise and the hustle and bustle of life, but nothing was familiar because I couldn’t speak the language. Most of the sites were foreign with a few with American names, like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, etc.  However, even though they were wearing familiar uniforms, when they spoke in their native Chinese tongue I was easily confounded, oddly reminding me that I was the one out of place.  

   

Then I looked up and saw the big blue sky.  That was the only thing in this strange world that was the same as it was back in Pennsylvania.  My family and I had traveled over 3000 miles and the sky was still blue, even though the stores and the cobble stone streets and settings were so foreign to me.  It was so striking to me that the same God I served in Pennsylvania was present in China.  The sky was comforting to me, like a long lost friend that instantly put me at ease; it was something that bathed me in familiarity. Not to mention then when we by faith took God’s hand; the sky was the limit, high above us.

Unfortunately, we as humans tend to try to limit God’s influence in our lives.  How dare He control our lives or ask to step outside our comfort zone to follow His bidding.  However, forgetting the whole while, that God is limitless.  If the sky is the limit with God, then why do we hesitate to trust Him with our life? 

God may be high above us, but despite the distance He is always near me.

Swavel

 

Coleslaw Effect

“Don’t be yourself, be someone a little nicer” Mignon McLaughlin

Since we are saying goodbye to another year, I believe it is quite appropriate to say farewell to at least one bad habit in the process. Unfortunately, in my life it has been confirmed and substantiated that I can be a jerk at times; therefore I thought it would be best to be up front about my bad habit.

 

Recently I was out for dinner at a nice restaurant, but I brought an unwanted attitude with me.  After an uncertain month, in an effort to treat myself, I ordered some BBQ ribs with fries.  However, I neglected to notice that they came with coleslaw, which I highly detest. 

Subsequently when the waiter brought my food out to me I immediately made a grotesque face.  To which the person I was eating with rightfully told me what I was doing was inappropriate.  Of course, I was taken a back and tried desperately to re-arrange my plate and shove the coleslaw to the side. It was just a sad attempt at trying to cover up for being a jerk.

It dawned on me later how much of a jerk I can be at times and how I tend to treat other people like coleslaw.  So, I took a quick evaluation of this past week to see where else I was being a jerk.

Just last weekend I played a flag football game with a bunch of teens and found myself spiking the football after scoring a touchdown.  When I was younger and played flag football spiking the football meant very little, except it made me feel good.  Yet, the other day when I did it the younger generation took it as a taunt.  I didn’t mean to be a jerk, but what I was doing could be interpreted as a jerk type activity. Therefore, next time I need to think before I act because it really stinks to be a jerk unintentionally.

Jesus says love your neighbor.  If someone I didn’t sign up for to be nice to is placed into my life, I tend to complain about them.  Much like I did with that side order of coleslaw. What a jerk I can be sometimes. It’s like a flash of selfishness comes over me and I act inappropriately. Often I perceive my ways to be right and don’t even try to put myself in someone else’s shoes.  Instead I should strive to be different and look at others through the eyes of Jesus.

The Bible is quite explicit that there is none righteous, no not one.  Try as I might, far too often I can’t escape myself and my litany of bad behaviors I have accrued over time. Yet I believe God calls us to step up our lives by submitting our agenda to Him, in a joyful manner.  It doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and practice, but it can be done.

Thankfully for me, God does not invoke the coleslaw effect and scrape me off His plate.

Swavel

 

At The End

 

A true test of character is not how you respond when things go your way, but when they don’t.

We all like it when things work out the way we planned for them to go. Especially during the holidays many of us get frustrated with what we can’t control. For me, there are several traditions that help Christmas feel like Christmas.  Right or wrong, over the years I have acquired preferences for certain foods, certain movies and other traditions that help set the mood for the season. And sadly this can influence my attitude during the holidays.

For instance, years ago on Christmas Eve my wife and I were watching the movie, A Christmas Carol, on public television when something memorable happened.  The movie had five minutes left to go in it when Bob Cratchit, who was about to enter Scrooge’s counting house, suddenly disappeared into oblivion.  After a painful pause a documentary about a homeless person came on in the movie’s stead.  Flabbergasted we both sat there in shock waiting for the station to correct its error.  It never did come back on and we both went to bed with an empty feeling in the pit of our stomachs. 

Hard lesson to learn, but even at Christmas time things don’t always work out the way we would like. However, if we are looking for the right things we should be less likely to be disappointed.

So, here are 5 important things I suggest we should try to look for this year during Christmas:

1- At the end of the Christmas meal I should be glad for the dirty dishes because that means I did not spend the day alone

2- At the end of the gift opening may I be glad for each smile a gift brought.

3- At the end of the family gatherings may I remember the air of happiness hidden by the hustle and bustle of the busy day.

4- At the end of the day, or well before then, try to reflect on the real reason for the day, being Jesus’ birthday.

5- At the end of the night as we turn off the Christmas lights try to enjoy the silence of a full and complete day.

Funny thing I discovered about A Christmas Carol being cut short was that now my favorite part of the movie is those last five minutes.  In those waning moments every year I am reminded that right now is the best time to make rather merry, despite whether things are going my way or not.

At the end of Christmas and at the end of .our lives may we be defined by the love we gave?  

Swavel

Mild Mannered

 

Mild is a positive description of one’s character, not just how we like our coffee brewed.

When you hear: mild he lay His glory by, born that man no more may die… what thoughts come to mind?  

A little background first, this phrase comes from the popular Christmas song, Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  The pervading thought that comes to my mind is what in the world was Jesus thinking to come down from Heaven and set aside all He was and had, just to be with us.  Looks like a matter of high risk / no reward or someone who embodies love.

 

Think about it for a moment: God became a baby.

 

Have you ever stopped to think about the great significance of The High King of Heaven coming down to save those who could not save themselves?  Sadly, I believe we fall in love with the thought of Christmas and not its true meaning.  We love to sing songs and buy gifts and feel jolly, but we forget to remember the sacrifice. 

Here is a brief summary of Jesus’ short life on this planet. He was born in a wooden stable. History tells us he worked with wood as a carpenter in anonymity. He then led a group of renegade followers telling people the simple message that God His Father loved them.  On Good Friday because he claimed to be the Son of God He died on a wooden cross. 

 All these circumstances dictate that Jesus was mild mannered, not looking for attention or fanfare, even though at times He got it anyway.  Jesus was the epitome of mild mannered, which often is characterized by someone with strong charisma.  By definition the word charisma means a rare quality or power attributed to those who have demonstrated an exceptional ability for leadership. This word helps us see mild for what it really is: powerful.

 

Mild he lay His glory by, born that man no more may die was quite the inauspicious method for Jesus to enter this world.  The Savior of the world was born in a stable in front of a lot of stinky animals since there was no room at the inn. He was then held by a teenage mother who rode for miles on a donkey before giving birth to him.  Not to mention his step-dad stood nearby taking in the enormity of the moment, who had risked his entire reputation to insure this little boy would be raised right.

Sometimes, I don’t get God, because by all human sensibilities this sounds like a really strange way to save the world.  However, when you love you don’t need attention; rather He was paying attention to us.  Jesus had a job to do and we were the job, his mission, so to speak and He would not fail us or it. Christmas reminds me that Jesus gave all.  It took great strength to do what Jesus did when he came to give not to get.

Those caught up with life’s concerns are inclined to be hasty, while those with great purpose tend to be mild mannered.

Swavel

 

Flirting With Wisdom

 

The wise man benefits by learning from his mistakes, while a fool only gains heartache from his. 

Just the other day I celebrated my forty-seventh birthday and it got me to thinking about the phrase, “with age comes wisdom”.  Somehow as I grow older, I don’t feel overly discerning, however, I believe wisdom can be achieved if we pursue it.  As far as I’m concerned, life experience is always the best teacher.

 

If the truth be told, most of us have been flirting with wisdom most of our lives.  This kind of flirting is very much like the type most of us did growing up.  You know the kind, when you would see a cute guy or girl during your high school days and you would smile or wave at them.  However, out of nervousness, you never pursued a relationship with them. 

Consequently, I thought it might prove helpful to find words that define the fool and the wise.  This way it helps us avoid playing the fool and at the same time encourages us to pursue what is right. 

The fool is often characterized by two words: careless and wasteful

Fools tend to be careless with their words, actions and often how they live.  They could care less and this attitude directly corresponds with their actions leading them to be self-absorbed.  Fools also tend to be wasteful when it comes to relationships and how they treat and also hurt others.  Laying waste to many relationships in their wake.  The fool is shortsighted and pays for it with a life that is not eternally significant.

The wise man is often characterized by two words: faithful and useful

A truly wise person is someone who is characterized as being someone who is faithful. This is a dangerous person because he or she is taking their directions from God.  He could care less what the world thinks of him or how he is perceived. He trusts God day-by-day to lead him by His Spirit.  A wise person is also someone who strives to be useful to God and to others, so he doesn’t waste a lot of time thinking about himself.  Strange to me that as I get older, I learn there is something useful I can take out of every day if I look deep enough.

The following is a paraphrased response a professional basketball coach recently spoke to the media regarding what his 0-10 team had to do to get better.  If we don’t waste days and we put in the work, we can turn this thing around.   How true.  If we don’t waste days as we desperately pursue wisdom, there is always hope. 

Better to be partnered with wisdom and have a significant life, than to be flirting with wisdom all your life and have nothing to show for it.

 

Swavel