Anesthesia

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Several years ago, while playing in a church softball league game, I slid into home plate. To be honest, I don’t remember if I was safe or out. What I remember is that a metal bat the batter had used was still lying across home plate as I slid with the catcher’s feet holding the bat in place.

When I slid into home plate and into the bat anchored by the catcher’s feet, I came to an abrupt halt and landed awkwardly on my right wrist, breaking it. One of my friends, Gary Reed, gave me a ride to the emergency room and I was taken into surgery, put under anesthesia, and my wrist was then set into place.

Of course, while under anesthesia, I don’t remember a thing about the procedure. After the procedure, I was in the recovery area, and Dr. Burgess came to see me, asking how I was. I can remember asking him when I was going in to have my wrist set and he laughingly replied that it had already been done.

He went on to say that anesthesia does strange things to people. He said that most people curse under anesthesia. I never knew that. But then he said that I didn’t curse; in fact, he said that I quoted Scripture. I was amazed. I praise God for that.

There are a few passages in the Bible about reading Scripture as a spiritual discipline. Psalm 119 is entirely about God’s Word. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly…” They talk about more than just reading it, though. They imply that we should ingest and digest it, allowing it to feed us, and shape and mold us. After all, Jesus is called the “Logos” in the first verses of John’s Gospel, which, as you probably know, means “The Word”. As we ingest God’s Word into our lives by reading, studying, and memorizing Scripture, we are allowing Jesus to fill us more and more.

I’ve always loved reading and studying the Bible. I wholeheartedly believe in memorizing Scripture verses. It has the power to transform as God’s Word comes alive within. To that end, during my devotional time this morning, I have been prompted to commit to memorize Colossians 3:1-17. It’s a long passage and most likely, will take a month to complete. But in those thirty days, I’m believing that God will do something marvelous.

Besides, you never know when you’ll be under anesthesia.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossians 3:1-2)

Simplicity.

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My mornings begin similarly each day. Make coffee and oatmeal. Walk my dog Bella. Read.

I don’t read much. I might read a little Scripture. I might read a few paragraphs from a book I’m working through. I don’t read novels. I read in the morning to set my thoughts and heart on God.

This morning, I read like I always do. I love James Bryan Smith. After reading his trilogy of sorts: The Good and Beautiful God, The Good and Beautiful Life, and The Good and Beautiful Community, I was hungry for more.

I found Embracing the Love of God, which, like his previous books, are about replacing the narratives we naturally repeat to ourselves with God’s narratives. As Joyce Meyer would say, we have a lot of “stinkin’ thinkin'” going on, and we need to reverse that trend by renewing our minds with God’s Word, His truth, and His promises.

To be frank, I didn’t get very far in my reading. After skimming a couple of pages, I read the header: “The Secret of a Blessed Life.” 99 out of 100 people will read on to find out this “secret”, and being in that group, I read on. I didn’t have to read very far.

“God with us. This is the secret of the blessed life.”

I stopped there. Wow. Simplicity has its beauty… and so does truth.

Smith goes onto to say that this is what David the psalmist meant in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

In other words, I have God with me and I don’t need anything else. He provides. He protects. He is wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and He is right here with me. Better yet, He is inside me! As I get out of the way and yield to Him, He makes Himself more and more known, evident, and eventually, obvious in my life… both to me and to those around me. He makes Jesus known through me. He is all I need.

Blessings come in many forms, but the essence (and source) of blessing is God Himself. Immanuel. God with us.

Blessed indeed.

I am WITH YOU and will watch over you wherever you go (Genesis 28:15a)

And surely I am WITH YOU always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:20b)

Parting of the Red Sea…

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I’m sure you know the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea on dry ground. Yes, God parted the sea to allow the people of God to cross, and as you know, allowed the sea to cover and drown the pursuing Pharoah and his chariots.

There are folks who try to explain away the miracle of God on some meteorological phenomenon, wind, or tidal anomaly. Personally, I don’t buy it. That’s not what the Bible says, nor does it account for the drowning of all the Egyptians… but I digress, and that’s a topic for another day.

Today, on our motorcycle trip, I saw God part the seas, in a manner of speaking.

imageWe rode from Valentine, Nebraska to Des Moines, Iowa, a distance of 424 miles. We ate lunch in Decatur, NE, which was just over half way. We saw, by looking at the weather radar, that a wide band of heavy rain was just northeast of Omaha, and we were going to have to go through it. It was inevitable… we were going to get wet again. We had spent two days nearly a week ago in Yellowstone National Park in nothing but rain. So, we put all of our raingear on and readied ourselves for the weather.

imageAs we traveled down I-29 South, I watched on my iPhone (mounted in a waterproof box on my handlebar) weather radar as the line of storms started to move ahead of us to the east.

By the time we headed east on I-80, the band of storms had weakened and somehow (ha!) changed direction and moved to the
south of I-80. We encountered 10 minutes of light rain and then, as we sat in 5 mph construction traffic, the rain stopped altogether.

For us, this was God parting the Red Sea and we crossed on dry ground.

 

image

How did Moses respond? In song.

“The Lord is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
(Exodus 15:2 NIV)

Sounds good to me… I’m singing too.

Mend the broken hearted…

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The more places we stop on our motorcycle trip, the more broken the world seems. I’m not talking about the systems of health care, the economy, or our government, although you could make cases for each being broken.

What I’m talking about is all the broken lives. Divorce, illness, dashed dreams, lonely hearts, and longing for something better… something more. Today, Paul and I crossed paths on our motorcycle trip with two such lives filled with brokenness.

imageThe first is Doyle, a military veteran whose health is failing, benefits are being curtailed, and more importantly, whose wife passed away just over a year ago. He sits under a gazebo next to a convenience store watching the traffic go by from his motorized chair. His home is six blocks away, but it is a lonely place and he can’t bear to be there. His kids live locally but I get the feeling don’t see him as frequently as they should. He doesn’t have a church home ever since he became disillusioned because nobody seemed to care while his wife was sick and dying.

Paul and I visited with him while we were cooling off after crossing half of Wyoming. After we talked, I offered to pray for him and as I did, he began to sob. He actually shook from sobbing while I prayed. It was heartbreaking, but as we said goodbye, he seemed to have a little twinkle in his eye and maybe a little more hope than 20 minutes earlier.

The other broken life we encountered was Ted. He wandered up to my bike at another stop admiring my stickers and he wasn’t hesitant to tell me his story after I asked him if he rode one too. His dreams were shattered and his life was broken – literally – in 1997. He was involved in an accident in which he broke his back. It wasn’t diagnosed until 10 months later after never really recovering. He had surgery and has been on disability ever since. Since the diagnosis took so long and his disability benefits didn’t begin until after surgery, he lost his home to foreclosure. Ever since, for the last 15 years, he’s been living out of his camper. He moves from place to place, until the owner of the property or the town makes him move. Broken bones, broken lives.image

They’re everywhere, if we look. But as I reflect on those two, I know that God made a difference in their lives as we happened upon them. For Ted, it was a hug. For Doyle, it was the heaving sobs. Both were touched. And that’s what it’s all about.

We’re taking our faith on the road again today. I can’t wait to see what awaits.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
(Matthew 5:3-10)

(Incidentally, prayers are needed for a rider named Tim who was involved in a motorcycle accident which we witnessed; and also for a group of riders we came upon which required three ambulances and a gurney)

The best laid plans…

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As you may have read, I’m on a motorcycle trip. I’ve been planning this trip for some time. This kind of trip takes planning, in my opinion. It’s over 5300 miles in 18 days, including five national parks and 13 states. You have to plan what you pack and how you pack. If you want to stay within the national parks, in our case, Yellowstone, Glacier, and Grand Teton, you must make reservations well in advance. It takes planning.

I did research, I looked at seemingly endless resources about things to see and the most scenic roads to travel by motorcycle. I had to plan how many miles to travel each day, taking into account the sights we wanted to see. It takes a lot of planning.

My buddy Paul and I even planned to spread the Gospel as best we could along the way, either by the way we treated those we met, helping the hurting we encountered, or just by directly sharing God’s Word with those whose hearts we sensed need to hear it.

I think we’ve done well thus far. Tomorrow will be Day 11 of our 18-day trip and Paul has nearly exhausted his supply of Gideon New Testaments and I’ve shared encouragement with over 50 people in one form or another.

What I didn’t plan on is the weather. Yes, I brought proper raingear and warm clothes. But with all the planning, I didn’t plan on the rain which has been virtually non-stop throughout our visit to Yellowstone National Park, obviously one of our prized main stops.

There are mountains in Yellowstone… I think. We never saw them. The low cloud cover hid them. There were so scenic places we would’ve loved to stop and just watch for wildlife, but the steady rain made it impractical and frustrating.

But as I sit hear on the porch of the Signal Mountain Inn in Grand Teton National Park, I am nevertheless grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to see this wonderful country and see sights that most will never see. I’m grateful for the safety God has provided throughout the trip, including protection from bison crossing the road directly in from of us. They inched closer and closer to me and having no escape, I was forced to sit motionless until they were 10 ft from me on my motorcycle.image

God has provided safety and favor… favor in holding off the rain while we waited 50 minutes for Old Faithful to erupt and favor in allowing the clouds to part so we could enjoy the astounding beauty of the Tetons.

Truly God has been the One who has been faithful… and I know I can plan on that.

James 4:13-14 NIV says:
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Deserving?

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I’ve talked to a lot of folks who wonder how to handle all the roadside beggars. They are everywhere… literally. They’re at highway entrances and exits and strategically located outside church exits on Sunday mornings when church dismisses. How do you handle them? They hold up signs that say “Homeless. Any amount helps. God bless!”

On our motorcycle trip, Paul and I pulled into a gas station in Shelby, MT to quickly refill our tanks and catch a quick break from riding. After I fueled, I rode the bike around to the side of the building to park in the shade. As I swung around, there he was.

Paul later asked me how I’d describe Daniel. He beat me to the punch and said “gaunt”. Definitely. Daniel is somewhere in his early-20s, about 5’9″, and I imagine he barely weighed 100 lbs. soaking wet. It was obvious that he was homeless. He didn’t have a sign that said that and he didn’t need one. He had a backpack and a bedroll and that was it. He was the thinnest young man I think I’ve ever seen in the United States.

I asked him how he was doing and he said un-enthusiastically, “Okay, I guess. Well, not so good.”
I said, “Why? What’s up?”
He replied, “Oh, I’m just stuck. It sucks.”

I asked him what he meant and he told me he couldn’t hitchhike because it was too hot (it was about 92 degrees) and he was trying to meet up with some friends in a town Paul and I had passed through about 50 miles back.

I asked him when he last ate. He said it was the previous night. I asked him if he was hungry and he said he was. I asked him how he was going to eat today and he said he only had a dollar and a bag of pretzels, which he was trying to ration. I told him that he needed to eat and that he was waaaay too thin. I handed him two bottles of water and $40 and he jumped to his feet and nearly hugged me. I then pulled out a Gideons New Testament that my riding buddy Paul Prince brought with him on our trip and asked him if he knew Jesus.

He said he did but I wasn’t so sure. I told him that God knew what he was going through and hadn’t forgotten him. He said he wasn’t so sure about that. I reassured him and then prayed for him, shook his hand, but still can’t get him off my mind.

As Paul and I were going down the road, we talked about Daniel and what the best way is to handle folks like Daniel. I’m not sure there’s a “across-the-board” answer. I believe it’s case by case. There is no clear answer. All I know is that Daniel looked hungry and he WAS hungry. What he does with the money doesn’t matter to me. That’s up to God. Was Daniel healthy enough to work? Absolutely. Did he deserve my generosity? Maybe not.

But I didn’t deserve God’s generous (understatement) gift of His only Son, who purchased my salvation. I don’t deserve His continuing amazing grace in my life. How can I withhold from someone in need?

None of us are deserving, are we?

You can count on it…

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As I checked into The Cottonwood Inn in Glasgow, Montana, Paul was unpacking his motorcycle. It took me a few minutes, but when I came back outside, a gentleman was talking to him.

His name was Victor, and right away, I could tell he was a bit different. He was very boisterous and excited… overly so, it seemed. We exchanged introductions and Paul said Victor was from New Jersey. I joked that he had “escaped” from New Jersey and Victor agreed, implying that he was going to be here indefinitely. Again, we exchanged light conversation and he said goodbye.

He had said that he was a psychotherapist, had handed me his card (with no address on it), and had said to Paul that he had just divorced, lost his shirt in a business venture, and felt burned by life in general.

As he walked away, I said that he was a different sort of character, and began to reposition my bike. Paul replied quickly, “If we pray for God to send people to us… to bring them into our path, we can’t shun them.”

I’m not sure I “shunned” Victor, but I was convicted that the Lord had indeed sent someone to cross our path. That someone, Victor, had a story. It was a story of brokenness and crushed dreams. He was (and is) someone who needs the Good News.

Before he walked away, he received a New Testament from the Gideons and one of my business cards that I had made up for the trip. I invited him to check out my website, follow us on our trip, and read the blog for daily encouragement.

And Victor, if you’re reading this, please lean on Jesus. You can trust him. He is always working for your good. No matter, how broken we are, He can use our brokenness to pour ourselves into othes whom God brings into our path.

You can count on it.

Always a teacher…

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I met a school teacher named Liz yesterday in a gift shop in North Dakota. She worked behind the counter but, believe me, she is still a school teacher. You can just tell.

As I discovered her story (a small part of it), she shared how she graduated from college in this small town in central North Dakota and how she stayed her, teaching elementary school for 34 years. She ran a tight ship, for sure. She had retired several years ago and started working in this gift shop in Jamestown to make a little money.

As Liz talked to me, suddenly two small children came in from seeing the live buffalo in the rear of the property and ran through HER gift shop. As one tried to run by her, she gently stopped him and said, “You forgot. No running through my gift shop.”

She told the story of a third grade boy who was a bully beginning in Kindergarten. When he reached her third grade class, he still couldn’t read. She took him aside, gave him special attention after school was long-dismissed, and by the end of the school year, he was reading well enough to move to the fourth grade.

After his high school graduation and again after his college graduation he wrote to her, thanking her for the special attention and love he received in third grade. He said that he didn’t know where he would’ve ended up without her. As she told me that, a tear came to her eye, she became a little fidgety over showing the emotion and moved onto other chores.

There are many like Liz along the road. Some with stories of regret. Some with stories of leaving a legacy and making a diffeence.

So, if your listening Mrs. Kohler or Mr. Hale, thanks for making a difference in my schooling. You inspired me and lit a fire under me when I needed it.

And “thank you” to all you school teachers out there… you are making a difference!

Weird?

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How comfortable are you being weird?

I know, that’s a strange question, but if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, that’s exactly what you’re called to be… weird, peculiar, strange… different from the rest of the world of folks who don’t follow Christ. (Romans 12:1-2) We should be weird in the way we behave, how we act and react, and especially, how we interact with others. The Bible says that we will be known by how well we love. (John 13:35)

That’s a tall order, to be sure. How do I love the one who mistreats me, ignores me, favors another, or downright hates me? One thing I know for sure: I can’t do it myself. But God’s Spirit inside me will help me, if I allow Him to. The question for me is: Am I allowing Him to help me? Am I exercising self-control, quenching my own emotions and allowing Him to show Himself?

I can tell you for certain that the answer is “No”. But the fact that I’m even typing this right now tells me that I am ready and willing to allow Him to work. It’s an ongoing work-in-progress for me.

That’s holds true for you, too. We are all a work in progress…

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV)

So if you find yourself not very different from the world around you, take heart. Don’t give up. If you’re saddened by your behavior, that’s the Holy Spirit working. God’s not finished yet. That reminds me of Pastor Jeff’s favorite Scripture:

… being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)

All the days of my life…

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Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:29-32 NIV)

I’m trying to cultivate (if you can do such a thing) the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life. I want more of Him and less of me. I’m reading and learning about the Holy Spirit by reading about Him, talking about Him, and trying to be sensitive to Him.

Not only do I want to be sensitive to Him, but one of the things I’m discovering is how sensitive He is. He is sensitive to how we live and react to His leading, His prompting, His convicting, and His teaching.

Do I respond with obedience or do I just brush Him off? Do I acknowledge that He is with me (in me!) as I go about my day or do I ignore Him or decide to let Him “out” once in a while like He is some kind of pet?

If I brush Him off or ignore His leading, I grieve Him. If I choose the things of this world system over the things of God, He is offended. James 5:4 says he jealously longs for more of us. And the verses at the top of the page indicate how we can further offend Him.

As I offend Him and grieve Him, he grows more quiet. As my heart hardens to His leading, I become oblivious to His voice and His leading, going my own way. And it’s a way that leads away from the very best that God has to offer.

I want the very best that God has for me. Since He is always working for my good, as Romans 8:28 says), I want as much of His presence in my life that’s possible. What does that require of me? Diligence. A heart that’s wide open. A heart quick to repent. A heart that desires the things of God above all else.

That’s what I desire. It’s not always how I act, but it still remains my one desire.

Psalm 27:4a NIV says…
One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.