Walking The Walk

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." ~Proverbs 27:17  I was flipping the channels the other day, and one of the cable news channels was reporting on a story.   According to the reporter, it was the worst decision our government had ever made in our 250-year history.   I flipped to another cable news channel, and they were reporting on the same story—of course they were reporting the complete opposite. And we wonder why we’re always fighting with each other?   Because we make decisions based only on whose idea it was rather than if it’s a good idea or not. Our leaders are talking past each other, each convinced the other is completely wrong.   Nobody is ever listening—just talking. And it’s not just on the national level.   I've watched this scene play out countless times in our communities, too. And at family dinners and on social media and in workplace conversations. We’ve forgotten how to have a conversation.   We’ve forgotten...

"A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed." ~Proverbs 15:13  It's easy sometimes to forget an important truth.  What happens in our hearts doesn't stay there. We have a profound impact on the world around us.  Like the outward rings from a stone dropped in a pond, we create waves that touch everyone and everything around us. This simple verse reminds us we have been designed with the remarkable ability to influence our surroundings through something as seemingly small as our attitude. Have you ever noticed how quickly a room changes when someone walks in beaming with joy? Or, on the other hand, how the atmosphere shifts when someone enters with a cloud of negativity hovering over them? This isn't coincidence – it's the principle from Proverbs 15:13 in action.  Our personality is visible and contagious. A cheerful face isn't just about putting on a smile-- it's the natural overflow of a heart filled with joy. ...

"Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." ~Proverbs 19:21 I know many unhappy people in this world.  You know what nearly all of them have in common?  They put themselves first.  They are focused on their own needs.  Their own desires.  Their own wants.  Their career.  Their reputation.  The respect they feel is due to them. The pay they think they deserve. The car they want.  The list is endless, and because it is endless, so many people in this world are never content. They never get everything they think they are entitled to, because there is no end to what they want. Too many of us just don't understand why we're here. We don't understand we are custom built for a specific purpose. And the discontent we have in our lives isn't because we don't have our dream house--it's because we haven't found the thing we were put here to do.  Our true purpose! God didn't put us here to consume goods and...

"A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself." ~Proverbs 11:17 What if you wrote down every good thing that happened to you in a day.  And then you wrote down every bad thing that happened to you in a day.  Which list would be longer?   I think it would depend on what kind of day you'd had, right?  If you've had a rough day, you're likely to be focused on those things that happened that were bad.  If you've had a great day, you're probably thinking about all the good things that happened to you. Now think about this. When we've had a good day, has nothing at all bad happened that day?  Was every single part of our day good?  Or was there one or two things that weren't great that we've forgotten about because we were focused on the fun we were having.  We were focused on the outing.  We were focused on the entertaining event.  We forgot about the lousy sandwich we had for lunch.  We forgot about the driver that ...

"A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense." ~Proverbs 19:11 We make decisions about how we interact with people.  We decide how we're going to react in a situation.  We decide what we're going to say.  We decide what we're going to do.  Those decisions we make in every situation in our life is ours to make.  We are (or should be) in complete control.   But we can't control what other people do.  We can't control what other people say.  We can't control the behavior of other people. And I know what you're thinking--well thank you very much Captain Obvious! These things are obvious, yet we spend so much time complaining about what other people say and do, and making excuses for how we've reacted to them.  Too often we read motives into other people's actions that may or may not actually be there, and when we do that it escalates issues because it skews our perception of what's actually going on.  ...

"As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart. " ~Proverbs 27:19 Checking ourselves in a mirror is something most of us do every morning.  We get ready for our day by looking at ourselves carefully in the mirror as we prepare to go out into the world.  We want to make sure we've shaved properly, or our makeup looks good, or fix our hair so it isn't standing up weird.  Being able to see our reflection gives us an idea of how other people see us. But there's another way people see us besides just our physical attributes--it's our character.  It's how we act.  It's how we treat other people.  It's how we conduct ourselves.  And while we're quick to notice a spot we missed shaving, or an eyebrow hair that needs plucked, we often fail to see flaws in our character. I'm dealing with a difficult person right now.  Somebody I've known for a long time.  Somebody I think a great deal of and respect greatly.  Somebody that has come...

 "Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends."    ~Proverbs 17:9 Sometimes we have difficult relationships in our life.  We have people that we interact with that we have a long and rocky history with.  It's easy in those situations to keep going back to old disagreements every time we have a problem with them rather than just dealing with the current issue. If we want to have peace in our life, we have to learn to let things go.  We have to learn to get over past hurts.  That's not always easy, but if we don't learn to do that, all we're doing is ripping the bandage off every single wound that person has ever given us from the very beginning of our relationship every time we have even a minor disagreement.  Instead of just dealing with the one problem we're dealing with today, we're fighting every fight we've ever had with them all over again.   It may sound crazy, but I know...

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’S purpose that prevails.” ~Proverbs 19:21 Think about how much happier we would be in our lives, if we simply focused on what we can change.  But we don’t.  Too often we are worried about things we can’t control. We are focused on the behavior of other people. Or are fretting about events that haven’t even happened yet and that are completely out of our control. It used to irritate me when somebody would tell me to fix what I can fix and leave the rest to God. I thought it unrealistic. I’m wiser now. I gained that wisdom by spending so much time worrying about things I can’t control. Trying to fix people that don’t want to be fixed.  Most of the things we worry about in life are things beyond our ability to control. Instead of fretting over it, pray over it. It might surprise you the difference that makes. Just acknowledging the fact you are powerless in a situation can take much of that burden from you. And ever...

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.   ~Proverbs 19:21 (continued from Part 3)  I've preached many times since that first time.  In fact, I preach every Wednesday night at our mid-week service, and fill in regularly on Sunday mornings.  One thing that changed is I don't get nervous anymore. That is gone completely. I'm not suggesting God gave me a wink that first morning when I preached, but what I do know is that coincidence caught my attention and shifted my perspective.  It certainly made me wonder.  It made me question whose decision it really was what kind of ministry I was going to be involved in--it's not my ministry at all, it belongs to God.  It reminded me that I've spent far too much time in my life depending on my own understanding.  I've spent far too much time planning out my own life, and what I was missing was truly understanding and accepting that my life is just a very ...

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,      and do not lean on your own understanding.   In all your ways acknowledge him,      and he will make straight your paths. ~Proverbs 3: 5-6  (Continued from Part 1)  I don't know why when my pastor asked me to at least keep the door open to pastoral ministry, I didn't tell him at that point why I didn't think that was an option for me.  That I had this horrible fear of public speaking that I'd dealt with my entire life.  That's what I should have done, but that's not what I did. What I did was I nodded politely, and said I would.    Of course, that mistake would come back to haunt me a very short time later.  My pastor planned to go on a trip and he asked me to preach for him on a Sunday morning.  And I was stuck.  I couldn't say no, because I'd told him I'd keep the door to pastoral ministry open. And an important part of pastoral ministry is preaching...

"The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps."  ~Proverbs 16:9     There's few things in life that challenge me more than my schedule.  I'm not alone.  I know many people with that same issue.  I've been doing better at it over the last several months by using the bullet journal and keeping track of where my time goes--where I'm spending too much, and where I'm not spending enough. I was talking to a friend of mine a couple weeks ago, and he said something interesting.  He gardens, and he spends a lot of time in his garden.  He said when it comes to gardening the key question is, what do you want to grow?  Once you decide what you want to grow, you figure out how much space you'll need, and how much time you're going to have to care for the garden--it's easy to plant a garden, it's far more difficult to tend it.  He said first time gardeners always make the same mistake--they plant a garden way larger than the...

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”     ~Proverbs 15:1 One thing that we seem to be challenged with these days, is respect.   We don’t show much these days.   Too often we don’t show any respect for one other. I’m stunned sometimes at how rude we are to each other.   Social media has probably had a lot to do with that.   We like to get a reaction so we always seem to have strong opinions about things and use strong words with one another.   Going on “rants” is perfectly acceptable and even celebrated—a few years ago these would have been called “tantrums” and that individual would not have been considered very mature and certainly wouldn’t have received applause.   This irreverence for one another leads to all kinds of anger and debates, and that bleeds over into our face to face interactions.   I can’t tell you how many times in the last couple years I’ve been stunned at the frankly disrespectful things people...

  "Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down." ~Proverbs 26:20 Gossip has been at the heart of every conflict I've know in my life. It's easy to partake in it, and it's easy to fall victim to it. And if you're the victim of it, there's nothing in the world you can do to defend yourself from it. The more vigorously you defend yourself, the more it looks like the gossip about you is true.  Do you want to have peace in your life?  You want to have a nice work environment?  Enjoy your church family? Have a family that isn't constantly fighting with one another.  You'll never be able to accomplish that in an environment where gossip flourishes. I had a boss that understood that perfectly.  He had little patience for gossip. That was when the world was a little less politically correct--he'd be down in Human Resources in about two seconds today. He'd overheard a group talking about another employee and he'd come roari...

Welcome to the third and final installment in the What Are You Saying To Yourself? series. In the first part of this series, I talked about that negative internal dialogue that so many of us seem to have, and how to get a handle on how we talk to ourselves. In the second part of my series I talked about some common sources of this negative thinking.  And as promised, in this one, I'm going to tell you why it is so important to silence as much of this internal strife as we can. Learning some of these lessons, and practicing some of these techniques I've talked about has not been easy. But the benefits have made all that effort worth it. And I'll tell you why. Because I can sit now quietly and think.  I can think clearly. I can think without all that clutter that used to make it impossible to reflect--instead I was always reacting. And by reacting, I caused more problems, which lead to more stress, and more mental clutter, and more anxiety.  I finally broke that cycle. I...

"As churning the milk produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife." ~Proverbs 30:33 Every time I read this proverb I remember something that Billy Graham wrote about why God takes anger so seriously. I hope I've remembered it accurately. When we lash out at people, we hurt them.  But this anger also creates all this conflict in our lives as well.  We don't seem to realize that, and that was the point Billy Graham made.  The reason anger is something that God takes so seriously is that He loves the person we're angry with just as much as He loves us, and anger causes harm to two people God loves! Anger serves no useful purpose. It ruins lives by making us bitter and resentful and hateful. It creates chaos. It ruins friendships. It destroys families. There are five words that if applied liberally could transform the world.  The first two words are, "I'm sorry."  The other three are, "please forgiv...

"Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." ~Proverbs 22:6  I saw this wonderful story on social media recently about a Chinese family.  Back in 1980, a new father took his one year old daughter on a trip to a lake in China.  Once there, they had their picture taken beside the lake.  The father loved the photo, and the next year, he decided to take his daughter to the same lake and take the photo again.  They continued to do that every year, except one, for 35 years! I probably spent an hour looking at the collection of 34 photos.  You can find them all here .  They went from black and white to color.  The lake background changed from a wilderness area to being more of a public park.  One of the photos of the girl in her teens showed without question she didn't want her picture taken--I know that phase of female adolescence well.  And then the granddaughters arrived-...

I've made a major decision over the last year.  I'm almost to retirement.  My long-time friends and co-workers are dropping out rapidly--skipping off to that often dreamed of land of retirement they've worked so hard to get to.  I've thought about that a lot as well--it's what gets us through some of those rough patches in our careers, knowing that eventually, if we work hard there's a time coming when we'll be able to relax and enjoy "the good life." Much to my own amazement, I've decided over the last year or so that's not what I want to do.  Instead of retiring, I'm going to start a brand new chapter.  I've decided to dedicate my remaining years to God's mission here on Earth. It's something I've considered at various points in my life since I became a Christian thirty-five years ago.  Each time in the past, I realized at some point that I was pursuing the idea for the wrong reasons.  This time is very different...