I am a husband, father, brother, son, pastor, poet, activist, and engineer... I care deeply about the world and am often overwhelmed by all that is going on... I'm most offended by greed and rudeness, and I believe that selfishness is the practical opposite of love...
When life knocks us down or we fall down, we have a decision to make. We can view hardships and trials as opportunities for growth or we can reject them as something destructive. One requires grace and faith, the other judgment and fear.
While discipline is not pleasurable, it is also not always punishment. Punishment has to do with the infliction of a penalty for an offense, but discipline produces some things within us – things like wisdom, strength, resilience, and endurance. Punishment has to do with retribution but discipline is generative and restorative.
Now, to be clear, the process is rarely pleasant, but it is productive! Hang in there! Hold on! God is working some things out in us!
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof,12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11-12
God disciplines God’s children, because God loves us and wants to produce something in us that affirms us and brings glory to God’s name!
The last few months have been a whirlwind full of milestones and transitions. To be honest, it has been a challenge to keep any kind of normal routine. Full of ups and downs, disruptions, and detours – all I can do is look at the calendar and try to apply myself to the next task.
I’m having mixed results. Some days I feel accomplished and secure, but more often than not, I’m just holding on and trying to take things as they come. One moment at a time, one step, one day at a time is all I can muster.
Some days I feel up for the challenges, other days, I’m literally just showing up and hoping for the best. Amid all this, I am learning something…
There’s a difference between strength and stamina. There is a distinction between motivation and discipline. All of these are needed at different times, depending on what circumstances demand, and all of these are necessary.
While strength is good, stamina is required for sustained progress. Motivation is important, but discipline is what kicks in when motivation wanes. Strength will get us started but stamina keeps you going. Motivation will inspire you but discipline will help you to sustain a vision when disruptions and distractions arise. Strength may allow you to sprint, but stamina requires marathon endurance. Motivation may excite you in a moment, but discipline compels you to show up even when your feelings would have you quit.
We need both. But if forced to choose, I will aim at stamina and discipline beyond strength and motivation! While life often comes at us fast, the wisest responses are those that reinforce consistency and faithfulness – that is stamina and discipline.
I know this doesn’t sound exciting, and doesn’t garner the same emotional response as when we hear ‘strength and motivation.’ But stamina and discipline are foundational when we are talking about character and legacy.
And as believers, we aren’t just running laps, we are establishing legacies. We aren’t in a sprint but we are running a marathon! This requires stamina and discipline! This requires endurance and training. But we needn’t go alone…
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2
Our prayers can be hindered by what we hold in our hearts. Hatred, malice, bitterness, lust, and unforgiveness cause our petitions to fail and subvert even the most fervent supplications.
We need to regularly search our hearts and release those things that disrupt our healing, help, and happiness.
While God answers our prayers in God’s own time, sometimes there are delays because of our own disobedience and hardness of heart.
I know that’s tough to hear. So, pray with me this morning for a clean hands and a pure heart. Let’s pray for the strength of will to release those against whom we may be holding a grudge.
Listen to the testimony of the Psalmist:
18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,the Lord would not have listened.19 But truly God has listened;he has attended to the voice of my prayer.20 Blessed be God,because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!
Psalm 66:18-20
LORD, help us to let go of anything that hinders our prayers.
There is a war of attrition that’s going on to erode any vestiges of hope for humanity. The barrage of bad news from political operatives and pundits is nearly constant – drawing us downward and backwards into despair.
We are tempted to be suspicious of one another, always anticipating the worst. We are so guarded, thinking that we are protecting ourselves, when we are actually just isolating ourselves. We are imprisoned by loneliness.
But there is a hope for us that remains, that opens us and can heal us, if we will allow it to. There is light and beauty in this world. There is joy and the possibility for peace within and with others, if we dare to believe.
As we open our eyes today, let’s choose to see the good, let’s seek what is beautiful and true. Let’s open ourselves to the possibilities of a future that outshines the past, and let’s do some good.
Back in the day, I remember listening to a DJ on the radio who used to say, ‘When you meet someone who isn’t smiling today, give them yours!’
At the risk of sounding corny today, I want to offer us the same advice.
There is goodness, light, and beauty in this world. I know this is true when I remember each of you. Now, go and pass that on!
So before you allow the morning news to douse the light in you, remember…
…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
There is not a single one among us, who when wronged, doesn’t expect justice. Unfortunately, justice in our country is often slanted in the direction of the wealthy and the privileged.
It can be maddening to watch the wicked prosper and see their deeds go unpunished. The temptation is to get what they have, and to do what they do – to covet their corrupt power.
But I want to remind us today that the cost of such an exchange is too high! We risk losing ourselves and becoming the very things that we protest!
Does this mean that we cannot be angry? No! Does this mean that we cannot raise our voices in righteous indignation? Absolutely not! We are free to express the full range of human emotions. When we are hurting, grieving, offended, or the victim of another’s carelessness or callousness – one of the most courageous things we can do is to confront our offenders!
We can square up and address directly those who’ve done us harm, but what we cannot do is subscribe to the same violence in speech or action that hurt us in the first place! The moral injury this causes us is not worth it! Get it?
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.
As Christians we have become part of something that is bigger than ourselves. God is over, within, and working through each of us.
There is no big ‘I’ and little ‘You.’ We are members individually, of one body. We are not in competition; we both need and complement one another. We are fit together by the grace of God as we receive the invitation to enjoy and share in God’s redemptive work.
We are members individually of one body in Christ. We cannot and must not attempt to go alone, because to do so is to rob ourselves of the fullness and richness of the grace that sustains us.
Yes we are unique, but our distinctness is never a cause for division but rather a unique opportunity for us to encounter the creative grace that weaves us together into a durable and lush fabric that not only honors God but also allows us to experience the beauty of our humanity.
We are a masterpiece. We are a poem. We are God’s workmanship. But we will never realize this beauty so long as we continue to create enclaves and establish borders based on our own inclinations and preferences while ignoring God’s purposes. Our isolation will leave us incomplete.
But we are all recipients of grace according to the magnitude of Christ’s gift! If I cannot see this in others, it is impossible that I receive it for myself.
Remember, we are God’s idea, and not our own! There is…
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
We shouldn’t be surprised when cheaters cheat, thieves steal, or when dishonest people tell lies. When we encounter a gossiper, we shouldn’t be shocked at their slander.
Maya Angelou said, ‘when people show you who they are, believe them!’
Now, to be clear, all of us have character flaws, and none of us should be judged or condemned by our worst moments, but when we encounter someone who is habitually dishonest or hateful or destructive, we needn’t give them an audience!
We need to abandon our salacious appetite for gossip and lies. We have to stop giving air to the death-dealing dialogues that destroy relationships and disrupt our peace!
My mother used to say, ‘a dog that brings a bone, will carry one…’ Giving ear to nonsense quickly devolves into participating in it!
Take care as to who and what you are listening to, especially in these fraught and troubling times!
An evildoer listens to wicked lips,and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.
In our current climate, the idea that there are a few simple things that most, if not all, of us can agree on, is a wild assumption!
Common sense is not so common, huh? Instead what we have is confusion, contradiction, and conflict!
In this land of ‘alternative facts’ and relativism, it’s not surprising that even the news is no longer news! Journalism has been reduced to propaganda and punditry. Much Christian preaching has been undermined by pageantry, pedantry, and an unhealthy preoccupation with being provocative under the guise of being prophetic. Education has become socialization rather than illumination and liberation.
All these things are examples of what happens when the Truth (or at least the pursuit of it) is abdicated in the name of profit or pragmatism. We are untethered – without anchor or foundation. As a result, we find that we have no way of orienting ourselves, nothing around which we may gather.
No common courtesy. No common cause. No common good. No common ground. No common sense.
Such is our lot when we yield to the instruction of fools…
LORD have mercy on us!
Good sense is a fountain of life to him who has it, but the instruction of fools is folly.
My mother used to say, ‘somebody got to have some sense,’ implying that if we encounter foolishness we ought to be the voices of reason. I pray that we may be so!
When God places something or someone on your heart – pay attention. While every thought is not worthy of intense examination, there are signs and circumstances that should catch our attention.
I don’t know how or when I started enjoying mystery novels, movies, and tv shows, but I do. Maybe it was all those Scooby-Doo episodes from when I was kid. Who knows!?
But part of unraveling a mystery is as simple as looking and listening carefully- paying attention to details! To the small things, subtle things, things that may initially seem insignificant, something that is just a little off or out of place – pay attention! You will be surprised by what you learn.
While a special perceptiveness may be a gift that some claim, perspective is not so much of a gift as it is a discipline, a way of seeing from different angles that can be broadened and sharpened with practice!
There are many things that seem mysterious in our lives that aren’t really so. We can see more if we just look and listen more carefully! Get it?
Pay attention!
God speaks to us by Word and Spirit, through other people, through creation, and through our circumstances. There are signs all around us. Pay attention!
Sometimes the answers we seek are right in front of us!
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
pastorpoet 