INCHES BECOME MILES

We all went to the library the other day to return some books and to possibly “rent” some movies. We don’t go out to the movies anymore because of the money and having the boys (the last movie we saw in the theater was The Incredibles in December of 2004). We now simply wait for the movies to make it to the library where they are free. I searched through their selections and found a few that we hadn’t seen that looked fairly good so we brought them home.

It was starting to get late last night, but really felt I wanted to watch the one. I grabbed a snack and asked Heidi if she wanted to watch it with me. She emphatically declined with the reasoning of it being late, but also that she didn’t want to be exposed to “that filth.” It was a PG-13 movie…how bad could it be? And to tell you the truth, it wasn’t that bad; it was worse than what I remembered PG-13 to be, but it wasn’t that bad.

As the movie concluded early this morning, I came to a realization that God had spoken to me through the main character of the movie. He was a “bad” man, but a devout church-goer who encouraged others to live better lives for the Lord. He challenged people on their behaviors; he held them accountable. Other than the deviant side of this character, he was a model Christian who loved the Lord.

As strange as it sounds, God convicted me through this evil man who really only talked good values. But conviction from the Lord feels the same whether it comes through your pastor or through an actor playing a villain. I should not have watched that movie; there was just a little dog poop in it, but it ruined the entire brownie (click here to know what I’m talking about).

And that got me thinking…how often do we allow Satan to pull us away from the Lord little by little? The problem is that when we ease up on our values just a little bit, that allowance then becomes our new “normal”. When we give in a little on that new norm, we are now two steps away from our original starting point. A slight adjustment again moves us farther away from our “true north” and we seem to get lost. On and on it goes. Inch after inch becomes a mile over time. That’s how the R-rated movies from yesterday became the PG-13 movies of today—little allowances time and time again.

We cannot allow the enemy to deceive us into believing that this garbage is okay for us. It’s not okay for our children; it’s not okay for us. It’s a waste of time and doesn’t bring God glory; it’s a pleasure of the flesh instead of something with eternal value. But it’s also a way to let the enemy convince us into believing that we can be a few steps away from the path and still be okay.

We need to stay on the path—the journey that the Lord has laid out for us. Yes, it’s tough and we will slip off the path now and again…but we need to get back on it. Being close enough to see the path is not good enough.

YOUR PLACE

Today was a very frustrating day for me. I felt like I worked all day—and I did…but I got nothing accomplished. It was one of those days that seemed to rush by and I was busy with all kinds of tasks, but didn’t get to what I really needed to do today.

Today was a day for sending out resumes for my “survival job” and to work on my sermon for Sunday. (Shameless plug: I’m preaching at Indianapolis Christian Fellowship on Sunday if any of you want to come for worship.) What makes it worse is that Heidi has been great during this time of working on the new church. She has been trying to get out of the house with the boys so that I can have a quiet house for concentration. So, she was gone for most of the morning with the boys for a play date and the early afternoon was quiet with the boys napping and Heidi running errands…yet nothing of what I wanted to do today got done. My mind just kept wandering. I kept thinking about what else I could have been doing around the house and then actually doing those things around the house. Yet now, I can’t even think about what I did do.

The problem with today was that I wasn’t focused. When I used to write my sermons I would go to certain places to write them. These weren’t necessarily quiet places, but places that I used mainly for crafting my sermons. When I walked in and sat down (usually in the same seat), I became focused on the task at hand. I had quiet today…but no focus.

And that got me thinking…how often are we focused when we have our quiet times with the Lord. So often in our busy, rushed lives (see yesterday’s blog) we have our “quiet time” in the not-so-quiet…if we get to it at all. Think about the last time that you were focused and quiet in the presence of God. (Insert Jeopardy’s Theme Music here). And I don’t mean that to be insulting or disrespectful, for I know this doesn’t apply to everyone. But my guess is, for the most part, that people are too busy to quiet themselves enough to truly sit in the presence of the Lord and listen.

We need to focus; we need to take the time; we need to have a place where we can go and be in the throne room of God. A place that is protected for that purpose—your place. Now, I’m not saying that nothing else can be done there; but for you…you should keep that place for your time with the Lord. Don’t do homework there; don’t do work there. It is reserved for God. By just sitting in your place, it becomes a preparation to be with the Lord.

Some of us don’t have those capabilities because of limited space (we’re in that situation now); you may need to go somewhere to have that place. Jesus was constantly removing himself from the people to be with the Father. Time and time again we read about how Jesus went somewhere to pray. He needed to get away and focus.

I don’t know what will work for you. What I do know is that we need to be focused in order to make our time with the Lord worthy of Him.

Find a place…your place.

BALANCE

This morning, into the afternoon, I had the privilege of sitting down for lunch with my pastor from the church we are attending. Pastor Paul is an amazing man and an incredible mentor. We sat and talked about life, family, the church, the new church, and read different Scriptures that the Lord had led us to recently.

One that Pastor Paul shared with me was Luke 17:26-27: “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”

When he finished reading it, our waitress came by to refill our waters (we had phenomenal service at Bob Evans today). When she refilled the glasses, she didn’t just pour the water into our glasses on the table and make a mess. She actually picked up the glasses and put them on her serving tray and filled them while balancing them on the tray.

I noticed two things about this approach: 1) if she would have spilled, it would have been on her tray and not on our table; 2) this courtesy required her to have great balance. Pastor Paul noticed the same thing and mentioned the amount of concentration and balance she needed.

And that got me thinking…we live in such a fast-paced society; we’re always running from this to that, grabbing fast food in the car as we rush this kid to that practice and that kid to this event. And it’s not just because of the kids and all the events that they are in; adults choose to participate in so many activities as well. But that’s the key word: “choose”. We choose to be overly-active in many different events; we choose to allow our kids to run our SUVs out of gas three times a week; we choose to put other things before God, including the rest we need because of everything else going on in our lives.

Our lives are out of balance in many ways, particularly when we put other things before God. We get too busy to go to church, too busy to pray, too busy to read our Bibles. We are too busy and like those in the days of Noah, some of us may be too busy to notice that it’s too late.

We need to get back in balance and that takes deep concentration. I’m like everyone else…I get busy with everything going on in life. I get out of balance. It takes great concentration and discipline for me to stay in balance (or get back in balance).

Being balanced is so important in every area of our lives, but it is eternally essential in our Christian walks.

Concentrate on being balanced…and not too busy.

(Special thanks to Jessica for providing me with the photo. Check out her other amazing works on her website under my BLOGROLL in the column to the right.)

HOW'S YOUR SERVICE?

Being that I’m currently not working (for pay) and focusing my attention on starting Resurrected Life, our budget is quite tight. Heidi and I get serious about our monthly budget as it is, but not having any income right now and living off of our reserves has made us even more conservative when it comes to spending. We simply don’t splurge on things.

Our budget does give us some little perks so we don’t feel like we’re wearing a straight jacket, but we are definitely cutting back on the non-necessities. Going out to eat at restaurants is one of those perks. For our family of four, our restaurant line-item allows for approximately four cheap meals or two nicer meals a month…and that’s if we even go out. Heidi’s cooking is phenomenal and so much cheaper than going out. Normally, when we go out, we don’t even enjoy it because it wasn’t as good as her cooking and we figure out that we spent five times what it would have cost her to make it.

All this to say, we normally go to the cheaper places when we do go out—we get more meals that way and it doesn’t bother us as much when we don’t quite enjoy it. But tonight, Heidi had a craving for Chicago’s Pizza (ironically, it was right when we were driving past it). We had eaten there once before and truly enjoyed the food, but it was more expensive than what we normally pay for pizza. So, we talked about it and decided that we would go there after running some errands.

(Note: Please don’t hear the following as me complaining about this establishment; the pizza was good but I need to lay this all out to get to my thoughts.) The pizza was good, but the service wasn’t. I’m pretty sure that we got sausage instead of the beef we ordered, we didn’t get refills on our water, and we didn’t have all of the necessary tableware. As I said, the pizza was good, but the service really took away the enjoyment of the experience. I would have rather gone somewhere else, even it it was cheaper pizza and not as “good”.

And that got me thinking…”how’s your service?” In whatever it is you do, no matter what your product is, or how good it is, “how’s your service?” We have such an impact on what we are selling, promoting, or connected to.

“How’s your service” when it comes to sharing the gospel with others? Those who are believers have the greatest “product” around, but is our “service”—the way we present it; the way we act; the way we live—diminishing the value of what we have to offer?


Chicago’s Pizza has great pizza, but we probably won’t go back—partially because of the service. We have something wonderful to offer in Jesus Christ—I pray that you don’t lose any “customers” because of your service.