If You Can

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It was a big weekend in our house; we celebrated two college graduations. Our daughter graduated with her BA in Communication with a minor in Marketing and I graduated with a Masters in Public Administration. It makes you wonder what you can really accomplish if you put your mind to it. Yes, there is always a little hard work to add in the mix but you have to want it in order to achieve it. At this point in my life, I wasn’t sure how I could get it done. I was working here and there; I’ve been on City Council and working through those challenges, and then try to meet the demands of a Graduate program. A good friend of mine asked me how I managed to juggle all of the balls at once. Honestly, I’m not sure but I know a few things helped tremendously. I have an awesome family that is understanding and patient. My wife and son in particular, suffered most during these past 18 months. They missed me simply being present in the family. I was constantly working on homework or writing papers while they picked up the slack around the house. My son missed out on our quality time together – the whole point of my working from home. My friends were supportive and always encouraging. So how did I manage to juggle all of the balls? I didn’t, it was a team effort! If everything is possible, what would you do? Is there something holding you back from going after a dream or the next step in your career or life? I found myself talking about enrolling in a Masters Program for months before I finally did it. Eventually, I just took my fears straight on and jumped in. Having the confidence that I was protected by my faith is what I believe allowed me to leap. There are no boundaries in your life if you have the right people in corner; starting with a strong faith in God’s power.

“’If you can?’” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Mark 9:23

I love imagining Jesus speaking to me directly when I read verses like this. We’re just sitting outside on the patio on a sunny afternoon with perfect temperatures. I, of course, say something that gets His attention and He replies, “If you can?” As if to say, “why wouldn’t you?” or “Why do you doubt yourself?” He then begins to reassure me about all of things I’ve done so far and how God has been at work all of these years preparing me for this moment. “If you can?” He says again. “Why can’t you? Give me one good reason why you can’t”, He dares me. Of course, I have no good reason other than being afraid. He then gently reminds me, “Everything is possible if you believe in the power, the grace and love of God.” I learned over the years that God puts a team of people in our life to prepare us for just a time as this. I never imagined going to school at this point in my life but I’ve been preparing for it for years and I just didn’t know it. With God, everything is possible. Don’t let anything or anyone stand n your way.

Trouble and Doubt

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I won’t deny that there are a lot of things to be worried about these days. I would suggest that many of us worry about things that don’t exist or things that we anticipate will happen but never do. This week our daughter will graduate from college and move back home until she finds a job. The job market for college graduates, let alone thousands of others, has been horrible the past five years. Fortunately, she has three great job possibilities that she will have to choose from. I’m not worried. What troubles you? Is it something tangible or is it something that you are worrying about before it actually happens?

I’ve never been known as a positive person. I’ve always had to be planning for the worst but hoping for the best. In management, you have to be on guard for the things that will hurt you or the organization. It’s important however, to celebrate when things go right. Many managers forget to do that. They become so focused on problem avoidance or fixing problems that they fail to recognize the great things happening around them. They worry about things that “could” happen and miss the good things that do happen. So what are you worried about? What troubles you? It’s impossible to avoid worrying so the key is learning to keep it in check. Others have suggested that worry and doubt is more of an emotional response and that the best way to counteract it is through logic. Look closely at what you are worrying about and see if it is an actual or a perceived problem. Th.en you work through the emotions to find solutions

He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?
Luke 24:38

In this verse, Jesus was speaking to His disciples when He first showed Himself to them. What if Jesus was asking you these questions? Why are you troubled and what doubts do you have? Jesus would tell you is that you should be sending all of your worries to the Father. It can be argued that the emotion of worry (trouble) is a product of the devil. It is a great way to put separation between you and God because if you don’t think that God is with you in your life when you are feeling crushed by doubt, you will turn away from God.

Maybe you’ll rely more on yourself, maybe you’ll turn to “an escape” or maybe you’ll simply let the doubt take over and crush you. When these things happen, you push God away; just what the devil wants. Before that happens, go back to Jesus asking you – He is speaking to you in this verse; why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? How will you answer Him? We’ve been taught in other verses to lift our concerns to God in prayer. Sounds like great advice.

What is Love?

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In particular during these past two weeks, I’ve witnessed three people demonstrate what love is. We all say that we know when we find love it but so many of us can’t define it. Few of us are lucky enough to find that person, get married and stay married; we know love and express it in many ways. Lisa and I started dating 31 years ago this month (maybe even this week) and she has always shown me what love is. Her support of my career and of each step during my non-traditional education path, not to mention the thousands of dollars from our savings and she never said no. Not to mention the five houses we’ve had in three states because of my career. I could write all day about her but she isn’t one of examples. One is of a wife being by her husband’s side as he has his third brain tumor removed while being worried that she’ll won’t be able to meet the needs of her clients (she’s a sole proprietor), another is the best friend of our dear friend’s (Joe) wife who made sure that I knew about Joe’s retirement following his stroke 14 months ago. She also is there for Joe’s wife Kathy, to help her or to just listen because Joe needs constant care. Kathy says that everyone should have a friend just like her.

But the one most demonstrating love is Joe’s wife Kathy. We met them just over 27 years ago when Joe and I started to work together. They became great role models for Lisa and I about raising a family. Today, Joe is in a wheelchair and unable to care for himself. Kathy tirelessly cares for him and does so with a positive attitude and a smile on her face. Everyone that knows her will say that she is one of the strongest people you will ever meet. She has always been there for her friends when they had trouble. Her and Joe were there for us when our daughter was born prematurely at 27 weeks. She takes care of Joe with such love and care. She will even joke that this isn’t what she envisioned in retirement but she is grateful for what she has. To me, this is what Love is.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. 1 John 3:16

To be honest, this devotion is not ending the way I envisioned when I started it. So, what is love? I believe that we recognize love because we have seen it demonstrated to us. People like Kathy learned about love from someone else, who learned it from someone else and so on. The first real show of love came from God and has been written for us in the Old Testament. God continued to fight for His people, protect them and still cared for them even when they disobeyed. Instead of turning to anger for rejecting His commandments, God turned to Love and sent us His Son; a savior to give us all a chance to be with Him.

During His ministry, Jesus taught us about Love. He asked for forgiveness of the Soldiers crucifying Him because they did not know what they were doing. Jesus taught us to take care of each other and serve one another not ourselves. He knew what was happening to Him and yet He still gave His life for us. He could have pushed the “Easy Button” and went somewhere else to avoid His death, He didn’t. The friends that I’ve seen over these past two weeks could have found another way to deal with their situations but they didn’t, there are plenty of “Easy Buttons” to push these days. They didn’t because they all know what real Love is. We don’t know why Joe had his stroke or why my other friend’s husband has had three brain tumors, but God is showing us what love is through these amazing people.

Easter is the reason for our faith

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Happy Easter Monday! For some reason this Easter really hit home for me, from a “Christian Church” perspective. I’ve always known it but I wanted to write about it this week because, Easter is really the point of our Christian faith. We say at Christmas that we should remember the reason for the season but Easter is the whole point. As Christians, we have nothing without Easter Sunday. So, I’m going to write this week’s devotion a little, okay a lot, differently. I want to focus on the whole message of what the third day really represents and start with a prayer first:

Almighty God the Father, open our eyes to see hope eternal in the empty tomb and let us rejoice. Through Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, You have overcome death and opened the gate of everlasting life to us. Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of our Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from death of sin by Your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

St. Paul writes in a letter to the Corinthians about the resurrection of Christ Jesus. I have nothing to add this week but his words, which were divinely inspired by God. In this letter we see God’s grace; we see that no matter what we’ve done, we are forgiven and; we know that we have hope in our lives. “1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.” 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.

I pray that you are reminded that God is with you and that Jesus died for all of our sins. It is because of His death that we now can enjoy eternal life.

I do believe!

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Today marks the start of Holy Week as we await the solemnness of Jesus’ crucifixion and His glorious resurrection three days later. This week should be about Jesus. There are a number of verses in the Bible that discuss what Jesus was saying and doing in His last week. It is amazing to read that His disciples did not know what He has been talking about until it was too late. It made me think about how I read the bible and what I might be missing. As I considered what to write for this important week, I wondered about the people who know Jesus but like the disciples, do not understand what is happening around them. I’ve heard people say “Sure I believe in God and that Jesus was His son but I don’t get into the rest of the bible”. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say, “I go to church and that’s enough for God to know that I believe in Him”.

I’m not warmed by either of these phrases but I will hold judgment because that’s God’s call not mine. However, I really do know what Jesus did for us and continues to do on our behalf.  St Paul in a letter to the Philippians said “12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose”(Philippians 2:12-13). St Paul is suggesting that we obey God’s word whether we feel His presence or not. This is such a profound statement that I can also hear Jesus saying this to me. Re-read the verse again but think of Jesus saying it instead. This verse means much more now doesn’t it?

We owe our salvation to Jesus, who intervened on our behalf, but we owe our eternal lives to God, who through His grace and mercy sent His Son to be punished for our sins. We can do nothing more at this point but believe in the word of God that assures us that we are saved through Jesus. Mark verse 9:24 says, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Jesus taught us how to live our lives, what is important in this world and what we can do to enjoy eternal life with Him. If you have ever doubted, simply read the verses about Holy Week and give thanks for ALL that God has done for you. You will overcome any “unbelief” in no time.

We all need to just ask

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My wife has saying “You don’t get if you don’t ask”. We have several stories in our lives when she’s used this philosophy while we were faced with dilemmas. one example is when our daughter was little, we took her to see a live character performance. She had gotten sick about half way through it and we had to leave. My wife called the theater to see if there was anything they could do. They had us come down the next weekend and report to a special area. We were then escorted into the venue and right into the front row. The whole thing was crazy but you can’t get something if you don’t ask for it. Many people don’t like asking for help or asking for things in general; oftentimes we feel like we’re taking advantage of things. In the corporate world, they say that employees should be asking for raises and not waiting for them to be given out. What is it that you want that you are not asking for? Our families don’t know what we want if we don’t tell them. Most of us were encouraged to write Santa Claus with our Christmas list and some of us were taken to the store or mall to see the “big guy” and tell him ourselves. As we got older, we stopped doing that with everything in our lives. As employees, we have needs or desires for our careers or professional development. If we don’t share what they are with our supervisors, we will never fulfill our dreams or reach what Abraham Maslow described as “self actualization”. Don’t let anything get in your way of at least asking for the things you want, you never know what might come of it.

“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” James 1:6

It’s one thing to ask a venue manager for tickets to a show but it’s entirely different to ask God for help. Do not doubt God’s power and love for you; believe in Him and that He will do what is best for you. It’s sometimes hard to understand that what God believes to be best for you is not always what you believe is best for you. Ask God in confidence, He answers prayers; remember – on His time. God also likes to hear praise and thanks for the things in your life. In this verse we are reminded that when we doubt God’s power, our lives will be churned like the sea. I say this often, God has a plan for each one of us and He puts people and circumstances in our lives to help facilitate that plan. He simply asks for our faith and trust in Him through Jesus. The bible is filled with verses that demonstrate God’s love, that tell us how to live our lives and that tell us to have faith. If you doubt what God’s plan is, ask Him. Many times people turn to God when they are in trouble or in need. God tells us to always turn to Him in prayer. The stronger that your faith in Him is, the easier it will be for you to see Him at work in your life. You will never doubt again.

By the Grace of God

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Everyone needs a break once in a while. When we work with the same people all of the time, we can get on each other’s nerves. Often times we can simply brush off the issue and move on but every once in a while, we just can’t. My mother joking says: “if everyone were perfect like us, we would not have these problems”. How true is that? In my case, I don’t think I could handle another person like me. What do we do with these people who annoy us or create problems? We can’t ignore them, stop being engaged at work or socially; so most of us simply give them a little grace and move on. We are giving grace even when we justifying the behavior of the person by saying, “oh, that’s just Bill”. Rick Warren in his book Purpose Driven Life, describes difficult people as being EGR or extra grace required people. This really sticks with me every time I encounter someone challenging. As he points out, the real key in life is not to be one of these people. To give someone a little extra grace is to not hold the annoyance against them, listen to the intended message instead of the actual message, and don’t take what they say personally. Southern ladies frame in with the phrase, “Bless her/his heart” when they give a little extra grace. No matter how you do it, the important part is to give the grace; not because they deserve it but because you can.

“7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – “ Ephesians 2:7-8

God is constantly showing us grace in our lives. He gave His only Son for us so that we might have eternal life with Him. He has forgiven our sins, not because we deserved it but because He loves us. God’s grace is larger than we can imagine. We sin every day yet, He forgives us. We doubt His love and question His work in our lives and yet, He still loves us. We take Him for granted, live our lives to satisfy ourselves, worry only about what we need and yet, He still keeps His hand on our lives. For me, little else is needed to define what God’s grace really means. God sent a Savior to bring us close to Him, so that we might have eternal life through Jesus. It is through God’s grace that we have been saved but not grace alone. We also need to have faith in Jesus as our Savior. Jesus is the one who took all of our sins to hell, left them behind and when He rose on the third day, He took His seat at the right hand of God to intervene on our behalf. He turns to God and says, “They are worthy, just like me”. Rejoice in God’s grace knowing that He gives it to us as gift through our faith in Jesus Christ.

We reap what we sow

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I’m in Washington DC this week to learn new techniques for governance and to work on Capital Hill with our Congressmen on issues that connect with our city. Tomorrow, the President will address the National League of Cities attendees, I’m sure, to express how important cities and towns are to America. We’ll be meeting with Senators McCain and Flake on Wednesday before we head home. Today, as we walked around the US Capital I said, “There are 535 Congressmen and thousands of staff people working here and nothing gets done”. It’s funny, only because it’s true. I walk around this town and can’t help but think of all of the wasted effort that has gone on for the past six years. Back home in Arizona, our legislature and Governor reached a budget deal that they have been working on for days – behind closed doors. It was finally released to the public on Friday and will probably be voted on by Wednesday this week. Its a budget that defunds education and increases prison spending – welcome to Arizona!

The whole concept of politics is starting to feel disgusting to me. My wife told someone tonight that if you want to insult me, call me a politician. It’s true. Why do we do the things that we do? Why are you doing the things that you are right now and who are you serving when you do them? I serve as an elected council member to serve my community and hopefully make a difference. I see others who serve in these capacities simply to feed their own egos. I was asked earlier this week why I’m not on twitter and my response was, “I don’t think that I’m so interesting that people will want to follow me”. I believe that I’m simply a servant. My work on this blog is about serving God and bringing the Word to the world. So, back to my questions – why are you doing what you do and who do you do it for? It’s okay to work to support yourself and to have fun. Some fundamentalists don’t want you to know that it’s okay to have fun but it is. You will reap what you sow; let it be something good.

8Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction: whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Galatians 6:8

As I look around Washington DC, I feel the sense of pleasing the flesh. In other bible versions of this verse, “the flesh” is replaced with “sinful spirit” and right now, that’s a better description of politics in Washington DC. What part of your sinful nature is driving your decision-making? We are all guilty of sin and will pay the price with our death. This verse reminds us that if we are pleasing ourselves, we will pay reap destruction (earthly death). However, if we are reaping to please God, we will be rewarded with eternal life; an eternal life found through the sacrifice of Jesus. Galatians 6:10 tells us exactly how to live our lives – “10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Serve God and His people but also serve others (do good to ALL people). There are no politics in that statement, there is no spin and there are no favors, its simple – do good! Our reward for working hard, getting shot down and working hard again is our eternal life with God the Father. God did not give us a pass or any vacation days from being His children nor does He deduct from us our sins that guaranteed our salvation through Jesus Christ.

What’s in your heart?

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God’s intervention in my life seems more apparent to me almost daily. You know the old expression, “when one door closes another one opens” is really the best summary of God at work in our lives. I’ve written a lot about God’s plan because I have seen it unfold in my life pretty often. I have a daily bible verse calendar that contains a phrase to go along with the verse and this one particularly caught my attention – “When your heart is right with God, your ways will follow”. I started thinking about other bible verses that describe how we will act when we have God in our heart and for me, my thoughts always come back to: who’s plan are you executing?

At the urging of my daughter, I’m changing the format of these posts for the mobile app readers out there, because the two-block format doesn’t read well on a cell phone. So, I’m changing my plan. I thought my way was right but with an open mind and a little trust in her, here we go. On the flip side, I have a friend that doesn’t seem to understand how his actions create problems for others. He is well intended but he lacks the emotional capacity to understand that he hurts people when all he does is think and act rationally. He does nothing by emotion and if it’s not his way, then it’s no way. I call it politics and we all do it, everyday.

You know the people at work that you can joke with and those that are all business. You know who can take constructive criticism and who can’t, so you take these into consideration and carefully maneuver through your day using politics. Essentially, you execute your plan. But what happens when your plan doesn’t match with anyone else’s? Usually chaos. People are upset, deadlines are missed, quality suffers and relationships are damaged. This is why when we strive to combine plans by finding common elements,  great things happen. It takes looking beyond your self and trusting in someone else to achieve great things.

“A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart.” Proverbs 21:2

Have you ever thought what influences you and your decisions? I remind our kids, every so often, of the order of life’s priorities that we used to say when they were small – God, family and everyone else. Tell a teenager that he or she doesn’t come first and wait for the emotions. However, for us, this worked well when friends were becoming a problem but it also helped keep things in perspective for them. We don’t stop and consciously ask ourselves what would God like us to do; although He wouldn’t mind, but our minds consider it as we process decisions if we have put God’s word in there.

A person thinks that they are right; it’s their plan after all so why consider what God thinks. If He wants it changed, He can just change it – right? Hopefully by now you know that isn’t how God works. However, if you have let Him into your heart and into your mind, He will weigh your heart with His words and the examples given to us by our Savior Jesus. We have free will but if we’re in a relationship with God, He will influence our decisions and keep a little calm in our lives. Sure bad things will still happen but we will react to them with much less anxiety that it won’t seem as bad. God has already weighed your heart with great wisdom; simply follow His lead.

The new is here!

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I’ve mentioned before that my inspiration for these weekly devotions come from a number of places. Often it comes from a sermon that I heard and then after pondering it, I apply it to some life message. Honestly, most often it comes from bible verses that I’ve read in the past and taken note of. Today’s devotion was partly inspired by the hit television show The Big Bang Theory; ironic isn’t it? The theme was letting go of problems and how to let things go. I’ve used the phrases “get over it” and “its water under the bridge”. Often times we want to focus on the cause of a problem or what should have been done or could have been done, which all end with our finger pointing at someone. This happens a lot in our places of work or in our homes, someone has to be blamed for the setback or the missed opportunity. Some workplaces call it accountability but in reality it’s just proof that old saying: “one oh no wipes out 10 atta boys” is true. We won’t let it go and we keep punishing the person over and over. People change and people learn. We know that the best way to learn is through mistakes. In science it’s called trial and error and is part of the “scientific method” of study. Researchers can go on for years coming up with ideas to test and then when they fail, they test a new one. In the rest of world its called learning from your mistakes but if you make too many, you find yourself out of job. The difference between them is tolerance. In science, they tolerate the concept of trial and error and in business they don’t. We should all be a little more tolerant of each other and work together to make things better. People can become better when they are supported and encouraged despite a mistake. We wouldn’t treat a child with same contempt for a mistake caused by not knowing, why do we do it to adults?

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

We all go through various transformations in our lives. In the fire service a rookie is transformed throughout their career. Lazy teenagers become successful adults and single, wild guys have become awesome parents. We are almost constantly under a transformation of one sort or another. St. Paul is reminding us of the transformation that we have through Jesus Christ. We are not the same people we were before Christ came into our lives. Our baptism washed away our sins; God washes away the original sin that we cannot ever escape, through His word and the sacrament of Holy Baptism. We become one with Him and are new again; we are transformed! As the TV commercial says – “but wait, there’s more! No matter when in our lives we are baptized, we remain in sin throughout the rest of our lives and yet, God still forgives us through His grace and mercy. He only asks that we confess our sins, repent and trust in Jesus as our savior. The old Adam in us is washed away and sin will never have power in our lives with Jesus as our one and only savior. We are a new creation, one in which God is happy to call us His Children despite our mistakes and failures; Jesus takes all of our “oh no’s” and makes everything an “atta boy” – “the new is here!”