Author: Tom

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Wow! I Love God! (and I still enjoy flying!)

For those who have read my previous post and travel a lot by air, you probably knew this article would be coming!

My four hour layover in Denver turned into a six hour layover and two hour late arrival in Tucson.  Shortly before noon, the monitors were listing a one hour delay due to the airplane we were to use being delayed in arriving to Denver.  The plane did arrive and the crew boarded and did their pre-flight checks to get ready for our flight.  Then we were told the flight was simply being listed as delayed, with no estimated departure time due to a problem with one of the doors.  I  guess there is something about flying for 2 hours without a door that might become worrisome.

Pretty soon, the crew come up the jet-way and simply said they were told to leave the aircraft — not a good sign if you plan on flying soon.  But it wasn’t long before they made an announcement that our aircraft needed work but they had another plane at a different gate that we would be using with a 3:00 scheduled departure rather than the 1:20 original flight plan.  Fortunately, the new gate wasn’t far and the crowd of fellow fliers make their way over and reshuffle the line.  Then the announcement is made that this aircraft is configured differently and it doesn’t have as many seats.  Seating on this plane would be rows 4 – 19.  Anyone ticketed in something other than that would not be going!  I had seat 4A, so I was good to go.  Then it was as if they forgot to tell the crew about the new plans.  They finally arrived and we made it on the plane and ready to go for a 3:20 departure.

Such is the life of flying!  Good one minute, completely gone wrong the next.  But as I said to a gentleman in line with me, “Still beats walking!”  I made it from South Bend to Tucson in 15 hours from the time I left home to driving away from the Tucson airport.  Yes, it could have been a quicker trip.  Yes, it is generally more enjoyable when everything goes right.

But, it wasn’t my day.  I’m not saying it wasn’t my day because things went wrong.  That would be the common line of thinking — you’ve heard it, right?  When everything goes just right, it must be my day.  When everything goes wrong, it just wasn’t my day.  That is not what I’m saying.  It wasn’t my day because it was God’s day that I am living.  I love the line from the “Facing The Giants” movie, “We praise Him if we win and we praise Him if we lose.”  That is what I’m talking about.  I love God and His day was given to me in a way not according to my plans.  That’s okay!

I love God and I still enjoy flying because I attempt to fly in obedience to God’s calling in my life.  I don’t simply plan trips because they sound like fun or will be of great benefit or rest to me.  I go places based on my listening to God and his promptings in my life through His Spirit, His Word, and the people around me.  I’m sure I don’t hear as well as I ought, but I travel in faith that God has ordained each step I take.  He already knows the steps I take in obedience and the steps I take in disobedience, and every step in between. 

I love God because my life with Him is an eventful journey that is a lot like flying.  I listen, I plan, and I anticipate, but ultimately He’s in charge and I’m learning to joyfully be obedient to His instructions and changes, even if they appear to me as 2 hour delays in my schedule.  His decisions are always right and always for my ultimate good. 

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I Love Flying!

I’m sitting in the airport at Denver, Colorado and they have free WiFi access.  It would be nice if all airports had this feature.  I left South Bend, Indiana early this morning, stopping through Chicago’s O’Hare airport before arriving here in Denver on my way to Tucson.  South Bend and O’Hare both charge for their WiFi access, something like $7 a day — how many ways can you say, “rip-off”!

 Anyhow, even with that side-note, I love flying!  Today has gone great so far.  My flights have been on-time departures and early arrivals.  I had 2 hours in Chicago and 4 hours here in Denver.  Many people read that and think that’s terrible.  Six hours simply sitting in airports waiting to get to a destination.  I don’t see it that way.  I guess that is part of why I love flying.  I even love flying when things go wrong and the schedule isn’t working.  Well, most of the time at least.  There has been an occasion when I really needed to be somewhere else according to a schedule I couldn’t control.  That was a little frustrating, but not normal for me.

I think a lot of it is because of the work and ministry God has called me to.  I see my time as God’s.  He knows before I ever book my flights what the trip will be like. He knows how I can use the time He gives me to either draw closer to Him or be His servant to other people.  The question each time, is what will I actually do?  It is fun to simply walk through the airport smiling!  People evidently aren’t used to that.  I nearly always get a visible response, as well as a verbal greeting from airport employees when they see me smiling.  Many of my fellow travelers will extend a warm greeting — or look around them to see what they must have missed. 🙂

It feels good to be a messenger of cheer.  Most young children have almost always felt an instant connection to me.  I don’t know why.  Maybe they recognize that I am closer to their level in a lot of ways than what most other adults are.  Maybe it’s just the fact that I look goofy!  I don’t think that many of them have anyone smile at them while they travel.

As I sat here in the airport reflecting on that one thought, “I Love Flying!”, I wondered why that is so easy to say?  For me, it really does have little to do with the ease or smoothness of the process.  Yes, that is helpful and very much enjoyed, but it is not required.  Our study theme this week has been, “I Am A Lover of God”.  As I thought about my reaction to walking through the airport, I wondered if I’m that quick to walk through life smiling because I love God. 

I Love God!  That ought to be so much above and beyond the simple statement, “I love flying”, but I’m not sure it always is.  Does my love of God reflect in the life I live?  What would the people I cross paths with each day think?  Do I bring joy and comfort to their life as an outpouring of my love of God?  Does my life look differently when the daily journey goes according to schedule, compared to the days when everything is delayed, behind schedule, and a general mess?  When my life is going like I think it ought to, do I wake up and think, “Wow!  I love God!”  When life is a struggle and and makes little or no sense, can I still wake up and say, “Wow!  I love God!” 

I think that is the start of a lesson God is teaching me today.  It is easy to see some of what God is doing in and through me as I travel and that result of God at work is why I say, “I love flying” or “I love driving”.  If it wasn’t for the work God is doing as I fly or drive somewhere, I don’t really think I would like it all that much.  God is saying to me, “You really don’t love flying, you love Me!” 

And I say, “I Do!”

I am a lover of God!

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All Or Nothing!

This week’s study in the Deer Run “View From The Top: What Does God Say?” series is, “God Says I Am A Lover of God”.

Our texts that we are using for daily reflection and discussion have been great, but here it is Friday and I’ve not yet written about any of them.  If I could blame my schedule, or simply the fact that I am having a hard time re-establishing the habit of writing, it would be easier.  It goes deeper than that.  I’ve sat down at the computer each day as I’ve gone through the daily scriptures and questions, thinking I would write about the truths God revealed to me that day.  Yet, there I sat and nothing was written.

Each day, that question would rise in my mind, “Why haven’t you written?”  I couldn’t answer it.  I’m still not sure.  It may be my inner desire to not write some glib words about loving God simply because that is the study topic this week.  It may be saving me from sounding hypocritical — it’s easy to write about loving God, but am I doing it?  It may be out of an inner wrestling of decision –does God really have all, or does He have nothing?

In the midst of it all, the words of Jesus to Peter, “Do you love me?”, kept standing out in my mind throughout the week.  My answer sounds so Peter-like, “Of course I do!”  And God’s response sounds so Jesus-like, “Then do something about it!” 

Do something!  Do what?

“Feed My lambs.  Take care of my sheep.”

But, I love You!  I don’t particularly like your lambs.  Your sheep — well, they actually scare me.

“So what?  You can’t do the greatest command, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and not do the second — love your neighbor as yourself.”

And then it hit me.  It’s the all or nothing dilemma.  All is so inclusive and exclusive that it leaves nothing out.  I can’t love God with ALL my heart and still have something else taking part of it.  All doesn’t leave room for other things.  All requires absolutely everything — nothing is left out, excluded, or hidden.

So, what about the sheep?  If I love God with the “all” kind of love, there is nothing left for the sheep?  No.  What is left for the sheep is God’s love in and through us.  That is the second greatest command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  It is given in conjunction with the greatest command to Love God with ALL.  When God doesn’t simply have first place, He has the only place in my heart, mind, soul, and strength, then the love required to care for His sheep cannot be mine — mine is all given to God.  It must be His!  It is His love that rejoices, cares, cries, ministers, and serves the people around  me.  It is not even the overflow of my love for Him.  That still all belongs to Him.  It is the overflowing grace and mercy of His love for me that is to be poured into the lives of others.

It is all or nothing.  If I don’t love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, I will not experience the fullness of God’s love to express to my neighbor.  If God doesn’t have the “all” of my love, the sheep get left out because I’m tired, selfish, greedy, uncaring, poor, or busy.  True love — God’s love — can only flow accurately from me and be expressed to others if He is all I love.  If I don’t love God with “all”, then the people around me end up with nothing because personally I’m bankrupt in the love department.

I pray that God has my all and your all.  May we hold nothing back so that His love and His Spirit can completely fill all the rooms, corners, and hidden areas of our life.  I am a lover of God.  God, help me to be a faithful lover of you.

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What’s 38.7 Billion Dollars Between Friends?

I know this is way out of my normal range of writing, but two headlines today caught my eye and forced me to investigate them further.

As an individual struggling to raise funds to accomplish the prayer ministry God has called me to, the financial numbers tossed around in our society are simply amazing.  The two headlines that caught my attention were:

“GM Posts Record Loss of $38.7 Billion”

“Stocks Rebound on Buffet and GM News”

My first thought was someone must have really messed up the headlines.  How can an automaker losing a record 38.7 billion dollars in one year contribute to a rising stock market?  And so I had to read the article.  It seems that stocks rose because the GM loss was less than expected!  The financial analysts had been predicting a loss equal to 95 cents per share of GM stock and it was only a 40 cent loss.  Well, that explains it all!  What is 38.7 billion dollars between friends?  There is a whole lot more to it, but this isn’t an investment advice column, just my reaction.  😛

I don’t think too many of us living day to day, trying to keep the bills paid and enjoy the basics of life can truly wrap our minds around 38.7 billion dollars, let alone a 38.7 billion dollar loss.  I know I can’t. 

Have we let things get so big, so inflated, that we have no sense of value anymore?

I don’t know.  Just some random thoughts from some random headlines.

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What Does Your Work Say?

How would someone observing you describe your work?  More importantly, what would they say about the results of your work?  What are you accomplishing?  What does your work really say?

My guess is that most of you reading this have struggled with these questions and others like them.  We want purpose and meaning out of the things we devote our time to.  For most people, the work they do for a living has a tendency to take up the most significant amount of their time.  But deep down, do we really want our job defining who we are?

I don’t think so!  I mean, my job is directing prayer ministry within an international campus ministry organization and I don’t even want to be defined by that.  It’s not that I pray, or someone changes tires, or someone else teaches school, or raises their family, or whatever else it might be, that holds the real significance.  The real significance comes when we use whatever tasks we face to bring glory and honor to Jesus.

Paul mentions this when he writes to the Thessalonians and lets them know that he is constantly praying for them.  It is their work, labor, and endurance that stand out and get the attention of Paul.  Not so much what they were doing, but what their work said to all who observed.  Paul writes:

“We always thank God for you and continually mention you in our prayers.  We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.  The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia — your faith in God has become known everywhere.  Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what happened when we visited  you.”  (1 Thessalonians 1:3-4,7-9)

The work, labor, and endurance of the Thessalonians became a model for the entire region.  People everywhere could look at them and see how to put into practice the gospel of Jesus that was being preached.  When they turned to God, their lives were transformed and nothing would be the same again.  All it took was watching and listening to them and you would see the change that had taken place and become “infected” yourself.

So how do we experience that kind of a change so that our work , whatever it is, proclaims the transforming power of Jesus?  The key can be found in six words that we are familiar with separately, but rarely consider together.  Work, labor, and endurance are terms we are likely familiar with and don’t really care for or embrace all that willingly.  They are not things that we often rejoice over or long for more of — at least not until they are missing completely from our life. 

Yet Paul takes each of these words and connects it with a word that unlocks the incredible power of transformation.  Faith, love, and hope — words that we are quite familiar with from Paul.  Yet words we rarely connect with work, labor and endurance like Paul does.  The gospel came to the Thessalonians, “not simply with words but also with power” because their work was connected to faith, their labor was connected to love, and their endurance was connected to hope.

What does your work say?  Is your work, labor and love being done with faith, love, and hope in order to unleash the power of the gospel?  I pray that your work and my work says quite loudly that we are workers for God.  May people see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven and say of us, “your faith in God has become known everywhere”.

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Who Are You Working For?

As you consider the title question, Who Are You Working For, I imagine that a number of answers could probably come to mind.  The natural first thought is, “My employer — the person, company, or entity from which I draw a paycheck.”  Perhaps you even think a little deeper, considering the people that are the reason you work.  Maybe it is a spouse, family, children, parents, or someone that you have a desire to provide for so you would say, “I’m working for them.”  Maybe it is yourself.  Not that you are necessarily self-employed, but you are working so that you can have the things you want.

Sometimes it is easy to miss the Biblical instruction about our work ethic because the writers use language and terminology that our American culture — and much of the world — isn’t intimately familiar with, or we simply avoid considering it.  Paul, for example, consistently addresses how slaves ought to react to their masters and how masters ought to treat their slaves.  It is as if we come to those passages and we just skip over them because we are neither slave or master.  In doing so, we miss some valuable lessons that could be ours if we better understood how the principles being taught apply to each of us today.

For example, Paul’s writing in Colossians 3:22-4:1 begins, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters . . .”.  Instead of skipping over this section until we find something we think applies, why don’t we consider how Paul might have written this part of the letter if he were writing to today’s culture.  Perhaps something like this:

Employees, obey your earthly employers in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human employers, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving.  Those who do wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.  Bosses, provide your employees with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Boss in heaven.

Changing a few words so that I can see myself more easily doesn’t change the principles that God wants us to get.  This passage isn’t a Biblical mandate for, or against, slavery.  It is a Spirit breathed teaching on how God wants us to see the work we do.  Even when “forced” to do a task we don’t like, God says to do it with sincerity and reverence for Him.  How often does an employer give instructions that we don’t like and we mutter under our breath and mock our boss the entire time we carry out the task?  That wouldn’t be “sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord”, would it?  We get sidetracked so easily from the Biblical principle, “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord”.  What would life be like if Christians everywhere actually lived this principle consistently?  What would your life, and my life, be like if we put this teaching into practice daily?

I can’t help but think of the contrasts I have noticed at a local Taco Bell that I’ve been known to frequent.  I actually hadn’t been to this particular location for quite some time.  It simply had gotten to the point that it wasn’t a pleasant experience.  Oh, the food was good and the customer service was even okay.  I couldn’t stand the fighting that was constant behind the counter and in the kitchen.  If there were any Christians that worked there at the time, it wasn’t obvious.  They definitely hadn’t applied the above verses out of Colossians to their situation at work.  The managers would be yelling at the employees about work needing done and the speed in which it wasn’t being accomplished.  The employees would be yelling back at the managers about anything and everything — it didn’t have to even be work related.  Both sides, when the other would turn away and do something, would mock each other to anyone who would pay attention.  Needless to say, it only took a couple of visits with that going on before I decided I really didn’t need Taco Bell that badly.

I ended up back there a few weeks ago after a six month or so break.  I couldn’t believe the difference!  Everyone was working together — from employee to manager.  The words being spoken between them were words that were helpful and encouraging.  Requests were made of one another and I don’t think I heard any demands.  The normal “standing around, that’s not my job” attitude seemed to be missing.  There was an overall willingness to pitch in and do whatever needed done.  Taking food orders, cleaning, filling orders, taking out trash, or whatever else needed done, simply got done with no complaint.  The shift supervisor?  She’s a Christian creating an atmosphere where everyone is doing their work for God, not for men — whether they know it or not. 

Living out this teaching from Colossians 3 does make a difference.  It is so radically different from the way the world typically operates that it stands out and can’t help but be noticed.

In whatever we do, I pray that you and I would work at it with all our heart, knowing it is the Lord we work for.

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Resolutions For The New Year

While I’m posting newsletter article reprints, here is one I wrote for the church January 2003 newsletter.  (Okay, I wrote half of it.  Palmer Hartsough wrote the other half.) -tom

Many people have given up on the idea of New Year’s resolutions because they have such great difficulty keeping them.  Others continue the practice of resolving certain things at the beginning of a new year only to quickly forget and fall back into the old habits they were trying to avoid.  Believe it or not, there are actually some people who plan carefully to make changes in their life and keep the resolutions they make.

As I considered the idea of what you and I should resolve to do for the coming year, the words of an old hymn came to mind.  I would like to share these words with you as worthy of our consideration.  May we make these resolutions and keep them throughout our life.

I Am Resolved
(words by Palmer Hartsough, public domain)

  1. “I am resolved no longer to linger, Charmed by the world’s delight; Things that are higher, things that are nobler, These have allured my sight.”
     
  2. “I am resolved to go to the Savior, Leaving my sin and strife; He is the true One, He is the just One, He hath the words of life.”
     
  3. “I am resolved to follow the Savior, Faithful and true each day; Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth, He is the living way.”
     
  4. “I am resolved to enter the kingdom, Leaving the paths of sin; Friends may oppose me, foes may beset me, Still I will enter in.”

“I will hasten to Him, Hasten so glad and free; Jesus, Greatest, Highest, I will come to Thee.”

May Jesus find you faithful when He returns.

Resolved to serving Christ,

Tom

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Work That Counts!

I wrote the following as a church newsletter article in March 2002 and previously posted it as “Work That Really Pays!”  The verse is today’s text in our “View From The Top: What Does God Say?” study, so I’ve just copied my old writing here as a reminder.  -tom   

“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”  1 Corinthians 15:58

Does your work make a difference?  Do you ever end the day feeling that all of your efforts were a waste of time?  How often do you wonder what you are really accomplishing in life?

The Bible gives a simply stated solution to living a life that counts.  We find it in many places, including the verse above.  The problem, as in many Biblical truths, comes in the application.  It is easy enough to read a command, “always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord”, but it is a completely different thing to actually live it out each and every day.  We read along in our Bibles and see the word “always” and assume that this must only apply to those who work in full time professional ministry.  However, the context of this verse indicates it is meant for all believers who have the hope and assurance of a ressurection of the dead.  That is the “therefore” part of the verse.  Since death has been defeated and we have the assurance of life eternal with Jesus, we know our work is never in vain when it is the work of the Lord being done.

Teaching, serving, giving, sharing, cleaning, etc., are all things that are very necessary to the work of the Lord continuing within the local church.  The work of the Lord is also done wherever you are when you take seriously the Lord’s command to make disciples.  When you devote your life to making disciples, you truly “lay up for yourself treasure in heaven”.  As you live a life committed to sharing the gospel of Jesus, you will have found work that really pays. 

May God bless your work for Him.