Dad, watch this!

I just realized this blog title may be a little misleading. Re-reading it makes me think something bad is going to happen following this statement. This phrase could be used right before something blows up. That's not quite what I'm going for.  

Recently, my 8 year old son, Luke, has developed a strong desire to show off. We have a mini basketball hoop in our house that hangs from the top of a closet door. It is at the perfect height for Luke to jump and dunk the ball. He has gotten very good at it. It doesn't hurt that our hometown Minnesota Timberwolves player, Zach Lavine, won the slam dunk contest two weeks ago. Watching Zach's high-flying acts has inspired Luke to try his own. Well, in his enthusiasm, he has this built-in desire for me to see him perform. He wants to impress his Dad. So, I have recently heard him say over and over, "Dad, watch this!" I love to watch his dunk contest, but when he catches me doing something else in the middle of it, I can be assured that those three words will be said. He really wants to impress me.

If we're honest with ourselves, we all have a built in desire to impress. That is our fleshly sinful nature coming out. We want to please people. We want people to be impressed with us. 

We may also get caught up with a desire to impress God. This can be dangerous. If we are constantly trying to do good things in order to somehow win the blessing of God. It will lead us to a life of emptiness. We will run ourselves ragged. We will try and try and never succeed at doing good enough. Don't get me wrong, it is great to serve God, but if our motives are to impress Him, or make ourselves look good in front of people because we're serving God, we are serving for the wrong reason.

In Matthew 6:1, Jesus says, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven." Jesus makes it very clear that doing good deeds to impress others is the wrong idea. Our eternal blessings are at stake!

At the heart of this command is genuine humility. We must be humble in making sure our motives are right. The only way to conquer the pride that comes with our sinful nature, and to replace it with humility, is to surrender ourselves daily to the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will work in us to provide the tender humility needed to serve and do good deeds solely for the glory of God. May God's Name and His renown be the desires of our hearts through sincere humility. Not to us, not to us, oh Lord, but to Your Name be all the glory.

Thanks Giving and Giving Thanks

I love Thanksgiving.  Our culture has taken us to a place where we jump from Halloween to "the Holidays" aka Christmas and New Years.  I heard today through a friend that there were people already setting up a tent in the Best Buy parking lot next to his house.  They were of course doing this so that they could hit the Black Friday Sales.  My question is, "Are these people celebrating Thanksgiving?"  Our culture has become so consumed with the next best sale and buying the best gadget, that they are missing out on one of our calendar's best holidays, Thanksgiving.

There are many texts in Scriptures that talk about Thanksgiving.  The one that I get hung up on every time comes from Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, "Give thanks in all circumstances."  Now, I don't know about you, but I have a hard time swallowing that verse.  Paul is saying that no matter what life throws at you, be thankful.

Jesus is a prime example of someone who understands this admonishment.  Any passage you read that records what took place at the last supper in the upper room, with Jesus and His disciples, tells us that Jesus gave thanks before He administered the first communion.  At the last supper, Jesus is getting ready to fulfill His purpose for coming to earth, ultimately to die.  He was getting ready to be betrayed.  He was getting ready to face mockery and beating.  He was getting ready to face crucifixion which meant being nailed to a cross.  He knew this was coming, and yet on the night He was betrayed, He paused and gave thanks.

I could think of a hundred reasons why it would be difficult to give thanks in all circumstances.  Our sister church in town lost their church building in a fire last week.  A friend of my wife and I lost her son, who was 12 years old, to a battle with cancer last week.  Another friend of ours is asking the Lord to heal his mother who was badly injured in a serious car accident last Friday.  This last year, when my son fell into a fire, that was a time when it was difficult to give thanks to the Lord.

The Greek words used for give thanks, as recorded in the gospel account of what Jesus did at the last supper, is the same as the Hebrew word barak which means "to kneel down, to bless or praise God as an act of adoration."  Giving thanks is synonymous with worship.  Jesus took time to praise God even though He was about to face death.

In light of this, the reason Paul challenges us to give thanks in all circumstances is because of the fact that even when life is bad, God still deserves our thanks and praise.  No matter how difficult life may be, Jesus is still worthy of our praise because of who He is and what He has done for us.  Jesus paid the price for our sins.  He was sacrificed for us so that we might receive salvation.  Because of that, He is worthy!

Let me encourage you, no matter what you are going through right now, take time to praise the Name of Jesus.  Take time to consider His goodness and faithfulness. He is good and His love endures forever.  God is good, all the time!

Can you hear me now?

My favorite human being on the face of the earth is my wife.  I better be careful or I might just score some brownie points.  In all seriousness, she is the most inspiring individual I have ever met. 

Let me explain.  Joanna was born with severe hearing loss and profoundly deaf in both ears.  She has worn hearing aids since she was a toddler to help increase her ability to hear.  She is a phenomenal lip reader and relies on that skill to help her communicate.  However, it is still frustrating for her.  She's not able to sit in a group and follow every word that is shared.  She's not able to enjoy music the way a hearing person does.  She won't hear you if you're talking behind her back.  If you have a long mustache and a soft voice, she wouldn't even know you're talking.  The sounds that a hearing person takes for granted, she will miss most of them.

With this being said, I hardly ever hear Joanna complain.  Joanna has an incredible ability to listen with her heart.  Yes her ears don't work well, and her eyes work pretty well, but her heart is a treasure full of gold.  She has a genuine love for people and God's creation.  Because she sees life through a different lens due to her deafness, she has a God-given ability to see the needs of people more than the average person.  She takes me to school all the time with lessons in compassion.  When one of our children gets stung by a bee, they know who to go to for comfort.  Joanna's level of concern will warm the heart of anyone.

Joanna has embraced who God has created her to be.  The Bible says in Psalm 139 that we are each fearfully and wonderfully made.  Joanna has embraced her inability to hear.  She realizes that there is nothing she can do and that God has a reason for her being deaf.  There have been times when she has been frustrated because she can't hear, or she'll come home tired from trying to follow a busy conversation.  But at the end of the day, she knows that she is God's special creation.

For the last two years, we have been praying more persistently that Joanna would be healed.  In Mark 7, we read of a man who was deaf and was healed.  We believe that Jesus is in the process of healing Joanna.  In moving to Minnesota this last year, we found out that we only live 4 hours from Mayo Clinic, which has one of the premier Cochlear Implant departments in the country.  Last Friday, Joanna underwent this surgery to improve her capacity to hear.  As she heals and awaits the activation, we are waiting with much anticipation to experience the changes this will bring to Joanna's ability to hear.  During surgery, the doctor ran a test to make sure the device was stimulating her hearing nerves and all the tests were passed.  We praise the Lord for His goodness to us!  These are exciting days ahead for our family with the prospects of Joanna hearing better.

As I have reflected on my wife's hearing in recent days, I am reminded of my need to hear the voice of God.  How often does God have to ask us, Can you hear me now?  In a world that severs our hearing nerves with the garbage of media, sin and busyness, we often block out the voice of God.  My prayer has been, as recorded in Revelation, "Give me ears to hear what the Spirit is saying."  In other words, God, give my heart a cochlear implant.  I want to position myself in a place where I can hear the voice of God.  As a husband, I must hear the voice of God.  As a father, I must hear the voice of God.  As a son, I must hear the voice of God.  As a pastor, I must hear the voice of God.  I can't be the man that God calls me to be unless I am spending time knowing and experiencing the presence of God.  When I am still, then I can know God.

God has taught me a lot through my wife.  These are just a few examples of that.  I am blessed to have a wife who loves Jesus, who loves me and cares for me and allows me to be the man that God has created me to be.  Joanna is a blessing and as we read in Proverbs 18, "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD."  I thank God for my wife!  I look forward to the end of this month when we go back to the hospital to have her hearing device activated, I may just ask her, Can you hear me now?

Blessings in the midst of trials

In my last blog post I shared about our recent trial and outlined my theology on suffering and the soverignty of God, that God has a reason for everything we face in this life.  In the middle of a difficult trial, the Lord met me.  Not only did I receive His strength, but the Lord whispered to me, "prepare for the blessing."  I felt as if the Lord was telling me that He was about to overwhelm me with gifts.  I took Him at His word, but I had no idea what we were in for.

As we were getting settled into our hospital room (for Luke's burn), we remembered that my brother's Mom and Dad in-law live in the Minneapolis suburb of Shoreview.  I quickly got on the phone with them.  Let me just say, my brother married into a wonderful family.  They came to visit us that night in our hospital room.  They brought love as if we were a part of their family.  In addition they brought Joanna some clothes to make our stay more comfortable.  Before they left, we prayed together and believed God to provide healing for Luke and peace for our family.  God brought us peace as we rested that night in hospital chairs.

Early the next morning, I started thinking about our van.  How would we get it fixed?  If you didn't read my last blog post, our van was at a Minneapolis mechanic with a broken timing belt with estimated repairs at $2,000.  My first call was to a friend in Verndale, who is also a mechanic.  He had already been thinking about our van as someone in our church had told him of our situation.  He worked it out for our van to be towed from the mechanic in Minneapolis to his garage in Verndale.  What a blessing!

The next chore would be to find a ride back to Verndale.  After a few phone calls, I talked with one of my youth sponsors who's brother happened to be driving to the cities that day for a high school graduation.  He was going to be driving back with his family and wouldn't need his truck.  Praise the Lord!  All we would need to do was to find a ride to the church where the graduation was being held.  That was easy because the church where the graduation was held is the same church where my brother's in-laws worship on Sundays.  They picked us up when we were discharged from the hospital and then dropped us off at the church.  What a blessing to be able to get back home without having to rent a car!  When we pulled up to our house a friend had left their car for us to borrow until our van was fixed.

Fast forward to just this past week.  The Lord continues to pour out His blessings.  We received a large check in the mail.  We also found out that our van has been repaired as a gift to our family.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!  To God be the glory, great things He has done!  ...and I haven't even mentioned the cards, emails and phone calls!!!

Where's God?  There's God!  So often, people allow the trials of life to get them bent out of shape and if only we could see from God's perspective.  He is pushing us to press into Him deeper.  He desires for us to be refined in the fire. He is developing perseverance. In the midst of my trial, the Lord worked.

Romans 8:28  "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."