Loving The Move!

Last month we sold our house!  It has been a long time coming!  The idea of selling our house came to me one day as I was setting on the deck over five years ago!  At the time, I simply felt like God spoke to me and said, "Sell your house!"  My response was, "Why would I want to sell my house?  We love it here!"  I just blew it off and paid no attention to it, thinking I must have been nuts!

The feeling didn't go away and I told my wife about it.  Her response was the same as mine.  "Why would we sell our house?  We love it here!"  In my mind that confirmed that I must have imagined I had heard God wrong.  It confirmed we were not going to sell this house!  But the feeling wouldn't go away, and I have learned that when something is imagined to be from God and it won't go away, it must be from God!

For several weeks we mocked the very idea of selling our house.  We would get up in the morning, walk across the house and look out the bank of rear windows over the beauty of the lake and say, "And why are we thinking about selling our house?"  As I look back on our attitude, it was almost taunting God over the very idea.  We went for months and He wouldn't let up!  Finally, after almost six months of toying with the idea, we listed it for sale!  Realtor #1-nothing!  Realtor #2- nothing!  Realtor #3- nothing!  Tried selling it ourselves- For Sale By Owner!- nothing!  Took a year off from even trying- of course- nothing! Finally this spring, Realtor #4-sold it to the first people to look at it!

What made the difference?  I am not sure, but here is what transpired in the nearly five years of trying to sell it!  Before listing it the first time, I finished off the space in our walkout basement.  There were two things that really bothered me after the job was done.  #1.  I never got building permits from Winnebago County to do the construction work.  #2.  I didn't want to stain a bunch of woodwork and so I used a cheap foam, paper covered mouldings, frames and doors to finish the project.   That part should have been okay but it bothered me that in a house I was trying to sell for $250,000.00 I used the cheap mouldings!

This spring, I swallowed hard and went down to the building department and told them what I had done.  I simply said that I wanted to make it right.  They were very good about and said it happens all the time, and they would work with me to make it right.  I paid $348 for permits and scheduled the inspectors to come see what I had done.  All but one inspector was easy about it and let me off the hook with the completed work.  The plumbing inspector, while he was good about it, ripped my work apart and left me with a list of things that needed to be repaired.  I wasn't sure what I would do, but one thing I have learned over the years about the construction business is that almost anything at anytime can be repaired.  When it was all done, I passed the final inspection with another $700 in the project to make things right.

When my grandson graduated from high school this spring, he and I tackled the wood work problem. We tore out all of the foam work work and replaced it with a real prefinished oak wood work.  We took about two weeks to get that done and it looks great, to me! The reason I say it that way it that no one seems to notice the difference, but I do!  I can now sell the house and have no misgivings about it! Someone asked me why I would do such a thing.  I said it is hard for me to preach about righteousness and know in my own life I had those two unrighteous things hidden in my basement, and in my heart.

Anyhow, to conclude:  we are in the process of packing and getting ready to move.  As far as the contract goes on the sale of our home, we have jumped one hurdle (contingency) and have a couple more to go.  Our basement and second floor upstairs are completely packed and setting in the garage in boxes.  By the end of this week, the main floor of the house should be ready to close on July 28th. Maybe you are wondering if there were any consequences to not listening to God five years earlier. Our neighbors sold their house, same house as ours, for $335,000 five years ago!  We sold ours for a lot less- a lot less!

This morning as I was having my personal prayer time, the thought went through my head- "What are going to do if it doesn't close?"  A flood of anxiety welled up within me at that moment, and then I thought, "This is a matter of faith in God!  We have done what He has told us to do.  We simply have to trust that everything is going to work out like He has said!"  Then I realized that this whole lesson is much bigger that I ever imagined.  There is a move going to take place for eternity when the time comes.  Satan is always asking, "What if that contract doesn't pan out?"  But I have faith in the words of Jesus in John 5:24,  24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.  28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.

How is your contract with the Almighty?  Is it based on your believing in him?  Think about it!

A Knock On The Noggen!

It is amazing how little things in life come along that change everything about you.  In October, 2010, several of us made a mission trip to the Amazon Jungle in Peru.  We go back into a neat little village called Shiringamazu.  I have truly fallen in love with the people of that village.  We had made this trip for three years at that time and it was getting easier and easier, both because of familiarity and because of the Peruvian government fixing the roads.  But at the same time, the trucks we were using to get into this village were getting older.  That particular trip, we changed trucks three different times because of breakdowns!

As we were nearing the end of the trip, we had changed from a four wheel drive truck to a van.  We were on the last leg of the journey coming out of the jungle.  The driver of the van missed seeing a speed bump.  In a second, he slammed on the breaks and then hit the speed bump at a fast speed.  I was sitting with Glenda in the second seat of the van behind the driver with no seat belts. When he slammed on the breaks, it pitched me forward and when he hit the bump it threw me upwards and I hit the side of my head on one of the support ribs in the ceiling of the van.  It momentarily knocked me out and I dropped like a ton of bricks.  I was out for only a moment, but the damage was done.

In the incident, the driver had blown out a tire on the van.  When I came to, we got out of the van and I walked around on the road and took some pictures of the scenery.  I didn't think anything was wrong.
Later I developed a headache that wouldn't go away.  When I got back to the states, I made an appointment with my doctor.  She took xrays and said nothing seemed to be broken or out place. Within a day or two the headache went away, and I continued on with life.

Six months later, on a Sunday in May, 2011, things begin to unravel.  Dizziness and a major headache set in and by the end of the week I ended up in the hospital in fairly serious condition.  I went through some major depression, horrific headaches and extreme personality changes.  I was sleeping eighteen hours a day and miserable.  And, I was making life miserable for everyone around me.  I ended up seeing three different neurologists and going through phyical therapy until Workman's Comp said they would not pay the bill.  Over a period of time I thought we had worked through the problems and because of the high expense, cancelled up coming therapy sessions.

Sometime in the last six months things began to go down hill again.  I was experiencing a general fogginess that I couldn't work through.  I would come into work and often times leave within an hour of getting there.  I was sleeping more and more.  The changes that were happening recently were so subtle that I didn't put together what was wrong.

In March, Glenda had two sister die withing days of each other.  On the second weekend of March we made a trip to St Louis for their funerals.  The stress was terrible!  I began to experience times when I couldn't move or talk.  It was almost like some kind of seizures.  My family wanted me to go to the hospital, but I refused to go. I made it throught the weekend with the help of the family around me.  It was a terrible weekend in every way!

When we got home, I scheduled an appointment with my Neurologist again.  I was told that I had experienced a seveere brain injury and that I would need to take more physical therapy.  He said that with time the brain would heal and I would recover, but things would get worse before getting better. And they did!

When I would stress my brain with the therapy I was taking, it would shut down completely.  I could feel it come on and it was just like my battery went dead.  I couldn't move, talk or do anything I was told to do.  I was aware of people around me but couldn't respond in anyway.  It would last from seconds to minutes and was probably the most scary thing I have ever gone through in my life.  When these times were over, I literally would come home and sleep for the rest of the day.  Fortunately, the first time it happened I was at therapy and the therapist was able to help me get through it.  She also instructed us what to do if it were to happen at home, which it did several times.

Anyhow, to make a long story shorter, I am recovering.  I am feeling so much better.  I am now able to walk and stand without falling on my face!  The fogginess is pretty much gone and I feel like a new person.  Many have commented on Facebook and asked questions about what is going on with me.  I hope this update gives you some idea of what we have been going through for the last several months. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

What Will You Contribute?

It is the end of May and 17 and 18 year olds are graduating from high school all over the world.  We have had somewhere near a dozen just from our church alone!  I always find it interesting to watch these young graduates as they begin to set their march out into what is going to become their world.

My grandson graduated this year and so we attended his graduation ceremony last week.  As those young men and women, still really mere children, marched into the ceremony two by two, I couldn't help but look at the multitude of expressions on their faces!  Their faces radiated everything from total confidence to shere terror.  There was also every other expression in between that said volumns of what these kids were feeling as they were about leave the confort of their high school class and enter into the world around them.

First of all, I have to salute those young men and women who were going into one branch of the military or another.  I believe there were a dozen from this class of 153 students.  They had already made up their mind to stand tall and contribute in many ways for the sake of their country.  Beyond that, I believe that every other student of that 153 students said they will be going off to college.  Many of them even named the direction they were going to go in their education.  Some were going into research, others in electical engineering and others, well, let's just say they had some really high hopes for themselves!

Being one who failed miserable in my years of college right out of high school, I look at some of their hopes with some sceptism!  I really do hope for the best, but I also have a high school class of my own to look back at all of our years of combined experience from there.  In my opinion, it is not whether you graduate from college at the top of your class, or even graduate from college that makes you successful!  What makes you successful in life is what you contribute to others around you.  High school graduates, you included my strappingly huge 6'4', 225 pound grandson, Isaiah, you need to look deep within yourself and ask, "Am I a giver or a taker?"  Have you spent the last years of your schooling draining energy from everyone around you or have given into their lives to make them better by knowing you?  What are your teachers from school saying about you now that you no longer are a student in school? Are they saying, Boy! Am I glad he/she is out of here. It was miserable having them in class!" Or are they saying, "So and so will sure be missed!  He/she contributed so much to class discussions, or to the feel in the room or to the joy of the class!"

As you go off on that path that will take you into your world around you, look at the people on either side of the path!  Do you see them as being there to make your world rock, or do you see them there for the purpose of you making a difference in their lives.  Can you be the one to develop a cure for cancer for those who are standing their afraid of what is coming next?  Are you there to put a smile on the face of a little boy who has no parents and has no idea of where his brothers and sisters are living.  Are you there to invent the next new kitchen gadget that will make a house wife's life much easier?  Again, my opinion, but life is better when it is all about contributing to those around you that God has put in your path.

Life Decisions--Make It Or Break It!

Lately I have been in the position to see more struggles in life close up and personal than probably what most people do.  Being a pastor, I always have people share their heartaches and pains, but recently it has been even different from that.

Without going into a lot details, I realize more than ever that so much of what we face in life is all about the decisions we make!  Decisions about the places we choose to go, the people we choose to hang out with, the things we choose to do or not do will always make us stronger in life or weaker, and eventually make us or break us!

In Deuteronomy 30:15-18, Moses tells the children of Israel, "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.  For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to pocess.  But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed.  You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess."

There is a huge similarity here to what most teenagers are going through today.  They are literally crossing over from being dependent on their parents to being dependent on themselves.  It is a time of freedom and being loosed from their parents watching over them every minute of the time to being able to make their own decisions and call their own shots in life.  The problem is, for most teenagers, they have never heard the warnings in the above passage of Scripture, and if they have, they don't pay any attention to what the words mean for their lives.

Let me tell you about my experiences as a teenager, and on into my adult years of life.  I had always been told that I "needed to be a good boy for God to love me."  Those are wise words to adhere to but in the mind of a teenager, so very shallow when applied to the big meaning of life.  The real truth of the matter is that God loves you whether you are a good boy or not!  I have found out that the bigger issue in life is all about my love for God.  As a teenager, that had very little meaning for me as I "chased after the things of the world!" After all, so it seemed, the more things that I had the more successful I looked to everyone around me.  In my chasing, and I didn't realize this until well into my adult years, that my love for getting ahead took me into some really sinful ways that were counter productive for my love toward God.

Let me try to explain "sinful ways."  The Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life!  I always saw God as watching my every move and punishing me for sin and rewarding me for righteousness.  I bet a lot of you reading this think the same thing.  But that is not the way it goes in the life process!  Look at it this way.  In the work process, the wages you earn for showing up and the work you do have very little to do with your boss!  He writes the check, but you get what you have coming to you.  If you are paid on commission, and you don't sell anything, the boss does not punish you by holding back a pay check.  There is just no reward there.  If you are paid by the hour and you don't show up for work, it is not the fault of your boss that your hours get cut back and you don't get raises as you were told you could get if did the job. The wages you earn in your job rise and fall on your shoulders and your decisions toward work.

The "wages of life" are the same way!  If I choose to live a life of sin, my wages lead toward death.  If I choose to lead a life of righteousness through Jesus Christ, which is honor to God, my life is blessed with the free gift of eternal life!  He has put these things into place as he created the world, but he is not sitting around waiting to punish you or to bless you.  It is all in our choices to honor him or dishonor him.  It is in our daily spiritual choices that life flows this way or that way! 

So lets go back to our decisions as a teenager, or an adult.  Now that I have my freedom, how do my choices determine my outcome in life?  We have a choice in our continued church attendance.  We can say, "You have no say over me now, I am free to do what I want!"  Think about the significance of what does this choice does for our wages, or outcome in life?  We might say"I am free to do what I want!  I'm ready to have sex since I am an adult now!"  Many young women are raising children by themselves because the then "adult dad" is now running like a sniffling, little boy!  Or, we might say, "I'm an adult now, I can drink and use drugs and no one can stop me!"  You would be surprised how many young adult men and women I have officiated over at their funeral, because of their adult freedom to do so.  It is sad!

So you are an adult now?  You are eighteen and ready to conquer the world around you. Listen to me!  While you set out to conquer this great big world, take God with you.  Let him show and direct your every step!  Honor him and love him and you can't go wrong! His wages are abundant and eternal life!  Romans 6:23; John 10:10  Think about it!

My Head Hurts!

My Facebook page asks the question, "What do you think?"  My Blog is entitled, "Just Thinking!"  My brain is having nothing to do with either phrase this morning.  I have so many things going through my mind that my head actually hurts.   It seems to be easier to just not think at all!

Maybe, just maybe, after 67 years of life, over 50 years in the work force, 25 years in ministry, 45 years of marriage, 43 years of raising kids and grandkids and over 16 years as Senior Pastor of New Life Bible Church, I could take a few minutes off and not think about anything.

Last night I was tired.  I went to bed early as I was home by myself.  Glenda was in Beloit at Rock River Christian College teaching a class till 9:00 PM.  About 8:30, the telephone rang and woke me out of one of the soundest sleeps that I think I have had for a long time.  Most usually I am a very light sleeper.  Any noise and it wakes me up.  Anyhow, when the phone rang I couldn't figure out what the noise was.  It rang and rang and eventually I realized it was my cell phone.  I sat up on the edge of the bed, felt for my glasses and then felt to find the phone in the dark, all still not totally awake.  I answered the phone and it was my daughter, Shelly, wondering if I was awake?  "Now I am!"  She had just left the church and was worried about Mom getting home from Beloit because the roads are drifting shut.  I rubbed my eyes and tried to text Glenda that the road were bad.  No reponse!

Since I didn't have the telephone number at the college, I called my son, who is a board member at the college.  He wanted to chat.  He had spoken for a puppie for Glenda and I before Christmas.  He had heard nothing.  He checked with the breeder and everything was okay.  Again, he heard nothing.  He checked again with the breeder and still everything was okay.  He still heard nothing.  Yesterday he called her again and found out there are no puppies.  He was upset and somewhat angry.  I just wanted to go back to sleep.  We ended the conversation and I laid back down.
Two seconds later, I get a text message on my phone.  Feel around for the glasses and the phone and see it is Jason.  "Mom left Beloit 20 minutes ago!"  The thought went through my mind, "She'll be fine!" and I went back to sleep.

Two minutes later the phone goes off again!  The groping routine starts all over again and eventually I find the phone.  This time it is from a Schipperke rescue who has three Schipperke's that need a home.  How is that for timing?  For fifteen minutes I texted back and forth with her, and by now, guess who is wide awake!  Instead of trying to go back to sleep, this time I get up and go turn the TV on.  At 10:00 o'clock, Glenda gets home safe and sound.  I think she was impressed that I had stayed up until she got home, so don't tell her why I was awake.  Anyhow, at midnight, I was still watching TV!  Something has got to change about this sleep thing in our house!

So today, I get to go through life mushed brain and try not to think anymore than I have to.  If you need serious cousel today, tomorrow might be a better day to make an appointment!  Just trying not to think...

Support Missions

I started this yesterday and hit a wrong key as neared the finish.  You can guess what happen as well as I can.  It disappeared and I haven't found it since.  So today I will start over again.

I have had a complete heart change toward missions.  As a child I always said that I would be a pastor or a missionary when I grew up.  It took me to age forty to become a pastor and I was 61 years old when I went on my first mission trip.  I had spent my entire life telling myself that I wasn't called to missions!  Oh, how wrong I was.  Thus the change that I am talking about.  Since 2008 I have been to Peru four times and Haiti twice.  I have fallen in love with the people in both locations.

My point for writing this blog is this!  We are past the mission season (June to August) and everyone interested has let down on their interest for the rest of the year.  At the same time, it is too early for those who might be going next year to even work up a thought about going on a mission trip.  We are in a time of non-mission awareness!  Except for this!  In the mission fields, there are people dying every day without knowing about Jesus Christ!

I could write volumns about the good our mission trips have made in the lives of the people we go see. But I really don't need to do that now.  I am suggesting that we simply raise our awareness that while our lives go on day after day with the comfort and peace that we live in, there are people in Haiti that have lived in stick houses covered in Walmart bags since the earthquake in 2010.

Be aware that in the Amazon jungle in Peru there are kids who are living with parasites in their bodies because they have no fresh water to drink.  The next time you draw a cold glass of water out the tap at your sink, think about the young mother that is carrying water in a five gallon pail (sometimes one in both hands at the same time) for long distances for something to cook with and something to drink. Think about the purity of your water as you drink, but also think about the sewage that has run into that jungle mother's water from the village above the river, the parasites that are in that water and the chemicals that might be in that water from a factory somewhere up river.

At the moment of our non-awareness of missions, let's just up the thoughts and prayers for those people around the world that are not as well blessed as we are.  Then you might consider what you can do to help them somehow, now and in the future, and begin to pray for wisdom with what you consider!  

Working together in giving, in service and in prayer we can make a huge difference in a dark world.  You can have and do have a purpose to fulfill in missions!  Think about it!

He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses. Proverbs 28:27  (NIV)

Oh, by the way!  Now that I have finished todays posting guess what I just found?  Yesterday's draft.  Oh well!  I got to say what I felt twice if you only get to read it once:)!

Don't Rebuke An Older Man Harshly!

My heart broke as I watched the interchange between an old man and a young woman at the restaurant we ate at on Saturday morning.  Glenda and I had just finished our breakfast and walked up to the cash register to pay for our food.  There was no one there. About that time an elderly man walked into the room and in light conversation said to me, "I guess I will have to take your money!"  My response to him with a laugh, was "Sure! How much do yo want?"  We laughed together and meanwhile another man came into the area to pay his bill.  Now three of us stood there.  A moment later more people walked into the front area of the restaurant and stood there waiting for someone to seat them.  All together, there were probably a dozen or more people standing around waiting to go in or go out.

As we stood there, the elderly man that I first talked with was wiping blood off his arm with a napkin. He had brushed against the door frame and with his skin thinning, as it does for older people, the blood was running down his arm.  I commented to him that I have the same problem, and we stood there talking some more.  About that time a young waitress came and started taking the money for those who had been waiting to pay for their breakfast.  When the older man got his turn, he laid the napkin down on the cashiers counter.  She exploded.  He tried to regroup in his thinking.  He quickly picked it up, and in his haste dropped it on the floor.  She exploded at him again.  Then she told him, "Get out! Just get out of here!  I'm not kidding!  I am serious.  Go away and don't come back!"  The man was confused.  In his mind he was stuck between "Is she joking?" and "Is she serious?" He was embarrassed and humiliated. As she went on humiliating him in front of the dozen or more people standing there, he threw his money on the counter and turned and left the building.  I paid my bill and went looking for him, but he was no where to be found.  As I said, my heart broke for him.  Worse yet, my anger kindled as I watched this take place and I said nothing to her.  I was as guilty as she was!

In I Timothy 5:1, we are told, "Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. 

Treat younger men as brothers,"

My mind wrapped around this verse and I thought, "If only she knew what she had just done."  My advice to everyone reading this is this;  don't let older people bum you out. Show abnormal amounts of patience toward them even when they don't do just as you would like for them to do.  They are going through changes in their life that we (younger people:)) don't know about and don't understand.  In the last few months I have gone through the same thinning of my skin.  All I have to do is bump against something and the blood runs down my arm.  At any given time I have marks on my arm that look like I have been some sort of battle.

But that is not the worst.  As we age, our minds are not as sharp as they once were.  It takes just a moment longer to sort things out.  At the intersection of two streets, we need an extra moment to make sure someone isn't coming from the side direction.  At the difficult moments is life, it takes an extra second or two to even see the potential danger. In the conversations of life, we may repeat a story or say something that is offending and not even mean it that way.  

When dealing with older people, encourage them as you would your father.  As Christians, it is important for us get a good handle on this.  There are enough people in the world that will just verbally blow the old man or the old woman away!  We must be the light of Jesus and show love in every situation.  Think about this!