The Last Mile

I was running out of time and ready to give up. Coasting easily to the finish sounded so tempting, and after 12 miles of a 13 mile race, my legs pleaded to just stop. But that guy several hundred yards in front of me . . . my little competitive voice kept drifting up through the pain: “Go get him.” I had been trailing him for several miles, near the completion of the Missoula Half Marathon. Even if I didn’t pass this guy, I would have been satisfied with my time and effort.


I lost sight of him as he rounded the next corner a block away. Crowd noise and an announcer’s voice wafting through the trees meant the finish line was close. I inhaled deeply and looked down, beginning to accept the fact I would not catch the guy and could coast to the finish.

As I exhaled and looked back up, there on the corner stood a lone woman, clapping.

Now, most spectators along race routes say encouraging, yet banal, things as you run past – “Way to go,” “Nice job,” or “You’re doing great.” This woman, however, made eye direct contact with me as I rounded the corner, cocked her head toward the other guy, and said excitedly, “Oh yeah, I think you got him.”

As I rounded the corner, the guy came into view, no closer than before. But in that instant, I knew the mystery woman was right. With her encouragement, I felt suddenly energized, and began to pick up the pace. The guy got closer and closer and closer as I chased him down, eventually churning past him without letting up until the finish line. I didn’t win the race – not by a long shot – but it sure felt like I had. All it took was a little encouragement.

We feel run down at times. We just get tired. We know plenty of people in the same condition. But targeted and meaningful words, more than the usual trite words, delivered at the right time can be uplifting and invigorating. “Gracious speech is like clover honey – good taste to the soul, quick energy for the body” (Proverbs 16:24, MSG), energy for us all to push on a little farther than we think possible. “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thes. 5:11, NIV) so we can all finish strong together.

Power Aware

What if we could see the how much energy gets sucked up by our electric-powered machines, simply by plugging them in? That was the idea behind the Power-Aware Cord, one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Inventions of 2010. Lights wrapped into the cord glow as electricity flows through it. The more power a machine draws, the brighter the cord glows, so a person could actually see the highest contributors to their electricity bill. According to Time, researchers discovered that making the electricity “visible” alerted people to the items that used the most power, so they could adjust their habits and uses accordingly.

What’s the biggest energy drain on your life? For me, the all-too-easy, but honest, answer in the past several months is “Work has swamped me,” and made me too busy to focus on much else. I’ve felt impatient, cranky and snippy. I probably glowed as I burned all that energy, a beautiful hue of angry, frustrated red. Ironically, the more energy I expended at work to try and beat back the mounting aggravation, the more frustrated I felt, which irritated me even more.

But I should have known better. For years, I carved out some time during lunch to read the Bible. During this recent stretch, guess what I continually skipped doing? When I take back some measure of control over my schedule and force myself to read Scripture despite everything trying to squeeze it out, the turbulence of the day smoothes out.

Just this week, I was supposed to participate in a conference call that would have sucked up another hour I did not have to spare. After stealing a few quick minutes with the Word just before the call, I joined in. However, several key participants mysteriously did not call in. So the call was canceled after about 10 minutes. And I felt brighter, lighter and energized.

Every time we read the Bible, we are “growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so (we) might have great endurance and patience” (Colossians 1:10-11). As we grow in that knowledge, God also uses His Word to teach, rebuke, correct and train us (2 Timothy 3:16), which brings to light those areas where we have allowed ourselves to drift away from Him and grown dim, so we can adjust accordingly.

The more we read, the more we grow. And the more we grow, the more we glow, because we get plugged into the ultimate, inexhaustible power source. What are you plugged into?

Tear jerker

The tears caught me off guard, especially since they were mine, and I was trying to speak. As part of the LIFE 401 Sunday School class at Life Covenant Church, we were supposed to be describing how our relationship with Jesus started, and what it’s meant to each of us. I had told different pieces of my story many times . . .

Raised by a single mother who made me go to church as a kid, but I didn’t want to. In my late 20’s, my future wife gave me a Bible. Not to seem ungrateful, I started reading it cover-to-cover, slogging through in over two years. During that time, I got married and started my own business, as an over-analytical bundle of nerves and doubts.

The very same week I finished the last verse of Revelation, I attended a spiritual retreat, and suddenly, everything in the Bible made sense. Jesus spoke to me directly, accepted me and loved me. From that moment on, I desperately needed Him. I still have my doubts and fears, but thanks to my faith in Him, they are short-lived. Even though I’m still learning about Him years later, I can tell Jesus is watching over me because I put my trust in Him. I have no other explanation as to why things have worked out the way they have, and it’s been just outstanding.

A tear-jerking story? May not seem like it, but I have brought myself to tears every time I have been invited to speak to groups of people about what Jesus means to me.

Pop quiz: What do the movies Finding Nemo, Up and even Despicable Me all have in common? Not only are they animated movies, but they all opened my tear duct spigots. Bonus points if you realized another common thread includes a father or a father-figure trying to protect and connect with lost or rejected kids.

I never got to experience that, because my parents separated before I started pre-school, thanks to Dad’s unfaithfulness. After my cloudburst in LIFE 401, I realized my testimony actually begins there – the reason why a single mother was raising me by herself.

And that’s why I cry tears of thanks whenever I talk about Jesus.

Where my biological father offered rejection, God accepted me. When I got left out, He chose me. When I got abandoned, He invited me into His family. “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5, NLT). Those words are so sweet to someone who never had a father. The more I know Jesus and the more I understand what He did for me, the more grateful and thankful I become.

*Sniff*

. . . can someone pass the tissues?

 

Zechariah & Me

There is one topic I never get tired of and always find interesting - me. I could talk about many topics, as long as I could relate it back to me. I am interested in many things, but ultimately, I want to know how something is going to affect me.


Which is probably why I related so well to the story of Zechariah this Christmas.

When the angel Gabriel announced Zechariah and Elizabeth would be parents, Zechariah’s response in different translations of Luke 1:18 sounded like it was coming from me, myself and I.

• NIV: “How can I be sure of this?”
• NASB: “How will I know this for certain?”
• The Message: “Do you expect me to believe this?”

No problem determining where his focus was at that moment, even though he is described as upright in the sight of God before Gabriel arrives (Luke 1:6).

By comparison, Mary’s response to an almost identical situation, with Gabriel again declaring she would be a parent despite a seemingly impossible situation, differs dramatically. Where is the focus of her responses in the translations of Luke 1:34?

• NIV: “How will this be?”
• NASB: “How can this be?”
• The Message: “But how?”

Both Zechariah and Mary were asking questions to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). But which response do you think God is after, since only one of them ended up mute until the birth of their child?

And in the coming year, which way will you respond when the Lord announces your next assignment for Him? As Zechariah found out, if you focus on yourself, it just shows your ignorance toward the power of God, sets yourself up as an idol, and leaves you a little more isolated from the people He expects us to serve.

But enough about you. I’ve got something much more inter – Sorry. Still need some work in that area.

Connections

My wife helped coach our friend Julie through the birth of her son, and Julie promised she would be there to help coach my wife a few months later when our baby was due. One of Julie’s favorite phrases is the exclamation “Holy Buckets!” as in “Holy buckets, it’s cold outside.” With three kids of her own, she uses the phrase liberally when she could be saying something much, much stronger and more colorful.


When our daughter arrived abruptly and unexpectedly six weeks early, we rushed to the nearest neonatal intensive care unit, an hour and a half drive away. Within the first 30 minutes of our tiny daughter’s new life, as the nurse and I were looking at her in her little incubator, the nurse said “Holy buckets is she doing good.”

And just like that, Julie was there, just as she had promised. During a very tense, emotional time, it put me at ease for a moment because up popped an unexpected, yet very much welcome, connection to a friend.

Simple reminders of other people in our lives, both past and present, are popping up all the time, if you notice. Certain songs. Particular movies. Uttered phrases. Unearthed pictures. And it never seems to be just one isolated reminder. After the initial trigger, typically other reminders cascade one after the other after the other. Then after recognizing these reminders, don’t you always get a surprise call from that person or meet them, seemingly by chance, in line at the store? “Hey! I’ve been thinking of you lately.” The reminders seem like some pretty strong coincidences.

So what is going on?

We all share a common connection, and his name is Jesus. He’s in all of us, and through Him we are all connected. He said “You are in me, and I am in you” (John 12:26). So when the thoughts of someone start popping into your head, who do you think is putting them there? Jesus reminds you of a particular person at a particular time for a reason. His reason. Whatever that may be.

So reach out. Call them. Pray for them. And, holy buckets, remember He might be reminding them of you someday, just when He knows you need the help too.

Richard

My neighbor Richard is crazy. Nice enough guy, just certifiably crazy. I’m not sure what else to call someone who enjoys backpacking for a month at a time. In some of the most remote wilderness in Montana. During the winter. As a backcountry adventure photographer, Richard takes some amazing photos of winter scenes rarely, if ever, viewed by anyone (http://www.richardlaynephoto.com/). The places he goes would be difficult to get to during the summer months. But they can be downright dangerous and precarious in the winter due to dwindling food supplies, avalanches, plummeting temperatures, wind, frostbite, gear failure, and on and on. But Richard loves it, and has for a long time.


He wrote a very rough draft of a book about crisscrossing the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in the winter to go with his pictures, and allowed me to review and comment on it. During his journey, he faced several death-may-be-imminent kinds of trouble. In these situations, he verbally calls out to God about his predicament. Not always using the most humble and nicest words, he’d often speak to God like more of an accusation, followed by a plea for help. And shortly after, his situation improves each time. Yet, Richard told me later he doesn’t ask God for help unless he’s stuck on the side of a mountain somewhere.

As I thought about it later, I wondered, had God instilled this drive in Richard to be in the wilderness, just so He could reveal himself to Richard when He had his undivided attention? Had God made Richard go into the wilderness to help him realize who he truly needed to rely on?

Why not. Before He walked on water, “Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida” (Mark 6:45 – my emphasis). In the evening after they had set off, Jesus watched them strain and struggle against the wind and waves on their own. Later, during the night, He walked out to them on the water (Mark 6:47-48).

The storm continued to rage when Peter decided to do something crazy, and walked into a little trouble. It wasn’t until Peter called for help that Jesus reached out His hand to him and kept him from drowning (Matthew 14:31). Which means Jesus had been standing within arm’s reach of Peter. And He has probably been standing right next to Richard all this time, answering when he calls for help, because the only time Richard asks is out in the wilderness, several days removed from anywhere or anyone else.

And The Lord is standing right next to us, ready to help when we ask, too. The question is, how far are we making Him go with us before we ask?

Granny's Bra

Heads turned when my grandmother walked in the room for breakfast. Or so I was told. Decades would pass before I was born. My father and his brother were young teenage punks at this particular time. And being young teenage punks, they kept needling their parents. Smart alecks, sneaky, and scantily clad for breakfast. Their breakfast attire consisted of boxer shorts and undershirts.


Showing up for breakfast without being fully dressed and ready for the day grated on their parents. It was their father who pleasantly asked the boys to not come into the kitchen in their underwear. They continued showing up in their underwear. Their father strongly urged the boys to get ready first, then come down for breakfast. They continued showing up in their underwear. Their father passionately implored the boys to let their underwear live up to its name. They continued showing up with their underwear as their outerwear.

Nothing worked. Nothing, at least, until my grandmother arrived late for breakfast that morning. She strode into the room and went about her normal routine. Yet, instead of hearing the usual clinking silverware, rustling newspapers and discussions about the day ahead, she moved around in thick silence. The boys and her husband stared at her. I’m sure one of them froze with a fork halfway up to an open mouth. She eventually came to the head of the table and faced them all . . .

In her bra.

My grandfather reportedly erupted like Vesuvius, chasing the boys and my grandmother out of the kitchen with a high volume, red-faced berating. Everyone showed up for breakfast fully clothed forever more.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 4, Paul vents about the arrogance of some of the church members, and the trouble it is causing. He challenges them, and warns them that he is coming to find out if they are all just talk, or whether they have some real God-given power. And he offers them a choice for this confrontation: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?” (1 Cor. 4:21). There will still be confrontation. The results will probably be the same. But the discussion can either be harsh or mild.

When confronting their boys about their choice of breakfast attire, both of my grandparents chose their own way to confront their boys. Although he tried to be gentle at first, my grandfather used words of escalating harshness. My grandmother never said a word, which could have been misinterpreted as being complacent, but delicately used her delicates to deliver her point. And which method got results, the whip or the gentle spirit?

Which method will get us results next time we need to confront someone?

Which method would we want someone to confront us with?