So you think you’re far from the best this world has to offer?
Maybe you’re right, but you’re also far from the worst of its choices.
With a little integrity, wit, passion, kindness and a gentle heart, you’ll up your value and be more expensive but well worth the investment.
Act your price.
People will always pay handsomely for the rarer gem.
You and I cannot somehow be good enough nor well-behaved enough to gain entrance to heaven and eternal life.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:8-10 NIV
Consider each new morning an open seat at a poker table.
Your deal is determined by a shuffle, so accept what’s handed you with grace and understanding that winning or losing is largely up to you.
Don’t cheat, don’t count, use your best skills.
Life’s not entirely a game of chance, but when it’s over the best of us smile and tip the Dealer for the chances you were given.
Depart the game a very rich man regardless and begin anew tomorrow.
God requires only repentance and faith, not obedience.
Obedience is the logical product of faith working in us through the Holy Spirit.
You can’t be good enough to earn a place in heaven because that’s a forced output reliant on you and you alone.
Having repented due to faith in Christ puts the burden of producing obedience in you on him and him alone.
For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths.
Proverbs 5:21 NIV
Hiding from the God’s sight is as old as creation.
First in the garden, still today and through every tomorrow, there’s no escape from being found by God.
He pursues us relentlessly, hoping we’ll stop the hide n seek because his nature is to be a seeker much more than is your skill at being a hider.
Who in their right mind wouldn’t want the creator of all to look for them and redeem them for all time and eternity?
I wonder if they’ll wonder why
I never ever said good bye.
I’m not around and out of touch
Nothing nowhere, not so much.
I wonder if they’ll wonder where
I’ve clearly vanished to thin air.
Or look and see I’m not around
And hear me not, and can’t be found.
I wonder if they’ll wonder how
I took my leave without a bow.
Or disappeared without a trace
And left no tear on no one’s face.
I wonder if they’ll wonder when
I might be coming back again.
Like absences that reappear,
Not very likely, this is clear.
I wonder if they’ll wonder if
At six feet under when I’m stiff
I’ve gone away to heaven’s gate
With earnest hope for them to wait.
I wonder who will wonder then
Or think of things which might have been
Or wonder not, their life resume
To wonder things they just presume.
I wonder if I’ll even wonder
In that sleep to think and ponder
Thoughts like these I left behind
Or in their slumber never mind.
Or if and when and how and why
It even matters when I die?
But wonder not where I have gone,
Rejoice instead I’m finally home.
In spite of all this, they kept on sinning.
In spite of his wonders, they did not believe.
Psalms 78:32 NIV
-It seems with the passing of time, more and more people are seeking better reasons to believe.
-Verifiable miracles, unexplainable coincidences, parting seas and manna from heaven, we’re searching for greater and more contemporary reasons to sustain the faith we’ve long professed.
-“God said it and I believe it” is no longer enough.
So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.'”—John 20:25
-The lineage of doubting Thomas is all but in our blood. 🩸
Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’-verse 29.
-It’s not that we lack miracles and evidences, it’s just a much greater challenge to live by faith.
Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”—Romans 10:17
-Seeking signs and wonders is a poor replacement for a robust study of the bible to build a fortress of sustainable faith.
-If your faith is on wobbly legs, I will venture so is your bible study.
-Faith without works.
It may be a misappropriation of that passage here, but like all things, if it’s something worth having, it’s worth putting in the work and letting go of the whine.
If not for learning hard lessons in this life, we would all die among the flames of pride.
I made some mistakes yesterday but fortunately the circumstances didn’t end tragically.
One of my first responses was “That’s so unlike me. I’ve always taken pride in managing the details of my work.”
Pride is dangerous. It leads to overconfidence and consequently lazy and careless behavior.
Do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.
Proverbs 3:11-12 NIV
I hope to never make the same errors again, but hope is a poor antidote to the toxins in a prideful heart.
I’m thankful I am under the grace of God, the evidence of which is acceptance of discipline and rebuke that place me back on track again…until the next time.
Thank God I’m not God.
I’d be so exhausted with me by now.
🎤🎹 Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will be right here waiting for you.
🎤🎹
I grew up on Richard Marx songs and sang them to my kids when they were very young.
This one in particular.
Because if I can promise anything at all to the most important people in my life I want it to be the scent that I leave for them everywhere I’ve been with a hope they might follow it someday and find true life and living water.
It’s a lot like when I take my dog out for a walk (well, maybe it’s not actually a lot like it but it seems a good, albeit crude, analogy.)
He sniffs all the trees and bushes along the path for peemail messages left for him by neighborhood friends he’s rarely if ever met in person.
Flora and fauna, humans and pets, all God’s creation yearns to mark our territories with bits of wisdom, history and guidance for those who may follow.
If we can’t be there in person, we still want to be recognized and remembered in our absence for what we once were, what we believed, and what mattered most.
I want to be remembered for thoughtfulness, peace, patience, love, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control.
Unpacking all those is the task we all face and with God’s guidance we end up having manifest a good crop.
Even if nothing more than within a fleeting scent on the breeze, I hope the fruits of my spirit will linger on well past my expiration date and can bring hope and comfort for all I have left behind, but not forgotten.
Even if just a scent.
Scents are notorious for their ability to recall memories.
Once we move on into eternity, the scent we leave behind may be just what a loved one needs at just the right place and time in their own life to discover the living water that will grow their own fruits and leave them thirsty no more.
Good morning, yesterday.
You wake up, and time has slipped away.
And suddenly it’s hard to find
The memories you left behind
Remember, do you remember?
It was 1975 and I was just shy of 16, counting myself lucky to have found a legally licensed friend to drive us all on a double date to sophomore prom.
As with all proms, it was themed after a popular song of the time.
Paul Anka was big back then and “Times of your Life” had just hit Kasey Kasem’s top 10, earning it the theme of our adolescent gala.
Today at 65, single and dateless for years, I heard the song again this past Sunday morning on the oldies station and sang along with all the memories it wafted up from days gone by.
Back then, and as adolescents with seemingly immortal lives ahead of them often do, we thought it was all about us.
We’d understood the song to be about the hope of what lied ahead of us, not of one man’s reflection backward on those experiences which had already long passed into memory.
Tinkering along as old men do, I was singing a song that brought back so many great memories of high school, while at the same time realizing it was truly a song of reflection on times and experiences long since passed.
And a lot has passed indeed.
Almost half a century.
I thought “So what do I have to show for those 50 years?” What have been those times of my life in particular they say race through your mind like celluloid as you wave and take your final bow only to retire your sore ash self dusted to the four winds over a favorite place you once knew and remembered?
Apart from a knack for run-on sentences, a lot.
My list would first include people like my kids and grandkids, my family, my best friends, my dog, a few bosses, a few pastors, and several complete strangers, all of whom might either not exist or whose lives would otherwise be quite different without having spent at least some time or interactions with me.
Indeed, they represent the most significant times of my life.
Next would be circumstances.
My marriage, even my divorce, my family ad agency, my drug addiction, my recovery, my work with poor seniors and the homeless, and the times I spent writing stories about all these times of my life for others to experience.
Finally, I’ve spent much of my life urging my kids to “like things, and love people,” and as one who just recently gave away 95% of his possessions as part of a purge while moving my residence, I’d condensed all things that ever mattered at all into a 5×5 storage space, which is still more than I can take with me.
I’m not terribly thankful for the things I’ve accrued over half a century. In fact, I can’t think of any item that has made any time of my life any more memorable.
Honest reflection makes gratitude easy.
Today, now retired, I’m most thankful that memorable people and memorable experiences, good and bad, are all that seem to matter anymore.
At 16 and self-centered with my whole life ahead of me, I never imagined that this time of my life would be the time of my life.
Good morning, yesterday.
