Monday Morning Memo: In An Instant

Last week I shared with you what we did the first week of our recent vacation, which was spent in Tennessee with our daughter and her three sons. We stayed at a resort which had an indoor/outdoor water park…so that, along with a place nearby which had lots of amusement park type rides…kept us very busy.

We made the arrangements for that trip quite a few months ago and had planned to return home at the end of the week.  That is, until our granddaughter from North Carolina contacted us and asked if there was any way possible we could come to her graduation.  She told us the date was June 14^th which was the Wednesday after our trip.  The timing couldn’t be more perfect.  Since we would already be in Tennessee, we could just leave from there and go to our other daughter’s home.  That gave us a few days to spend with them before the much-awaited graduation.

We had a great first week and woke up on Friday, ready to pack up the car to head to North Carolina.  As we were getting ready, a text came in from our daughter informing us that our granddaughter’s boyfriend (who was also graduating this year), along with a 16-year-old friend, had died in a car accident the night before.  We couldn’t believe it.  Two young men with their whole life in front of them, taken in an instant.  

Life doesn’t always go as planned, does it.  It doesn’t always follow our neat and tidy arrangements.   James 4:13-16 tells us, “Look here you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year.  We will do business there and make a profit.’  How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?  Your life is like the morning fog – It’s here and a little while, then it’s gone.  What you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.  Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans and all such boasting is evil.’”   Of course we have to make plans, but there are times when those plans are turned upside down…and we are left reeling.  

In an instant…we are reminded that life, as this scripture says, is like the morning fog…it’s here a little while and then gone and none of us are promised tomorrow.  Yet, how often do we live as if our final day on this earth will never come?  We live as if we have all the time in the world to make things right with those around us.  Oh, we plan to reconcile with estranged family members…but just not now. We also plan to make things right with God…to accept Him as our Lord and Savior…but just not now.  We have other things we want to do today…so we put those decisions on the back burner until we’ve done everything that we want to do.  

Friend, I hope you and I have many more days on this earth…but the truth of the matter is that we may not.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news on this Monday morning…but we may never get to do everything that we have so meticulously planned, because in an instant, we might be taken.  In an instant, we could be standing before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and the opportunity to make things right, will be gone.

I have no idea what your plans are for tomorrow…but if I may suggest something for today…make a point to set things right.  Do you have family or friends who you aren’t speaking to?  Make it right with them today.  Don’t delay.  Make the first move and be willing to reconcile.  Life is too short to spend it apart from those we love.

If you are waiting to accept Christ…I want to urge you to not wait any longer.   What is holding you back?  Christ died on the cross and rose again….for YOU!  He loves you that much and wants to walk with you on your life journey.  Honestly, I can’t imagine going through my life without Jesus by my side.  

All you need to do is ask Him to forgive you of your sins and He will make you clean.  Then, when in an instant you are taken from this earth and stand before His throne…you will get to spend eternity with Him.  Trust me…it’s a win-win!   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Monday Morning Memo: Adventure Living

We just returned from a two week “vacation”.  I put quotation marks around that word…because as often happens…I felt like I needed a vacation when we returned home to rest from our “vacation”!  But it was a wonderful 14 days.

The first week we travelled to Tennessee with our daughter and her three sons and stayed at a resort which had an indoor/outdoor water park. There was also a place nearby that had lots of amusement park type rides…so two days were spent conquering every opportunity to be whipped around on a track…dropped from high heights…or spun around and around.  My husband and daughter deserve an award for doing things at both places that pushed them to their limits…so that our precious grandsons, who have no fear of new experiences…had the time of their lives.

The frustrating thing for me was that I had to be a spectator, not a participant, in most of these experiences.  After five back surgeries and a disorder that greatly limits me…I could only be an observer.  I knew going into this vacation that I could either make that truth be something that irritated me and made me not a fun person to be around…or I could be intentional in making sure I was a part of the experience, without being able to partake in these activities.

Enter the phrase, “Adventure Living”.  I decided that throughout the week, I would use this phrase with my grandsons.  As we took them to various places…I would tell the boys that this was “adventure living” because it was an opportunity to do something they had never done before.  When they got tired and wondered “how much farther” our 4+ mile hike in the Smoky Mountains would last…I told them that this was adventure living and we were there to enjoy the experience. When I wanted to show them one of my favorite places in the area where there is a fountain that is set to run to music (not something they thought sounded too exciting) …I told them that it would be awesome because it was adventure living (and yes, they ended up loving it!).  Over and over again…they heard me say the phrase “adventure living”.

Finally, after several days, one of my grandsons said, “Grandma, why do you keep saying that everything is ‘adventure living’?” My response was, “Because someday, when you have kids of your own, I hope you will say to them ‘I sure wish you could have known my crazy grandma.  She was always pushing us to do new things because she said that was adventure living’.”  They then said that maybe I will still be alive when they have kids and I can tell them myself.  While we know that is possible…I’m not banking on it 

Confession time.  In my own life, the words “Adventure Living” haven’t been my main motto.  My idea of adventure living is not using a measuring spoon when a recipe calls for a teaspoon of oregano…and I just throw caution to the wind and throw some in.  So, it doesn’t come natural for me to then want to do adventure living with my grandchildren.  In fact, just putting a bathing suit on AND wearing it in public was almost more than I could handle on our vacation.  But I remembered that when my first grandchild was born…I decided I would do everything in my power to be “in the moment” with this cherished young life and any other precious grandchildren of whom we would be blessed…and if that meant I needed to wear a bathing suit…I would do it.  Little did we know that we would end up with seven amazing grandchildren and number eight will join us in September!  What a blessing!

I want my grandchildren to really know me…with all my faults and failures…but that will never happen if I don’t do life with them.  They need to see how I approach life…how I act and react to life’s detours…and where my focus is and that isn’t going to happen if I’m just sitting on the sidelines.  God is impressing on me that because I have been blessed to have these young lives in our family…I have a responsibility to not just have fun with them…but to pour Jesus into them at every opportunity.

You see, I not only want my grandchildren to be able to tell their kids about our adventure living experiences…I also want them to be able to say that their grandma loved her Jesus with every fiber of her being.  That she was always pointing them to her Savior and He directed her every step.  That is such a tall order and I feel like I fail more than I succeed…but by doing life together…I’m praying they will also see that God’s grace is readily available when we fall short.

Who has God put in your path that you can influence?  Maybe it’s your children…not your grandchildren.  Or, if you don’t have children or grandchildren…maybe it’s a family who doesn’t have any grandparents in the area who really wish they did.  Or, maybe it’s someone who works next to you every day.  Whoever it is…ask God to give you the opportunity to come alongside them and then be intentional on “Adventure Living” together.  Who knows…you may realize that you needed them even more than they needed you  

Monday Morning Memo: Focus

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting to the place where I hate to turn on the news anymore. Pushing the “on” button on the remote, fills my mind with reports of atrocious, hate filled murders, unimaginable abuse of children, politicians from both sides all shouting they have the answers for our country but, unfortunately, most of those “answers” aren’t based on Biblical principles…and I could go on and on. Add to that our day-to-day stresses of living such as job issues, family difficulties and health issues and it is no wonder that many people are suffering from depression.

The surprising thing is that none of this is new news.  Just pick up the Bible and start reading the Old Testament.  I don’t know if you have noticed, but there aren’t a lot of fun, good-feeling stories there either.  There were many wars, multiple murders, people sacrificing their children, plagues (just to name a few) and none of these events leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling.   In fact, sometimes reading these Biblical accounts makes a person feel worse when they’re done than when they started.

But then, come across Isaiah 2:22 and it says, “Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils.  Of what account is he?”   Read and reread that verse, and you may come to the same conclusion that I did that this verse summarizes the main reason we can feel “down-in-the dumps”.  Many times, we become discouraged because we have put our eyes on man and man has let us down.  As Christians we need to remember that our focus is not to be on a human, but on the One who created us and will never let us down.

Humans can be unreliable, selfish, shortsighted, cruel…yet we often seek after them instead of putting our trust in our all-knowing God.  Psalm 100:5 tells us, “For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”  HE is good…HE is faithful…HIS love never fails. 

If we believe this to be true, then it is important that we ask ourselves: Where is my focus?  On whom do I put my trust?  If Christ is the answer to these questions, then even when the world is in turmoil around us, we can have peace that passes all understanding.   And it is that peace that the world is looking for, but may never experience, unless they see it in us first.  

Monday Morning Memo: A Hot Manure Pile

As many of you know…my mind often works in strange ways.  I can read something, and what pops into my brain would probably never come to anyone else’s.  Yep, call me an odd duck…because that description fits me well :-) 

This happened when I read a couple verses in the Bible.  I found them in Luke 14:34-35.  It says, “Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again?  Flavorless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!”  When I read these verses, I wondered what in the word does salt have to do with a manure pile!

So, I started doing some research and as always, I found several different explanations for these verses.  But there was one that sort of stuck in my warped mind…so naturally, that is the one I will share with you.

In these verses, Jesus was referring to his followers being like salt in the world and if we lose our “saltiness”, we’re not fit for even the manure pile.  But for that to make sense, we need to know why salty salt is good on a manure pile and why un-salty salt isn’t.  I have never bragged that I’m an expert on manure piles…so I had to do some investigating.

The explanation I found was that in Jesus’ day, people cooked over fires that used dried animal manure as fuel because deserts didn’t have a large supply of wood.  The people learned that when they mixed salt with the manure, the salt caused a chemical reaction which made the fire burn brighter and hotter for longer.  But after a while, this process broke down the salt, causing it to become un-salty, and so the chemical reaction with the manure stopped and the fire would go out.

Jesus used this illustration to get across to the people that they were supposed to be like salty salt, so that when they were mixed in with the “manure” of the world, they were able to cause God’s Word to burn brighter and hotter.  In other words, their lives should be causing the “chemical reaction” so they would shine brightly for Him!

So, and here comes the really warped mind part, all I could think of as I read this explanation was… how hot is my manure pile?  If how I am living my life determines how brightly I am shining for others who don’t know my Jesus…do they see Him in me or is my “fire” petering out?  Have I lost my “saltiness” in the unsaved world around me…or am I making sure my life is kept “seasoned” by my close relationship with my Jesus? 

You’ve probably already guessed that I can’t end this without asking you the same question…how hot is your manure pile?  Is it burning hotter and brighter because the “salt” of your life has been thrown in the mix?  Or are your embers starting to go out?   

I think we can all agree that we are living in a world that needs Jesus.  If we aren’t shining brightly for Him…I’m doubtful that anyone will be too interested in our cold embers.  So, let’s make a point this week to throw ourselves into the “mix” so that those who are lost will be drawn to our flame!

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop 

that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp 

and then puts it under a basket.  Instead, a lamp 

is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone 

in the house.  In the same way, let your good deeds 

shine out for all to see, so that everyone 

will praise your heavenly Father.”

Matthew 5:14-16