A Bunch of Wise-Guys

Who do you have to help you with the big questions in life?  Who do you have in your life that you can turn to when you are faced with difficult or confusing situations? 

We are not meant to live this life alone.  We are not created with absolute knowledge, allowing us to know everything we need to know.  To navigate circumstance we need input, perspective, and experience to aid us in our journey through life.  How many times do I make choices with out experience, knowledge, or know-how and just hope that somehow things will work out?  Too many!  If someone has walked that path before me, if someone has learned lessons from the school of life, wouldn’t it make sense to glean from them?

It’s been said, “A wise man learns from his mistakes, a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others.”  I don’t know who originally said it, but I’ve been saying it and trying to live it for the last 20 years. 

Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” (KJV)

In my last 20 years I’ve taken this verse to heart and pulled in a team of 5 men that I trust, respect, and love. They have made themselves available to me when ever I have needed them.  They are a motley bunch in whose ages range from 40 to 79.   They all love Jesus, love their families, love what they do, and have sought to be faithful to the call that God has put on their lives.  

1. One is a part-time teacher at a local college.  Worked 30 years at local shipyard before semi-retirement.  Is single, never-married, and has been walking with Jesus for over 50 years.  Faithfully serves his local church and loves his neighbors in his community. 
2. One is a facilities manager at a church in another state.  He’s over 60, and at 45 he decided God was calling him into ministry.  He picked up and moved his family to Dallas, TX.  He worked full-time as a vending machine operator, served the church, attended/graduated Dallas Theological Seminary, and was able to love and be there for his family through out those grueling time demanding years. 
3. One is my best friend who is a project manager for a large construction outfit in another state. He is a year younger than I am but started a family before I did.  He has always had a heart to serve God and His people.  
4. Another one is my pastor.  He retired from pulpit ministry a few years ago and felt God’s leading to start a non-profit organization to teach and train missionary pastors all through out Asia.  His ministry has now branched into Africa.  At 65 he stepped away from a “sure thing” and stepped out in faith to something that has taken off.  He too has always been someone who put his family first before anything else.  Many in ministry sacrifice their families for “success”, I’m grateful for his example. 
5. The last one is my dad.  The father-son relationship is a unique relationship.  For me, I didn’t always see the sweetness of it.  As a disciplinarian, and me needing a lot of discipline, I didn’t always see eye to eye with my dad.  It’s only after becoming a dad do I see the task more clearly that was before both my parents in raising me and my brothers (we were not an easy group).  My dad has always loved us, sought to put us on trajectories where we had the best chance to succeed, provided for our needs and many times, our wants too.  My dad has loved my mom and been faithful to her for almost 50 years.  He’s been very successful in his career and has helped build solid foundations in countless young men through coaching sports, leading Cub Scout Packs, and Boy Scout Troops.  

When I have something that I need to work through, when I have a decision that seems out of my wheelhouse, when I need experience and wisdom to speak into my life… these men are where I go.  Not all of us talk every week.  Some of us touch base on social media every once and a while.  But I know that when I need some wise counsel, they make themselves available to me.  I have all of their cell phone numbers. 

Who do you have?  Who do you know that you can reach out to?  

These are just 5 men that I have in my life that I’ve always been able to turn to, pray with, and ask some of life’s deeper and more significant questions to.   My wife is a source of wisdom and balance. Within my church family there are many women who have given valuable and cherished insight.  Within my church family there are those that God has used to shape my understanding and focus.  My older brothers are also a good sounding board for me.  As we talk, God has used them in my life to sharpen, humble, and quicken me.   I got real quick running away from them!  Just kidding.  But no, really.  :)

God has not left me alone to figure these things out.  

It’s these 5 men, whom I affectionately term my “wise guys”, that speak into my life.  

You don’t have to do life alone.  Find three, four, or five folks that you love and trust, that you respect their witness in life, that there are elements of their character that you would desire to attain… reach out to them.  Let them know you admire and respect them.  Ask them, extend them the invitation to speak into your life.  Allow them the honor and opportunity to help see you flourish and succeed as you face the challenges and opportunities of life. 

We will fail at times.  We will fall at times as well.  But in a multitude of counselors, you will have the best possible opportunity to succeed!  Take heart as well, as you make yourself available for others, your failures will be their successes.  We’re in this together, let’s not go at it alone.

May God richly bless you!

Memorial Day - 2018

I hate war.  I hate the thought of countries being at war.  I’ve never been in a war.  War is not something I need to experience in order to know how I feel about it.  The Bible, and world history, tells me that we will never escape war while here on Earth.  This frustrates me. 

Those in my family who have seen war rarely ever talk about it.  My uncle saw war in Vietnam.  My brother saw it in Afghanistan.  I’m grateful that they both made it back alive.  They would both tell you that their experience has deeply affected them.  

I have close friends who met in the second Iraq war and got married while on deployment.  Having been home from the conflict for over a decade, this couple quietly leave the country on the fourth of July. The explosions that are meant to celebrate and commemorate the independence and freedom of this country, put them mentally and emotionally back in the hell they escaped years ago.   Fortunately, living in the Pacific Northwest, Canada is only a few short hours drive.   No bombs bursting in air up there at that time in the big maple… it’s a refuge. 

My friends and family are home, and are alive. For that, I am grateful.  

I don’t ever expect to understand the depth of their hurt.  I see it though when every once and a great while, they speak so highly of the men and women they served with who didn’t come home.  They speak of their character, grit, leadership, and wisdom.  That these individuals demonstrated what Jesus calls the greatest love,

“No greater love has no one than this; to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13).  

It’s usually said of them that they were the best among them.  

My brother wrote this on Facebook a couple years ago, "A smaller group of Americans experience this in a very personal way (Memorial Day) because when we think about Service Members who gave their lives, we start missing all our dead friends. We think about their kids who don't have their mom or dads, we wonder if we could have done something to prevent it, then we hope they're family is getting along ok and feel guilty for having lost contact with them." It's deep, it's significant, and it's life altering. 

On this memorial day, may we stop for a moment and remember.

Let us remember those who laid their lives down and did not get back up.

Let us remember the families and friends who grieve their loss.

Let us remember the character, grit, and values exemplified in these men and women.

Let us remember to pray for those that are hurting.

Let us remember to pray for our leaders in government.

Let us remember to pray for peace.

Let us remember to be that peace in our interactions with others.

Let us remember that one action of love can have a ripple effect that transforms a community and a people over time.

Let us remember that we can lay our lives down for those around us, as we seek to serve others, in honor and in memory of those who have fallen down range. 

Just about every week, as a pastor, I preach for us to look unto Jesus Christ as our example in life, service, and love.  I’m confident of those that my family and friends speak about, those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, are worthy examples to imitate in their character, grit, dedication, and love.  If everyone in this world could take a page out of their play book, that maybe… just maybe… war could be avoided. 

I pray that this memorial day will be one filled remembrance.  Remembrance of the lives that were given, the lives that live on, and the life that can be lived.  As Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who is in Heaven… Your kingdom come, Your will be done, here on Earth as it is in Heaven.”  Heaven, where there is no more war.  Heaven, where there is no more pain.  Heaven, where this no more death.  Heaven, where there is no more tears.   Come Lord Jesus, come. Even so, come quickly.

Finding True North

In Boy Scouts, when navigating on a map in the wilderness, we learned how to find true North by knowing the declination based on where we were on the Earth. Because of the curvature of the Earth, magnetic North (which shows on the compass) and truth North (applying the degree shift of declination) are different.

If you would consider yourself a Christian, our culture and politics (in light of current events) would point you in a direction that is fear based, self-insular, and ok with the potential mass murder of 100's of thousands of people. I would argue, a few degrees off of true North.

Jesus is our true North as Christians. If Jesus is the exact imprint of God's nature, then we really do know what God thinks of life, war, and the potential at being harmed at the hands of others. 

My hope is that in these difficult times, the Church of Jesus would be the bringers of peace and not the ambassadors of war. Rather than "peace through strength", our cry would be "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven".

May we accurately reflect what it means to be the ambassadors of Christ. 

Megan

Today my heart was moved.  We’re trying to get this initiative off of the ground where we’re filming stories of people in low-income housing, hoping to tell these stories to help motivate other churches to enter into relationship with the neighborhood. 

The director of the neighborhood we're building a relationship with encouraged a young girl to ask her moms if they would be interested in sharing their story.  In explaining to this young girl, whom we’ll call Megan, that we are a church and we just want to help people in the neighborhood.  The 12 year old girl hesitated.   They removed themselves from our presence.  They came back and Megan stammered trying to ask a question, “I don’t know how to ask this.”   I tried to assure her to just get out there and I’ll do my best to answer her question.

“Do you help even if the people are gay or lesbian?”

I responded with the hope of assuring a visible doubt, “Yes, it does not matter what your sexual orientation or preference is, we want to help”. 

Megan seemed assured, said “Ok, thanks.”, made eye contact with her friend the neighborhood director, a smile came across her face, and she was off.  The director then shared with me that she had been to five churches over the last year and had left because her moms were in a lesbian relationship. 

Where is there room for people who don’t agree with us in our church?  Do they have to have their life in order before they come?  Or can we only accept those whose sin we can be comfortable with?  

Are we OK with the glutton, but ostracize the homosexual?  Are we OK with the one that is engaged in a premarital sexual relationship, but a same sex attracted individual can not be in community to know what a Christ centered loving community looks like? Have we forgotten that sin comes in all forms, one not more egregious than another in God's eyes?  Have we forgotten that we are to be IN the world, amongst people who we disagree with and are not like us? 

My hope is that Megan and her moms will be able to experience and see in a tangible way, the love of Christ.  That through relationship they may understand the breadth, depth, and height of the love of Christ for them.  That they will have a loving community that will come around them and not abandon them as the Holy Spirit is faithful to convict them of sin, righteousness, and judgement... just as He continues to do the same work in me. 

Prayer: Father, please help your church to love well.  Not holding the sins of others as a personal offense, but rather we might look to be an extension of Your grace in their lives as we ourselves experience Your grace.  Amen.