February 2012

The Pain for Peace Exchange

Overcoming, Relationship with God /

Just yesterday I was talking to a person and we were commiserating about the fact that the longer we live the less we know. This observation was generated out of a mutual confession of perplexity with regard to recent painful disappointment he had suffered. Some things in life, especially painful circumstances beyond our control, the unfixable of life, eclipse our understanding. Like the moon passing before the sun, or cloudy skies blocking its warming rays, there are times when we do not comprehend the whys and wherefores of life. Such darkness can make it difficult to find our way.

It is necessary to be reminded that understanding the reasons for our lot in life is not necessarily the solution to our problems. While there is a tendency in all of us to grapple with the “why” question, sometimes it serves only to prolong our pain. One thing is certain, pain and suffering are an ever present part of the human condition. Not only does our experience testify to this, but an examination of the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God confirms it. Isaiah the prophet predicted hundreds of years before His birth that He would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3) And the writer of Hebrews tells us years after His death, burial and resurrection that He “learned obedience from the things He suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8)

If Jesus had to deal with pain and suffering in His life, how much more do we? In fact Paul the apostle tells us that our suffering in some mysterious way is meant to compliment and complete the sufferings of Christ. (Romans 8:17 & Colossians 1:25)

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3 Simple Ways to Beat Procrastination

4 Comments / Life Balance, Overcoming /

Nearly everyone including myself battles procrastination. Researchers have found that at least 95 percent of people admit to falling prey to procrastination. And of those, approximately 20 percent would actually consider themselves chronic procrastinators. At one time I would have placed myself in that chronic procrastination category.

But I can honestly say that a combination of faith, bible knowledge, personal experience and age have turned me into a procrastination overcomer. I’ll admit that like most people I still have the occasional battle with procrastination, when it comes to doing things I do not want to do; but I have discovered some simple principles that have helped me immensely.

Procrastination when practiced regularly can develop into an art form. Like many people I was first captivated by the art of procrastination when I was in college. It was there I discovered two things about procrastination. If it were not for the last minute, I would not get anything done. And when it came to doing things I didn’t want to do, especially studying, someday tended to be every day of the week.

There has been voluminous research done on procrastination, hundreds of books written on the topic and countless principles posited for overcoming it. So it is with a due sense of humility that I offer my condensation of all that and everything I have learned into three simple principles that work for me. Here therefore are three ways I have discovered to beat procrastination.

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3 Tipping Points for Change

Growth & Development, Overcoming /

People who willingly make major positive changes in their lives share one thing in common. They have tapped into the power of motivation.

From personal experience, observation of other people’s lives and my study of scriptures I have come to this conclusion. Most defining changes in people lives can be attributed to one or more of three powerful motivations. Those motivations are love, truth and pain. They provide the primary tipping points for life change.

Three of the most radical changes in my life can each be attributed to one of these three motivations. Giving up a carefree single life to pursue the heart of my now wife of forty years was motivated by love – a love that began with a first sight meeting at the top of a stairs. Surrendering my life and future to the Lordship of Jesus Christ was motivated by truth that I discovered in studying the Bible – revealing that He was indeed the Son of God. And moving on to a new career would never have happened if I had not been so engulfed in the pain and frustration of a dead end job. Nothing motivates like being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

One of the great benefits of being a pastor is that over the years I have had the privilege of seeing God radically change the lives of many people. The before and after snapshots are stunning, particularly of those whose former selves were marked by addictions and destructive behavior. Interestingly enough, each person’s testimony almost always can be traced to an initial motivation to change and embrace Christ because of an encounter with God’s unfailing love, an undeniable truth or an unrelenting pain.

To test this theory, think about your own life and the significant changes you have made for the better. What brought you to a tipping point of change? What motivated you to take radical steps to give up the old in order to embrace the new?

The Gospels provide us many examples of how God uses love, truth and pain to motivate people to make major changes in their lives.

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The secret to getting up again

Overcoming /

The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. (Proverbs 24:16 NLT)

Two winters ago I was on a jog through our neighborhood after a light dusting of snow. Just one block from home I slipped on a hidden patch of ice and went sprawling forward onto the sidewalk. It was a jarring experience and after confirming nothing was broken I picked myself up and gingerly walked the rest of the way home. That fall caused me to change my winter running habits. I made a decision then and there to limit my running to indoors on a treadmill unless the footing outside was clearly ice free.

Falls are scary because of the potential harm they can wreck in a person’s life. As true as that is for physical stumbles, it is often even more impacting with spiritual ones. For one thing spiritual falls are more common. And the nature of spiritual falls frequently hinders people from getting back up and running again.

There are many causes for spiritual stumbles. Sin of course tops the list. But things like relationship conflicts, worldly distractions, disappointments and a failure to maintain spiritual disciplines all contribute to causing slips and trips spiritually. Spiritual stumbles lead to discouragement, condemnation and ultimately feeling estranged from God. All that contributes to a sense of unworthiness which is probably the biggest factor hindering a person from recovering from a stumble.

Overcoming all that can be a challenge. But there is a secret to getting back up again. And it has to do with understanding what it means to have our spiritual identity “in Christ.” Spiritual falls, much more frequently than physical falls, cause us to have spiritual amnesia. It is as if every time we take a spiritual tumble we hit our head, and as a result forget who we are.

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Why prayer is not an option

3 Comments / Overcoming, Prayer, Relationship with God /

As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. Exodus 17:11 (NIV)

Some things only happen if someone prays and will not happen if someone does not pray. That is the intriguing message from this verse. If that is true, it is the most compelling reason there is for a person to pray – especially for the things we want to happen.

This startling lesson on prayer took place shortly after the children of Israel left Egypt and began their journey into the wilderness toward the promised land. They were attacked by a people called the Amalekites, and Moses sent Joshua out with an army of men to fight them. Moses, along with his brother Aaron and another leader by the name of Hur went up on a nearby hill to watch and pray.

Unlike so many of us, they had the enviable benefit of observing exactly what happened when they prayed and when they didn’t. It was like God Himself had engineered a lab experiment on prayer. Having the vantage point of watching from the top of a hill, they were able to see the direct results of their prayers as they surveyed the battle raging in the valley below.

It did not take long for them to discover that winning the battle was directly dependent upon their prayers. The problem was they had to figure out a way to enable Moses to keep from dropping his hands in prayer. So they “took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up–one on one side, one on the other–so that his hands remained steady till sunset.” (vs. 12)

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