The ABCs of Thanksgiving

 I learned this from a youth ministry game book, and I have used it in my classroom. Thanksgiving can be a difficult holiday for people as families gather and loved ones are missing, or if you are someone unable to make it home for this holiday, and you are alone. So, here is an exercise to just realize that Thanksgiving is about being thankful for the good in your life. Write down the alphabet and next to each letter, write one thing that you are thankful for that starts with that letter. (I usually limit it to five people for my students, but some of us may have twenty-six people that we are legitimately thankful for more than anything else in this world.)

Here is my list: 

A-America-We have issues, but I’d rather live here in America and try to be a change agent than anywhere else in the world. 

B-Books

C-College Basketball (Maybe not UCLA vs. Gonzaga, but there’s always Duke!)

D-Disney 

E-Entertainment (From movies to television to live theater plays, to sports events, I love being entertained.)

F-Family

G-God’s grace

H-House (It’s new. It’s owned. Finally.)

I-Intelligence (I have learned from some of the most intelligent people in the past few years.)

J-Jesus 

K-Knowledge (The knowledge that I have and have gained throughout my life, and the knowledge I will continue to gain in the future. 

L-Lattes (Along with the coffee shops in which they reside) 

M-Mosaic (A church that loves me, with all my flaws)

N-Netflix (Cobra Kai season four on Dec. 31. Need I say more?)

O-Opportunities (Ones that I have pounced and claimed, and ones to be obtained.) 

P-Peace (The peace I have had in my life this last year, even with a lot of stressful situations.)

Q-Quiet moments

R-Red House Writer’s Collective (A group of writers, agents, and editors that have been more than my coaches this year, but also friends)

S-Sounds (The fact that I can still hear and enjoy music is phenomenal.) 

T-Teaching (The rewards are few but large) 

U-Understanding (From my bosses to my friends, people who have been understanding this year have been remarkable.) 

V-Victories (Victories, even small wins, in my life.) 

W-Writing (Rediscovering the love of writing has restored my soul) 

X-X-Boyfriends (They taught me much)

Y-Young People (They teach me as much as I teach them.) 

Z-Zany ideas (I have plenty.)

Sparks of Joy During the Holidays

 The holidays are upon us, whether we want them to be or not. It’s supposed to be a season of joy, but for many people, it can be a season of sorrow. For them, loved ones are gone from this earth, or their finances are so tight that they will choose not to have a traditional dinner. Others may be alone for the holidays. Whatever sorrows may come our way this season, let us find ways to find the sparks of joy. 

One of the first sparks of joy is to be grateful for what we have in the present. For me, moving cost me financially, but I am so grateful to be in a larger home and in a new city. We can all be grateful for the needs that have been met in our lives, even if some needs are still outstanding. During this holiday season, we can take a day to stop and look around us to see what we have in our present that grants gratefulness. It will heal our soul, which in turn heals our physical and mental health too. 

Another spark is to see the small joys that have occurred over the last year. For those of us living in California, our world around us is more open than it was a year ago. We can gather with friends, family, and even our church family. We can celebrate the good times this year has brought and be grateful for overcoming the difficult trials that have been upon us. Some of us can celebrate having gone on a vacation; others can celebrate going to a concert, or even the movie theater. Then, there are those of us who are sports fans who find just a spark of joy watching and cheering for our teams in this last year. 

A spark that many of us do not always recognize is the actions that people do for us, even if they are small, like responding to our posts on social media. The small sparks of people praying for us helps us realize that we are not alone in our struggles, which is a reminder that we must let people know that we are praying for them. We can become so busy into what we are doing that we miss those small sparks that are right in front of us that people are doing with us or for us. They can be small acts of kindness that we forget because we are so busy focusing on what we must do, that we do not stop to see what others are doing around us. This holiday season, may we stop and see. 

A final spark is to realize the good things God has given us throughout our lives. From our health, even if we have difficulties, we are still alive, to our talents and gifts that we can use to serve others and to create in us a heart that is open to making the world a better place. God has given us our memories of times that we have had with people we love and opportunities in our lives that have changed us. God has given us grace and love without our effort being used to receive them. 

This week, as we start the holiday season, whether we are gathering with many, few, or having time to ourselves, may we take the time to see the sparks of joy that have occurred in our lives, so we can recognize the sparks of joy in our future, and send sparks of joy to the lives of others around us. 

The Cost of Freedom is Sacrifice

 This last week we celebrated those who have served in the armed forces with Veteran’s Day. America recognizes that those who sacrifice everything in their lives, do it so we can maintain our freedom. I just wonder if we understand that freedom only comes with sacrifice. In the past two years, I cannot help but notice that many people chose not to sacrifice anything for their freedom, and yet, they want their freedom. If we want to be free, we must sacrifice. 

Our armed forces sacrifice time. They sacrifice time with their families. They sacrifice time that they could be pursuing a “dream job,” so that all of us can have freedom in this country. As they sacrifice, are we just to receive the fruits of their sacrifice, or are we to sacrifice so that someone near and dear to us can be free? It’s an age-old question. Sacrifice is difficult. Usually, when I sacrifice, it costs me something, and not only do I not feel free, but I feel burdened by that which I must do, so that my sacrifice frees someone else, or even myself. 

Do we even understand that sacrifice must be an act that we all perform to have a free country today and in our future? If most people choose to be selfish and just take, then those who are sacrificing are doing it for naught because the majority will overrule the minority. If everyone were to sacrifice just some small part of their life for someone else, then there will not only be freedom for others, but we will also begin to truly love our neighbor. Then, the future will contain more freedom because of the sacrifice we have today. 

The question to be asked is what can an ordinary person do to sacrifice? It could just be the simple tasks in life. It could be being kind to a server in a restaurant or any store clerk. If we are flying, we know the rules. As we fly through the skies with our freedom, let us choose kindness to our flight attendants because we must remember that they are humans who need to see the love of Jesus more than to hear our political rants. It’s letting the person who is in a hurry in front of us. 

If we cannot do these little sacrifices, then when big sacrifices are asked of us, we will not be able to perform. I know because for a time in my life, I chose not to sacrifice. I was led to believe that I needed to be confident and not let people walk on me. There’s a difference between being a doormat and sacrificing, which can lead to true confidence. In that period of my life, I was at the lowest point of self-confidence, and instead of serving, I just complained about what others were not doing. Not only did I not have confidence, but my selfishness led to a burden of having to repay debt financially and loss of friends. In order to have freedom and healthy relationships, I realized I had to begin to sacrifice with the idea that the sacrifice was for others to be better. 

Jesus did not let the little parts of life to worry him. He chose to sacrifice. He chose to treat people with love and kindness, even when he had to explain that their actions were wrong. Yes, he overturned the tables in the temple. That was because people were being selfish in his father’s house and not sacrificing, and these same people demanded sacrifice from those who followed them. Sacrifice means we give up something. Jesus gave his life so we could have freedom from sin. 

As we enter the holiday season, may we remember to sacrifice more than we get. It’s better to give than to receive. Giving requires sacrifice. Sacrifice requires us to think of others instead of ourselves. Sacrifice is a habit that we must develop. We have less than forty days of this year left. May we take this time to sacrifice our wants and begin to sacrifice so others may have their needs, and then we will all gain freedom. Freedom comes with a price. That price is sacrifice. 

Being a Cheerleader Creates Grattitude

 Today in Los Angeles, they ran the LA Marathon. What is always intriguing to me is how people stand on the street and just cheer for strangers to keep running. They are not famous. They are not even connected to these people in any way. They are just cheering for them because they are accomplishing a major feat. It makes us healthier when we cheer for others. It makes us more grateful when we cheer for others. It makes us connect with other humans and makes us more humane as we rejoice with others. 

As we start November, I am reminded that it should be a month of gratefulness. For so much of our lives, we only see what is wrong in the world, or in our own lives, that we can miss what is the best of life right around us. As a Los Angeles Dodger’s fan, I was disappointed that they did not repeat as World Series Champions, but I couldn’t help but rejoice with Atlanta and their World Series Championship. There were great players on that team with one who had been on that team for eleven years and it was his first World Series Championship. Just because we do not get the prize in life that we desire, doesn’t mean we cannot be happy for those who do. It’s all a part of being grateful for what occurs in life. When I achieve something great, I want others to rejoice with me, so I must rejoice with others when they achieve something great. 

When others achieve something great and reach a dream, we can become inspired to chase our dreams. Once we turn our dreams into goals, we then can reach one goal at a time. Someone posted on social media that they do not need to create anything but to just be a living being. I disagree because we are all here for a purpose, so we can all create. If we are willing to create something new, we can make a small difference in the world, even if we never are able to see that difference. The difference could cause someone to donate money to a cause that is close to their heart and much needed in this world.  So, let us create. 

Once we begin to create, we realize that those who achieved something great were always creating, and instead of becoming envious, we can rejoice. Even though I do have a tinge of jealousy when others succeed, I realize that instead of being jealous, I can rejoice at their creation and be inspired to create what I can. Creating something new can be a new dish for dinner, a handmade item, a schedule to live each day with fullness, or some kind of art. 

In this month of November, people all over the world are writing a first draft of a novel, in one month. Others are raising money for cancer research by growing facial hair. Others are creating presents for those near and far for the upcoming holidays. I can look with envy at those who are creating, or I can join them because I know I can’t beat them because creating is not a competition but a complement to our completion. That, and I may be slightly participating in one of the November events, and trust me, it’s not facial hair. 

So, in this month of thankfulness, may we find a way to empower and encourage others in their achievements. It makes us grateful. It inspires us to do something even mediocre that can influence someone else. We may never know our sphere of influence, but we can hope that whatever we create, we bring just a bit of joy to someone else. Besides, now that the baseball season is over, the college basketball season begins. It will be a great year for my two teams. One, with all their starters back, UCLA, and the other with a coach retiring, Duke. It will be epic. It will be inspiring. Greatness will be achieved, and I will just cheer for them as loud as I can. 

Do We LIve by Fear or by Faith?

 

Today is Halloween. Every year in my class, I ask my students for a warm-up exercise what it is that they fear. The tough kids always write “nothing,” which is a lie because the moment they have to face an administrator, they are scared. The top fears are death, bugs, spiders, the dark, and heights. We all have fears, whether they are rational or irrational, we all have them. For people who tell me they don’t, we can read their social media posts and see all the fears. People fear that they will lose their freedom or lose the country that they know. People fear that they will lose their jobs, or their health, or their family. The question isn’t what is that we fear. The question is how we can overcome our fears and why it is important that we do. 

I know the roots of Halloween are evil. I know because a youth pastor informed us as young children of the roots. His teaching didn’t make me fear Halloween. It made me fear disobeying any of the rules that were set-up by the leaders in our church. If the leaders were able to have us follow the rules because of fear, they could control us. Leaders have been doing this for centuries. No matter which church you have attended, which political party line you align yourself, or any boss that you have over you, leaders have at some point led with fear. Why do they do this? Simple. If we lead with fear tactics, then people will not be rational and will just obey the words of the leaders, then the leaders will control us. 

Fear is about control. If we feel out of control with something in our lives, then we fear what could happen or is happening. One reason people fear the future is that it is out of their control. People do not like change because they fear what they cannot control. We must let go of the concept that we have to control other people. we cannot control other people as much as we will try. If we can control people, they will follow the control for a specific amount of time, and then they will stop following us. 

If we notice how people attempt to get us to purchase their wares, or vote for their candidate, or even attend their church, we can recognize when their driving force is for us to fear so they can control what we do. It may not sound like fear and control, but the moment we say that people cannot be Christians if they do this or that or vote this way or that or say this or that. Sin can be forgiven, including the sin of getting people to fear that God does not love them, so that they can be controlled by humans. 

So, where do we go from here? We begin to find those who are leading with empowerment. They make room for innovations, even if those innovations seem silly. If we look at history, people always laughed at people who were inventing. Instead of laughing, we have made room for inventors to keep creating. The television show, Shark Tank has incorporated the spirit of inventions, as people are always going on the show to get their new idea and product on a mass market. 

Let us take a close look at that which we fear. Are we allowing our fears and those who push our fears to control us, or are we controlling our fears and living a life of faith despite the bumps in the road that try to detour us and put us into despair? We can overcome our fears and let our lives be led by faith. Our fears will exist, but we cannot allow the fears or those pushing our fears to control us. We must allow for God to control our hearts, so that we are not walking by fear but by faith. So, no matter how we view or celebrate Halloween, we can all, give our fears and those who control them over to God and have a night of faith. 

Are We Driving by Fear or by Faith?

 As we approach Halloween, we are reminded that humans have a relationship with fear. Fear creates a response that can harm. As we listen to the news or scroll through social media, we realize that many people are living their lives driven by fear. Whether they are afraid of the government, illnesses, other people, natural disasters, or losing something valuable to them, fear is what motivates their actions and thoughts. Many Christians will claim that they follow Christ, so they are not driven by fear, but that is not true. Many Christians live their lives with fear and then wonder why they struggle with their faith. We cannot live fearfully and then claim that we have faith in Jesus. 

When we are driven by fear, we insult people and demand that they think and believe like us or society will fail. Once we do this, we are requiring for other people to live by fear. This is not a new phenomenon. This has been occurring for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years. If we just look at America, we can see that since the Puritan days, Christians have lived their lives by fear. The Puritans feared people thinking for themselves. The Puritans feared the leaders, so they followed the rules, even if they did not have a true belief in God. For the Puritans, once they found themselves not following the rules, they feared punishment, so they immediately pointed out the sins of someone else, so that person would receive punishment, and no one would see their sins. This is exactly what we are doing today, except we see most of it on the Internet. We must choose to focus on repenting from our own sins, and then we do not have to worry about the sins of someone else. 

Once we choose to live by fear, we limit ourselves, and then we blame others and God for our unfulfilled lives. We choose to live in safety and not take a risk on an opportunity that is given to us with our careers. We do not take risks in relationships, so we settle and then blame everyone else for our own choices. We become envious of other people who are succeeding in business or in relationships, or even in their spiritual lives, and we choose to dig to find their flaws. We do this because we are blind that we are living by fear, and they are living by faith. Living by faith is a choice to take calculated risks, as we continue to follow God and seek his will. Living by fear is a choice to not take risks, as we continue to follow rules and blame God for not revealing his will to us. If we let go of our fears, we can live by faith and have a life that is unlimited. 

Living by fear is easy. Living by faith is difficult. When we live by fear, we proclaim that our ways are the only way to live. When we live by faith, we proclaim that we can love other people as Jesus did, even if they are not living the life that Jesus would set for them. If we live by faith, we continue to serve others and love them, without worrying that the world will fall apart if we do not follow certain rules or believe and think in specific ways. Look at society. People who are living by faith are striving. They are serving others and not getting recognition. (I always think of those who are working with the homeless.) They are discovering innovative ways to help others and work with other people, even if those people think and believe differently than them. Living by faith is difficult, but it is worth it in the end. 

We have a choice. We can continue to live by fear, which I did for many years in my Christian life, or we can choose to live by faith and honor God with our lives. 2 Corinthians 5:7 claims, “For we live by faith, not by sight.” (NIV) If we really do live by faith, we do not worry about what we cannot see in the future. We live in the present to make a better future for those around us when we walk by faith. Let us choose that in this next week as we will hear and see sights that could frighten us, that we will begin to live by faith and not fear. 

A Day Without Social Media--What Did We Do? What Could We Learn?

On Monday October 4, 2021, Facebook, Instagram, What’s App, and any other social media app that is owned by Facebook went down for about six to eight hours. Twitter survived, and some of the Tweeters acted as if every word they write is perfect, true, and kind, and trust me, Twitter should have gone down too, as it is one of the meanest social media sites that we have. The question is, since social media was down, what did we do? What can we learn from this? 

Many people jumped over to Twitter and claimed how evil the other social media sites were while they continued to be cruel with their words on Twitter. That is a condition that we see in other social circles, including and especially in the church. Christians are great at pointing out the flaws in other people, other Christians, and “those” churches, while at the same time they continue in their own sins. We must focus on our own flaws and sins, and guess what? The evil that we see in society will be less by one person. We can start doing this with social media. 

Some people found that they could be more productive without checking social media throughout the day. They were able to work without the stress if anyone liked or did not like their post, or if enough people were on their platform for whatever product that they serve for others. It became a day of not worrying what other people were thinking about us. Maybe we need to begin to take more time to worry less about what other people think about us and take the time to serve those who no one even thinks about in life. 

Some people struggled as they work a business from social media. They had to discover other ways to build their platforms or make time to work on their business. To build businesses, we rely on other people and their creations. We must find ways to work together to build rather than use these platforms to destroy. If we would build others up in life, we would be able to create more businesses and serve more people. We also may need to discover more ways in which to build our platforms outside of social media sites. 

Some people were frustrated because they had no one around them to hear their point of views and how their point of view is perfect, true, and good, and if anyone disagrees with it, then they must unfollow them and never speak to them because they do not have perfect points of view like them. My entire sarcastic rant hopefully reveals my complete frustration with these types of posts. These people stand on the right and the left. If we struggle to connect and accept someone else’s point of view whom we cannot see, how do we treat people that we can see? We must do better. We can speak the truth, but if we do not speak the truth in love, we are just spewing our points of view recklessly, and it is why people do not listen to us nor take us seriously. If we are Christians, speaking the truth in love is a sign of maturity according to Ephesians 4:15. 

We must begin to understand that not everyone will agree with our point of view. Some people have experiences that we know nothing about, and their point of view is based on their experiences of which we have no knowledge. What we see on social media is only a small portion of who someone is. Sometimes, we do not even see the truth of who someone is. We must remember that how we treat people on social media must parallel with how we treat people in real life, or everything we proclaim is a lie. 

Many people realized that social media wants to control our thoughts and words. We should control our thoughts and words. We can speak the truth, but if Christians quote that part of the verse one more time without the ending to speak the truth in love, then their first phrase is useless. Social media may want to control our thoughts and words, but we are the ones who are typing the words on our pages. We are the ones sharing information that a human may or may not have created. We are the ones who choose to reply or scroll forward to something better. We must take control of what we say and do. If we are censored for saying something kind and loving and truthful, then we have a different conversation. 

So, what did we learn? We learned that we are not so good without our social media platforms. We realized that social media could control what we see and think. We must learn that we must control our thoughts and words because if we don’t, someone else will come along and tell us what to think and speak. It’s been like this for centuries. It’s just easier to identify with social media. It is time we use social media as a tool, and not let that tool become our focus in life. 

 

It's Fall! Time for Old Habits to Drop and New Habits to Form!

 As we enter the month of October, we realize that summer is completely over, and fall is upon us. We have pumpkins and pumpkin spiced foods all through the grocery store. We have football games with homecomings, and baseball games that are now in the playoff mode. In parts of America, the leaves on trees are changing colors and the weather is getting cooler. As we see the beginning of some events and the ending of others, we are reminded in fall that life has changes, and the only way to change, is to let go of those habits that hold us back from doing what we are called to do. 

We need to let go of habits that do not create in us a life that is fulfilling and wastes time. We all have those habits. They are not sinful or horrible, they are just time wasters. They are different for everyone. For some, they are scrolling through social media, for others they are playing games on the computer or video games, for others it is television or streaming. There are many other time wasters, and even if it is not on the list, we all have habits that waste time. Habits that waste our time and take us away from living a purposeful and fulfilled life will always hold us back, and we will not be able to move forward, so like leaves that fall to the ground, we just fall to the ground with our dreams and goals, and they die. We must use our time wisely and take back our dreams and goals so that they will stay alive. 

We need to let go of habits that we have developed with an attitude of complaining. I am guilty just as much as anyone to complain. I realize when I am doing it and that no one wants to hear it all the time. Complaining about events in life that we cannot change, keeps us sicker emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and sometimes even physically. We must be grateful for what we have, and not focus on what we do not have. We cannot control what the government does or does not do, but we can control our actions and attitudes toward people that we see every day. 

It’s not just in politics in which we find complaining, but in the church too. I have never been to a church where I have not heard people complain. They complain about the leaders, the times of services, and any type of change. (My home church had arguments of the color of the carpet. The final decision was two variations of gold, and yes, it was ugly.) Complaining never fixes or changes anything. In fact, complaining creates division. It severs relationships. It’s hard to be grateful when there are issues that we want to fix, but we must not only be grateful, but to pray and encourage our spiritual leaders so that they will make better decisions, and we need to compliment more and complain less. 

We need to drop the habit of insulting people. Scroll through any social media site and it is full of insults. When did we decide that insulting people will force them to change their view on life? It won’t. It only creates anger and enemies from those who used to be friends. People forget that people behind screens are real human beings with all the emotions that humans have. We all have struggles, and many people do not share all their struggles on social media. We all need to create the habit of kindness, so that more people can have hope and work toward their dreams and goals. 

It is fall. In this season, a baseball team will be crowned the World Series Champions. In this season, college football games will determine who is going to the playoffs, and the NFL will have its real league and fantasy league. It is fall, and with this season, it is time that we let go of habits that destroy us, and develop new habits of encouragement, time fulfillment, and kindness. With those new habits, the winter season will be much better. 

What Are You Fixing On Doing?

 Once I arrived in Daytona Beach, Florida from Michigan, I heard the phrase, “What are you fixing on doing?” Since I was only nine years old, I had no idea what they were saying, so I knew enough not to repeat the phrase until I learned what it meant in its entirety. Being young, I took the phrase literally and didn’t understand how I could fix anything. Once I discovered what the meaning of the phrase was, I was unimpressed and refused to still use it. The phrase just means, “What are you going to do?” For some reason, the people in the South added the word “Fixing” to this phrase. Maybe, people in the South wanted to fix everything and everyone. I would judge, but if we look closely enough, people around us are trying to fix everything and everyone, except, of course, themselves. 

As a former youth pastor and as a current teacher, I have been a fixer. I have tried to fix problems in the church, and in the schools in which I worked. If the situation was one that required a solution within the curriculum, or procedures, or something that would not affect people directly, it was well received and it was fixed, but the moment I tried to fix people from their flaws, it was a disaster. It was not until a couple of years ago that I realized that the only person I can fix is myself. 

There was YouTuber who condemned those of us who claim that we can only fix ourselves and that we have forgotten that God is the one who fixes us. It is true that God fixes us from our brokenness, but he does not do everything for us. He wants us to confess our sins, repent from our sins, and walk in a new direction in life. We cannot do that for anyone else. We can reveal our own change and inspire and empower others. Maybe the reason we are trying to fix others is because we refuse to see the brokenness in ourselves. 

No one wants to feel broken. I have students who struggle with reading and writing, and they would rather fail then to reach out for help and reveal that they need help. The same with us as adults in our lives. We should reach out for help, but instead we would rather fix all the people around us. It makes us blind to what we must do to be healthy. After a while the people who see our brokenness leave us or distance themselves from us because they do not want to become broken, and then we turn and blame them. It’s a vicious cycle, and we must end it, especially in the church. 

If someone is broken and is going to harm themselves or others, we need to get them help. At the same time, we must remember that we cannot fix them. They have to do the work in order to become healthy again. 

If we see a person who is broken, we need to walk alongside them and bring our empathy to them. We need to listen. We need to be slow to anger and slow to speak. We need to pray for them. If we see a brokenness in the church, we must step up and listen to those who see life differently than us and love them in their brokenness. We need to pray for them. We need to be slow to anger and slow to speak, especially eliminating gossip about them. The real solution is that if we see our church community is broken, we need to fix ourselves, then our church community will have one less person that is broken. 

If we see brokenness in our family, we need to pray and begin to fix ourselves. If we see there needs to be “fixing” in our workplace, we need to pray and begin to fix ourselves. Do we see a pattern? Our own brokenness affects the people around us. The only person we can fix ourselves. If someone’s brokenness is affecting us so much that it is breaking us, then we must move forward in life from the relationship. It’s difficult. I’ve done it, and my life has been healthier in all ways ever since. It’s time that those of us who are Christians begin to fix ourselves. 

That YouTuber was wrong. She tried fixing those who think differently than her. God can fix us, but we must be willing to let him work in our lives. We cannot force anyone else to commit to the fixing that they need to do. If we force people into fixing themselves, they do not change. They do a small change to please us, but then they return to their old ways with more anger and frustration because if we do not see what we need to do to have a better life and do those changes, then people forcing us will just make it worse. 

If other people fix us, we not only remain broken, but we don’t have the resources or tools to fix what went wrong in the first place because someone else did it for us. We can lead people to the tools and resources, but we cannot do the fixing for them. They will remain lost, broken, and empty. 

We must be willing and open to the change that we must endure. God works within each of us. We must trust the power of God. God can fix people. We must allow him to do the work. We can be the voice people need to hear, but we cannot force them to change. It’s time that the church allows the power of God back in into its presence and see the great things he can do. It starts with all of us fixing one thing about ourselves. Soon, we will see the fixing that the church needs as we all work on our own brokenness. 

A Tribute to Rich Mullins: Christianity is More than Morality

 On this day, twenty-four years ago, musician and artist, Rich Mullins, was killed in a car accident. He left us, but his words and music should continue to resonate with those of us who are passionate about Jesus more than we are with our denomination or any moral behaviors. Rich Mullins was ahead of his time. He had concluded and spoke out that Christianity was so much more than moral behaviors. I always knew that, but I would keep it to myself because people would chastise me. They chastised me because they were relying on those moral behaviors for their Christian lives. We must be better. 

Rich Mullins attended the same Bible College that I did. At Cincinnati Bible College, the rule book was equitable to a moral standard book, and it was thick. Not that a Christian school cannot have rules, but there must be an understanding that moral behaviors can keep us healthy, but they do not in any way create in us a closer relationship to Jesus. Our relationship to Jesus is not about behavior. It’s about communicating with Jesus and being who we are when no one is looking. That is a true Christian. 

To have a closer relationship with Jesus we spend time with him, but not to learn about him and what he did when he was on earth, but to hear his voice above the noise in our own lives. Jesus didn’t lecture Zacchaeus on his behavior with cheating people on their taxes. Jesus accepted Zacchaeus and then went to his house for a party. The presence of Jesus changed Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus could hear Jesus above the noise because he was listening. We must listen to Jesus.  It wasn’t a disciple that went over and berated him. The twelve were fearful of Zacchaeus. They were just as surprised at his change as anyone else was. We need to allow the presence of Jesus to change our behavior. Jesus empowers me. Yes, he speaks through the voices of humans, but those voices do not guilt shame me. They empower me, which is how I know it is the voice of Jesus. 

Rich Mullins was probably not the best example for following all the rules at Cincinnati Bible College, which is why I admire him. He was one of the best examples of someone who loved God, struggled with life, and served others. He lived on a Native American reservation to work with the people. That is putting Jesus’s love into action, which is much better than following all the rules at college. I may have broken some of those rules, especially when it came to “No dating on your internships.” Let’s just say that an internship offers new people and new opportunities. I also experienced the love and grace of Jesus from those relationships. 

Finally, we can mourn the loss of a genius like Rich Mullins who challenged the system of church, but we can do better as we live a life that refuses to follow Jesus with just our morality. Jesus is so much bigger than any morals or rules that humans have created. Let us emulate his love and grace. Let us love God and love others as ourselves. Then, when people wonder how we are managing our lives, they will see Jesus. People who are not walking with Jesus can have strong morals and serve people. People who are walking with Jesus serve people and love them with love and grace. People walking with Jesus have people say, “I want what you have.” May we live our lives to hear that statement because awe we all know, we just have to take it “Step by Step,” because our God is an “Awesome God.” 

May We Never Forget 9/12/2001

 

On September 12, 2001, America was different, but unlike what we may see in our current society, life was beautiful the day after 9/11. We were united. We didn’t care if someone was a Democrat, or Republican, or super liberal, or super conservative. We didn’t care about anyone’s economic status or ethnicity. On September 12, 2001, we were all just Americans. It took a tragedy to unite us. The tragedy of 9/11 is not that people have forgotten about it. Remembering the tragedy for the tragedy is tragic if we do not remember the difference that the tragedy created in our lives. 

Unity. On September 12, 2001, we were united. We wept with those who were weeping. We did not stop and ask if the loved one they lost was a Democrat or Republican or if they had the same religious beliefs or value systems as we did. We just grieved with so many who lost a loved one.  We cared that every individual was a human being, and we needed to start seeing every individual as a human being that God created. 

We were united because we all felt the pain. We were united because we all felt the pride of the first responders and the other unsung heroes who risked their lives to save the lives of other people, many of them strangers. Our unity on that day and the days that followed, was one reason we recovered. We knew this country was not perfect, but we also knew that our unity could give us strength to become better humans and work together for a better society. 

Unity will reveal the strength or weakness of a group of people. There is power in unity. Division reveals our weaknesses. Division rears its ugly head when we demand that everyone behaves and aligns with all our ideas. Division arises when we choose to mock, belittle, and degrade people because they have a different point of view than us because they have had different life experiences than us. It reveals that neither side is right or righteous, no matter which side claims to be Christian. It also states that neither side is for humanity but for their own cause. For those of us who are Christians, we must remember that Jesus was always for humanity and his selfless act of his sacrifice was for everyone. On 9/12/01, we realized the importance of selflessness. 

Selflessness. On September 12, 2001, we were a little more selfless and a little less selfish. The realization that so many first responders risked their own lives for complete strangers made us realize that they didn’t just do their rescuing because of their job, but because they were selfless and cared about humanity. We wondered if each of us were willing to sacrifice our own lives for a stranger. Before we could answer that, we had to realize that the stranger might believe and vote differently than us, and on 9/12/2001, we realized that the sacrifice was greater than the other person’s beliefs. 

As Christians, we must remember that Jesus died for all, even for those who did not believe in him and who were against him. Jesus sacrificed his life for all. Maybe we can remember to sacrifice for strangers. Maybe we can sacrifice our rightness and our political agenda for the love others. 

Love. On 9/12/2001, we realized we needed to love more. We must show love to other people over all other attributes. Love does not envy. It does not boast. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love is kind. There are three great attributes, faith, love, and hope, but the greatest of these is love. The commandments are summed up to love God and love your neighbors as we love ourselves. Love is what causes us to sacrifice. 

Love is not just reserved for those for whom it is easy to love, but for those with whom we struggle. 

If we want our country to be great, we all must do our part. We all must love other people. If we begin with loving others, people will see the change in our attitudes and actions. Our social media posts will be ones that project love for humanity and not malice toward anyone. It will take work. It will take time because love takes work and time, and as it grows, we see the people we love grow and change with strength and love and sacrifice for others. The love that we show and the sacrifices that we make will all bring unity to humanity once again

Ia It Selfish to Fix Myself?

 I saw a video on YouTube of someone berating Christians who believe that we can only fix ourselves and not fix other people. She claimed that we cannot fix ourselves, and that only God can do that. She then claimed that the people who believe this are not even Christians. While she was berating those Christians, she then went ahead and told everyone what they needed to believe and think to be better humans. (Actually, she wanted them to be better Christians, but I don’t believe that Christianity is a competition, so I’m changing her words.) In other words, she was trying to fix other people. I wish her video was interactive. I wanted to ask her if she could repent from my sins for me because that would make my life much easier. Then, she could fix me, and I would not have to do a thing. 

I have been struggling with this topic for a long time, and in the past few weeks, I have encountered situations in which people were more grossly engaged in focusing on what other people were doing, rather than on themselves. From a young celebrity getting pictures removed from social media because fans do not like his new girlfriend, to a student tattling on someone, while she herself was breaking a rule. The young fans cannot separate fantasy from reality, and the student could not understand why if she would fix herself, the world would be a better place. 

The world becomes a better place when we begin to focus on our own sins and flaws and fix them because our own world is better. Life is beautiful when we remove our flaws and gain our strengths. We not only see the beauty in our own world, but in the world around us. Once we see the beauty, we do not have to focus on other people and what they do in their personal lives because we are so busy focusing on what we must do for those other people to have better lives with love and encouragement. 

Jesus saw this flaw in all of us, in which we prefer to focus on other people’s sins than on our own sins. “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use. Why do you look at the splinter in someone else’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye?” (Mathew 7:1-3) (CSV) Those of us who are Christians, must focus on our own sins and flaws before we ever focus on anyone else. If we focus on our own sins, we do not have time to focus on others’ sins. Believe it or not, if everyone would work on their own sins, the whole world would become better because we would all have a vision of what sin is in our lives and how it needs to be removed. 

For years, the church has focused on what those outside of the church have done wrong and have lost control of what is happening inside the church. Paul has warned us to not judge those on the outside, but on the inside. If we as Christians, would focus on the sins of those of us in the church and confess and repent from them, the church would become more appealing to those on the outside of it. 

It is easier to focus on other people because we do not have to do anything but sit back and let our fingers fly on our phones or computers. The damage we have caused is that now, those outside of the church are judging everyone around them that does not think, believe, or act like they do. They have the name, “woke,” but they are a reflection of how the church has behaved for years. They too are judging people for what they say, believe, and do and desire for punishment for their misdeeds, but never confess their own misdeeds. It’s just like those of us inside the church. We influenced it. Now, that we see the grossness of it, we need to begin to make the change with ourselves first before we can influence them. 

It is not selfish to work on ourselves. It can be the one job that if we all do, would make our society a much better place. We can only fix ourselves because we are the only ones that can repent of our sins. We are the only ones that can go to God and confess our sins. That is the beginning of fixing ourselves. Other people can inspire us. We still must put the words of their inspiration into practice. No one can do the work for us. We are the ones who must do the work. That is why so many of us claim we can only fix ourselves. The church needs to allow people to fix themselves and then, the church will be healthier as everyone is working on bettering themselves. 

We need to see a sin in our own lives and begin working on eliminating that sin. Once we begin eliminating a sin in our lives, we begin to grow in our faith. People see our growth. People see the change. Then, we become a witness for Jesus because they see the change in us. We must stop berating other people and keep that to the people who are outside of the church. Once people see the difference from those of us inside the church encouraging and inspiring people and people outside of the church berating people, they will want to be inside the church.

The YouTube Christian woman was partially right. God does fix us. He changes us, but only when we ask him. We invite him into our lives. That is the first part of fixing ourselves. We all need Jesus. If we all focus on Jesus and what he wants from our own lives, then we will have a better life on earth because we have a heavenly vision with Jesus. It is selfish to focus on the flaws and sins of others and never right our wrongs. It is not selfish to focus on ourselves for spiritual health and begin to rid the sin in our own lives. 

Searching for Peace in a Troubled World

 There is no peace in the Middle East with the Taliban on the loose. We cannot forget the people’s struggles in Cuba. The people in Haiti are suffering from a recent earthquake, and people in New Orleans are battling a hurricane. Closer to home, fires are raging in Northern California, and two people that I know, who are great writers and mentor other writers, have evacuated from their homes hoping their houses are still standing. People are suffering and dying still from Covid. It’s a troubled world, so how do we respond? 

Some people think that if they believe in Jesus or people who believe in Jesus will not have these troubles. They are incorrect. Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NIV) Jesus never said that we would not have trouble, but that he would give us peace whether we have trouble or not. We don’t just have Jesus not to have troubles, but we have Jesus for salvation from sin. Along with salvation, Jesus gives us peace in times of trouble. 

If life was easy and pristine, we would not need a Savior. If life was easy and pristine, we would not need anyone around us. Life is not easy. Hollywood created stories in the 1950s and the 1960s of how the creators desired life to be. Viewers took these shows as what life is in some families. No family was or is like what we see in film or television. Life is not a fairytale. So, we need someone to be there for us when the trials hit, and they hit. Many times, they hit hard. 

We can look around at the world and see the troubles. We can go on social media and grouse about the troubles and the injustices. We can pray. We can trust Jesus with our trials. We can take the love of Jesus over those trials and serve the people who need Jesus who are in those times of trouble. For some of the world’s problems, we have no idea what to do, but we can serve someone in our own community, who then could serve someone else, and then they serve someone, and maybe it would eventually get to the people on the other side of the world. 

Serving others in times of need is like throwing a rock in the water and watching the ripple effect. We never know that the small act of kindness can do for someone, and how that person can do a small act of kindness for someone else. If we begin to think of others over ourselves, then our world would be a much better place. If we would all spend less time berating others for what they do not do and focus on what we can do, then the world would have positive changes. The more we sit back and just spew our righteous thoughts and not have any actions, the world continues to spin out of control, along with any type of peace that we desire. 

There are so many people hurting. We can choose to just demean and belittle them, or we can serve them. If we choose to serve the people around us, we are sharing the peace of Jesus with others who are experiencing trouble in their lives, and then we begin to experience the same peace. We don’t always know the troubles that people are experiencing, but if we know the one who gives us peace in time of trouble, we can bring peace to those who need it most. It’s our choice. We can bring cynicism, pessimism, or love with Jesus. I choose Jesus. 

What a beautiful world it would be if we would be less about trivial issues (politics) and more about people. If humans were a higher priority in our society, more people would have access to the needs in life. Jesus brings peace. His peace may not be without conflict. His love may still bring us trouble, but he will always bring peace. May we all bring peace to those who need it. 

In This Time of Need, We Need Each Other

In a Time of Need, We Need Each Other

When a seventeen-year-old girl, Lydia Jacoby, from Alaska was swimming in her first Olympic final race, she had no idea that the support from home was so energetic.  She was not the favored swimmer. She wasn’t even supposed to be a contender for a medal, especially a gold medal, but she did not focus on what she was supposed to or not supposed to do. She just did what she did best, and that led her to a gold medal. It is not her win that is impressive, but how her small town in Alaska that gathered to watch her race, mostly made up of her high school peers, responded to her race and her win. The reaction of this small town made me realize that we all need our own cheerleaders, especially in this time of need. 

The world is hurting. From the events in Afghanistan, Cuba, many people vaccinated and unvaccinated falling to Covid, death of loved ones, and people being diagnosed with cancer, we see the tragedies of the world. Along with these tragedies in my social media world, I have friends in Northern California who had to evacuate from their homes because of the fires and are not confident that they will return to a house. With all the tragedies, some people begin to give answers for the reasons for these events. The argument for the reasons of these events is never a point. How we treat people who may be encountering these situations is vital. 

When we don’t focus on people in these situations, we then begin to prove that we are right on social media with issues, rather than give empowerment to those who are suffering. I am guilty of this as well as anyone else who uses social media. I’m misunderstood often, even today. So, maybe we should all take a break and begin to see the posts for those who need cheerleaders and become cheerleaders. 

We may not be able to jump up and down, but we can cheer for those who need to get healthy. We can encourage those who may have friends and relatives in places that are dangerous. We can empower those who work in a system that could get them sick, or in one in which people struggle because they are not encouraged. It is the church’s job to encourage and empower one another. 

In the Bible, Paul had Barnabas. With Barnabas, he also had the various cities in which he preached. The churches that Paul wrote to, became his best cheerleaders. Yes, I wrote that correctly. The church became cheerleaders. Imagine if the church would become cheerleaders for humanity today. I wonder how different our society would look and behave. Imagine, the church cheering for people to succeed rather than discouraging people. 

We can cheer for people and not their sin. We can cheer for people to be their best at what they do. We can cheer for people who serve others and are in the trenches every single day. They endure so many social media posts about the trenches in which they work from people who will never jump in those trenches and join them with the work. The trenches are messy, and they do not have glory. It’s why people who work in them spend less time arguing and more time changing the world with their innovations. 

Maybe, just maybe, the church needs to do more work for those on the outside to influence those on the inside and bring those on the outside into the church. People are not looking for the most correct group to join. People are looking for love and support. Jesus brought people inside when he showed them love and support. It’s time we learn from Jesus. May we all begin to become cheerleaders as we take note of the small town in Alaska that cheered their community member all the way to gold. Our goal is not gold, but hearts of gold that create love. 

 

 

Back to School With a Different Mindset

On August 16th, schools in Los Angeles will be open for in-person school for the first time since March 2020. Both students and teachers are anxious and excited. It will be different. It’s not just that masks will be worn or that everyone on campus will be tested for Covid and temperature checks every day. Those are just protocols that appear different. That is on the surface that everyone screams about on social media and never dive deep into the real issues. There are underlying issues that make this school year very different from any other school year. It will not just be about learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. 

As we enter the classroom, we all wonder how everyone will accept us. As a teacher, I’m feeling like it is my first year in teaching all over again. Do I remember all the details in routines? What new routines do I need to add or take away? Can I smile on the first day? Wait. That one does not matter as I’ll have a mask on my face. Whew. The students are also full of questions. 

The students wonder if their friends will still like them. They worry that others will belittle or bully them for gaining weight during the pandemic. They worry if they will get Covid. They wonder if they can stay in a classroom all day without walking around the room or doing whatever they were doing with online school. They wonder if the teachers are kind or mean. 

Do we even need to wonder why everyone is concerned? People on social media have been extremely rude and mean during the pandemic. During the time that most of us needed to connect with people with positive attributes, we were condemned, bullied, or ignored. We, as a society, need to do better. A whole generation depends on it. 

First, we need to learn how to inspire and encourage other people instead of guilt shaming them. I have learned that in the classroom if I can empower students, they will shine, but the moment I begin to lessen my leadership skills to guilt-shaming, they not only fail but our relationship is severed. We all need empowerment. Guilt-shaming not only produces bitterness, but it also backfires. The church has guilt-shamed people for years, just like the Pharisees and the other religious leaders did in the days that Jesus walked on earth. Jesus empowered people, so more people followed him and his ways, rather than the religious leaders and their ways. Guilt-shaming pushes people away. Empowerment brings people closer. 

Next, we need to accept people where they are in their present, so they can be successful in their future. Where they are on their journey in life is not for us to judge or condemn, but to meet them there and walk with them in their journey. It’s what we as teachers must do. I already know that my students are behind in their reading and writing skills thanks to last year. (They were behind before last year, so I must figure out how to bring them up from that too.) The same is with us accepting people in our own communities, whether in person or on social media. 

We need to let go of the past. we need to understand that all of us had different experiences during the pandemic. Some of us never said anything about our experiences on social media; we just lived life with whatever was thrown our way. We need to realize that everyone has their mountains in life. Instead of condemning, judging, and guilt-shaming them, we need to come aside and walk along with them. They may or may not come to the point where WE think they need to be, but if we are understanding of who they are as people, we will not need them to be where WE want them to be, but where THEY NEED to be. 

With our students, we need to be empathetic with their emotions and mental health. Their stress level is higher for so many more reasons than it ever has been. Not only are they concerned about Covid and their health issues, but some of them have been locked up with people that cause stress in their lives for various reasons. At a season in life that they should have been more social with their friends, they couldn’t meet with them. Some students struggle with being around people who are different from them. Some wonder if anyone will be their friend. Mental health is not a joke. We need to be more aware of the mental health of people around us instead of being right or authoritative. As a teacher, I need to recognize this daily.

Finally, this school year will be different, but we are all entering with gratefulness that we are not online, and we get to be in person with other students and teachers. We get to do learning activities that move us around the room. We get to talk with others around us. The students get teacher help immediately. As a teacher, I get to know the students as students and as young people. I can’t wait for the beauty that this year will produce. My restart of a first year just might be my best year ever. 

 

Moving Adventures to the Magical Home of Disneyland and the Angels

 If you’ve ever read any of my blogs on travelling or have travelled with me, then you know that I do not travel in a straight line. So, if I’m going to move to a new place, there is no straight line. In fact, there is no line. When this adventure started, there was hope and anticipation. I bought a house. It’s a manufactured home in Anaheim, California. I bought it for my mom and sister. I will live there for a while, and then move forward. The new house is in walking distance of the Angel Stadium and two miles to Disneyland. It sounds magical. The magic that will happen is when I can make the entire disaster of the movers, boxes and boxes of stuff disappear. 

Having lived in an apartment for twenty-one years, I found that material possessions accumulate, and many of them I haven’t seen in years. As I was packing, I found items from times long ago that brought good memories, and from times that do not need my focus nor my attention. I found items that I have no idea why I bought them in the first place. Many of those items were books. As the move progressed, I realized that I want to eliminate objects around me and become less intrigued with physical objects. That, or I’ve become less intrigued to ever move those physical objects ever again. 

Getting boxes from the grocery store, which looked like I was about to build one of those cardboard beds that they have in the Olympic village in Japan, using a plethora of packing tape, getting the tape all messed up around the tape dispenser, checking Facebook, putting objects in the boxes, putting some objects in bags that will be donated, watching the Olympics, and packing the apartment, filled my entire month of July, as we prepared for the movers to arrive. My sister and I have no idea how to pack a house. It looks like the Container Store had an issue with trash bags, which were a last resort when we ran out of boxes and bins. 

The maze we created was fun. We kept painting ourselves in a corner with boxes. If we were standing on the outside of the boxes, we needed something inside the maze of boxes, like chargers to electronics, and I climbed, jumped, twisted, and turned over boxes better than any gymnast in the Olympics. 

As time was running down, my sister and I had about three hours of sleep the night before the movers were supposed to come. Hence the phrase, “supposed to.” Every person who was supposed to set-up our house all came on the same day the movers were “supposed to” come. The movers were “supposed to” come between 8:00 AM and 12:00 PM. At 12:15 PM, the movers called and said, “I think we were ‘supposed to’ come to your place and move you today, but when I called earlier, no one was there.” That was wrong because I was available all morning. My phone was always with me. The company claimed they had the wrong number. That’s interesting. I might want to remind them that they called me at 12:15PM on the correct number telling me that they thought they were “supposed to” move me that day. 

The moving company also told me that because they had other appointments, we would have to wait until next week. I’m glad they prioritized other people that they didn’t forget. To be clear, the day the movers were “supposed to” come, my sister and I safely moved my mom into the new house. I had to be creative to get her bed into the new house. I rented a SUV. I named it “Big Mama.” Do you know that everyone on Southern California freeways respects big SUVs? Big Mama got some stuff to the house! I bought an air mattress. I felt like I was camping. 

The moving company decided that they could fit us in their schedule four days later, which meant that I was trying to eliminate stuff from the apartment. When they finally moved us, one of the movers realized how cool our new community is and I think he got a beer from one of our new neighbors. Yes, we live in a friendly community that looks out for every neighbor. 

We are finally in our new place. Boxes surround us and I must try and find what I need, but it is peaceful and is working just fine. I’m back at work, so unpacking will move slower than I want, but at least everyone and everything that I decided to keep is safe and sound. I learned so much from this adventure.

One of the most important lessons I discovered that I must own less things and spend more time with people. People are not replaceable. Time moves and if we are not careful, it passes, and we may realize that we wasted it. Besides, the movers let me help them. I don’t know how they do it for a living. I was exhausted after one day of moving just one house. 

Another lesson I discovered is that memories are good to keep. Moving always brings memories of what has happened in the past, which brings us to a present that is here because of our past and leans into the dreams of the future. We cannot live in the past. We can admire the past with love as we remember the great times we had with family and friends. Any time we have had adventures, it was never because we had the most things but because we had the most experiences with other people. Most of my adventures were shared with many students from youth ministry days, and I wouldn’t trade them for any possession or any other adventure.

I learned that I may have to be in a place that I didn’t think I would live. Moving can be scary because we do not like going to the unknown. I’m a person who claims to thrive on change, but I was hesitant to move to a city two miles from Disneyland and in walking distance of the Angel Stadium. If we do not move, we stay stuck in a place that is not healthy, whether that is a job, a relationship, a house, a city, a service project, or even a community of faith. I should know because I tend to stay too long in those places. I’m learning to move forward. There comes a day when we must move to have a full life. Besides, adventures are built no matter the location but the people with whom we build them. 

In my new place I have discovered the beautiful sunsets and sunrises on my walks. I have discovered the diversity of people, just like we had in Culver City. I discovered the simple part of life, even when we are surrounded by an amusement park and a sports stadium. Time will tell where I will land next in life, but one thing I know for sure, that when I have a notion to move, I need to move. Now, if I could just find everything I need for the present, life would be great. 

Fear Keeps Us Stuck; Faith Moves Us Forward

 I have used the cliché that fear is the opposite of faith. I believe that it is true, but I also know that a cliché can be insulative and demoralizing. People who hear the words, “You have cancer,” have a genuine fear creep into their lives. Saying a cliché to them that “Fear is the opposite of faith, so have faith,” is not helpful and it tells the person that we do not care about them but that our words are correct. 

Everyone faces fear. It’s how we move when we are afraid that creates a life of faith and a life of creativity. Too many times in life we get stuck when we are afraid. We stay too long in a job. We stay too long in a relationship. We even stay too long living in a community because we fear moving to a new place. Most of us fear the unknown. What we do not realize is that our fear keeps us from moving forward. We get angry as we watch other people move ahead in life and wonder why we are not getting ahead in life. We have to look introspectively and be honest with ourselves if we are not getting ahead because we are not good at what we do, or if we are not doing what it takes, or if we are afraid. If we are honest, it is the last one that affects the other two. 

Jesus never promised us that life would be comfortable and safe. He told us not to fear as he would be with us. This last week I realized that when I was a younger, I jumped and took many risks. As I became older, I became calculated with risk as I believed I was being responsible, but I was not. I became more responsible when I finally took a risk that would benefit others and not just myself. So, how do we jump and take a risk, even if we still have fears? We trust, we pray, we communicate. 

We have to trust. First, we have to trust that God has given us the gifts, talents, and provisions for us to take this direction in our lives. As a person who creates writings, I have realized that I had to trust that God has given me this talent and the more I use it, the better it serves people. If I just keep it to myself because I am afraid of what others may think, then I am not trusting the gifts and talents that God has given me, which reveals that I do not trust God because I am revealing that I believe that God did not gift me well. So, I must create and trust. I will mess up and do wrong, but I must always trust the process. 

Prayer is an anecdote to fear. The more we pray with specific requests, the more we become fearless and decide that we must move forward. It does not mean that there will not be struggles. It does not mean that there will not be setbacks. It means that we have a God who listens to us and one we can rely on when we are afraid to take the next step. Prayer gives us the strength to keep moving, even when we are afraid. 

We must communicate with others. For a long time in my life, I kept my writing to myself that I wanted to write because when I would tell people they would laugh or scoff at my ideas. I didn’t realize that every artisan will encounter that criticism because people who do nothing are jealous of those who do something, so they criticize those who do something. So, I just had to decide to do something. We need to communicate with others our ideas as we may begin to collaborate with other people who can help facilitate our ideas. 

We cannot allow fear to rule us. We must follow the dreams that we have. We must trust, pray, and communicate. We must use our gifts and talents for others. We cannot live in fear. So many people are still living in fear and anxiety. In order to thrive as full human beings, fear will hold us back and trap us. We must continue to press forward even with the fear. Then, in the end, we will realize how fear became acts of faith along the way. It is when we reflect on our journey that we will see whether we are driven by faith or by fear. Let us move with faith. 

The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth

 During quarantine, people took the time to reflect on their lives and discover what they could change about themselves and began to work on those areas. Some people lost weight. Other people wrote books. Some people found a new job or a new hobby. Other people quit a job that had a toxic environment and others quit their bad habits. Whatever we do, we have to come to the realization of facing the truth in our lives; however, many of us have been programmed to avoid the truth, so we carry that mantra into our adulthood and our entire lives. 

Since most of the country is now open, violence is up in most major cities. It is not that people choose to be violent, but that they struggle to face the truth about themselves that become revealed when they are around other humans. Self-reflection is a mental health activity, but if we just reflect and not have any action to it, we are avoiding the truth that we need to face. 

Like so many other people, I have struggled to face the truth that I am not just a victim of the church hurt, but that I have also hurt other people. The truth is that I had focused so much on myself, that I lost the vision of focusing on Christ to guide others to him. Along with realizing that I have hurt people, I also have had to face the truth that my response to hurt was not always healthy for me and for others, and yet I continued to respond with the same response in the situations, and I would continue to get hurt. This occurred in relationships outside of the church too. 

The church, like many other institutions, needs to face the truth that for decades, we have not represented Jesus. We have been a good representation of rules, regulations, and rituals, along with righteous behavior, but we have not represented Christ because as we were following the rules, we did not leave room for love. If we want to truly represent Christ, the church needs to love other people with the love that Jesus has for them. There is no room for excuses. 

The church cannot shout and scream about the behavior of other people who do not follow Christ and yet condone the actions of Christians who do the exact same behavior. We need to face the truth that sinners attend church, no matter what faced they wear when they enter the doors on Sunday. This misrepresentation of Jesus has tarnished the church, not Jesus. Those of us in the church need to realize that we must change in order to represent Christ. 

Change is difficult for everyone. I realized a few months ago, that as much as I claim that I love change, there are areas in life in which I do not love change. If we want to grow, or dare I use the phrase, “Go deeper,” then we must change. We not only need to change our behavior toward other people, but we also need to change our hearts show that we can reveal genuine love to people. 

So, as we come together as a country and the church to battle sin, we must be truthful with ourselves and change. anything worth doing, will take time, hard work, and being honest with ourselves and others. Without truth, we cannot stand. We must be and speak the truth. 

The Cost of Freedom

 Anything that is free cost someone something. We live in a society in which we want to thrive on that which is free, but it costs someone, and freedom itself is expensive. If freedom were not expensive, it would be worthless. The more a product costs, the more precious it is to the owner. The cost is not always money, and on July 4th, we celebrate and remember the cost of freedom for this country. As Christians, we can appreciate the cost of freedom that Jesus gave us. We just need to remember and realize that freedom isn’t free, and its cost is precious as it cost many their lives. 

Men and women have lost their lives fighting for our freedom in America. We have the freedom to vote for whom we want, to think how we want, and believe how we want, even if our beliefs are not substantiated in facts, we have the freedom to believe. I would have it no other way. I don’t want to be forced to believe or think how others want me to think and believe.  I don’t want everyone to think and believe the same, and that includes spiritual beliefs. I’m a Duke basketball fan. There is no way I’ll ever believe and think like everyone else, but that’s not the only freedom we can celebrate. 

Jesus sacrificed his life for us to live free from sin. He gave everything, so that we could be saved by grace through faith. There is no act of service or good work that we can do to repay him for his sacrifice. People try to repay him with acts of service and good behavior. As humans, I think we struggle with this because we cannot comprehend such an act of sacrifice. We can show gratitude, but we need to know that it will not repay Jesus, but to show gratitude to Jesus.

With all of the sacrifice for our freedom, how do we respond? We show gratitude. Gratitude can come in the form of actions with service. We can show gratitude with our love toward other human beings, even if, and especially if, we disagree with them in the realm of spiritual or political issues. We can begin to love those that are different from us. 

Loving others is the complete strategy of showing gratitude for those who sacrificed for our freedom. The ten commandments are summed up in two commands, love God and love others as you love yourself. Love is the answer. If we love others, we communicate without belittling and mocking. If we love others, we understand that they will believe and think differently from us, and we appreciate that, even if we disagree. If we love others, we listen with empathy and compassion. If we love others, we perform acts that benefit all. 

This July 4th, may we celebrate the freedom that we have. May we also express gratitude for that freedom with love, so that others may enjoy the freedom. If we fight for freedom with love, then love will prevail. The sacrifice of life for our freedom was done for love. Jesus loved us and wanted to save us from our sins, and our soldiers loved the country for which they died. Let us show our gratitude with an act of love. 

A Firm Faith Requires a Firm Foundation

 This last week, the nation watched in horror the video of a residential building collapse in Miami. The reason for why it fell is debatable, but one thing is for sure. Its foundation crumbled. Having grown up in Florida where we had sinkholes, and now living in Southern California with earthquakes, I know that having a firm foundation is vital for our homes. 

Our bodies also need a firm foundation. In our physical bodies, our core is the foundation. If our core is strong, our whole body is strong. I need to work on my core in my physical body, and I also need to work on my core in my spiritual body because when the core of my spiritual body is strong, the whole spiritual life is strong. Jesus taught about having a firm foundation for our spiritual lives. He warned us that when it is built on a rock, it is firm, but when it is built on sand, it comes crashing down. The problem is that most of us believe that we have a firm foundation built on rock, and yet, when trials hit, our faith crashes, which reveals it was built on sand. 

We can have a spiritual firm foundation, but like our physical bodies, it takes time to become solid and firm. When life’s troubles crash down on us, many of us do not want to take the time to repair the breakage, as we waste time complaining, but we must because we do not want our entire spiritual life to fall. 

To have a firm foundation, we must throw away the ideology of other people’s beliefs. This was and still is difficult for me. Throughout my life, I have been taught to trust the “experts.” When the experts began to become human and they failed in their own faith and expertise, I struggled to believe what was factual of their teachings and what was not. These experts had been trained in the Bible, and yet, they only spoke words and did not put their words into practice. Once I began to search for answers for faith throughout the Bible and studied the context, I realized that it was one thing to know the facts and very different to put those facts into practice. 

Putting our faith into action requires having faith when we feel as if we are stumbling around in the dark. We must trust God when we cannot see what will happen in our lives. We must trust God when the answers are not apparent. We must trust that the answers we want may not be the answers we need, and God will only give us what we need. 

Many times, when our faith collapses, we blame God. Jesus taught us where to build our foundation. If we choose to build our foundation on people or on good works that are disguised as service, then our faith foundation is built on sand, and it will crumble. We have no one to blame but ourselves. For far too long, I played the blame game. For far too long my faith, although I had extensive Biblical knowledge, was built on sand. Once I repaired my foundation and built on rock, my faith grew. I stopped blaming God for my own flaws and my acts of service that were done with disdain. We must serve with a love for God and people. if we do not love people when we serve, then how we can love God as we serve? 

Once our faith is built on a firm foundation, we do not automatically receive an easy life without troubles. James warns us in James 1:3 that we will have trials and troubles. It is how we respond to those trials and troubles. He does not write that we need to be happy about them, but to have joy, which is to be content where we are in life. We all have strife. Many of us do not share worldwide our strife, which is why we need to be kind on social media of how we treat people, as we do not know the strife of which others endure. How we treat others reveals if our faith is built on sand or on rock. 

If we have a faith built on a firm foundation with Christ being at the core, then we treat other people with the love of Jesus and as we love ourselves. We eliminate criticizing and belittling because our faith is so strong, that we do not need to tear down other buildings but bring support that the others can rebuild on rock instead of sand. Empowering others creates a strong foundation that is built on Christ because we know that we have a faith in Christ that empowers us, so we want others to have that same power. 

We need to have a firm foundation in our spiritual lives. We need to discover where our foundation is. If we have built our foundation on ideologies, we need to return to God’s Word and align our faith with God. If we built our foundation on people, we need to realign our faith with Christ. If we have built our faith on overpowering and controlling other people’s faith, we need to shift our power to empowering others to have a love for Jesus and to encourage them that Jesus loves them. 

Our world is struggling as it reopens. We all have struggles and troubles in our life. We need to have our spiritual lives built on a firm foundation. It will result with the rest of our body, with our physical, mental, and emotional health also having firm foundations. Our strong faith will affect people around us. As we pray for those who are affected with the loss of loved ones in Miami, may we also pray for our own spiritual foundations to be solid so we can create a stronger world around us. 

Do We Act and Make a Difference, or Do We Sit Back and Criticize?

For the past year and a half, the Internet has exploded with disputes over any and every subject. Some of the topics are serious and others are frivolous. No matter the topic, we have to choose. Are we going to hide behind our computer screens and criticize those who are attempting to make a difference in the world, or are we going to work with others and try to discover ways to resolve some of the issues that are hurting other people? The decision is ours to make and one that will either call us to act or do nothing. 

Whenever we take on an endeavor to make a difference in the world, there will always be critics. You know why? They don’t want the change. If it changes, it may involve them to act and not just sit back and rest on their laurels. We are living in a society that criticizes every act that people are doing. It is causing people to not act, which resolves nothing. That’s what the criticizers want. They want nothing to be done because they either want to control everything or they want to sit back and complain. If we look into the lives of people who make a difference in the world, we will discover that all of them had critics, and all of them drowned out the noise of their critics and did the work they had to do. 

Looking throughout history, we can see those who had critics from Edison, the Wright Brothers, to even Elon Musk. They refused to listen to their critics. In order to grow and make a difference in the world, we have to not listen or even engage with our critics. They do not want us to change. Our critics are not our allies. It’s easy to sit back and criticize. It’s difficult to discover solutions to complex problems. It’s time we stop taking the easy route in life. 

We need to empower others. Empowerment means we give someone control over their own life and claiming their own rights. We need to empower other people who are doing tasks to use their talents and gifts to make a difference in the world. If we become so focused on empowering others and serving others with the gifts and talents that we have, we will not have time to criticize or listen to the criticism of others. 

Jesus empowered his disciples to spread the Gospel and make a difference in the world. He didn’t sit back and criticize them. He set an example. He then empowered them after three years. They made a large impact with the foundation of the church. The church may not be what they envisioned it to be, but we can empower others in the church with us to make that difference today because sitting back and criticizing will not benefit anyone, as it will do nothing.

We must focus on our mission. I have recognized that the people who are making an impact on the world are so focused on their mission that they do not have time to bother with the insults being thrown at them. I’m trying to get to that point in my life. It’s a process. We have to determine that God has given us our talents and gifts to use, and we must begin to use them. We must be diligent. So, we have to make our decision. We decide to criticize or to act. I choose to act. We all have the decision to make. Criticizing will lead to disputes and arguing, and nothing will be resolved. Acting will lead to change, which will create solutions to the issues our world is facing. Once the changes take place, criticizing and disputing will be useless. The choice is ours to make. 

 

A Great Leader Creates Great Teams--Even in the Church

 It seems as if I can go on any social media site and see someone lambasting the church. Christians have been behaving badly and this last year was terrifying with their behavior. Many people complain on social media. I would like to make a suggestion. How about we begin to fix the broken?  It is what the church is supposed to do. It is time that the church fixes the church in order to heal the broken in the world. It will take faith, trust, and hard work, but it can be done because I’ve seen it happen inside and outside of the church. Using a mentor outside of the church, who took a broken and losing system to a very healthy program, guided me to some suggestions. 

The times are changing, and with that change comes endings and beginnings. This last week we were informed of those changing times with the announcement that Coach K will retire from college basketball after this upcoming season. Times are changing, but we can learn from a leader who has had led young people to championships both on and off the court. 

His numbers speak volumes of the impact he has made on the men’s basketball team and their legacy. In my small Bible College, our basketball team won three national championships three years in a row. Our coach was an incredible man of faith, a great leader, and a role model on and off the court. I wanted to join in on the college basketball craze that exists in many in the Midwest. My Indiana friends told me to follow Indiana University. My Kentucky friends told me that would be horrible and to follow the University of Kentucky. Here’s a little bit of information about me. I don’t go with what others tell me to do. I chose Duke University. They had good-looking players and they kept going to the Final Four and not winning, until 1991 when the dynasty began. 

Here are the lessons I have learned from watching Coach K that can be applied to leaders in the church: 

1. Believe in the people around you. So many of us as leaders complain about those whom we are leading instead of being grateful for those who God has given us to lead. We never know which ones will make a huge impact on the world. Instead of complaining about those whom we are leading, we need to guide them to improve their skills, which means we need to know what their strengths are. For far too long, the church has focused on people’s flaws instead of their strengths. It’s time we focus on people’s strengths and guide them to use those strengths in areas of service. Good leaders get the right people. Great leaders work with the strengths of those people, so they can use them in order to have a healthy and strong organization. Coach K always believed in and developed his players and assistant coaches’ strengths. 

2. Do your research. So many of us as leaders get into a position of leadership and stop learning. One element of leadership I gained from observing Coach K was to never stop learning. When the game changed, he changed with it. He didn’t complain. He did his research. He studied. He continued to learn about the changes and challenges, which led to another championship in 2015. Leaders in the church must continue to learn with culture and be proactive instead of reactive. 

3. Trust and be trustworthy. Duke University trusted Coach K, even though he had three losing seasons his first three years at the school. Coach K has continued to trust his assistant coaches, his athletic directors who are above him, and his players. Without trust, the system becomes broken. Leaders must begin to trust those they have placed within ministries. Those of us in ministries must trust our leaders and those with whom we are working. Trust builds into faith. When our churches lack trust, they lack faith. When we begin to trust, our faith in Christ grows. 

4. Never give up, even when it looks bleak. Duke had a terrible season last year, but they entered the ACC tournament with the determination to win it. Unfortunately, Covid stopped them. Coach K had so many comebacks in his career, and he knows that panic is never healthy. There are trials. We have to learn how to endure them. Events occur in our ministries that can become out of our control. We cannot give up. Many people have given up on the body of Christ and claim that it is unredeemable. That is untrue. No one is unredeemable. We have to press forward, even when all looks bleak. The church has to lead in the direction that Jesus can redeem anyone. The church must set this example. 

Coach K will enter the court for one last season as a head coach, but he will always lead. If we have been called to lead, we have to lead, even in positions that those around us might view as small. Nothing is small in God’s eyes. He can take a small item that the world sees and create a huge dynasty. It’s how He works. It may seem mysterious because we give up before we get going. It’s time for the church to rise and get going. It may be the farewell season for Coach K, but for the church, we need to have a revolution tour. It’s starting. May we rise from the ashes, heal, and begin healing others. It all begins with great leadership. 

Memorial Day Celebrates the Ultimate Sacrifice

 My Great Uncle Elvy died during WW2. They were attacked off the shores of Germany. Experts are following the stories of all those who were lost and are trying to discover how he died. According to his shipmate who wrote my Great Grandmother, he was killed while shooting at the enemy, as they had just been attacked. The way his fellow soldier described my Great Uncle’s last action, it was as if he was in a war movie and after he took his last shot, he was shot off of the boat. 

He was considered MIA for years. One of the soldiers said that he was there one moment, and when he turned around, he was gone and nowhere to be found. That gave a lot to our imaginations. History conservationists are working to have his headstone placed in Arlington National Cemetery to honor his ultimate sacrifice for his country. A country struggling to find its way, even today. 

Nothing in this world is free. Someone has to pay for it somewhere. We all enjoy receiving free gifts, but we forget that someone had to pay for those gifts. Freedom comes with a price. The price costs some people everything. Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. If he didn’t, we would have to be killed for every single wrongdoing we have committed. We cannot repay the ultimate sacrifice, but we can begin to live as if freedom is priceless. 

We have soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom to live our lives on our physical land, and we have Jesus who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom to live our lives on our spiritual land. Now, it is our turn. We can make small sacrifices in order to create a big free world. If we just sacrifice little habits that destroy people, we will recognize freedom all around us. 

We can recognize how our actions and words affect others. We can use our freedom to berate others or empower and encourage others. We have to decide which one will make a difference and make actual changes. If we do not like certain words or terms, then we do not use them, but we are gentle when we instruct others about those words. If we want the world to be a better place, we have to start with being better people. Each day we can choose to practice good habits and work to break a bad habit. That is how we make America better. That is how we represent Jesus better. 

I cannot fathom living in a country without freedom but in order to have that freedom for everyone, I may have to sacrifice some choices in order for others to be free. I can sacrifice time and resources so others can also enjoy the freedom that all humans deserve. 

Memorial Day is a time to remember and reflect of why those men and women sacrificed everything for our freedom. Let us reflect and let us make a choice to honor their lives with respecting our freedom and not taking advantage of their freedom or the freedom that Jesus gives us from sin. Our small sacrifices can make small differences that when added together, can create a better country. We can do better, and we must. 

To Mask or Not to Mask, That is the Question

In the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC said, “No, please don’t buy masks. The health care workers need them.” Then, we were told, “Okay, there are enough masks for you to purchase. You should wear them when out of your house.” Then we were told, “You must wear them outside of your house. In fact, some of you need to wear them inside of your house.” It is now fifteen months later. The CDC says, “Fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks, indoors or outdoors, unless the state says otherwise.” The state says, “Wear masks where it is posted to wear them. Wait, we’re California, wear them.” I now may understand the political debate of a disease. Well, I sort of get it. 

Masks. They have been a political debate on social media for the past fifteen months. I’m not debating them. I have cute ones that I buy at the bargain table at the Disney Store. Masks. We all wear them, whether we put them on physically or not, and most people are unaware how their masks have become ingrained in them and have become a part of who they are. 

Characters in horror stories wear masks to hide their identity when they commit a crime. Then, when they take their masks off, they live a normal life. Their counterparts are superheroes. Some of our superheroes wear masks, especially when they are doing their jobs to save the world. I do like some superhero movies and television shows. I have noticed that with both groups, DC and Marvel, the superheroes that wear the masks want to hide their identity because they want to hide their power. We live in a society that wants us to hide our power and our identity. It’s strange because most people will tell you the opposite, but trust me, hiding is safer but not healthier or better for the whole of the community. 

Safe. We all have lived a year of safety. We lived inside our homes. We went to work and school at home. We wore face masks when we left our homes and entered businesses. (In Los Angeles, it was mandated. For the rest of the country, you may not understand that.) A mask gives us safety to hide. I was able to hide my facial expressions, except for the occasional eyeroll. Masks allow us to hide our true identity and not allow others see who we really are. We hide behind our political pundits, our human spiritual leaders, news media, books, social media, television shows, and movies. Just like the superheroes and villains who wear masks who do not want their enemies to know their identity, we do not want people to see who we are because then they will see our true identity, and we are uncomfortable with people seeing the truth, both the good and the bad. The truth will set us free, even if we endure judgement. 

Trust. We have been told to wear a mask not just because we can receive the virus, but because we can give it. If we think it’s not that bad to give it to someone else, we do not realize the damage that we do to others. When we have broken trust, we damage the people around us, and we do not always realize the damage that has been done. For the past year, we have had to go places and trust that people were not sick in the environment in which we were. The question begs to be asked if we can be trusted too. If people do not trust others to do the right thing, then they have a right to believe that when they see us, they do not trust us to do the right thing. We not only have to build trust for others, but to be trustworthy toward others. 

Disease. We were told to wear a mask so we will not get a disease. Some people said that we were contaminating ourselves with the dirt in our masks. Yep, we wear masks to cover up the dirt in our lives. We look one way on the outside and our inner selves is full of greed, wrath, jealousy, and other sins. If people were to observe our sins, they would judge us. If people were to see our sins, they would gossip. The problem comes when we no longer see our own sins because of our masks and behave as if the sin is now an extra limb on our body not realizing that it is the damage that we are doing to ourselves and others around us. 

Faith. Whether we wear a physical mask or not is not even close to the point. We need to tear off the masks that we hide behind to cover-up our sins and reveal to the world how we as imperfect Christians are redeemed by the blood of Jesus. We have to have faith in Jesus and the church that we can live a full life without the masks. It is without masks that we reveal the love of Jesus to others. Our masks may not be visible, but they are recognized. Many people can see when Christians are wearing a mask as they say one thing and do another. 

Masks. We all wear them. Some people wear a mask of insecurity. Others wear a mask of fear. Some wear a mask of all of their agendas. Some wear a mask of knowledge. Some wear a mask of power. May we remove our masks and reveal our real identity, as the world is waiting for us to rise and be on the side of humanity. The world needs love, grace, mercy, and peace now more than ever. The only way we can share those qualities is when we are authentic in our faith and in our true identity. May we live a life without the invisible masks and reveal ourselves to others to reveal the love of Jesus.