What the World Needs Now is Peace

 “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan 1987. I remember this day. Tears filled my eyes as I heard them and the one person sitting on the wall that separated freedom from an oppressed nation took a stone and pounded it on the top of the wall symbolizing the tearing it down. I remember hundreds of people climbing over to the other side of the wall and enjoying the freedom for the first time. A slab of that wall stands outside of the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, California. 

This week, I am reminded of that event, and yet again tears fill my eyes, but for a different reason. I am fearful for those people that once enjoyed freedom that they will become under the regime of a cruel leader and dictatorship. Lives are already lost. War is upon us. Growing up in the 1980s, it was the end of the Cold War, and we experienced a time of peace. I cannot fathom having to go into a bomb shelter or fleeing the land that I’ve known all my life. War is cruel. War is horrible. War brings death and destruction. 

I have had friends who have been missionaries in both Ukraine and Russia. They are brokenhearted at the sight of their countries. I am brokenhearted over the worn torn images. So, why war? Power? Greed? Envy? Selfishness? All of them are combined. When we focus on what we don’t have, instead of the great things in our life, we have war. For many of us, so far away, we wonder what is that we can do for the people involved in this. We wonder how we can help the Ukrainians and the Russian people who do not want this war. 

First, we can pray. Some people believe that prayer does not do anything and that it is passive. They are people who have never experienced the power of prayer. Prayer is powerful. God hears our prayers. God listens. You must talk to him. Pray for peace. Pray for the victims. Pray for the leaders to be taken down or to have a change of heart. Pray that none of us or anyone else desires that much power. 

Next, we can find a charity that we trust and support with our resources. For those of us who know people who live there or who have lived there, we can connect with them and find trustworthy charities to donate. People judge those who take money, but we forget that there are groups out there that are doing the work. Find them. Take time off social media and your political fights and find those trustworthy groups. 

The third thing we can do is join in with those in our own country who have relatives still in the region. We can ask what they need, instead of barging in on them with what we think they need or want. Once we ask that question, then we do what they say they needed. Some will say prayer. Others will say strength. Whatever it is, if it is in our power, we do what we can to fulfill it. 

The best thing we can do is stop our wars with others, whether the war is on social media or real life. As Christians, we can bring peace by being peaceful. There are people in our own communities that are suffering. We can give help to those people. if we are serving, we change the world, one person at a time. 

To wish for peace is one idea. To be a peacemaker is a choice. Choose to be a peacemaker. For the past few years, all that has been on social media is the fight over which political or which religious group is the best and the other one is horrible. It has led to a mental and social war. People have suffered with mental health issues. We had time to be at home, but we connected on social media and fought. The wars within ourselves were flowing out of our hearts onto the pages and hurting others. It’s time to stop with those wars and bring peace into the lives of the people we influence. 

Do you want to be known as a warmonger or a peacemaker? Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” He never said, “Blessed are the warmongers who fight over politics on social media. I’m just as guilty. Now, I am striving for peace. 

Jesus said, I give you peace, but not as the world gives peace. I loved living in the 1980s, even with big hair and big puffy sleeves. The best part was the peace in the world, but I had wars within. It has taken years for me to settle those wars and end them and accept the peace of Jesus. 

As we strive for peace, let us share that peace with others. Jesus gives us peace. Even in a world of war, he is our peace. Jesus is there. Jesus cares. Jesus desires for us to have the peace in our lives. That is the peace we must seek and take. 

Responding to Our Own Gold Medal Moments and Our Own Fourth Place Finishes

 “I’m not going out on the ice! I’m never skating again!” Cried the Olympic silver medalist for figure skating. Along with her, was her teammate crying, “I can’t see this! I won’t see this!” after her dismal performance and a fourth-place finish, even though she tested positive for a banned substance. The world watched as the Russian women’s figure skaters broke down in front of us. 

People on social media blamed the coaches. The skaters worked all their lives for this moment, and their moment didn’t happen the way they wanted it. Someone else who also worked her entire life for the moment, got their moment. I cannot judge them. I have reacted the same way when someone else stole my moment. 

It makes me wonder if I have been the one to steal someone else’s moment. They worked for a reward or recognition that I received, and I caused them to breakdown. It reveals our true character of how we respond to setbacks in life and watching someone else succeed where we just got knocked down. I’ve been in both places. My response to both created growth in my life. 

When life falls apart, how do you respond? When you watch others have their lives fall apart, how do you respond? It’s easy to judge others when we sit back. If we have a strong character, then we can endure life when it falls apart. Life is not about the moments. It’s how we respond to the moments. I don’t condemn the skaters for their attitudes after their loss. I am guilty of the emotional fits. I no longer want to condone my own actions, but I want to see from another person’s vantage point.

As a teenager, I remember having a fit on a quiz team because someone on my team was reckless and threw the game away. She didn’t do the work I had done. I was furious and yes, I cried with tears of fury because I thought she wanted me to look stupid. Looking back, she just wanted the spotlight that I had. Teenagers walk through life with blinders. They only see their point of view. They don’t see that someone else may be jealous of them. Some adults have yet to take those blinders off. Jealousy causes us to fall apart when our moment is tainted. 

Along with the teenage fits, I have had the in life that have brought much joy. I have been a winner when others have had to wait their turn. At a youth worker’s conference that I attended in youth ministry was looking for women speakers. I submitted a subject and they asked me to speak. It was surreal when I thought only thirty people would be in the seminar and 250 people showed up. I was shaking and humbled with such a large audience. Afterward, a fellow youth worker approached me and asked how was I able to speak? I understood the undertone. I was not better than him. I was not worthy of that gold medal. I responded with kindness and told him to submit a subject for the following year. That next year, we both led seminars. 

That seminar brought me growth emotionally and spiritually. I didn’t realize that other people would look to me with jealousy. I had a choice. I could be bitter with his question, or I could inform him of how to become a speaker. I chose the latter. To this day, I don’t even realize that I understand why I did that. I just knew that there was room at the top for both of us. He was a good leader and had lots of wisdom. I learned from him. 

How we respond to other people’s successes reveals our character. How we respond to our own gold medal moments also reveals who we are. If we are arrogant and unwilling to share our success with others, we can still become embittered, which leads to ungratefulness. How you win, says more about who you are than how you lose. 

Life is a roller coaster. It has twists, turns, ups, and downs. If life was perfect, it would be boring. There are times in life when we desire the mundane because we just want out of the pits. Before we throw our fits in the pits, we can look for ways to change. It is all about how you respond to the rollercoaster of life. May you take the ride and let it take you to a journey that brings growth to your emotional and spiritual life. 

Rest is Vital for our Health

 As a teacher, I must endorse the importance of rest. It is the one element in my entire week that will get me through the stressful and dark days that are upon us in the education world. Teachers are tired, overwhelmed, and frustrated. That’s just one part of our society. I can only imagine how those in the medical field are doing. I can only imagine how people who own their own businesses are overworked because they do not have enough employees, or they had to lessen the number of employees so they could break even financially. The last two years have taken a toll on all of us. As much as we all need encouraging words, we all must take time to rest. 

I love exploring and leaving the house to go to a coffee shop to write or to a mall to just walk around it and look at all the items I’m not going to buy, but recently I have discovered the beauty of staying home. I’m exhausted. Everyone is. People make all kinds of excuses of why they cannot stop and rest. I know because I have made those excuses. I like how a friend says it. “Excuses are like butts. We all have them and they all stink.” We must stop making excuses and take the time to stop and rest. 

There are demands from our family, from our jobs, from our churches, from our relationships, and from our own goals. Sometimes, we just have to say, “No.” That word is the most difficult word to say in the English language, but it is necessary and powerful. We must say “No” even to demands in our life that other people put on us and believe are urgent. I have discovered that if their demands are so urgent, and I don’t do them, they will find a way to get their own demands completed. 

Without rest, we can destroy relationships. We are not healthy emotionally and we are super sensitive to what everyone is saying. Have we noticed that everyone around us in our society today are super sensitive to the words that people are saying? It’s because we lack rest and are not thinking logically or with any kind of grace that no one on this planet has perfect speech all the time. We must give grace when others misuse their words. When we have rest, it’s easier to give grace because we have a healthy mind that is rested. 

Without rest, we can destroy ourselves mentally. We can make major mistakes in our lives with our careers, family, or any other part of our lives that requires any cerebral time. When we receive a consequence for our mistake, we either breakdown or blame others for what was done. Without rest, our responses to consequences may not be healthy. The one response would be to get more rest. We don’t want to do that because we believe that we are so valuable to everyone around us that we cannot stop and rest. The truth is without rest, we lessen as a human because we are not mentally, emotionally, or spiritually strong, and we lose our value. 

Without rest, we are destroying our spiritual lives. Jesus took time to rest. He walked away from the crowds and took time to be with His Father. So many times, when I was working in the church, I would hear fellow pastors tell me that God’s work is never done, so we cannot take time to rest. Are they better than Jesus? They were wrong. God can get the work done without us if he chooses. He chose us to do His work, but he wants us to do His work well, and the only way we can accomplish that is to be well rested. We must take time to spend with Jesus as we rest in Him. We must take time to sleep and let him take care of our bodies, so that we can serve Him and do His work that so urgently needs to be done. 

Without rest, we struggle physically. I have had to learn this one the hard way. I am naturally a night owl. I can create some of my best work late into the wee hours of the darkness of night, but as a teacher, those hours are not afforded to me. I have learned that one of the best ways to lose weight and be physically healthy is to rest. When I have been sick, I can reflect and see that many times it was because I did not take care of myself and get proper rest. 

There are demands on all of us. People want us there for them every second of their lives. Even if we are taking care of babies, we must find a way to rest with them. Our rest can be a nap, getting to bed earlier, reading a book, listening to music, or whatever it is that calms us and allows us to rest. It may not be a long rest, but any small amount will help. We can also ask others to help us so that we can rest. The world around us is hectic. Jesus walked away and rested. We must give ourselves permission to do that. In the wise words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Let’s stop and look around. Life is too short to miss it. 

Serving Without Notoriety

 In churches, schools, businesses, and even sports arenas, we all notice those who are on the stage. We don’t always see the Martha’s. They are the ones that do the small tasks that no one wants to do, but everyone gets to benefit. They are the first ones to arrive and the last ones to leave. We may not always see what they do, but when they are gone, we realize how valuable their service is. 

Many people misunderstand the passage when Jesus speaks to Martha about serving and her complaining that Mary is just sitting at his feet. He wasn’t chastising Martha for her serving, but for her attitude. She needed to understand that she could worship with service, so her sister could worship at Jesus’s feet. Neither one was better in Jesus’s eyes, but the attitude of one was better. When we serve with the attitude that we are serving to make the experience for someone to worship at Jesus’s feet, and we then can worship at his feet, then we get it. 

At my church, I had a friend who served in ways that most people did not see. If you sat in a chair at Mosaic, he set it up. If you danced on the floor on the stage, he laid it down and made sure it was safe. If your children enjoyed the worship in their ministry, he was behind the scenes making sure that it was done well. Most importantly, if you connected to others because you had a meal with them after a service, he was the reason because he made sure that those lunches and dinners existed and that they existed to connect new people at church with those of us who were members. 

Losing a friend is difficult. We may not always appreciate or see the value of the friendship until someone is gone, but this is a friendship that I never took for granted. I came to Mosaic with such disdain for the church, that I wondered if anyone would even speak to me. My friend who served behind the scenes knew the value of connecting people with Jesus because they were hurt. Even though I may have more knowledge than he did on the Bible, he understood a relationship with Jesus is more than Bible knowledge, but actual application of sharing the love of Jesus with others, even if they do not always see it was true Christianity. He helped me see the love of Jesus. 

This last week, my friend left this life on earth and entered the presence of Jesus. We never know when our last day on earth will be. We just need to live each day as if it were our last and share the love of Jesus with others. I know I will see Phil Cambre again when I leave this earth. I know I’ll have to look in the quiet corners of heaven surrounded by all the people he influenced. This last week, I reminded myself every day that how I treat people, how I serve is what is valuable. May we all live our lives with that value. 

Refocusing Our Sight On Ourselves

 As I scroll through social media, I discover that many people are wonderful, good, and perfect. At least from the words on their social media posts, it appears that way. Social media can connect us to people in the world and create stronger friendships, but it can also begin to destroy us in ways that may not be visible to us, but it is apparent to those around us and to those reading our posts. Why is it that we can see the flaws in others but not see our own imperfections? 

This has been an age-old problem in life. Jesus had to address this issue. “Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3 (CSV) Why do we focus on what others are doing wrong and cannot see our own flaws? Jesus asked this rhetorical question. No one would dare answer it because it will reveal our worse flaw in ourselves. We refuse to look at our flaws and sins because we do not want to change them. 

It’s so much easier to call out other people’s wrongdoings than it is to fix our own. I see it every day in my classroom. Students will call out other people’s flaws and not adjust or correct their own failures. We hate to admit that we have flaws. This has damaged Christianity. It’s damaged those of us within the church, along with those who are outside of the church screaming that we must change. We must begin with ourselves to change and turn from our sins before we can scream about other people. 

I don’t have any ill feelings to those who are on the side of calling out people’s wrong ideas in life, but I do have a problem when all we do is sit behind a computer screen with our log in our own eyes and call out the failures of other people. The pandemic has left many people in dire straits in many areas. We should begin to encourage other people instead of pointing out their flaws.

When we sit and point out the flaws of everyone around us, we bring attention to ourselves to have our own flaws exposed. Instead of exposing the flaws of others, we need to turn from our sins and wrongdoings and pray that others will do the same. The more we sit back and claim to be perfect, the more sins we commit. No one is perfect. No one will ever say or write the perfect words that we want to hear. We can only go to Jesus for that perfection. 

So, let us make this year the year in which we begin to work on ourselves. I have discovered that the more I change and grow, those around me change and grow. Let us set a goal to make the changes we must do to improve our own lives and then watch the world change around us. It just may all be in the perspective of what we see. It is with our time and conversations with Jesus that this change will take place. Let us go boldly in this year with the time to change. 

 

Change in Us Creates Change around Us

 It’s a three-day weekend because we are celebrating the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. I remember on our trip in Washington D.C., his memorial was so tall that it towered over all the others. It was majestic. I thought of the life that he lived. He didn’t let people stop him on his mission, even when he was imprisoned, or his life was threatened. He did not stop because he knew that change had to occur. He fought for equal rights for all people. He wanted change. His fight was one worth fighting. It makes me think that I want to only fight for what is worth fighting and that fight must bring change. 

It’s a new year with new journeys and a new perspective on life. The only way we can allow the new into our lives, is that we must change. We may have to change our ideas, or our attitudes, or our jobs, or our habits. Whatever it is, we all must engage in change so that the world around us can be a better place. We cannot force other people to change, but if we choose not to change, then we choose not to grow. Being stagnant in life brings unsatisfaction and an unhealthy life. 

Change is difficult. It is more than saying a speech or tweeting or screaming on social media with a meme that defines how others around us must change because we made changes in our lives that we believe we must force others to do. I cannot demand that someone else changes. I can inspire them with my own life how healthy change can be. As Christians, we must commit ourselves to change. We must embrace change in our own lives and the life of the church continually because change brings growth. For many Christians, change is nonexistent. It’s not an insult. It’s a truth that I have struggled with my entire Christian life. 

The church struggles to change. Music anyone? That fight has been going on for centuries. Some people are still screaming that we must sing songs that were created in bars. You know what that means? Those music writers were in bars…all the time. Change of leadership is a constant fight. We don’t like change because we must give up something. If we give up something, we gain something so much better, but many people believe that if we give up something, it is lost forever. Maybe we must lose some things forever. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that racism needed to end…forever. 

That was the secret that Martin Luther King Jr. knew. He knew that if we would give up our prejudices, we would gain a much better country with everyone being able to use their gifts and talents to create businesses, art, educational institutions, and communities where love exists over hate. It is only with change that we can create. If we set goals for the New Year, then we must give up a bad habit to create a new habit. That new habit will make our lives better. We must make a better world, so we may have to change some of our attitudes and ideas so that others may benefit from our change. So, we must give up something. 

Martin Luther King Jr. did not fight for himself. He fought for others. He fought for change. His memorial towers over others because his work made such an impact on this country, but his work is not finished. Change is constant. It will always be with us. We don’t have to lose our faith in God to change. We should gain faith as we change. As we start this new year and enter this three-day weekend, may we fight the good fight as we change every day to make the world a better place for people today and in the future.  Let us all choose one area in our life that we can change to make those around us better and healthier. 

An Abundant Place

It’s a New Year, and many of us are setting goals and attempting new undertakings. This year, as I continue to have a daily commitment time with God, I decided to use devotionals or books to help with my time, so that I could not just acquire more knowledge, but to have a fresh perspective on scripture. As I was looking for a devotional, I discovered that two people that have mentored me in my writing wrote a devotional about finding God in the noise of our lives, as we discover our own abundant place. I bought it, and the excellence of An Abundant Place is beyond words. 

When it comes to published devotionals, I’m finicky. As a Bible College graduate and a seminary graduate, I appreciate new perspectives on scripture, not retold jokes or stories that I’ve heard or have used, which is why I have appreciated the devotional, An Abundant Place by Kathi Lipp and Cheri Gregory. They bring a fresh perspective to scripture as they use their own experiences, along with a new understanding of the passage that I may not have considered with an understanding 

For me, having my own time with God living in the city comes with noise. In fact, I surround myself with noise. As I write this, music is playing in the background, and yet I can hear birds chirping outside my window, along with trucks and cars zooming down the street.  I must hear God through the noise. I can make the excuse that it’s too noisy to have a quiet time with God, or I can create a place of quiet in my head for time with God.

I must make the choice to worship God, even if the noise refuses to stop. “God has given me an abundance of opportunities to worship Him. I just need to quiet the noise and pay attention to what he has already provided.” (Lipp, page 42) Worshipping God depends on my attitude, not on what is occurring around me. If I do not like the style of music, then my grumbling is the noise that is stopping me from worshipping God, not the music. If I am frustrated with the distractions and interruptions, then maybe I need to see those distractions and interruptions as God trying to speak to me. Maybe that small child’s voice is what I need to hear. 

So, I’m starting my year with this devotional, in which I can also write down thoughts and notes and will be able to see worshipping God with abundance throughout the entire New Year. Our time with God is precious. Our worship is precious. We must make the most of every opportunity to reveal to God our devotion and love to him. No matter what church we attend, what the worship music is like, or how many people are in the church, may we take ownership of our worship to God. It’s a New Year, and a year, in which we can commit to a change. If we change our perspective on how we worship and our frame of mind of worship, we will be able to worship God as he deserves. Let us worship him with an abundant mind as we join Him in An Abundant Place.