Joel Stiff's Adventure

My brother and I have had our share of adventures.

Today’s was minor, but adventuresome none the less. We had stopped and picked up a couple of Starbuck’s drinks. I tend to go with the grande caramel macchiato. He’s a bit of an aficionado. He has the app on his phone with money loaded and ready to go. He ordered the white peppermint mocha, and something about stirred not shaken. I don’t know.

He handed me my cup and I mentioned how sloppy the barista was in making my drink. Caramel was drizzled all down the sides of the cup. It was a sticky mess. (My life is very tough at times.) We made a stop and I went to place the cup in the cup holder until my return and then I remembered the stickiness. Not wanting to dirty his cup holder, I just sat it on top of the console making note to be careful upon my return.

Upon said return, he made his way into the driver’s seat while I slid into the passenger side. Forgetting all about the coffee, my elbow knocked it over and into the side of my brother. In a flash, he sat forward and exclaimed loudly, “Ow! That’s hot!” I knew I had hit it, so as quickly as I could, I went to grab the cup and watched coffee just pouring out of the sipping hole in the lid. The liquid ran into the crack of seat like it was drinking it up. By the time I had a grasp on the cup, his side was soaked with coffee, his seat was pooling up and the rear floor mat had caught much of it.

I expected rage. At least some stern anger directed my way. Instead, he burst out laughing. Oh, sweet relief. Not for him, but for me. Surely, he would be upset. The car, the floor, the seat, his shirt, his pants, his second degree burns, something should have ignited rage. Instead, he just said, “All I could think to say was, ow, that’s hot.” So standing in a department store parking lot, we are both laughing our heads off at the situation.

I offered to dry clean or replace his shirt. I offered to rub a healing balm on his tender skin. He would have none of it. We laughed it off and went on with the day.

When things go badly, you can lose your mind, say things you regret and burn bridges.

Or, you can keep it in perspective and have a good laugh.

Why so serious?

Google exists.

Anything I want to know about, I can learn.

Anything I want to do is available to be learned.

If I need to replace my alternator, there is a youtube video showing me how to do it.

If I am struggling with managing my money, there are hundreds of thousands of websites willing to help for free.

What do you want?

What are you waiting for?

I learned something interesting about the story of Icarus today.

For those who are unfamiliar, Icarus was the son of Daedalus. Daedalus made wings out of feathers and wax so that he and his son could escape from Crete.

Usually, we hear about the warning against Icarus flying too close to the sun. If he got too close, the wings would melt and he would fall to his death.

The part I learned about today is often left out of the story. He was also warned not to fly too low lest the moisture from the ocean water weight the wings down and also bring about his demise.

It is true that we should be careful not to fly higher than we should, but I do not believe that to be the problem of most.

If anything, we should be warning against flying too low.

Most people do not fail due to flying too high.

Most never get off the ground to begin with.

If you were just like somebody else, you would be unnecessary.

One pastor wrote another and asked how he could reach people in his city like the First Baptist Church. He responded, “Be different than the First Baptist Church.” He told him that there was already a church like he was trying to make his. Now he would have to do a better job against a church that got there before he did and had more people and resources.

Instead of trying to beat them at their own game, play a different game.

It’s interesting that God made each one of us unique and different and we spend our lives trying to fit in with everyone else.

Churches see what works for another church and then begin to copy it. Sometimes the same approaches work, sometimes they don’t. There’s nothing wrong with trying a method, but to insist on being a mirror image of another ministry isn’t necessary. In fact, it’s robbing a community of what God has given you to offer.

Another problem is that those being copied start to take a form of leadership. Others begin to follow them and before you know it a peer pressure develops. Eventually, you’ll end up criticized if you aren’t like them.

It takes hard work and courage to decide to break away from the norm and be what God made you to be.

But then again, that’s what separated Jesus from the religious crowd too.

In Judges 8, verses 1 – 3, the men of the tribe of Ephraim were angry that Gideon didn’t invite them personally to fight against the Midianites.

The Bible says that these men “did chide with him sharply.” They were ticked. Furious. And they were letting him have it.

The thing is, though, when your country is going to war, you shouldn’t have to be invited to participate. You just show up. You don’t wait to be asked. You don’t have to be wined and dined. You do the right thing and show up for your people.

As we look at the tribe of Ephraim in the Bible, we learn that they are proud, jealous and self centered. It’s all about Ephraim all the time. I mean, what was Gideon thinking to not stop and take time to personally invite them to fight? Not only that, but of the 32,000 that were initially amassed, all but 300 were sent home. I imagine most of the men of Ephraim would have left too.

So how does Gideon handle their attitude?

He asks them, how they could ever compare what he has done to what they have done. He compliments them. He brags on them. He makes them feel good about themselves. He tells them that nothing he has ever done can compare to what they have done.

The result? “Then their anger was abated toward him.”

They backed off. Gideon told them exactly what they needed to hear to cool them down and keep them on his side.

He was brilliant.

Lessons:

1. Wise is the individual who doesn’t have to always be right.

2. Wise is the individual who can let someone be wrong and not throw it in their face.

3. Wise is the individual that doesn’t have to set everyone straight.

4. Wise is the individual that can humble himself in order to protect the relationship.

5. By doing these things, we are not weak. We are smart.

Would you rather be right or smart?

You’ll find that one in the book of Proverbs.

Don’t be friends with angry people. Don’t get close to them. Don’t spend a lot of time with them. Don’t hang around them.

We become like the people we hang around. Hang around an angry person and you become an angry person.

There’s too much to be thrilled about to walk around angry all the time.

What if you’re the angry man, though?

I guess, stop being so angry.

Practical is necessary, but very boring.

This is where design comes into play. I began my computing life on a windows based PC. After numerous blue screens of death, my brother introduced me to my first Macbook. Apple is great at making the practical fun.

Interior design is the practical made fun.

The corvette is the practical made fun.

Calligraphy is the practical made fun.

Fashion is the practical made fun.

Family is the practical made fun.

Culinary arts is the practical made fun.

Sure, you can life in an unfurnished studio apartment in khakis and a polo while eating beans out of a can with a plastic spoon, but where’s the fun in that?

It’s that time of year.

Our lawns produce an amazing number of dandelions. There is no sign of them before they come and you never know where they’ve gone once they disappear. You can cut your grass one day and the next morning hundreds more are there to replace them.

They make an ordinary patch of grass burst with bright yellow color. The palate that God uses to make the earth beautiful is amazingly complimentary. You can use them to make floral bracelets. You can sing about mothers having babies whose heads are popping off. You can rub them on your skin for a bit of natural makeup. Once they have run their course, you can blow them into the air and watch the wind carry them away.

I was listening to a radio program and a lady called in to ask how she could eradicate all the dandelions from her yard.

What kind of person hates on flowers?

…probably have something else on their mind at the moment.

It’s important to refrain from judging someone’s loyalty to us on a moment by moment basis.

Worrying over why a call wasn’t taken, a text wasn’t responded to immediately or a facebook post wasn’t liked isn’t just wasted energy, but incredibly narcissistic.

The mental process begins to take us down a road involving imaginary criticisms and fabricated arguments. This is the result of being under the impression that everyone should drop whatever it is they are doing at the moment simply because we attempted to communicate. It ends up being about us.

The ease of communication we are benefitted with today has a number of upsides, but there are some pitfalls as well.

Don’t burn a bridge because of self-importance.

Tim Gunn is famous for this saying.

As he is working with designers who sew or cut themselves into a corner, his advice is “Make it work.”

Too often we find ourselves in places we didn’t expect to be. Often these places are undesirable or contrary to our plans. When we find ourselves there, we think we’re finished. We think we have blown it and there is no way to achieve what we set out to do. The temptation is to give up and walk away. Quit. But quitting is simply not an answer.

Corn Flakes, penicillin, dynamite and pacemakers were all created by accident. Those responsible for one thing ended up benefiting mankind greatly simply because they decided to make it work.

Regardless of your mistakes or missteps today, take what you still have and make it work.