Joel Stiff's Adventure

 

On Easter, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

We celebrate it because it gives us hope. Hope that our Savior lives. That means He knows us, hears us and is in control of all that is going on. It also means that one day we will also resurrect. There is hope for us beyond this life.

But something I have never heard discussed is the hope that the resurrection offers to us on this earth. 

Jesus is a resurrector. He takes that which is dead and makes it alive again.

He resurrects a dead spirit and make it born again.

He resurrects dead marriages and relationships.

He resurrects dead religious rituals.

He resurrects apathetic Christians.

Jesus is a resurrector.

What do you need resurrected?

 

The college I attended had a plaque over a doorway that read, “The greatness is not in the performance, it’s in the preparation.”

The performance is simply the carrying out of what has already been prepared.

For example, our half marathon is in one week. The only way that it will go well on that day is if we have properly trained for the race. If our training is poor, our race will go poorly. If the training is solid, the race will go well.

Our Easter service is tomorrow. If we properly prepare, the service will go smoothly and honor the Lord. If we just wing it, it is guaranteed to fail. 

One benefit of preparation is that it provides confidence and eliminates the butterflies.

When you know you have prepared well, you simply carry it out.

Gotta go. Lots more prep to do for tomorrow.

 

When we are home on Friday evenings, we watch Shark Tank.

It is about entrepreneurs, who are need of capital to move forward with their business ideas, approaching investors for help.

The idea is presented, questions are asked and then offers are made or the opportunity to invest is declined.

It always comes down to one thing, return on investment.

People with cash are very careful to invest that cash where it is going to provide the best return.

Something as precious as cash is time. In fact, in the end, cash is a representation of time and effort.

Our time is a limited resource and we should be cautious as to how we invest it.

When given a chance to spend some of it, we should seek to know the return.

Of course, the greater the return, the more of our time we should invest. The lower the return, the less of our time should be invested.

One last thought, not every opportunity represents and obligation. 

 

 

Greatness comes over time.

A three year marriage isn’t great yet.

Six months on the job isn’t great.

Parents of a five year old aren’t yet great parents.

Christians who make it to church on Christmas and Easter aren’t great Christians.

Pastors who won’t stay at their church for more than two years will not find greatness.

Words like fabulous, amazing and awesome are thrown around too easily these days.

Greatness isn’t declared, it is earned by doing what needs to be done as long as it needs to be done.

My life is pretty amazing.
I am surrounded by people who love me and do kind things for me often.
Whenever someone does something kind, I try to respond with a thank you note. There are times when the kindnesses come faster than I can get the notes out. Frequently, I fall behind by days and even weeks. The temptation is to forget about it and move on.
A late thank you is better than no thank you.
No one has ever complained about a thank you regardless of its tardiness.
To all my friends who have been good to me, thank you.

Sometimes you have to watch real close.
Sometimes you have to be real patient.

 

I was in the Nashville airport waiting on a connecting flight and sitting across from a children’s play area.

I heard it twice. 

A whistle – hoo hee hay hoo.

Those responsible for marketing the hunger games franchise got into a little kids head in the Nashville airport.

We have a message to spread – the gospel.

Have we conveyed it with as much enthusiasm as the hunger games people?

 

 

What are your issues?

What do you hate about yourself?

What is it that you just can’t overcome?

What is it that keeps holding you back?

What is it that people tell you is wrong with you?

The answers to those questions are your issues.

Moses had issues. His primary issue was anger.

He killed a man in anger. He broke the tablets God carved out of stone and wrote the ten commandments on. He asked God to kill people. He hit a rock twice that really should have only been hit once.

And yet, God called him to a task. God equipped him for the task. He spent more one on one time with God than any other man. God used him to do more to relieve racial suffering than ten thousand Nelson Mandela’s put together.

Even upon losing the privilege to enter the promised land, he stayed true to the calling of leading God’s people until the generation that could go was ready to go. 

Maybe your issues aren’t that big of a deal after all.

 

 

I heard a story once about a puritan who became angry at another man. Being a pacifist, he couldn’t carry out the actions he so desired to do. In order to justify his vengeance, he told the man, “Sir, thou art my brother and I would never think to do thee any harm. Except that thou art standing where I am about to shoot.”

We all have moments where people get the best of us. It seems as though they take pleasure in hindering us or in getting our tempers flaring. We lie in bed thinking about what they did. We tell our friends about the jerk we encountered recently. They can become a major impediment to our joy.

The reality is that the frustration is not worth our time or energy. Greater injustices occur every day around the world. We will not be able to right every wrong that happens to us. So what do we do?

I read a book once called, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (and it’s all small stuff). Most of what happens to us that makes us angry are minor frustrations.

A quote I read yesterday, “Difficult people are like rocks in a stream. The best way to handle them is to flow around them and move on down the river.”

Everyone admires cool.

So much so that we strive for coolness ourselves.

We also desire the approval of the cool crowd to the point of making ourselves miserable.

Bill Clinton was cool when he played saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show.

Tom Cruise was cool as a fighter pilot.

Michael Jordan was cool for hanging his tongue out while he dunked.

Miley Cyrus is considered cool for hanging her tongue out whenever her picture is taken.

In the 80’s, big hair and neon colors were cool.

In the 90’s flannel shirts and dirty jeans were cool.

In the 00’s, pre ripped up jeans were cool.

Today, skinny jeans are cool.

Adults try to be cool.

They spend money they don’t have to be cool.

They spend ridiculous money on things that aren’t even close to the value they are priced at all in the name of cool.

We try to attract people to church using cool.

The problem there is that every time cool changes, the church has to change too.

The people who decide what is cool (the media, hollywood, New York fashion week) are the most foolish people on the planet.

They don’t know how to stay faithful, let alone married. They don’t know how to pay their taxes. They don’t know how to avoid addictions. I recently saw a 20/20 episode where an alcoholic well known for her rehab stints was lecturing a set of parents for fighting the “losing battle” of keeping their children off of alcohol.

Is it ok to replace the “c” with an “f” to describe this behavior?

If only the cool crowd would let us know.