relationallychallenged

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine at church asked me if I would be willing to become a greeter as people come into the church. I said yes and didn’t realize that they had to do a background check before I could stand outside and say, “Good morning and welcome to Plum Creek Church.” I have never had a background check and began to imagine what they might investigate regarding my background. My numerous driving tickets (I haven’t gotten one for years, but in my earlier life I did have a lead foot). Find out things that I had no memory of. I filled out the form on the computer and waited for the results. I PASSED.

My first service where I greeted was at one of the seven Christmas Eve services. It was so fun wishing seniors, men and women, teenagers and little children a Merry Christmas and a warm welcome to our church. Two of my friends were working with me at one of the doors and wanted us to dress up in similar attire.

It was a real joy to greet those who were coming to our church to celebrate the birth of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. The highlight of the night came when a family came with a mother, father, a 10 year old boy and a little 2 year old long brown haired girl. I got down to her eye level and wished her a Merry Christmas and commented on her pretty dress. She let go of her mom’s hand and spread her arms wide as she took two steps toward me to give me a big hug. My heart melted as her heart was open to giving and receiving love.

As we take this journey at Christmas to celebrate the birth of Christ, He has his arms wide open wanting to give us a big hug and welcome us into His family. It only takes an open heart like the little girl had to start a relationship with Him. He’s waiting for our response.

My two daughters are here for the Christmas holiday and decided to watch Elf on TV last night. It is one of my favorite moves with Will Ferrell playing the elf. It depicts Santa with a huge book of those who are naughty and those who are nice. The nice list are those who get to enjoy the presents from Santa that they wanted for Christmas. The naughty list are those who didn’t act so nice during the year and have their wish list rejected.

We all know the story of the nice and naughty list. What hit me this year was my perspective of the lists. I have always put myself on the nice list and never on the naughty list. I have mostly treated people I come in contact with with respect and given them value. I have opened the door for the most part for my wife and others. Often I have sought to give value to service people and used their names when interacting with them. I am for the most part a good person.

Yet I found myself watching the movie with a horrible attitude toward a family member. A nice guy having a naughty thought. When I thought about this more, I began to realize that I am not so nice at all. This is not the only time where my attitudes for others have not been so nice. There are times when I don’t treat others with the respect they deserve. I have not always opened the door to others. My driving habits have not always been with grace especially in the day or two leading up to Christmas, especially in the parking lots. In fact I found myself relating more to the naughty list than the nice list. Naughty ones don’t deserve to receive the gifts they want at Christmas time.

I didn’t deserve any gift, but God 2000+ years ago brought forth His Son, born of a virgin that we celebrate for Christmas. Jesus lived on the earth for some 33 years, and gave His life so that we could be forgiven for all the naughty things we have said, naughty things we have done, naughty attitudes we have had. I am on the naughty list, but Jesus came to bring forgiveness for those things so that we could receive the greatest gift, forgiveness and cleansing for our naughtiness and be put on the nice list.

On this journey as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it might do us well to recognize that all of us are on the naughty list and are in need of forgiveness. What a gift we all can have if we only put our trust in the one who gave us the greatest gift of all. His Life.

Moving from Arizona to Colorado has been the best move for Nadine and me. I grew up in eastern Colorado in a little town between Limon and Burlington called Seibert. I graduated from Seibert High School (now called High Plains) and did my undergraduate education at University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. I stayed one year in Colorado before moving away. Tennessee. Florida. Massachusetts. Lebanon. Arizona. I was away 46 years. Away from my homeland. Over half of my life.

But now I’m back. Back in my homeland and know that this is where God wanted me to be. One of the benefits of being back in Colorado has been visiting my mother whenever I want to see her. She lives about 40+ miles from our house and it takes about 45 minutes to get to her home. She lives in an assisted living facility with cloth napkins, fresh cut flowers on the table with fancy silverware. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner.

So what does she want when I come over to visit her on a regular basis? McDonalds. A double cheese burger with fries and a coke. When she turned 100 a year ago January, I wanted to take her out to a nice restaurant to celebrate the place of her choice. What was her place of choice? The Golden Arches. McDonalds.

It’s been cold out the last couple of weeks, so she doesn’t want to get in my truck and drive to McDonalds, so I bring the double-cheese burger with fries to her apartment and we have a picnic in the middle of December.

I never thought that moving back to Colorado would bring such joy to my life by having a picnic with my mom. Every hour I spend with her is such a wonderful experience with a double-cheese hamburger, fries, and a coke.

On this journey, we are going to take right and left turns on the road of life. God has some wonderful experiences for us that were never spelled out when we chose to begin walking on the new road. It means that we need to keep our eyes open to those experiences and not miss out on the simple pleasures of life.

Christmas is a time for giving to those you love. Presents for spouse. Presents for kids. Presents for parents. Everyone knows that. It’s easy to pick out gifts for close friends and family because we know what their likes are. We can get so wrapped up in giving to those close to us that we can forget about all the others that touch our lives throughout the year. Postal workers. Garbage collectors. Secretaries. Doctors. Check out people at retail and grocery stores. Police. Teachers. I could go on and on regarding those that we come in contact with in our everyday experiences.

I found out through my daughter Victoria that she began to think of delivery workers that bring packages to our homes and thought of an idea. She told her sons, Brayden and Keaton, about the idea and they wanted to participate. The three of them went to the store and picked out candy and chips and put the cargo in a box that you can see below.

It so touched my heart that my daughter would think of others that It gave me an idea. I love to bake and have frozen bags of fresh pumpkin to make pumpkin bread. I began to think of the mail-men and mail-women as well as the garbage collectors that serve Nadine and I daily. I am going to bake loafs of pumpkin bread to give them as a way of thanking them for their service.

Nadine and I also are hosting a table at our church where three other couples are coming tomorrow night for a party of 55 year olds and older. We have decided to take a bag of homemade candy made from a little shop in downtown Castle Rock where we have gotten to know Allen and Gail, the owners. They made up 15 bags of candy that we are giving to the couples that are coming tomorrow night as well as the doctors and secretaries that are helping Nadine and her vision.

From one box of goodies has come an attitude of giving that begins to multiply. On this journey, when we get our minds off our circumstances and begin to think of others, it changes how we think about our own circumstances. Those reading this jlog may get the bug to give that will encourage others to give. You never know how your gift can impact those around you.

Going to Hawaii has always been an oasis from the business of everyday life. There isn’t much to do, so it forces you to lye down on a chase and rest. We had the opportunity to do that a couple of months ago and soaked in the sunshine and heat (90+ degrees everyday). One day we decided to go to the west side of Maui island and came across a beach that is known for leatherback sea turtles.

There were approximately 25 leatherbacks sunning themselves on the beach. They belong to the reptile family and hatch between 60 and 350 eggs in the sand after they become mature. They can go under the water for between 6-40 minutes without taking a breath. If they want to sleep in the ocean, they can stay in the water between 4 to 7 hours without breathing. Their main delicacy is the boxed jellyfish that is deadly to humans, but they are immune to the sting and love to eat them. That’s why there aren’t jellyfish on the Hawaiian beaches because the leatherbacks eat them. Unlike other turtles, the sea turtles can’t retract their heads into their shell.

Isn’t it interesting that God created these creatures in a beautiful setting to eat jellyfish that could kill us so that we could enjoy Hawaii without the treat of bodily injury. I had no idea of the potential danger that was being taken away by God’s magnificent turtle. How many other times does God intervene in our lives by taking away potential dangerous experiences in our lives and we are unaware of it or we take it for granted.

There are many times in my driving of a vehicle where I could have been involved in a tragic accident, but was saved by leaving a hair late and missing what could have been a life altering experience. What about relationships that seem to break up and we are left with wondering where we went wrong. Could it be that God didn’t want us to connect with that person because it wasn’t what would have been best for us.

The only way that we can escape from dangerous situations or relationships in our lives is by allowing the God of the universe to give direction and insight as to what is dangerous for us. On this journey, God wants to give us life and life abundantly, but we need to put our trust in Him so that He can take care of the jellyfish that swim our way.

Nadine and I spent some time over in Maui recently and visited the shore around Paia. One of the wonders we saw were wind surfers plying their skills to the ocean waves. It was a beautiful sight as they would go out from the beach about 2 miles or so and then come back into the shore. They did this over and over, sometimes falling to the rough waves and having to right their sails again to continue their sport. It was a sight to behold with each of us saying that we would never be able to do what they are doing, let alone wanting to do it.

Afterwards we talked to someone who was a wind surfer and he gave us a much deeper understanding of what we had just watched. He informed us that there are many sharks that swim just under the wind surfers. The reason they seek to right the ship if they fall is that there is great danger of being bitten by a shark if they remain in the water too long. They want to get up quickly so that the danger in the water won’t overtake them.

It brought new meaning to their sport doing it in the ocean. They do it because their passion for wind surfing is greater than the dangers that they could experience. Passion caused them to focus not on the dangers below the surface but to focus their attention on the love and excitement of riding the waves. Their passion caused them to look at the positive and not dwell on the negative. For me, my focus would be on the sharks in the water and would drive me never to get on a board. But not them. Passion covers over the possible danger which drives them to pack up daily and go to the ocean for the exhilaration of their board flying through the water.

It caused me to pause and ask the question to myself about what I am passionate about. What are you passionate about? Focusing on the possible negative aspect can stifle our creativity and our journey. If I concern myself with all the possible dangers in life, I will never experience the joy of living life. If I focus on all the dangers of this world potentially impacting having and raising children, I will never have children. If I focus on the embarrassment I might face in going out and playing golf for the first time, I will never pick up a club. If I am faced with questions about a job I am perusing and have insecurity about how I might be perceived, I will never jump in to learn.

Don’t get me wrong. Sharks in the ocean are dangerous. We need to be careful when we swim in the ocean, but being careful is different than not doing something because the danger stops us from living life.

On this journey, begin to figure out your passion while you are on this earth and take a dive. You never know whether that passion will cause you to fly with the best of them.

There is an old story of how to get rid of an elephant in the room. The answer comes by taking the elephant out of the room one piece at a time. If we focus on the elephant (or task) at hand and the enormity of the job, it seems like an insurmountable task. It’s like looking at school and thinking about graduating from high school when we are starting first grade. Too big of a task. Too much information to accumulate. Too many tests. Too much studying. Too many books to read. Too many papers to write. It seems impossible if we look at the whole task ahead of us from the starting line.

But if we just focus on one day at a time, and keep that focus as each day occurs, eventually we will have graduated from high school and look at the coming adventure that is before us. College. Graduate school. Career. Marriage. Children. Etc. Life is a matter of taking one day at a time and completing the tasks of that day which will give us what we eventually want.

Fifty years ago in 1970, I was challenged by a pastor in Colorado as well as other members of that church to read through the Bible in a year, going from Genesis to Revelation. It seemed like a big task with over 1100 pages to digest in a year, but I took that challenge. Mind you, there were times when I went through Leviticus in looking at the ceremonies of the Israelite nation where I wondered if I would make it through the dry and boring material. I passed through the genealogies of name after name where I had trouble pronouncing each name (I actually didn’t and glossed over the material that I would never remember).

Today as I write this Jlog, I look back and think of the 50 times I have read the Bible from cover to cover and realize that reading a little bit every day, day after day, month after month, and year after year can accomplish something seemingly insurmountable. It seemed overwhelming when I had been doing this for awhile and heard a Sunday School teacher say that he had read the Bible thru for 40 years. I could never imagine doing that for myself when I had just read it 7-8 times. Insurmountable. Overwhelming. Impossible.

Jesus says in Matthew 6:34 “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for each day has enough troubles of it’s own.” He tells us to focus on one day at a time and tackle the tasks of that day. On this journey, I would encourage you to take up the challenge of reading the Bible on a daily basis, and maybe even looking at reading the Bible from cover to cover this coming year. Who knows if you might be able to eat the elephant bit by bit.