A Challenge for 2014

Posted on January 6, 2014 by James Gorton

Can you believe it’s January 6, 2014.  It seems like only yesterday that Christmas was here and now it’s time for Tyler and Carter to go back to school.  It was about this time 45 years ago that a pastor challenged the church I was attending to a challenge for the new year.  I loved challenges back then and still do.  The challenge back then was to read the bible through in one year.  I had tried to do the feat of reading the bible through from the age of 9, but back then there was only the King James Version of the bible and as a youngster trying to get through the “Thee’s” and the “Though’s” was too much of a challenge for me.  But in 1970 a new paraphrase version had come out which was the Living Bible and so I took up the challenge.

It so changed my live during that year, that I began the journey of reading the bible through each year from that point to today.  I remember early on when we were attending a church in Tampa Florida and an adult Sunday School Teacher got up and told the congregation that he had read the bible through 40 times.  I couldn’t imagine doing it that long as I had only read a few times at that point.

My challenge to you as you’re reading this it to take the same challenge I am challenging myself again in 2014.  When I started, I read 4-5 chapters of the bible each day.  A few years later, Walk Thru The Bible ministry came up with a devotional that they would send you each month commenting on passages you were reading for that particular day.  A great app. for your iPad or cell phone is You Version.  It has various programs that you can choose from including just reading the New Testament in a year to reading the Old Testament in a year to the bible in a year.  Reading the bible won’t change your life, but allowing God’s Holy Spirit to take the word you have read and bring conviction and direction to your life will.

On this journey, make a choice to take God’s word into your life on a daily basis.  It’s a challenge that can transform your life.

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Encouraging Words On the Last Day of 2013

Posted on December 31, 2013 by James Gorton

Today is December 31, 2013.  Today is a day of reflection as well as anticipation.  Reflection on all the things that have taken place during 2013.  Trips to Virginia Beach to visit my daughter, her husband, and my two wonderful grandsons.  A trip with my son flying to Chicago to be with my oldest daughter and help her get settled in her new office.  A trip to Colorado to visit all the relatives on both sides of the family.  Weekends driving to cool Flagstaff.  Having family come in from across the country to celebrate birthdays and special holidays.  Reflecting on what the Lord has done in my life and in the lives of my family members.  Answered prayers over the year and the faithfulness of our Lord and Savior in continuing to guide and direct my steps.  Remembering some of my close friends who lost loved ones and the feelings of sadness and loss for their loss.  Hearing the news that one of our children are adding to our family sometime this coming August.  The bitter/sweet news yesterday of having Deborah, my daughter, being here for Christmas but hearing that her dog has cancer and only has 3-6 months to live. When we reflect over the year, it has it’s sweetness as well as it’s bitterness.

Yet I am reminded that tomorrow starts a new year for all of us with opportunities to impact our world with the choices that we make during 2014.  As I was finishing reading the bible through again in 2013, I came across John’s letter to us that brought encouraging words to me.  He says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of Him.” (I John 5:14-15)  There are two “if’s” in this passage.  The first “if” is asking anything according to His will.  When we pray, John is making sure that when we pray it is according to His will.  His will is found in reading the bible and praying according to what He says in the Word.  When we see promises or structures for family life woven throughout the bible, we have confidence that God’s will is being communicated.  The second “if” involves our faith to believe that He hears us.  We have to have the faith in God that He has the ability and power to answer our prayers when it is according to His will.  We have two responsibilities:  1) to have our prayers line up according to His will, and 2) to believe that He hears us.  His response in this passage is to answer our prayers.

What are you believing God for this year?  What do you want God to do in your life or in the lives of your loved ones?  Is it according to His will?  Do you believe that He hears you?  I am trusting God to do something this year He impressed on my heart to pray for.  Today is a good time to do some reflection over your life.  It is also a time to think about the coming year and trust Him to do something in 2014 that is according to His will and your belief that He will do it.  If you are having difficulty in knowing what God’s will is, it might be helpful to pick up the bible and begin reading it on a daily basis to begin to understand what His will is.  If you are having difficulty in trusting Him, it might be helpful to tell Him that you need help in your unbelief.

May this journey of 2014 be one that you look back on with joy and thankfulness as you see Him answer your prayers for the coming year.

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Christmas Greetings

Posted on December 20, 2013 by James Gorton

As we enter the next couple of weeks seeing family, visiting friends, opening presents, taking gifts back, watching infinite football games, and eating too much candy, take some time to remember the reason for this season.  Christ came to this earth to die for your sins and for mine and his sacrifice opened the way to reconnect with the Creator and Sustainer of all life.  We have much to be thankful for and from my family to your’s, we wish you a very blessed Christmas and a hopeful new year.

Jim and Nadine

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The Most Unusual Gift

Posted on December 18, 2013 by James Gorton

Tis the season for giving gifts to our children, our mother and father, aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses, bosses, employees, mail person, next door neighbor.  The list goes on and on.  As new relationships develop, new obligations form for gift giving. I went out shopping yesterday for my wonderful wife and had a ball picking out some presents that were new and beautiful (at least to me and I hope to her).  I looked for the gift that would match her desires and interests.  I thought about what she had said in the past so that I could match her words with appropriate gifts.  It was a great day of thinking about her and what she would like.

Our small group was no exception.  We had our Christmas party last night and had a white elephant gifting where you bring the least favorite thing in your house and wait expectedly for the surprised look on the person who gets your back scratcher, or your golf gadget that counts your strokes and replaces your divots.  In this gifting, if you don’t like the bird with the broken tail, you can trade it with someone who has a salad bowl-shaped in the form of leaves.  What you are stuck with at the end of the game provides future gifts for the next white elephant.

The most unusual gift is not what happened with the gifts that we got during the game, but the exercise we participated in before the game began.  I asked each person to come up with a gift that we could give the Lord Jesus Christ this coming year for Him to transform.  You see, what we bring to the Lord is broken and bent.  It has been used and abused.  It’s discolored and dented.  Our lives and our relationships have been damaged by our choices and our seeking to control and change our lives.  But the Lord doesn’t want us to change our lives, but to bring our brokenness to him so that He can do the transformation.  The most unusual gift is our brokenness that we are ashamed of.  It is our inability to get along with certain people in the world that He wants us to bring to Him.  Relationships that are severed and disconnected are the very things that He wants us to bring to Him, asking Him to take control of our brokenness and our broken relationships so that He can bring about transformation.

In Psalms 51:17 it says, “My sacrifice O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you God will not despise.” God is not interested in the best we have to offer, but He desires our brokenness and the damaged pieces of our lives and our relationships so that He can transform them into something that is truly beautiful.

What is your most unusual gift you have to offer the Master.  Remember that He is waiting on this journey to turn your and my brokenness into relationships that will truly reflect His beauty.

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Second Anniversary

Posted on December 17, 2013 by James Gorton

Today is our second wedding anniversary.  It seems like time flies sometimes.  Nadine and I have been reminiscing this morning over a cup of coffee about the two years and all that has happened during that time.  We have made trips to Hawaii,

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Virginia,

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Colorado,

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New York, and Chicago.  We have taken numerous trips to Flagstaff for the weekend to get out of the summer heat.

I don’t know how many bike miles we have logged going from our house to Tempe Town Lake and back

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We have sat at baseball games and lacrosse games

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At my wife’s suggestion, I signed up with 15 other men and took a 11 day trip to Scotland to play 7 days of golf in windy and rainy conditions.

 

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I could go on and on with pictures to define our experiences.  Wonderful experiences.  Memories for a lifetime.  Events to talk about over and over.  On this day of our anniversary, it is a joy and blessing to look back over the last two years and see what God has allowed us and our family to experience.  God wants us to look back and remember these things but there is one thing that is common to all of these events and experiences.

They are past events and experiences and are gone.  It is important that we continue to look at making new memories and experiences daily.  Samuel said a sobering truth in II Samuel 14:14 “Our life is like water that is spilled out on that ground that cannot be gathered up again. . .”  The wonderful experiences that we have had and the time it took to make those memories are gone forever like water that is spilled out on the ground.  Samuel was encouraging us to make the most of each day so that we don’t regret our life and our relationships when we look back.  

Today I am choosing to reminisce with Nadine over all that has happened, but to look forward to the journey ahead in making memories.  Have a wonderful day as you journey with Him.

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Las Vegas: Two Tales

Posted on December 16, 2013 by James Gorton

Carter and I went to Las Vegas a week ago for a lacrosse tournament.  He had 5 games over the Friday to Sunday event with teams from 6 different states represented.  His first game was at 8 pm on Friday with 35 degree temperatures.  The boys were warm running up and down the field, but the parents were all bundled up in their coats, scarves, gloves and blankets.  Some parents even had personal propane warmers with others having plastic shields to stop the 30+ mph winds.  Parking was difficult because of all the families and friends that had come to support their teams and in particular their sons.  

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The team did well and got beat 7-6 by the team who eventually won the tournament.  What I was impressed by was the family support that stood on the sidelines and yelled and clapped and shouted words of encouragement to their young men.  Siblings. Moms.  Dads.  Friends.  They were all there in Las Vegas.

The second tale came in between Carter’s second game and third game.  We had 3 hours to kill so I decided to surprise him and take him to the main strip of Las Vegas.  It took us 30 minutes to drive there, but I wanted him to see what most people come to Las Vegas to do.  Gamble and go to shows.  I had told him I hated Las Vegas because of what the chamber of commerce advertised, “What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas”  For a short time they had been promoting all the things that families can do in Las Vegas, but that was dropped rather quickly in favor of letting your morality go for a short stay in Las Vegas.

As we began to drive past the luxurious hotels, Carter made the comment, Dad, I thought that it would be a lot dirtier that it is.

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It wasn’t dirty at all.  It was very clean.  Very attractive in fact.  Very inviting.  A place where you can leave your conscience behind and do anything you want, for what you do in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.  Or at least that’s what they purport.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are a lot of people who go to Las Vegas and have a great time with shows and enjoy the eateries and limit their gambling, coming away with a great experience and wonderful memories.

I’m just reminded of two distinctly different experiences when going to Las Vegas.  The first where families were huddled in blankets and winter coats, freezing their feet to support they family member, and others who came to a city that celebrates and publicizes the potential thought that whatever you want to do in this city, whether good or bad, can be done with no one watching and you can then leave the city and leave all that you have done behind.

God has a different perspective of having everything that we do have a consequence attached to it.  It can be a good consequence or it can be a bad consequence.  Paul says, “Do not be deceived:  God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.  Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.  Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap the harvest if we do not give up.” Gal. 6:7-9

It was a wonderful time with my son with hopefully much learning taking place over the weekend.  On this journey we are called to plant seeds that won’t necessarily grow immediately.

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Gluttony

Posted on November 25, 2013 by James Gorton

Victoria and Debi arrived into Phoenix on Saturday from Chicago and Virginia Beach with our two grand kids to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately my vision of food intake and my stomach capacity don’t match and I find myself being a glutton during holiday feasts. I am unfortunately training my newest grandson Keaton to follow in my steps as you can see. image Not only is he going down the path of his grandfather, but he has the same sweet tooth as his mother and his Pa Pa.  As we celebrate Thanksgiving this coming Thursday and remember what the founding fathers of our country did, enjoy each moment you have with your family and take time to be thankful for what He has given you.

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Menacing Things

Posted on November 22, 2013 by James Gorton

Monty is our cavalier King Charles Spaniel and he has a gripe.  He hates and I mean hates hawks that fly over our property periodically to bother the king.  He sometimes brings a few friends who sit up in the eucalyptus trees and stare down at the king while he barks incessantly at them trying to get them to move without success.  The more he barks, the more they use a gravely voice to upset the king.  It sounds like a person who is trying to clear junk from the throat to spit.  It infuriates the king but the hawks know that they have the upper hand sitting up in the tree out of reach of the king.

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He will be sound asleep in the house and the sound of the hawks flying overhead propels him from a deep sleep to standing erect at the back door demanding that we let him out.  It truly is a menacing experience and one that gets worse over time.  He hasn’t learned how to gain victory over menacing hawks so the pattern persists and grows worse.  The king hates the sound so much that when our next door neighbor was putting in new tile in their house, the sound of the water saw to cut pieces of tile sounded like the hawk somewhat and it propelled him to race to the place of the noise and begin barking.

It reminds me of menacing things in our lives that cause us to react similar to the king.  It could be a reaction to a spoon clinking on the teeth when eating that one of my clients reacted to his soon to be wife.  It could be disorganization of a creative spouse or child.  An habitually late significant other.  A reaction to an addictive habit.  Shut down words or phrases such as , “whatever”, “you’re just like your _______”,  or “never mind” can be irritants that cause us to react.  It may be certain types of drivers.  Drivers that drive slow and stay in the left lane of a 4 lane highway.

It’s obvious that the hawk doesn’t bother me but it sure bothers the king.  There are other things that bother me that wouldn’t bother you.  What else is obvious is that all of us have menacing triggers that causes us to react poorly.  Paul speaks to this dilemma when he says, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience.  And God is faithful.  He will not allow the temptation to be more that you can stand.  When you are tempted, He will show you a way out so that you can endure.” I Cor. 10:13  We all have temptations or menacing situations that coax us to react negatively to the stimulus.  But God not only knows our menace but has a way to be victorious over the obstacle so that we grow by it.   We don’t have to choose to go down the same road every time and allow that stimulus (hawk) to rob us of responding differently.

This journey has hawks that will irritate us if we allow them to.  It’s our choice on this journey to choose the way of escape God has provided.

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Evaluating Priorities

Posted on November 20, 2013 by James Gorton

From the time I was a little boy I loved sports.  At the age of 4 my dad was coaching Seibert’s little league in the summer.  He had me chasing foul balls, collecting the bats, and organizing helmets for the players.  I’ll never forget the first time he let me hit when he was pitching.  I remember hitting the ground ball to him and he allowed me to run as fast as I could to first before he threw me out.  Sports was my life.

When I entered high school I lettered in 4 sports every year.  Seibert was a town of 200 counting the cats and dogs.  We had 40 students in the high school, 10 in my class, so it wasn’t hard to take part in all sports.  I played football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and track and baseball in the spring.  Sports was my life.

In college I was on the baseball team and majored in physical education.  As you can imagine I was in the athletic facilities between 6-8 hours per day.  These experiences became the backdrop for my being interested in sports as a participant as well as an observer.  I’m telling you this because of the experience that happened three weeks ago.

On Saturday college football happens.  It happens all day.  It happens on two to four stations simultaneous.  I got sucked in and watched 4 football games back to back with channel switching to 3 more games during the day.  At the end of Saturday I had been saturated with football, but something was sacrificed in the process.  My spousal relationship.  Don’t get me wrong.  Nadine is a big football fan and especially a Bronco fan and a die-hard one at that.  So she wasn’t complaining with me watching football, but she felt somewhat neglected when all I did was focus my total attention on football.  And she was right.

When I looked at the benefit I received from watching 12+ hours of football, I couldn’t come up with one positive outcome.  I was emotionally drained from the stress of seeing the ebb and flow of each game.  I didn’t get any exercise and so all the snacks I ate went to my waistline.  I got more and more uncomfortable sitting for such a long time.  I had to use procrastination for the things that needed to be done over the weekend.  And to top everything off, I couldn’t remember a week later any team that I had watched.  It was a total waste of my time.

I decided right then and there that things were going to change.  I spent the next weekend doing things with my family.  I turned on TV and looked at the game I was interested in and the time it was being broadcast.  We sat down and wrote out a to do list of things that had hung on and were never getting accomplished.  The fruit trees were fertilized and retrenched.  The broken hook in Nadine’s closet was repaired and rehung.  Four valves on my automatic sprinkler system were taken apart and repaired.  Potted plants were mulched.  Potassium was bought and poured in our water softener system.  Most of all Nadine and I connected.

For the last 4 weeks I have looked at the schedule on Saturday’s and Sunday’s to see if there are any games that I am truly interested and then tell Nadine.  It has freed up hours and hours for connecting with the family and for getting those little to do’s done with the result of a feeling of fulfillment and connection.  We have watched selected football games over the last few weeks, but the outcome of my evaluating my priorities and making decisions in light of what truly is important has been a profound positive change in my life choices.

On this journey, our choices can take us to side roads and dead ends.  The sooner we become aware of the dead ends, the sooner we can get back to fulfilling our purpose on this earth.

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One Swallow Doesn’t Make A Summer

Posted on November 19, 2013 by James Gorton

I would imagine that when you looked at this title you wondered, “What in the world is he saying now?”  You might have had your mind go to your physical body and wonder if it had anything to do with your throat in swallowing.  Summer is quickly vanishing for some living in the northern part of the U.S.A, but what does summer have to do with one swallow.  Or if you were as old as I am or have been around me, you might have heard this old saying.  Below is a nest that a barn swallow builds underneath bridges or eves of houses with mud.  These nests are built by the barn swallows getting mud in mud holes and creating a nest for their young to be hatched.  As you might imagine, it is very messy when they dry and are done with the process of procreation.

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When I looked it up, I found out that this saying goes back to 1539 in Richard Tavner’s Proverbes or adagies with newe additions, gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus.  It refers to a barn swallow that comes up from South America in the spring and summer time to build their nests, procreate, and then fly back to South and Central America for the winter.  When you see one swallow flying into town, it doesn’t mean that summer is here.  When you see 100 swallows fly in, it doesn’t mean that summer is here  But if you see 100,000 swallows fly in a day you can be assured that summer is here.

When you relate it to personal life and changes that are needed to take place, to demonstrate a new behavior once doesn’t mean that change has happened.  To demonstrate that behavior a few times doesn’t mean that change has happened.  But to demonstrate that behavior over a period of time gives people indications that true transformation has happened.

To apply this to a relationship, let’s say that you want to quit drinking or smoking.  If you are successful in stopping the behavior one time, don’t expect others to jump up and praise you for your choice.  It’s in your consistently making that choice not to drink or smoke over a period of time that causes those around you to say that summer has truly come (the new behavior is real and genuine)

What is important for us to remember is that one  act (one swallow) of beginning to change needs to be recognized.  For the person who is observing someone wanting to change, affirmation goes a long way in helping to set up a new pattern of behavior.  The person wanting to change needs to realize that doing it once doesn’t create transformation, but doing it over and over and over does.

This journey involves the realization of change and the persistence to stick with it until real transformation takes place.

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