Your "Cup O' Joe"

Happy “Saint” Patrick’s Day. There are so many holidays attributed to the recognition of saints. St. Valentine, St. Nickolas, All Saints Day. What is a saint?

Basically, a saint is a “holy one” or someone who is set apart for God’s special purpose. To understand this at its simplest, every follower of Jesus is a saint. The word for saint is throughout the New Testament, particularly the writings of Paul even when writing to the churches that exhibited significant moral and theological problems. How saintly one acts is a choice the individual needs to make. You can be a saint and not be very saintly or consistently saintly.

The saints that we celebrate in our holidays exhibited saintly behavior in a long-term consistent way. I am not saying that if you are very good that we are going to create a holiday for you, but they did not behave the way they did for their own recognition and neither should we.

Our daily behavior should be for the glory of God and not for the pleasing of people. Live your life as an individual set apart for God’s special purpose. Know that God has a plan for you whether you know what it is or not. Be ready for the day that God reveals that purpose for you. Remind yourself on a regular basis that you are a saint and that God loves you, cares for you and has a plan for you.

Your "Cup O'Joe

March 3, 2021

My father, more than once, told me that a person is only as big as the things that bother them. This statement reminds me of the verse about trying to remove a speck from someone else’s eye while we have a log in our own eye.

I am amazed at the things some people find to get offended by. There are real things out there that should offend us. There are real things out there that should bother us to no end. There are things that we should take action on. And then, there are things that deserve a face palm, a head wag, or even an eye roll.

Why is it that we can waste time on such trivial matters? Quite simply, it is because God has blessed us so much that we have time and energy to spend on the mundane.  Most of us have been blessed with an abundance of food. Most of us have never had to worry about where we would sleep. We have not had to cower in fear over who was going to break into our homes to take our stuff or our lives

This is not to say that no one has ever had to worry about such things, but for the most part, if we experienced this, it was a one time or short time event.

Many kids today have the privilege of being picky eaters with long lists of what they won’t eat. They obviously have never been hungry. Many are super particular about brand name clothes and shoes. They obviously have never been cold and needy.

So, what do we do with our privilege and blessing? We sit around and debate what books someone else can read, what music someone else can listen to, what toys someone else can play with, what posts someone else can “like”, what statues can be erected, what history can be taught and so on and so on.

I wish that I could say that I was perfect. I am not. I wish I could say that I never said a bad thing about someone else. I cannot. There are a lot of things that I would like to say about who I am, but I know better and any of you who have known me for any length of time know better too.

One of the things I like about the Bible is that it presents God’s people just as they were with all their imperfections and failings. In today’s culture none of God’s chosen would be able to hold public office, have a Twitter account or be on prime time tv. And yet, these were the people that God used to change the world.

If you are going to be bothered by something, stop, take a look around you, ask is this the most pressing thing that I have to be bothered by today. Chances are, it is not. Be bothered by hate. Be bothered by injustice. Be bothered by suffering. Let the world worry about the gender of a plastic potato. We have people in our lives that need the Lord and that is all we need to worry about.

Your "Cup O'Joe"

Cup O Joe

February 24, 2021

I did an activity with my students once where I asked them to name as many things that they could see from where they were that were red. Each student made their list and then we compared the lists noting that no two students saw exactly the same items. The students later told me that they caught themselves looking for red things the rest of the day.

I am asked sometimes, “Where is God?” It is easy to say that he is everywhere because anywhere that he did not exist that place would not exist. The trouble is that we will often not take the time to “see” him. When we start looking for him then we will see him everywhere we look.

Yes, I saw God today. I saw him in the beautiful sunrise. I saw him in flowers starting to bloom. I saw him in a mother hugging her child and a father patting his kid on the back. I saw him in one student helping another. I saw him in a fellow teacher stopping by my room just to make sure that things were going ok. I saw him in a daughter celebrating her father’s healing.

If you don’t see God, I want you to stop and take a look. Your list will not be the same as my list. We will see him from the perspective of where we are right now. And when we begin to see him, we will start to see him all the time. You just have to look.

Your "Cup O' Joe"

It is the middle of February and the long cold winter seems to go on without end. I walk around my yard in between the snow storms and catch little glimpses of the coming Spring. I have Crocus blooming. The daffodils have sprouted. The tulips and a few other bulbs are sticking their noses up in the air. I have seeds sprouting in the greenhouse. These are simple things, but they remind me of a few things. God’s timing is not our timing. God will always see us through the storms of life. God’s people can never lose hope.

First, God’s timing is not ours. As long as the Winter seems to be, think about the Israelites wandering through the wilderness for forty to eighty years. Think about God’s children waiting for nearly 400 years to hear a word from God. The Winter may be long, but it is weeks or days. It is not years or decades or even centuries.

Second, God will always see us through the storms. He promises that he will walk with us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He will never give us more than we can handle. And a sparrow does not fall from the sky without his knowledge and he cares more for you than he does for the sparrow.

Finally, God’s people can never lose hope. I get to see the flowers popping up because I believed enough in the Fall to plant them before the Winter started. There are going to be good days and bad days. As believers, we need to use the good days to get ready for the bad days. Share your hope when you have an abundance. Borrow someone else’s hope when you are feeling down. Plant those flowers, both the blooming kind and the kind that grows in the gardens of people lives that you encounter.

Jesus kept all of his promises so far and there is no reason to doubt he will keep the promise that he is coming back. Enjoy the beauty of the snow. Spend some time with the family. Know that Spring is coming and so is Jesus. We don’t know how long the wait will be, but we know that it is less than it used to be. Are you ready?

Your "Cup O' Joe"

The past year has been tough, not just on me but on a lot of people close to me. Too many people that I care about have passed away. Too many people that I worked with are no longer there. Too many events that have always been traditional have not happened for a long time. Family gatherings, hugs from friends, graduations, proms, sports, dining out, real vacations have all been the victim of this awful Covid mess.

I pray to God seeking an explanation that doesn’t seem to come. Why doesn’t it come? Its not because God doesn’t care. He does care. Its not because of a lack of faith. I have more faith now in the power and presence of God than I have had at any point in my adult life.

I looked to scripture for an answer and found several instances where God’s people struggled to find the perfect answer. The most prominent and hardest hitting of these answers where when God answered Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth, declare if you have understanding” Job 38:4.

The most powerful of instances is Jesus in the Garden asking His Heavenly Father, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done” Matthew 26:39

It hit me. God is not a genie in a bottle. We don’t get to rub a lamp and get three wishes. We cannot and should not manipulate God to get our way. There is a country song that says that “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” Garth Brooks.

I look back in my life and think of the things that I have selfishly prayed for. It might have been the return of a pet, a change in the weather or the numbers for a lottery ticket. Somehow God saw me through each of these without me ever questioning Him. Then, there are others. Health restored to a loved one, the restoration of a broken relationship or a solution to the consequences of a stupid decision. When I don’t get my way in these, I question everything about God. Yet, I can still look back and see that He was there with me through each of these events whether it was caused by me or some factor beyond my control.

Prayer is not manipulating God to our will. It is seeing God’s will in each and every one of life’s situations and circumstances. God sees things in a way that we can’t even imagine. He does love us and wants what is best for us.   He has a plan and a purpose for all the events in our lives as He prepares us for whatever lies ahead. When we pray, we are seeking His mind, not making Him see ours. Trust Him and have faith that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Even when we don’t personally agree with Him (right now) trust the quote that God, indeed, is “Good, All the time.”

Your “Cup o’ Joe”

What has the pandemic taught me?

On a daily basis I hear that we should do this or that because the kids of today have lost so much already.

But have they?

Each generation has faced its own unique set of circumstances. There are shifts in fashion, politics, music, entertainment. technology, lifestyle, transportation, sports, food, jobs, responsibilities, and the list goes on and on. Heroes are born, icons die. Like the sands shifting in the desert, the landscape is forever changing. 

I wonder what the parents said as the Hebrew children wandered the wilderness for decades. Or what about the children coming to America for the very first time? There are the war babies and the survivors of numerous natural disasters.

The world we are in is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is the world we are in. It is the world that God gave us. 

I love to hunt, but wouldn’t want my family to depend on my skill as a hunter to bring home dinner. I love to build, but could not imagine the age of Westward expansion building a house of sod in the prairie or a log cabin in the woods. I love to garden, but the idea of planting, harvesting, storing and preserving enough to sustain my family for the year is a thought that is insurmountable to me.

The one constant through each of these generations is that God has been, is now, and forever will be with us in the day-to-day events that we call life. Hebrews 13:8 tells us that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.  He promises repeatedly that He will never leave us nor forsake us and we should not be afraid. I Corinthians 10:13 He promises to never give us more than we can handle.

So rest assured that whatever happens, this next generation can and will handle it. The day will come when they will write books about, make movies about it and tell their grandchildren stories about the good old days. “When I was your age…” It is going to be okay. “Trust in God with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding” Proverbs 3:5.