I Can't Keep UP!

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to participate as a leader in a Vacation Bible School program. Lots of fun and now we think about what actually happened. With the end of any activity we come to evaluation and reflection. This week is no exception. Each of us who were here, can already remember memorable moments when these children came together. They jumped in and did all kinds of things. All we have to do was ask. Ask them to dance, and they did. Ask them to sing, and they did. Ask them to sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, and they do. You know the really fun part? Watching the adults trying to stay with the kids. The children look to the adults and copy them, thanks parents.
On one of these mornings it was comical to listen to the children. Counting came up at one point and a young kindergarten child pipped up, “I can count to one hundred.” Then she started, one, two, three, four, five. Just when she was getting her rhythm going, a grade three student said, “I can count to a million.” Then they all jumped in leaving the youngest child wondering what just happened. “I can count to a billion.” “Well I can count to a gazillion.” And so it went for at least 37 seconds when they went on to the next competition.
Children are so much fun. As fatigue began to take the best of us, I smiled more and more at the knowledge that the children do not have to wait for us to catch up to them. Life to them is exciting and such an adventure that they never tire from learning more things.
This has to be the biggest part of learning something new. Unfortunately as adults we seldom experience it with children’s eyes. They see things for the first time and shout. We see something for the first time and get all cool like and ay, “Cool. Didn’t know that?” We bring our congregations to the most exciting story in the history of the world and make it “Cool and boring.” Sorry, I want to get excited about going to the church building. Sometimes I want to stand up and shout and dance and get really excited about God, Jesus and me. I want to open my bible every day and say, “Wow, that is amazing!!!”. Case in point, read 2Sam.5:6-7. Here is David, showing up to fight a battle with nothing extraordinary. Well, that is if you don’t think showing up with God is extraordinary. The other side laughs at them. David had toothpicks but his God had the cannons. That my friend is amazing. Go ahead and get your bible and read the whole story.
Do you know what? God can do for you in your life the same as He did for David. We make the choices to do what God wants us to do and God strengthens our failures. Let’s jump right in like the children and listen to what God is giving us to learn. Let’s get excited about God, after all He is excited about us. And right now at this moment in your life, you have the ability to make a difference. Now it is our turn to have the children catch up to us, to you. Let’s lead them on their spiritual journey and lets make it fun, exciting and a new adventure we can all experience. Go ahead and introduce them to the wine maker, the healer and the one who knew the heart of a humble lady at the well. He also knows you.
Rob

My Hand In His

An email came to me last week that has kept me thinking. One of those emails that hold you in its grip for a while. Not because it was profound in any way but just because it haunts you. It doesn’t go away. And each time you think about it you find your answer changes.
The question that came out of this email is this: “If you could ask God one questions, what would it be?” Many of us would ask without thinking, “Why all the suffering in the world?” A good question considering there is a lot of pain and suffering. We see it every day on tv. In actuality we are becoming numb to it. Okay, another killing in the city, another street racer dies, and someone breaks in. What else is new. I think God would have a wonderful answer and it would probably have something to do with us doing it to ourselves.
Someone else would ask why are so many children suffering so much as they watch World Vision and know what is going on in Sick Kids Hospital. These children are so innocent. They are so vulnerable. In His wisdom He would have an answer. But again it might be because we do it to ourselves as I think back to seeing a 9month old mother walking down the street with a cigarette in her face. I think His answer would be more profound then that. I move on to another question.
With our solders dying in another country, mothers and wives would be asking why is there war? Why do we have to send our boys over to fight a war that is not our own? Why does peace cost so much and why does it cost me, you, us? Sorry I don’t have an answer for this one either.
But in these last couple of weeks I have asked many if not all the questions you might have. I have gone over them in my mind and tried to figure out some of them. Some I could not even venture to answer. Like each of you I find little or no success in coming up with an answer that takes hold of God and His infinite wisdom, power and love.
A hymn came to mind and it doesn’t answer it.
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above with wisdom
And power and love our God is an awesome God
How can this be? I don’t understand. If He really loved us, none of this would exist. Or would it? Do we create some of our own discomfort? At times and in certain places, are we not the author of our own destiny? How much responsibility do we accept when we are the perpetrators of our own pain and suffering?
Now after all this time I cannot give an answer to any of your questions. As a pastor I have to admit that I don’t know why God would allow . . . What I do know is, He knows what is best and all we can do is place our lives in His hands and leave it to Him.
Never once in the bible have we found a scripture that would ever lead us to believe God has promised us a rose garden. Rose gardens have thorns too. What He does promises me and you is that He will walk with us, we just have to stretch out our hand for Him to take hold of.
The words of Horatio Spafford rise up in my heart:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Could it be that God is ultimately only interested in the health of our hearts? What do you think?
Rob

Reading For All It's Worth

Think back with me for a few minutes. Go back to your first day in grade one. I know, schools out and you don’t want to go back until September but just humour me for a little while. Okay, here we are in grade one. The teacher hands out our first reader. In actual fact some of us will remember the book and can visualize it because right on the front cover is those very words, “First Reader.”
Now to the good part. Remember the first few lines and the first few pages. Help me here. I remember, “See Spot. See Spot run. Run Spot, run.” I can also vaguely remember the name of the girl. Her name was . . . Sally. Now you will have to tell me, what was the boy’s name?
I spoke at Macassa Lodge in Hamilton on Sunday. It was a great time. During our time together I said something that caught my granddaughters’ attention. With those few words, she was off and looking in her bible for a verse, she had heard at her church that morning. When she found it, she wanted to read it for everyone. Not bad for an eight-year-old.
We have another grand daughter who is just going into grade one. If we were to hand her our first reader, she would be bored. She is so far past that, it scares me to think how advanced this new generation will be when they graduate from university.
Our journey into the realm of reading has gone forward. We are beyond those early years, our reading has not only grown but changed. English class in those school years introduced us to many different styles of writing and different areas like, fiction and history and spirituality to name a few. Each has its good point and each in some way allow us to see things in our world that we don’t normally see or experience. Unfortunately, they tell us that more than 90 percent of the adult population does not read one book cover to cover after graduation from grade twelve. This probably due to television.
So how can we all read today. I believe we read through life experiences. Most of us have inquisitive minds. Those minds look for ways to learn. At times the learning involves reading people. You see someone do something and you say to yourself, “I can do that” A number of years ago I purchased an Austin Healey. A wonderful car and I enjoyed it for a number of months. Yes, you read that right, months. Someone had more money then they needed and the offer was too good to resist. Anyway, the fellow I bought it from was a doctor and he went to school to learn welding and bodywork so he could do the car himself. Great jobs. From the other direction, we learn from others mistakes. Like my father said, “Learn from my mistakes because you will not live long enough to make them all yourself.”
In Psalm 19 we read these words, “The heavens declare the glory of God . . . Day unto day utters speech . . . There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.” The question is, can we read it? God is writing all about himself in nature and in our lives.
There are two other non written ways of learning to read. One is listening to others. We read their lives and hearts as they share their deepest thoughts and secrets. Just an aside to this, did you know that one of the greats gifts you can give someone is to keep their secrets. The other gift is to imitate them. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. You do the same to them. Somewhere out there someone is looking at you and your life and looking up to you. All because you let them read you. Keep up the great writing, we are reading.
Rob

Up On Two Wheels

Do you know who Ben Spies is? He is a motorcycle racer. Well, he is more then just a motorcycle racer. He is one of the best Road Racers in North America today. The reason I know that is, I watch him most Sunday afternoons. Motorcycle racing has been an interest of mine since I was a teen. I missed the race on Sunday due to the wonderful activities of Canada Day, but that’s okay, I can catch the replay on Tuesday.
If you know anything about riding a motorcycle, you know that most of your riding is on the sides of the tires. In road racing, they are almost exclusively on the sides of the tires. Their tires are made of very special compounds that stick to the road like gummy bears to the wall.
Every year the competition is fierce. The person who wins the year is usually the one who stays up on two wheels more times then the others. Let me tell you, you either go down once in a while or you are not fast enough to win. If someone tells you they have not fallen all season then I will show you someone who has never won a race. It’s just that simple.
There is a lot about motorcycle racing that images our Christian walk. Just like Ben, we win some and we go down some. And just like him, we know how to get up and go again. Sometimes he slips and goes down when he, “Hangs out too, far.” These men and their machines go to the limit of the adhesion of the tires. They say you can tell the proficiency of a rider by how far around on the side of the tire the scuff marks go.
And just like racing, we realize that it is not always the big mistakes that take us out, but the small things. We loss our line around the track and go wide. Believe it or not, racing is also a contact sport. Sometime Ben is bumped by someone or bumps someone himself. Must say that throws you. Next exit, and he is off the course. I have seen many riders go too aggressively into the corner and end up in the gravel. Not a pretty site. There are other dangers, tire shavings, dirt on the road from another rider going into the gravel and out again. All are illustration of life and faith. Could never road race myself but do I do it every day in my life and in my walk with God?
Only raced once and that was on ice. Another story some other time. Oh, by the way, don’t look at the scuff marks on my motorcycle tires. I ride pretty safely.
As I was watching the race last week, I realize there are times when we are in too much of hurry. We don’t want to wait for God or anyone else for that matter. We want things the way we want them and we “hang out” too far only to find ourselves sliding across the tarmac. We think life is a race and we want to get to the end and win. Win what?
It is unfortunate that we push life and God to the limit. We forget to put on the brakes soon enough when we are going too fast. We place too much confidence not only in our own personal abilities but in the tires that carry us through. Unlike these racers, we have never been around this track before. I know God is there to pick us up, dust us off, heal our wound and start us over again, but...
A few months ago I watched a program about dream rides. Three people, taken to a road race course and given lessons from Ben. They followed someone who had gone that way before. Through watching him they improved greatly that day.
Whom are you watching? Maybe the words of Hebrews 12 have a place here. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith . . . ”
Slow down, enjoy the ride and follow His lead. After all, we not only want to get to the end but we want to get there up on two wheels. Rob