January, 2019

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EarlyBird

Wednesday, January 30th, 2019

Here in Indiana this morning when I came to work it was 4 degrees (so said my mirror. It blows up at 0) but the wind chill is supposed to be near -35 or something ridiculous like that.  Other reports say -40. I mean, what is another -5 degrees when it is already so cold it freezes your breath before it even leaves your tightly closed lips? So it might seem a bit strange that I would write about this subject.

Think August. Around these parts they call them the “dog days of August.” That’s because after a hot, sweltering summer, August usually says, “Ha. You think it has been hot and sweltery? Take a look at this!” When it is this cold I dream of days of 90+ when I can ride or go outside or have the AC in my truck and house. Not now. I couldn’t get my AC this cold if I tried. If I could maybe it would serve as a “warm up” or “conditioning” to winter weather! Nah.

Anyway, they say “the early bird catches the worm.” I’m not interested in birds or worms, however, I am interested in presenting something to you. Last September I was supposed to participate in the MS150 ride in Lebanon, IN.  But it was the weekend we were trying to recreate Noah and the Ark. Actually, I think God was reminding us what it was like. We had, in one weekend, from 7-12″ of rain. So the ride was cancelled. I was bummed. I had trained for it and my friend, Dave from Arizona, was here to ride it also. I’m guessing they decided to change the date hoping August would be drier than September.

On August 17 I will be planning to ride the MS150.  It is a fun ride but it is also a fun(d)-raising ride for MS research. My goal this year is $800. Last year it was $500 and I surpassed that. I upped the ante this year and hope to surpass it again. From frigid January to a “balmy” August, I have just over 6 months to raise that amount. I would be honored if you would donate toward the MS150 ride in my name. If you go here to my page and follow directions, it will allow you to do so. I am sponsoring a team called 3 Feet Please, something I happen to be rather passionate about. 🙂  Bet you can’t tell!! (See header)

I’m not going to hound you here. I will remind you from time to time about it. I do hope you will consider helping the cause. I get nothing for this. No kickback. No financial reward. Just the satisfaction of doing something I love for friends like Kirby (a local friend) and Marge (a member of OVCF) and others who are suffering.  Thanks.

Death/Life/Funerals

Monday, January 28th, 2019

I bury a friend today. I haven’t known him long. Little over a year and a half but the past year found me taking multiple hour long trips to the hospital to visit and multiple trips to his house as he fought a brave fight against an ugly form of cancer. He lived 18 months longer past the original 18 months they gave him to live. The power of prayer. The power of medicine. The power of the will to live and not give up.

I wanted to post something today but as you can see I am a bit preoccupied with another matter. I wrote more on this subject at my other blog. If you would like to read more, you can check it out here. I would be honored if you would visit LivingintheShadow and comment there or here.  Maybe even consider subscribing?  🙂

Tandem

Friday, January 25th, 2019

Given the snow event we had last weekend which resulted in only the second cancellation of our Sunday service in 13 years, I am re-posting this for this weekend.

If I were to ask you, or take a survey by asking one question, I wonder what your answer would be. Here is the question: What one thing do you see as the possibly the hardest thing to have today?

My guess is that many would answer TRUST.

We are being told much more than we want to hear today (it is called TMI). Sadly, much of what we are told we don’t know whether to believe or not. We are told to be our own boss. Why? “Because you can’t trust anyone.” We are being told to do our own thing. Why? “Because you can’t trust anyone to keep their word.” We listen to self-help gurus, exercise gurus, financial gurus and every other one you can think of because we are told “you can’t trust anyone else so forge your own path to success.”  One of the common lines from Back to the Future is when George tells Marty: “See, like I said! If you put your mind to it you can can accomplish anything.”

In reality, independence is an illusion; it is a delusion. “I want to be my own person” is nothing more than a foolish statement for the Christ-follower. The simple truth is “we are not our own. We have been bought with a price.”  The world offers independence. What the world really offers is slavery.

God has designed us to live in a dependent, obedient, and worshipful relationship with Him and in humble, interdependent relationships with each other.  It is like riding a tandem bicycle. The one in the front seat is the one who steers and guides. The one in the back can cause all sorts of havoc if he/she decides to operate independently from the front seat driver. They must work together. God has designed our earthly relationships to work that way as well as our relationship with Him.

My message for Sunday is entitled Tandem and is from Psalm 27:8-14. It is the final one in the short series on Psalm 27. I’d appreciate your prayers. Thanks.

 

Waiting

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

Confession time: I am not a fan of waiting. I don’t like to use the word “hate” but I do hate waiting. Waiting in line at a grocery store is tiring. Waiting in line at a store that does not have enough registers open is frustrating. Waiting in line at a stop light, especially when a person won’t move up, is maddening. Waiting to be waited on and served is annoying.

Worse still is waiting on God. I know what the Scripture says; I’ve quoted them enough. “Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.” There are tons more. But sometimes waiting on God is just plain…frustrating. Maddening. Annoying. Tiring. Waiting for an answer. Waiting for God to move. Waiting to die. Waiting for change. Waiting for God to “show” Himself.

Been there? I’d like to invite you to my other blog, LivingintheShadow, to see the rest of this post. While you are there, how about subscribing and getting them in your email?

For another “take” on waiting why not visit Martha’s bl0g here?

B-r-r–r-r

Monday, January 21st, 2019

It was 3 degrees this morning when I woke up at 3:30.

3 Degrees!!!

We are supposed to have a barn burner of a day today. The high this afternoon is supposed to be 11. Yes, you read that right. All you in the south. All you out west (specifically Arizona and parts west of that). Don’t you go getting all high and mighty just because you are basking in the 60s, 70s or 80s.

However, I would be willing to trade places for a month or so.

My friend, Dave, lives in Tempe.  This winter he said he was tired of the heat of Arizona so he decided to work from another locale. He is in Maine for 6 months. Somehow I’m thinking I might have picked a better place. But I texted with him yesterday and they got 6″ of snow and he was loving it! Yeah…he’s not right either.  (Tami says that about me a lot).

What made me sad about the winter storm that came through our neck of the woods (although we didn’t get it as bad as they said nor as bad as others) was we had to cancel church services yesterday. In a land of 4 wheel drive trucks and FWD SUV’s we had to cancel for only the second time in 9 years. The other was a deluge of snow which hit early Sunday morning, and after several of our worship team members slid past the entrance, we decided “not a chance.” So we scrambled getting everyone notified. This time we had a system in place and everyone was notified Saturday night.

I hate (strong word) canceling church services. I miss being with people. I miss smiling and laughing with people I love. I miss preaching. What I didn’t miss is the possibility of people trying to make it and having an accident. Owen County is a lot of back roads. One good thing: my sermon for this past Sunday will be preached this week. I also came to the office and redid all my sermons through May. So there was some good to the bad.

Nothing really monumental. Just a chat. Have a great week!

ShoutOut

Monday, January 14th, 2019

I began Cycleguy’s Spin in February of 2008.  From the very beginning Ryan Spires (he calls himself techgeek in the comments) has been there. He helped me get started. He helped me launch it. For the past several years he has even gone above and beyond by designing my header and also various banners for sermons. I owe him a lot because he has done it all as a friend. He keeps telling me this is not his forte’ but as i was at his desk at home one evening before the end of 2018 and watched him do stuff to make my other blog, LivingintheShadow happen, I sat amazed. Forte’ Smorte’. Sure coulda fooled me!

One of the saddest days of my time here in Spencer was the day he told me they would be moving to another town which is close by but too far for them to make the trek here every Sunday.  He played bass on our worship team and is sorely missed there as well. The good point is that we have maintained contact and gone out to eat a few times as couples and as a family.

Ryan was part of my group of men whom I recruited to be a part of a daily walk through New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp. He was the steadiest contributor (almost every day) and now continues commenting on Living in the Shadow. I welcome his input and insight into things.  Ryan made a commitment to start journaling which has honed his contributions even more. Now…he is putting them to good use by starting his own blog.  He is calling it Reflecting the Light. I’d like to encourage you to go here to check it out. I have put it into my Feedly and will get a new thought each day. I’m asking you to do the same. Thanks.

Remember that is Reflecting the Light. (How many times should I repeat that to sound like a commercial?)

ONE

Friday, January 11th, 2019

This has nothing to do with song from the 60s by Three Dog Night (even though I liked it and still do).

The movie Seabiscuit was the story of more than a horse. It was also the story of a jockey named Red; a trainer whose time as a cowboy had long been up; an owner who lost his only son to an accident and found himself divorced, lonely and lost until he met and married a young lady who turned his life around; and they, in turn, bought a horse who was considered a runt. They had to retrain what Seabiscuit thought about himself. Then they had to train him how to run. The rest was up to him. During a race “the Biscuit” (as he was called) was virtually on his own. It wasn’t the ones behind him Biscuit concerned himself with. It was the one ahead. He became singularly focused.

Most of have at one time or another been guilty of tunnel vision. We see nothing around us, sort of like the horse that runs with blinders on.

In Psalm 27:4 David says, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” In David’s day, the temple (tabernacle) was where God lived. David wanted to be in God’s presence. But notice what he said about it: It was his one desire!

My sermon Sunday is entitled My One Thing. It will be a challenging message for me. For those who listen. I am challenging myself to take stock of what my highest priority is. What is My One Thing?  My prayer is that we will all be challenged to answer that one question. Your prayers would be much appreciated.

I will also be showing this video to go along with the message.

Shameless

Tuesday, January 8th, 2019

Shameless plug here. I make no bones about it. I’m not going to call it something else. I’ll call it what it is. 🙂 I wrote the following at my other blog, LivingintheShadow:

Ever since I read Wisdom Hunter by Randall Arthur in 1993-1995 for the first and second time, I have always been stopped by Psalm 13. There was a scene in the book where Yoma (a wise old man) led Jason (the main character) through this psalm. No matter how many times I read Psalms, I ponder this chapter because it made things so clear to me years ago and still does. Here is how it breaks down:

For the rest of the post and my thoughts please go here:

I would be honored if you would check out my other blog and consider subscribing. See the side bar for a direct link to LivingintheShadow. Thanks.

January??

Monday, January 7th, 2019

If I lived in Arizona as several of my online friends do, what I am about to write would not sound too crazy. If I lived in Florida, where some folks from the church are visiting and some old friends from the church now live, you would not think I sound crazy.

It’s January here in Indiana. January 6th (yesterday) to be exact. You know…the land of cold and ice and snow. Not like Norway, Sweden or even Canada. But the land of cold and ice and snow. (Cue Led Zepplin here)

I rode my bike yesterday. I rode my bike Saturday as well. 14. 5 on Saturday. 17.5 on Sunday. What gives? A bike with snow shoes or ice crampons? A road bike with huge treaded (not a word) tires made for mountain biking? Wrong on both counts.

Weather in the high 40s/low 50s on Saturday. When I started on Sunday my truck thermometer read 60+ degrees.  I was wise. There have been times I have ridden and been under-dressed and shivered my way home.  I recently found out the gloves I bought for winter riding were only good down to about 30. After that…shiver me fingers. They hurt so bad I cut a couple of rides short. But Saturday I worked up a good sweat. Sunday I worked up a good sweat but was also smart in that I packed some liners for my short-fingered gloves and a headband for my ears.  It is crazy how quickly it cools off when the sun goes down.

I enjoyed my two days of decent-weather riding. Makes me long for warm weather riding which is just around the corner. (I’m an optimist).

Some things never change though. Thinking I was okay and forgetting that  in cold or warm weather proper nutrition is a must, I failed to hydrate and eat right when I was done. I paid the price during small group last night when an inner thigh cramp seized my whole upper leg and I had to get up and massage and stretch. Some things never change I guess. You’d think at the age of 66 and after years of riding I’d learn my lesson. Some heads are hard.

If I may, allow me a spiritual application. Learning from our mistakes is essential. Proverbs tells us “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The moment I get hard-hearted or hard-headed, I’m in trouble spiritually. I’m convinced a follower of Christ is never too old (or too young) to learn. I pray I never stop learning. I’d like to stop learning from all the dumb mistakes I make, but you gotta stop making them and that might never happen! 🙂

Fear

Saturday, January 5th, 2019

I’m a little late to the party this weekend.  It has been a crazy, busy weekend with Tami’s surgery as well as some others having cancer treatment. But I guess better late than never!

My theme for 2019 is Unsinkable. My thanks to Ryan (techgeek) for the banner. I am a typical Sanguine. I have great ideas but my ability to follow through on some things is limited. Ryan, on the other hand, is fantastic!  Okay…that’s enough of that. I’ll blow his head up so big even his wife won’t recognize him. But then again, Amanda will bring him back to earth. 🙂

It was March 4, 1933 while the country was in the terrifying clutches of the Great Depression that newly elected president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, made his famous one liner that is often quoted by others. Believing the greatest problem was not the absence of finances but the presence of fear, he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

There is no question we live in a fallen world. Look around if you doubt my words. At the same time we live in the fallen world, we also have a God of grace who meets his children in moments of darkness and difficulty.  I’m going to be in Psalm 27 for 3 of the 4 Sundays this month. Psalm 27 is a rock in an unsure world. It is a lifesaver thrown out to a drowning man. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” 

I’ll also be showing this video of CityAlight before I preach.

Prayers would be appreciated as I lay the groundwork for the rest of 2019 with this beginning message. Thanks.