Stuck in a Delay

I Recently I flew to my hometown Tucson and wouldn't you know it? I finally had that terrible airport experience that you often hear about.

First my plane was delayed a bit, no problem, only a half hour, happens all the time. We were supposed to leave st 7:25 so I sent needed text of my new arrival time. A lady came and tagged my bag and then walked away, my small bag would now have to be checked, OK. Then after we boarded and sat for five minutes we were told to deplane because of maintenance issues. I was told I couldn't have my bag back that they just took, I doubted it was even under the plane yet. We were then directed to another airplane many gates away that we for some silly reason thought we had to rush too, I was hungry. I sent the respective text again so they wouldn't arrive too early and have to wait. I grabbed a small snack.

We sat and sat and then at 9 they told us we were waiting for a crew. At 10 they told us we were still waiting for one. At 11:30 they told us plane was cancelled. At midnight they told us to get out of line and go to hotels and call to reschedule. At one I finally got through the line and rescheduled my flight for 7 the next morning.

I then had the decision to stay in the airport without my checked bag or go retrieve it and stay in the hotel I received a voucher for.  I decided a change, a phone charge, and a hotel was better. When I reached the bag check they told me it was closed and I could come back at 5 to get my bag. So deflated I went to find the free shuttle to my hotel, but that also had stopped running. So I split a taxi with the other unfortunate souls in my position and took a two hour nap at the hotel. I came back at 5 to get my bag as I had been informed that my bag would still travel to Tucson even though my new flight was for Phoenix. The bag lady told me I could not get it until 6 but by then I needed to be at the other end of the airport to check in, this was at O'hare in Chicago.

I decided to reroute my bag to phoenix and then walk all the way back across the terminals to my new airline with no bag and still no food. Time was so tight that I couldn't use the vouchers for free food which I discovered I had left back i  the hotel. When I finally did board at 7:45am the flight was a no food flight and I was tired. My new connection flight in Houston left me no time to eat either, I literally had to run to the already boarded plane. The best part about all of that was that I was flying to an interview and they were picking me up, un-showered, un-eaten and un-rested and unchanged. Awesome.

They asked me later if I would blog about it and I said I would. This isn't a complaint to the airline as many people said I should make but it did get me thinking.

Psalm 37:23 and 24 says

The steps of a man are established by the Lord; when he delights in his way, though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.

This crooked path reminded me of my life. When I make plans my projected path is much straighter than this was. My foreseeable hiccups accounted for and strictly avoided. There is nothing like a plan coming together but that path rarely happens when walking with God. God seems to have another plan in mind.

He seems to be more interested in the shortest path to him not the shortest path to my objective. The quickest way to him sometimes seems to be through trial. When I need help I turn to him. It causes me to grow.

When Kimberly and I were first married we decided to honeymoon in Florida so of course we decided to go Disney world. While we were visiting I wanted to visit Typhoon Lagoon, Disney's water park.  I remember when I was little all the advertising for it on the Disney channel. I remember watching all the drawings become actual construction. I remember all the planning and advertising and announcements for the project coming to fruition. Now I never dreamed of actually getting to go, but once we were heading that direction I knew we would have to make a visit. 

On the day of we had prepared ourselves for a day in the Florida sun experiencing the huge wave pool and sweet water slides. I was genuinely excited. Kimberly and I walked through the ticket gates and noticed how dark the skies were. We passed through the concessions and I think I heard a low rumble in the skies, but we headed for the water. I remember just seeing the iconic beached fishing boat when alarms started going off. We were told to exit the park. Hurricane warnings. I made the joke that park was already hit and prepared for a Typhoon but it didn't matter. We would not be  experiencing Typhoon Lagoon. I was a bit sad, I had wanted to see it my whole childhood and now it would not be.

My plans do not always work out. 

I remember being disappointed but I decided to not let that ruin our honeymoon. Being with Kimberly was more important and really the point. We went to see Legally Blonde 2 instead, not really a great place holder but I was with Kimberly so it was fine. We both agreed it wasn't that great a film. But man I must have been in love because really that movie is terrible. 

When we focus so much on the destination we lose sight of the sunsets during the journey. Worse yet we lose sight of our travelling companion on the journey. I have often done this with God. 

God himself is always going to be the destination but part of reaching him is realizing he is also our travel companion that goes the distance with us. When we ignore our travel companion, the journey may just stretch out to be a bit longer than planned, but remember the destination is sure and the company is good.

Think of that footprints in the sand poem.

Sometimes our eyes can get so focused on where we plant our next step in the sand that we forget where it was we were going. We forget that our hand is firmly held. There is one other thing though. When we step back and realize that God is with us we are able to enjoy the journey in a whole new way. We are able to view the journey in a whole new way. The journey doesn't have to be a dread, it doesn't have to be a delay, it can simply be what is next. So next time your destination seems far off, and the road blocks continual, remember who is with you and where you are actually heading. 

When we finally do arrive, we realize we are better for having come the way we have. This is something I had to learn along the way. 

thanks

Sermon: Trusting me, Trusting you?

This is a sermon I gave June 28th about struggling through my life long challenge and journey with Proverbs 3:5-6. Sometimes it is easy to trust. Sometimes it is difficult to trust. Sometimes we don't even understand what it even means to trust. With a little help from C.S. Lewis, I am working on it.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
Do not lean on your own understanding
In all your ways acknowledge him
and he will make your path straight.

Easy, right?

https://archive.org/details/TrustingMeTrustingYou 

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A Sermon: Underwater Signage

This won't be long again as the meat is in the audio, but i gave this sermon on May 3rd. God has deemed it necessary to teach his people to remember.  Sometimes when knowing who he is is not enough to lift our heads, sometimes he points to the good things he has done. Joshua 4 shows us just how to remind ourselves of how our God is greater. And sometimes he gives us our own testimony, very personal and very real.  This is especially true and needed when we pray. So press the link and give it a listen.

https://archive.org/details/UnderwaterSignage

thanks

Hit you where you Live

Back when I was a youth pastor in Prescott, Arizona I had the privilege of co-leading a youth mission trip to skid-row in LA. There I met a man just out of prison. We had just finished conducting a service for some of the people in the community and I got to speak to the man afterward. He greatly appreciated the message we brought but he was regretting his life and lamenting that fact that he had wasted so much time. He was overwhelmed with sadness that he had not met Jesus until he was way past his mid-life and wasting away in prison.

I was overwhelmed and at a loss for what to say, but after we talked for a bit God brought this verse to my mind. 

Acts 17:26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

I pointed out this verse to the man and explained that God graciously draws us to himself in the situations we are in.  I went on to explain that the verse seems to indicate that not only is God not far from us but that God orchestrated our each and every completely different situations. He not only set out the boundaries of our lives but the locations we would live on the earth.  He did this so that we would respond to him.

In other words God put us in the situations that we are in so that we would have the best possible opportunity to respond to his call. 

Along with the the doctrine of God's sovereignty this shouldn't be too hard to swallow. So I will just place these verses here.

Proverbs 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. 

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Ephesians 4:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

What this means is there really isn't the situation of the poor tribesmen across the world who doesn't have the opportunity to hear the gospel.  Or for that matter a man trapped in prison away from the possibility of meeting God. He may very well currently have that problem but this verse seems to imply that God is ultimately not far from him. This is not to introduce deterministic language into the mix but for us to recognize God's hand even when we can't see it.

I believe that I am in the best situation to respond in faith to God. I like the idea that perhaps if my situation was different I wouldn't have responded to God's call in my life.  If I lived in The Hamptons and had a cushy life perhaps I would have never have recognized my need for the Lord. Or if I was raised in a poor third world country perhaps I would have simply followed the culture and not been open to other ways of thinking. Or if perhaps I was born in England, I would have been too distracted by mine and my fellow countryman's sweet accents to bother with Christ.

This is not to say people in those situations cannot find God as I previously stated, but for me I am in the best situation for me, so those others will not suit me better. I should not lament what could have been or be overcome with what is, but recognize I am a short prayer from reaching out to him where I am.

After our conversation the man was drawn to tears to learn that God may very well have been drawing him throughout his journey and not delaying him because of it.

God is not waiting for me on the other side of my problems, for me to get my act together, he is graciously drawing me to himself while I am in them. God is not waiting for us to arrive before he gets involved. God hits us where we live.

So when I look in the mirror I should say: "This is who I got to be, this is where I got to be, now what am I going to do with the rest of my life?"

I will leave with a quote from the J.R. Tolkien from the Lord of the Rings.
"I wish the ring had never come to me, I wish none of this had happened".
Gandolf responds. "So do all  who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.  There are other forces at work in this world Frodo besides the will of evil..."

thanks

The Eagles Come at the End

I recently watched the third part of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

At the end of the movie the Eagles show up and decimate the Uruk forces.  In the same way the Eagles show up at the end of the Lord of Rings to save the day.

I have always thought "Why didn't they just show up earlier and save everyone a lot of pain and suffering?" Or "Why didn't Frodo and Sam just ride them to Mount Doom in the first place?" 

Aside from trying to find plot holes in movies, we tend to have this type of thinking in our own lives.  Why doesn't God make this a little easier?

In similar thinking, after the last supper in the garden of Gethsemane, the disciples understandably try to save Jesus from the trouble of being captured and arrested.  Who wouldn't try to rescue Jesus from pain and torture?  Jesus responds to them with more understanding of the situation.
Mathew 26
⁵³ Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? ⁵⁴ But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” ⁵⁵ "

This verse always makes my the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In this statement is such a display of restrained power.

Jesus is saying look guys I am God, I can easily get out of this situation, but this situation is important to the biblical narrative. This is a pivotal moment in history that cannot simply be circumvented.  Jesus came not to simply show us a way out of problems but for us to encounter God himself.  This is a process, a journey.  Encountering God is not something that can be rushed.  It is not something that can simply be added to what we are doing at the moment.  It is a process.  

Developing a relationship with God takes time. This is one reason why we are all not immediately carried away to be with God the moment of conversion.  This is also why deliverance doesn't always immediately arrive. Of course God could do something in this situation but he must have another plan in mind. Yielding to and waiting for his plan and not our own is one of the hardest parts of faith in God.

The solution may seem obvious to us but we do not have all the information. We think we can see the end result and we wonder why we can't just go over to it now.  It is like a solider trying to win a war by acting unilaterally. Soldiers are trained for battle and they act at the commands of officers. The commanding officers have the information and tell the soldiers where to go and what to accomplish next. The soldiers do not always see the big picture but have to deal with what is commanded of them.

With human nature we would naturally want to take the path of least resistance. We want the reward as quickly as possible.  We want the pain ended as soon as possible.  But stories are not told in this way or else there would be little to read.  Without a little adversity characters would not develop and grow. There would be no inspiration for the reader. No story to retell down through the ages. There wouldn't be anything to teach with the story or learn from the narrative or even reason to retell the experience.  People do not remember the routine and mundane.

God may have a relationship in mind that he is developing with me. God may have a journey planned that I need taking. The problem is it may not look like what we would like, or may take longer than we were hoping it would take.  

Isaiah 40:31
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Maybe Tolkien had this verse in mind when writing about the eagles. Waiting on the Lord happens while we are on the path. It is as we walk, that the help comes so we won't grow faint. It is after we are already running that the strength is given to not become weary. Waiting is not idling. The eagles are a reward for our faithfulness it seems, not a way to get around problems.

So...plot hole, or plot device? 

As much as we may want it, if in the beginning the Eagles always showed up to make life easier, we would learn very little. It wood also make a crap movie.

thanks

He Didn't Start the Fire

With my birthday around the corner, I am a year older. I have been thinking about this blog and I realized I have an obvious theme going so far. This year has been so trying. This year has been a challenge. This year has been a time when doubt has crept in and I have felt the squeeze. I am a bit older but I feel a bit weaker in my spirit.

But faith does not grow without a little doubt in the mix.  Faith does not grow without a little opposition.
So another year, and more faith for me.

In fact I recently just read a really useful blog post from Douglas Wilson:

"When we have a trouble, and have been praying urgently for deliverance, we should view every day without that deliverance as just another bucket of water on the altar — so that when the fire falls, God will receive greater glory."

Another bucket of water on the altar. He is of course referring to the Elijah incident from first Kings 18. It records that awesome story of God revealing to the people that he was God not the Baals, as the false prophets had proclaimed. Just to emphasize the point that God was there and that he was working, Elijah had many buckets of water to drench the wood that he was going to try and start a fire with. Elijah used twelve buckets of water to cover and soak the offering and the wood, probably to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. One bucket for each tribe that needed to witness the true God.  

Drenched wood, doesn't burn.

Elijah made it clear, this is not a fire that he can start. In other words Elijah was making the point that he couldn't prove that God is God. Only God can prove that he is God and in our midst. Only God can reveal himself to his people. Only God can come and rescue in this dark time. Only God can deliver us from evil. Only God can prove himself to be bigger, better, and stronger than the other gods.

My mess is drenched wood. Only God can start the fire.

The hope at the end of the day is that when God finally does let his fire fall his people will give him praise and him only. Elijah prays when he calls down the fire, his prayer that God will display his power. 
"So these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."

This is similar to what Jesus says when he raises Lazarus from the dead from the gospel of Luke.  
“Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus makes it clear that this is a display of God's power, this is to validate the message. While some may think it harsh that Jesus waits around for Lazarus to die before he comes to save him, it is made obvious that this was to reveal God's power.

Our struggle may just be so that more of God's power can be revealed. I know that this year I am in a place now where I can only hope on God's power. God raises the dead. God lights the fire. Not Elijah, not me.   

So in the end I am a year older but perhaps God has caused my faith to grow several. 


thanks