keep your perspective

(Caribou Coffee...I like a shop named after a large, furry mammal)

Keep your perspective

There is a chalkboard on the wall of the coffee shop where I’m sitting while two of my daughters are down the road at church events. This query is posed there: “What gets you through the LONG winter?” Now mind you, the question is being asked in North Carolina, where it was 54 and sunny on January 25^th. Winter feels like a piece of cake to a guy who grew up in Northeast Ohio, where wind chills and lake effect snow are a way of life.  But someone from Florida or Arizona might well feel that this sort of winter will never end. Excitement over the weather seems to be correlated to where you started your journey, to how bad off you were to start. And we are always in danger of becoming complacent…and forgetting how good we have it now.

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst.”

1 Timothy 1:15

The Apostle Paul wrote 48% of the books in the New Testament. He was one of the first great missionaries of the Gospel. He had a personal encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.  If ever anyone had the resume to be complacent in his faith it was Paul.  But to his immense credit Paul never would up in that place. He knew he was once the foremost persecutor of Christians and he never forgot the incalculable grace he had received.

Maybe God’s saving mercy was bestowed on us decades ago…or perhaps it’s a very recent event.  Either way, let’s follow the example of Paul, keep our perspective and remember what we were saved from.

Thanks for all you do.

Brian

<>< 

Volume 7, Number 48

Disagreement not Dishonor

(yes, yes I'm a fan... but really there is a good point here!) 

This past week the Ohio State Buckeyes surprised a great many people by winning the College Football Playoff National Championship.  In the end their power running game and stout defense made all the difference.  Luke Fickell, the coach in charge of that defense, stands as an important lesson to us all. After serving as defensive coordinator for six years under Jim Tressell, Fickell spent a season as the head coach of the Buckeyes. When current coach Urban Meyer was hired, he asked Fickell to serve once again as the defensive coordinator. Meyer expects hard work and loyalty from his assistants, and it would have been easy for Fickell to look for a smaller school where he could have remained the man in charge. To his credit though, he was willing to step back and be subject to the authority of another again.

“Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone.”

Titus 3:1-2

Our nature is to believe that we know best, that we could run the team/company/committee better than anyone else if we just had the opportunity.  We magnify the shortcomings and faults of those around us and discount their strengths.  But clearly this is not what we are called to as followers of Christ.  We can disagree yes, but dishonor never. When we accept a position we also accept the structure that comes with it. And we ought to work hard and be loyal to those are in authority. It’s likely those folks are in place for very good reasons. And perhaps we will find ourselves “champions” as a result.

Thanks for all you do.

Brian

<>< 

Volume 7, Number 47

Really new

(really I don't want it cancelled!)

Really new

I enjoy having New Years Day off work every year…I really do. And the college bowl games are an awesome way to spend any day. But deep down I find the concept of celebrating the day kind of odd.  I mean, it’s just the first day of a month; another time to turn the page on the wall calendar (does anyone have wall calendars anymore?)  But we ascribe a deeper meaning to this date because we feel like we have the chance to create a clean slate or a do-over. January becomes a time to both mess up the date on checks and to plot a new and hopefully better course for the future.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Trying to do more positive things and less negative things is always admirable.  But nothing we do changes the fact that we remain human; simultaneously filled with both good intentions and weighed down by sinful hearts.   The only new beginning that truly gets at our core is a deep and abiding faith in Jesus as Savior.  That faith, that being “in Christ” as Paul says, allows us to approach the New Year as a new creation.  If you have this faith, embrace it all over again. If you don’t, let this be the year you make the most important decision of your life.

Thanks for all you do.

Brian

<>< 

Volume 7, Number 46