Category: Uncategorized (Page 72 of 81)

Top Reason for Changing the Brag Book Rule

May 21, 2012 /

There are certain unspoken rules in life.

You know, like you wash your hands and brush your teeth and if you’re a good person you recycle and you show up for work on time.

And then there’s the rule that parents with babies or toddlers can tweet, post, text, blog, or whip out their iphone to show photos of their little baby noses, and little baby toes at any moment.  And it’s a BIG DEAL.

Plump drooly smiles, toothless yawns…The wonder of their new words and cute curiosity of their questions.  Every. Single. Move. An opportunity to brag, to celebrate, to marvel.  But only til they hit, say, the age of braces.  Then, all bets are off.  It’s illegal to brag publicly.

Oh, don’t get me wrong!  I think all of the baby bragging is great.  I want to be in the “ooh” and “aahhh” club, doing the veritable “wave” for babies like in the stands at a football game.

I just want to change the rule a bit.  Tweak it, if you will.

I think we should be tweeting about more wonder than just babies.

More world-wide “wow’s!”  More everyday victory dances.  Kudos and “atta girl’s!” and “you’re the best!”

For Austin coaching teens and teaching one of his inner-city football players to tie his tie for prom.

For Sarah and Erin, young women with servant hearts who work so hard behind the scenes at our church and make others look good.

For Eric, a twelve-year old amazing young man from Togo, who perseveres as he works to learn both multiplication and American baseball.

For a woman doing her fifth step in recovery…a young single saying yes to purity…a husband serving his wife by getting up in the night with a crying baby…a friend forgiving a wrong…

For all these and so many more, “Way to go!”

Here’s the reason I think we should tweak the rule about baby bragging.

I think God is a bursting with pride Papa who would whip out photos from his wallet or iphone in a nano-second wanting to crow about His children no matter where, or when, or how old.

“Look!  That’s my daughter!  This is my son!  Aren’t they great??!” No matter how large or small the victory, He delights in us and I think He delights in being a braggy dad.

So today, as Anthony De Mello writes, “Behold the One beholding you and smiling.”

Who do you want to give a shout out to today?  Consider posting a line in the comment section!

How Do You Correct Spiritual Day Blindness?

May 16, 2012 /

I’ve been struggling with something recently, and it’s led me to pray differently.

Not all the time.  Mostly at meals.

It’s happened because awhile back we spent time with some Christians in a foreign country who never prayed.  I’m sure they did sometime, but not in our presence.  They’d let us pray if we asked to, but that’s all.  And it flumoxed me.  It was curious and dissonance-producing and I wasn’t sure how I felt.

I was confused.  I thought, “We’re Christians.  We’re supposed to pray.  It’s what we do.”

On our own, but also together.  Out loud.  At group devotions in the morning and at meals at the very least.  It’s kind of a rule.  Like brushing your teeth before bed, or saying please and thank you, or taking out the garbage.

Eventually, what I noticed about the people we had been with made me notice something about myself.  The speck in my own eye if you will.  I realized how rote my throughout-the-day prayers had become.

Predictable.  Going through the motions.

We say the same thing.  “Bless this.”   “Be with them” (a phrase I hate).  And  “Thanks for that.”

It made me think, “What are we really doing when we pray before meetings, or at meals or whatever…?  What does God desire?”

So I talked to God and my husband John, and processed for awhile.  And during that time God used His word like a megaphone.  It seemed like every time I opened the Bible I’d come across verses like:

Psalm 29:2 “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name.”

And Matthew 10:32 “Whoever publicly acknowledges me I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.   But whoever publicly disowns me I will disown I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

Psalm 34:3 “Magnify the Lord with me.  Let us exalt His name together.”

Magnify huh?  Acknowledge what?  Ascribe to who?

I have a condition called night blindness.  It means I have no depth perception when I drive at night.  I get disoriented easily.  I’ve driven through stoplights and on the shoulder of the road.  One dark night I was driving home from seminary and wasn’t paying attention.  I made a wrong turn without realizing it and all of a sudden looked around and had absolutely no idea where I was.  I couldn’t get my bearings.  I’m beginning to think I (and maybe all of us) also have day blindness.

We need periodic reorientation so we don’t forget who we are (not God), and whose we are and where we are – far from our true home, dependent on the king of that kingdom.

I try to orient myself to God in the morning, but once the busyness of the day begins I’m at the center again, putting Him on the margins in my manic busyness.  Treating God like He should revolve around ME.  Through-the-day prayers are a chance to switch places back.  Again. And again.

These through-the-day prayers with others are about stopping.  More about submission than supplication.  The wise men and the shepherds bowing before Jesus.

Re-orienting.  Like a sailboat that’s drifted off-course, re-aligning sails to the wind.

Silence.  Stillness.  Pausing with others at lunch, in a coffee shop, in a meeting room…truly being present to God seems to be my best reminder to start with.

We get so wrapped up in the speed of the day that often those prayers at meals are “throw-aways”...a quick word because we’re “supposed to”, and not because we’re truly aware of returning to an awareness of the presence of God, ascribing to Him the glory due His name.

So, I’m trying.  It’s not easy.  But I find, like a sailor who has turned his rudder, I sometimes catch just a bit of breeze and feel the delight of the Holy Spirit.

Do you pray in public?  Does it feel meaningful?  Awkward?  Pretentious? Rote?  

Ascribe to the Lord…

May 14, 2012 /

We sang the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness at our wedding on a hot, muggy July day 29 years ago, and it became our family refrain, sung at every defining moment.

We’ve sung it loud in gratitude.  We’ve sung it haltingly in desperation, we’ve sung it in harmony and with hope.  With tears of pain and tears of joy.

This past year I’ve had the incredible privilege of worshipping with believers on five continents.  Singing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” side by side with folks who were raising their voices in tribal tongues like Tonga, or Aramaic, French, Japanese, Hebrew, Spanish…

In a packed mud church in Zambia where praying for daily bread isn’t an empty phrase and people thirst for living water.

Great is Thy Faithfulness.

Alone in abandoned cathedrals in Italy where God is still present and you hear the echoes of followers long gone.

Great is Thy Faithfulness.

In the Swiss Alps where believers are a minority like a tiny flame trying to bring light to the darkness.

Great is Thy Faithfulness.

In Brazil where girls need to be reminded they are beautiful, beloved children of God first and foremost.

Great is Thy Faithfulness.

In the Bethlehem where Christians pray for peace and refuse to be enemies even as bullets fly.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

In Sri Lanka where everyone helped bury the dead after the tsunami and the sound system squalks and squeals and people fan themselves in the sweltering heat and humidity as they sing.

Great is Thy Faithfulness.

I write these words fearing they won’t communicate the power I feel.  I am not an emotional worshipper, but when I come before the Lord with people of every language, people with burdens I cannot imagine, and faith I cannot fathom, I’m wrecked.  I’m a puddle.

I wonder if you’ve experienced anything like this.  It’s hard to express, and yet, I feel the Lord says to me over and over again “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name” from Psalm 29 and I have to try.

I think of this as a small glimpse of heaven written about in Revelation 15:9  “All nations will come and worship before You, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

What moves you in worship?

How to Discern What’s Real (A Resource for Leaders and others)

May 10, 2012 /

This looks flat doesn’t it?

NOT.

Every time I ride this part of this bike path I have to down-shift one.  Because it is actually a gradual, but definite, incline.

Looks can be deceiving, but when I know that truth I can adapt.

Sometimes reality is hard to discern.  Sometimes it’s difficult to accept.  And sometimes we just want to deny it.

This guy looked responsible.  Healthy.  Devoted.

Not so much.

We had a perception of his character that was not rooted in reality.

Whether it’s stress, or circumstances outside our control, or sin,

facing reality and responding is a crucial part of our formation into people who look more like Jesus.  And a crucial part of leadership development.

All that to say, I have a resource to share with you.

I’ve been helping facilitate some online classes called Leadership Institute for Transformation (LIFT) offered through the Willow Creek Association.  The class I’ve been involved with for several co-horts is called Leading For Results.  It was created and is taught by Dr. Henry Cloud, using a book he wrote called Integrity.  One of the key challenges we talk about in this class is facing negative realities and adjusting.

Here’s a little taste.

We talk about 6 sources we can use to get an accurate picture of reality and then provide this tool for self-evaluation.  Take a look at each source, consider what you have in place, and  the suggested activity.

1. Direct relationship with God

a. Mechanism currently in place:

b. Suggested activity: Spend some time in prayer asking God to remove blinders and biases regarding your ability to see the reality around you.

2. God’s word

a. Mechanism currently in place:

b. Suggested activity:  Read 2 Peter 1:5-8. Consider whether you have been truly integrating these characteristics into your leadership as planned in the first week.

3. External truths

a. Mechanism currently in place:

b. Suggested activity:  Reflect on what you have been learning from different sources of information. What does this say about your currently reality?

4. Internal Truths

a. Mechanism currently in place:

b. Suggested activity:  What’s your emotional barometer registering? What are sources of anxiety, joy, stress, peace? Find a place to write, or talk with a friend to name these realities.

5. Other people

a. Mechanism currently in place:

b. Suggested activity:  Take something that you’ve noticed or learned about yourself, or your current situation. Interview a trusted friend or colleague to give you feedback on the same topic. What do they see?

6. Your life

a. Mechanism currently in place:

b. Suggested Activity: Reflect on your overall results as a leader. What were you producing 5 years ago? Two years ago? How have you grown since then? Where would you like to grow?

c. Suggested Activity: Consider doing a 360 degree interview.

Leading for Results is only one of the classes offered.  Each course is 7 weeks long.  At the beginning of each week you receive an assignment that may include watching a video, doing some self-evaluation, a little reading, and interacting on the on-line Discussion Board.  In addition, there are two virtual classrooms each session when everyone is online at the same time interacting around material being presented.

Starting June 11t I’ll be facilitating a class called The Leader’s Soul, taught primarily by Mindy Caliguire.  You can find out more about all the LIFT classes here.   We’d love to have you jump into one!

OR…if you’re on the fence, you can join me and participate in a Virtual Classroom on May 23rd at noon CST.  Just sign on as a guest.

Where are you going today?

May 9, 2012 /

Tomorrow John and I are leaving to go to Sri Lanka, off the coast of India (yes, I had to check).  He for a World Vision Board meeting.  Me, to support him in his Board-dom and see more of God’s world and work.

The amount of travel I get to do is a privilege I don’t take lightly.  I’m blessed, but I told the girls it doesn’t bode well for me that one of the first things I read about Sri Lanka is that they have 84 different kinds of snakes, but not to worry because not that many are poisonous.

I hate snakes.  I mean really.  Me and Indiana Jones.

So, Sri Lanka has that against it.  And it’s like a million hours on three flights to get there which I could live without.

But, I’ve been thinking.  Discomfort and snakes aside, in many ways it’s easier for me to go across the world and build relational bridges to folks in Sri Lanka, than it is for me to go across the street and build a bridge to my neighbors who smoke and have loud parties and yell at their kids.

It may be easier to fly across continents than for me to make the time to fight traffic and go across the city to a homeless shelter, or to tutor.

Sometimes it’s easier to jet across time-zones than to walk across the Great Room at church and include someone who is hard to love.  Or cross the coffee shop to listen to enter into someone’s pain, or reach out to a stranger.

I think of what it was like for Jesus, leaving the pure delight of heaven and coming across time and space to enter into the everyday brokenness, muck and mess of this world He loves.

And then He went across cultural and economic and class lines to reach the Samaritan, the tax-collector, the confused rich, and the broken-hearted father.

I think the reason it’s easier for us to go across the world than across the street is because across the street is just so everyday.  It’s always right there.  It’s the ever-present opportunity we’ll get to “someday”.

Going across my city, my neighborhood, my church, my home, my coffee shop.  It’s not like it’s a big deal.  Which is why, perhaps it is a big deal to Jesus.

A quote by Gregory Boyle has captured me this week: Jesus “goes where love has not yet arrived.”

So on this last day before Sri Lanka, my goal is to be aware go across wherever I can go across in my everyday world, prayerfully going where maybe love has not yet arrived.

Where is it hard for you to go across?

What Does Church Look Like?

May 7, 2012 /

I saw something stunning and beautiful Saturday night at worship.

I saw the Church.

Not the church.  Not the steeple or worship band or the red carpeting.  But something illusive and shy, like a wobbly fawn that is often camouflaged in the underbrush of dead leaves, and can often collapse under weak, buckling knees.

It peeked out, and I caught a holy glimpse.

It’s common these days to hear the refrain, “I love Jesus but not the Church.”  We get all worked up pointing to her hypocrisy and judgmentalism and ugly blemishes and bad habits.  I’ve written before about how we’ve been hurt by her.

But I’m blessed to be part of a community of believers where Church-sitings, real Church-sitings, the kind Jesus talked about – the kind Jesus prayed for at the end of John 17 – thankfully aren’t that rare.  And I had one the other night.

It was a simple thing really.  I was sitting in the back of the sanctuary on the left and a few rows in front of me sat a woman my age (read “very young”) who was diagnosed a couple of years ago with Early-onset Alzheimer’s.  She is blond and soft and round and absolutely full of child-like joy.  Beside her sat her husband who is kind, and devoted.

In the middle of the sermon she got up and scooched out of the pew.  I watched as she ambled to the back of the sanctuary past me and turned left along the back row.

Another woman sitting in the section one over, noticed who it was leaving, smiled brightly, popped up, and joined her walking out.  A few minutes later the two of them returned.  The “escort” gently guided her friend back to the correct pew and her husband, and went back to her own seat.

Like Jesus guiding one of His little lambs back to safety.

Such a very simple thing.  But it made me cry.  The beauty of it.  The rightness of it.

Alzheimer’s or not, we all wander off from time to time and need someone to walk alongside of us and remind us where we belong don’t we?

The sermon continued, but the more powerful message was being played out in the pews.

The church was being the Church and so often that doesn’t get seen and celebrated for the wonder that it is.

When have you been inspired by seeing the church be the Church?

Three Minutes of Wonder

May 4, 2012 /

When I saw this it blew me away.

Who knew?  How did God create that tiny creature and teach him to do...that???

Last night John and I were eating dinner on the patio and he said “Isn’t it cool the way the sunlight is hitting the leaves of that tree?”  Not a typical remark from him, but it was just another reminder of how we usually rush by the tiny sparkling bits of God-wonder revealed even right in front of us.  Not hidden underground even.

Today is alive, twirling like a little girl in her glittery  candy pink dress-up gown and tiara, just waiting for us to notice.

May you have a weekend of noticing and hearing the holy whisper of God in creation say, “Here I am.”

What of God’s creation are you “wondering” at this weekend?

What are you Waiting For?

May 2, 2012 /

Last week I was down in the Chicago area because my mom was having surgery and I wanted to be there to help out and cheer her on.

Her last words as she was going in were “Isn’t he CUTE??” with a gleam in her eye as she pointed to her doctor.  Her first words out of surgery were “How does my hair look?”  Her doctor warned her not to sell her leftover Oxycodone on the street corner.

She’s scrappy and has a remarkable spirit and my dad is devoted and I wasn’t really needed, but it made me feel better to be there.

On the day of her surgery my dad and I spent pretty much all day in the waiting room.  I’m not a good wait-er.  At all.  As a wait-er

You’re not in control (When are you ever, really?  But it feels worse when you’re waiting).

It feels like you can’t DO anything constructive.

It feels like everyone else is going on with their life and you’re on hold.

Most of us are waiting for something.

I have friends who are waiting for a husband.  Or a wife.

Friends who are waiting for a prodigal to return.

For an acceptance letter.  Or a baby.

Waiting for a diagnosis.  Or a cure.

Waiting for a job.  Or someone to need them.  Or a place where they feel like they’d be missed if they were gone.

Recently, I heard Holly Furtick speak on waiting, and something she said has been rolling around in my brain ever since.

She said, “What seems like a pointless or painful waiting room can be God’s most productive workroom.”

I thought “Aha!!  I love being productive!  She’s going to talk about what we can DO to CHANGE things and get out of the waiting room!”  Not so much.

The work that we do while waiting is most often soul work.  Inside stuff that requires patience (Does anyone like that word?), obedience, discernment and cooperation with God.

In the waiting room of the hospital where Dad and I were they had this nifty flat screen and on it were listed all the patients in surgery for the day.  It tracked their progress, from pre-op, to surgery, to recovery room, to permanent room.  In addition, if the surgery was long, they’d send word out with a nurse as to how it was going.

When I’m waiting I could really use a spiritual progress monitor showing exactly how I’m doing and when it’s all gonna be over.

But instead of even enduring in the comfortable, clean lounge of a hospital, waiting often seems a lot more like we’re survivors of the Titanic, clinging to God among the wreckage in cold, dark water.  Disoriented and desperate to do something.

Every once in awhile we’ll flail our arms and try to swim to shore deluded into thinking we can swim the hundreds of miles on our own.  But we realize we can’t and we go back to clinging.

Clinging is the work of the waiting room.

We cling and we say “Lord, help me to see you. Somehow.  Today. Even for a second.  Help me to focus on Your purpose rather than my problem.”

And slowly, ever so slowly, the wait results in just a little bit more of the weight of His glory being formed in us.  Maybe the moment when we get the job or the baby or the whatever, isn’t the big deal, but rather the thousands of moments you choose courage and hope as you cling to the One who loves you.

One more thing…With my dad in the waiting room, it was easier because we had the company of each other.  So, today, if you’re waiting and you’re reading this, know that you’re not alone.

What’s your experience of waiting?

The Biggest Parenting Mistake You Can Make

April 30, 2012 /

This is my friend, Sherrie.  Not the bald one.  The beautiful one in the bed who still looks like she’s in her 20’s.  She and Rick have three delightful grown and almost-grown daughters. We raised our kids together with other Jesus-following parents who were all anxious about getting it “right”.

Last year around the time Sherrie’s eldest daughter was getting married she began to think she might be going through menopause.

Nope.

 Meet Jolie Layne Byron.  Born April 23, 2012.

I went to a shower for this new little one and we got to talking about our experiences with our “first round” of kids.  I started thinking…If I had it to do over again, what would I do differently?  What mistakes did I make?  What mistakes didn’t I make?!

There are the “little” things people might point to like the time I let Maggie wear her sandals to church.  It was 30 degrees, but I figure you gotta pick your battles.

Or, Katy might point out how in grade school she was scarred for life when she was home sick and I let her watch “Wait Until Dark” while I ran to the grocery store.

I could also throw John under the bus and mention the time he gave Maggie Ipecac in the middle of the night thinking it was cough syrup.

Times when I was too controlling and times when I was too permissive.  So many possibilities, so little time!!

I sent our daughters, 24 and 26, an email and asked them to weigh in.  I know they could give a list of things they wish we had done differently, but they were both feeling gracious I guess, because they only sent what they appreciated about our parenting.

It made me think of something that happened when the girls were in grade school and we were coming home from a vacation in Florida at a time we had had to pull them out of school.

They’re both really good students but keeping up with homework when there’s a beach beckoning is tough.  In spite of our reminders, Katy had not done the work she was supposed to do.  John, frustrated, said, “Katy!  Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t punish you!”

She didn’t miss a beat.  “Because you’re always telling us it’s all about Grace, Grace and more GRACE!!”

Maybe the biggest mistake we can make is to forget about grace.

I think of all the ways I’ve messed up and, I think of my heavenly parent.  I’m His reckless, well-meaning toddler, crashing into things and tripping over my toes.  I’m overwhelmed by a God who picks me up and dusts me off, and sets me back on my feet with the power to redeem my mistakes, turn me around and point me in the right direction.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” 2 Cor. 12:9

Might you leave a comment today about what did your parents did right?  

Or a mistake you’ve made that you saw redeemed by God?

You’re the One Who

April 25, 2012 /

Last week I wrote about getting stuck in an elevator and in life.

A few days after that incident I got into the elevator again.  I know, I know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  But call me an incurable optimist.  And another woman was there so I figured I’d have a buddy if anything happened.

“Oh YOU’RE the one the firemen had to rescue!” she said.  With a “look”, if you know what I mean.

Hmmm…I thought.  “Is that really the way I want to be known?”

Wouldn’t it be better to be known as the one led Tiger Woods to Christ and helped get his life on track?  Or better yet, the one who found a cure for AIDS?

When we think of the people in our life we often think things like “He’s the one who’s self-absorbed and never asks questions of anyone else.”  “She’s the one who always has such a great attitude.”  “That’s the one who will always help out.”

I’ve been wondering…When people think of me how would they complete that sentence (other than “the one the firemen had to rescue”)?  If I have life verses they would probably be Deuteronomy 30:19,20.  My hope is that people would say “She’s the one who chooses life…life-giving words, life-giving actions, life-giving attitudes.”

How would you like people to complete the sentence for you?  “He/She’s the one who _____________”

The great thing is, no matter what, the way that God completes that sentence is “You’re the one that I love.”

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