How are you sleeping?

 This famous prayer is attributed to Henry Johnstone.

"Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray to God my soul to take.
If I should live for other days,
I pray the Lord to guide my ways."
 

 

Are you like me?

Does your mind wander?

Man, I missed the boat. I should have.......

Man, I screwed that up. I should NOT have.....

or 

I wonder what affect my actions will have on tomorrow.
Am I fully prepared for on tomorrow will bring?

You see, many times we live in regret of things we have done, or lack thereof. While other times we are paralyzed by the uncertainty of the future. 

But I believe to be human means to fully alive in the moment. To be thankful for the gifts we have been given by God and using those gifts to spread his love to others. 

I fully believe our ability to be productive happens when we are fully human and this only happens when we get enough sleep. And not just any type of sleep but good sleep.

You know the different right? My Fitbit tracks my heart rate and transfers the data to my phone while I sleep. And something it tells me is "How I am sleeping"  Not just the length but how much "Deep Sleep"

This brings me to the Bible. There is a popular Bible Story where Jesus calms the Storm. But what is the context?


"Soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, "Teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?"


Okay, so Jesus is sleeping because HE IS TIRED. Because he was teaching parables. And healing the sick. And dealing with a lot of emotional and dysfunctional people. Jesus shown compassion but he was tired. So he fell asleep.

The disciples woke him up because they were afraid.

What scares you?

How humbling it would have been to include this story in the Bible. Fishermen were afraid. This must have been one big storm.

Oh, and to answer their question... Yes, Jesus cared.

 Back to the story
Because Jesus was still cranky and didnt get his starbucks yet He simply used three words to calm the storm: "Silence, Be still."


Guys, why are you afraid? Do you still lack faith?

Jesus had given them the authority to speak to the storm of this world and calm them down. Yet, they freaked. They didn't trust that God could work through them and they had to wake up Jesus. While they were the ones sleeping spiritually.


Here is the point.....

1) Jesus has given us authority to speak to the winds and waves. We can say, "Silence be still." We can speak to the injustice of our culture and say, "That's not okay!"

We can step in for others when they are sleeping and pray on their behalf.


2) When we trust in God we can sleep in the midst of storms.

Storms happen. Bad stuff happens, right? We can worry about what we didnt do or what we are going to need to do....... or we can live in the moment.


Part of "living in the moment" is sleeping when you are tired.

So how are you sleeping?

If you are not sleeping; stop counting sheep and give your trust over to the Good Shepherd.

I pray that God will work in and through you to surrender your agenda and stress over to the One who is able to handle it all. 



Declare this simple yet profound childlike prayer tonight before bedtime....

"Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray to God my soul to take.
If I should live for other days,
I pray the Lord to guide my ways."

Uprooting lies

When I was renting an apartment I couldn't wait till I was a homeowner and now that I am a homeowner I am envious of the times when I didn't hold the responsibility of having a house.

Spring is here.. (Finally!) I think (Knock on wood) maybe.

With spring here comes the responsibility of taking care of my outdoor activites. I need to do some repairs on my fence (or declare it dead), cut the lawn, and of course pull the weeds.  On the side of my house we have a nice gardening area with a lot of potential. But as ever person who has ever worked in a garden knows it is a lot of work!


God is good and so without any work somehow we have some flowers. But I spent an hour and started pulling weeds today. As I was pulling weeds I tried as hard as I could to not just pull the top of the weed but get the roots as well.

Then I started thinking of Jesus. If He was here, which I believe He always is, what could He teach me? He seemed to take the "ordinary" day to day chores and create a teaching lesson. So I spoke, "Jesus will you teach me a parable?"

He quickly reminded me of the parable of the good Soil. This is the story He taught where seed was planted on different types of soil and depending on where it was planted affected if the seed produced a harvest.

Thanks Jesus. Anything more?

What if a bad seed was planted in good soil?

You see in his parable the seed was good and the soild affected the outcome. But what we planted a lie in our mind. A faulty system. A virus. A weed?

Because that's what happens when we believe a lie. It is rooted so deep into our lives that we believe it is the truth. And we try to replace the lie with the truth but many times we are just cutting off the surface. If we don't take out the root the weed will just grow back.

So how do we destroy the root cause?

I believe most if not all lies are found in three connected categories.

1) My view of God.
2) My view of myself.
3) My view of others.

Number 1- Do I believe God is good?

Disclaimer: By Good I do not mean, "God will always give me what I want."

I do mean He will always give me what I need. He will always provide, protect, and love me to the fullest extent possible.

Its easy to allow our circumstances to dictate how we view God. You pray for your sick Aunt with cancer and she still dies. Is God good? Does He care?

You get fired from your job.

Your house burns down.

Is God good? Is God at fault?

The foundation of the Christian believe system much be: "I know God is good because He demonstrated his love for me on the cross."

Number 2- Do I believe I am good?

This was is tricky. Some churches teach "original sin." I do not have time to fight for or against "orginal sin" here.

But I do what to argue for is your identity as a child of God.

Am I valuable? Do I have worth? Am I a child of the king?

When storms comes are we questioning these foundational truths? Or can we stand firm in believing we are valuable?


Number 3- Do I believe others are good?

In the diary of Anne Frank, the young girl writes, "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death."

And Luke Bryan sings,

 

"I believe most people are good
And most mama's oughta qualify for sainthood
I believe most Friday nights look better under neon or stadium lights
I believe you love who you love
Ain't nothing you should ever be ashamed of
I believe this world ain't half as bad as it looks
I believe most people are good." 

Do I believe that the person that offended me in valuable to God? 

Do I take everything personally?

Is someone inheritely evil because he or she belongs to a different political party, religion, or nationality than me?

I've learn most people are doing the best they can with what they know how. And I will trust God to figure out the rest. 

Conclusion

 

What lies are you believing? For me I know it is a lie if I see Jesus respond differently. He is my Savior and my example. I am still uprooting a lot of lies I have believed but If I can manage to believe three fundamental truths I believe I am on the right track. 

  

Don't Doubt His Love (John 20)

On Tuesday April 10th I subbed at Saint Boniface Catholic School. I was subbing for Mrs Gnan, the 4th and 5th Grade teacher.

What a wonderful class. There are normally only 7 students but two were sick so we were down to 5 kids for the day. They were well-behaved, studious, yet 10 years old.

This came truth came out when we arrived at Religion class. I love Religion because I love Jesus. I can't do powerless, "Jesus-less" religion. If my religion isn't changing me, I need it to change. And today's lesson was on the Resurrection! How cool!

In the guide I was given it said, "The Resurrection is the MOST Vital truth of the Catholic faith."

Woah! And Duh! Of course it is!

But when we think Catholic we think Praying to saints,  perpetual virginity of Mary, the Hail Mary, well I guess just a lot about Mary. 

 But The Resurrection is the Most Vital Truth! That is awesome. 

Anyhow the Gospel reading was John Chapter 20. This is the Chapter where 1) Mary Magdalene arrives at the empty tomb, 2) Jesus greets her but she thinks he is the gardener, 3) Jesus informs Mary that He is alive, 4) Mary preaches the Gospel to the other disciples who are hiding in fear, 5) Thomas doesn't believe and is forever known as "Doubting Thomas." 6) Finally Jesus shows up, walks through a door, and says, "Peace be with you."


Amazing Chapter of Scripture. Stop reading my blog and read it all. John Chapter 20. If you don't come back here I will not be offended. Read the Bible. It is good stuff! 

So back to School. In the Relgion assignment there was a play that the students had to read through. But since they were a fine class I asked them if instead they wanted to get up out of their seats and act it out. We drew names and off we went. Of course some of the gender roles were messed up but they could handle it. And Of course Jesus ended up being a girl. 

And She loved it. She was so excited and almost shouting her lines.  

But then we were done. We sat back in seats and discussed. 

We talked about the Resurrection. We talked about Mary finding the empty tomb. We talked about how she didn't recognize him there. We talked about why they thought the disciples were hiding in the upper room. And we talked about fear and doubt. 

Looking back we think the disciples are crazy for missing the Resurrection. Jesus said he was going to Raise from the dead, how could they not believe? How could they not remember?

Concluding thoughts 

1) Grief can cloud our memory. 

Mary thought Jesus was a gardener. The Bible doesn't say, but I believe Mary would have been so upset about Jesus dying still. Remember it was only Friday that they saw him get killed on a cross. She was overwhelmed that he wasn't with her. But much more.... She thought someone had stolen the body. Not only did they not have Jesus alive but they couldn't even come to grieve. 

You see through tear-filled eyes Mary couldn't see that Jesus was standing right in front of her the whole time. 

We need time to grieve when tragic events come our way but remember Jesus is always with you. He just might look like a gardener that day!

2) Fear and doubt can cloud our hope

It is hard to have hope for the future when we are doubting ourselves or fearful of what might happen. The disciples were fearful. They had not yet received the Holy Spirit promised to them by Jesus. They were hiding in fear of the Religious rulers. 

They had just killed their rabbi could they be next?

3) Jesus will walk through any door for you. 

Yet Thomas was not there when Jesus appeared to the disciples the first time. He didn't believe the women or the men that proclaim, "Dude! Jesus is alive!"

Hahahhaha April fools right?

No.

Yet in his unbelief Jesus walked through a door (because remember John said "He is the door (John 10)"

Literally? Probably not. Don't get hung up on the details. 

The Point? There is no obstacle too large to stop Jesus from loving you. There is no mountain high. No valley low. No river wide enough baby. (Now I want to go watch "Remember the Titans!!!")

In our unbelief Jesus walks up to us and says, "Here I am!" You needed proof! Touch my hands. See my scares. Get your hands dirty and bloody but feeling the wound in my side. I did this for you. I did this for love. 


 So what, now what?

Jesus' love for us this Easter Season should cause us to be 1) Confident in his love, 2) walk through walls in order to show love, grace, and forgiveness. 

After all- The Resurrection is the most vital truth of the Catholic Church. 

And if you're not Catholic like me. It is still vital. It is the the most vital truth of being a Christian. 
 Because when we follow Jesus to the cross (Deny ourselves) we follow him to the tomb (killing pride) and we follow him to the Resurrection (It is here that we live and have power to love).

The purpose of Life

What is the purpose of your life?

What a great question, right?

We are a fish swimming in the culture of consumerism. We want more. We need more. A life without contentment will never be satisfied.

A few years ago, Solomon discovered that chasing after money, popularity, pleasure, etc is utterly meaningless. He compares it to "chasing after the wind."


The challenge of working with kids


Over the past few weeks I have struggled with a student in my PE class. He does not respect me and to be honest it is really tough. There is a lot more to the story but to keep it simple he's attitude is disruptive to the class and less importantly the way he treats me hurts my feeling.


You may say, "its a kid" who cares? And I shouldn't but I want to be liked. I want to be popular. Or at the very least I want people to trust me. But I can change how you view me, just like you cannot change how I view you.

But the struggle is real?

The struggle  

Do you have a similar struggle? I believe this need to be "liked" is a dark side of a really good thing. I want to be influential.

I want to point people to Jesus and see lives transformed by the Gospel.


John the Baptist 

In the third chapter of John (The Apostle's) Gospel we read of an interesting case study between John the Baptist and Jesus.

Prior to the days of last names you were known for....

1) Your family!

Jeffrey, son of Joseph

2) Your job!

Jeffrey the Physical Educator

3) Your town!

Jeffrey of Ridgway.


So they called him John- The Baptist. He was known for baptizing people in the river. He would wash them and ask them to "repent of their sins" He did this to "prepare the way for the Messiah."


And by known- He was really known. People would travel days to see him. They would walk for days to see him. John had such a following that he had disciples (followers) just like Jesus did.

His disciples came to him and said, "Rabbi, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you identified as the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going to him instead of coming to us." (John 3:26)

Do you hear how jealous his disciples are?

John--- you are losing popularity! We need to do some type of attractional ministry. Lets do a "2 for 1" Special?

 John's Response is amazing!- It is divine!

He replied, "No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven. You yourselves know how plainly I told you, I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way. It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the bridegroom's friend is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows." (John 3:27-29)

John recognized that everything he had. All success. All popularity. All influence. Was and is a gift from God.

Do we recognize it as such? The normal human reaction is to be jealous.

Are we happy enough to work along side Jesus. To be the "best man" in his wedding? Or do we want to make everything about us?

Then John brings this amazing memory verse, "He must become greater and I must become less." (John 3:30).


Wow!

Good stuff!

He lost fans. He lost followers. Many of his followers went over to follow Jesus.

The purpose of life

So what is the purpose of your life? My life?

Is my purpose to get as much as possible. Have the nicest house, car, etc? Is it to be the most popular and have the greatest influence?

No.

There is nothing wrong with things but to make things the aim is misguided and shortsighted.


The purpose is to be like John the Baptist: To point people to Jesus. When people start following you point them to Jesus. Point them to the one that can save, heal, and deliever you.


To many kids, I am pretty awesome.

Working as a PE teacher does that. And if I let sin creep in I can let it destroy me.

Or I can point people to Jesus. I can set an example of how to love, forgive, and serve.

I pray that no matter your influence, dreams, hopes, and desires that you will chose to follow Jesus. And more than that I pray that you will point other people to the way of the Messiah: the way of love.