Satisfaction

There is a great sense of satisfaction when you make steps towards completing a goal. Not only is there the excitement of passing by one more obstacle but the feeling of success drives you towards meeting your next challenge ahead.

Tomorrow is the last part of my final exams for this semester. It has been a real tough semester for me, and my family as we have had to make some sacrifices and adjustments in our schedules to accommodate these changes. I finally get to see some pay off from the long hours of study, slamming my head against my table trying to understand basics of chemistry and learning the hard way that staying up all night to study just does not work. So, walking away from this semester I’ll break away with two A’s and two B’s…unless I really do well on these final exams. Either way, I am pleased.

So, with the close of this short chapter in a book with so many more chapters ahead, I can look back with smile and know that I did it. The downside is that I’ll be back at it again within about 3 weeks as I enter a new challenge…a short summer semester.

Reflecting on taking on this challenge, I could apply this same method of attack and conquer in my life. I face personal challenges of course. The ones that concern me the most are those that distract me from drawing closer to God. These are the challenges that are paramount in my life, which I need to focus in on and see that I can overcome with His help. I need to focus on taking on these challenges and see it through so that at the end I can look back with the same sense of satisfaction I feel in other areas of my life. Then I can look at God and know that I drew closer to Him, and know that He will draw closer to me.

Gotta go…need to finish this chapter up and start the next!

Cutting Grass with the Grassmaster

I once heard a Pastor complaining about people mowing their grass on Sunday mornings. “They should be in the house of the Lord!” he shouted. My thoughts on church attendance notwithstanding, God must draw the hearts of Man before they would have a desire to sit through a Sunday sermon. The hardest of hearts can be softened by God…even while they mow the lawn.

Personally I love mowing the lawn, it is one of my favorite times to be alone in thought and reflection with God. Today, I finally got around to mowing the grass. It’s strange how something so simple as mowing the grass can completely change the look of your property and house. An unkempt lawn can scream laziness, or indifference, but a nicely cut lawn, well manicured makes a home look clean, orderly and well cared for. In truth, after I mowed the lawn I walked into a very messy house. My daughter’s toys were still on the floor from yesterday, last night’s dishes were sitting in the sink, this morning’s Eggo leftovers were on the table, the beds in our rooms weren’t made, laundry sat on the computer chair, and pajamas were on the floor in the bathroom. Yes, I confess, we make messes!! I had to get to my Psychology class so I didn’t have time to clean up after I showered, but I made sure when I got home to get it cleaned up and presentable.

We treat ourselves in the same manner. We can get gussied up, shower, shave, put some foo foo* on, a finely pressed shirt or a hot looking dress and hit the town…or wear your Sunday’s finest to church, getting your kids in their finest clothes as well. For some, this “cutting the grass” is just a covering for the disarray in our lives that we prefer to keep hid. We don’t like to talk about our downfalls, our failures and struggles. In fear that we may lose our status with the Jones’ across the street, or the Jones’ across the church pew we continue our masquerade. It has been my experience that it’s the church people that are more at fault in this regard than others.

Our society has all but killed “talking” in an age of mass communication and electronic media. Smiles have been replaced with emoticons, family time with our American Idol time, and our deepest conversations take place on cell phones.

We need to bring back “talking” with our friends and family. We need to take time to discuss matters of heart and faith with honesty and frequency. An amazing thing will take place when we open deeply honest lines of communication, we’ll find others whose homes were just as messy, but found a reason to clean them up.

So I challenge you, next time you are mowing the lawn, reflect upon the messes “inside” and start honest dialogue with God, family and friends about what you have found within.

*Foo Foo is my childhood name for cologne

ˈal-trü-ˌi-zəm

al·tru·ism

Pronunciation:

\ˈal-trü-ˌi-zəm\

1 : unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others

Our culture seriously suffers from a lack of altruism. We so very easily drive past the person disabled on the road without giving a second thought to them and if we do happen to let a micro-thought of concern into your mind we will rationalize our lack of piety. We will tell ourselves that either someone else will render aid, we are too busy, or we are sure they are faking it so they can car jack us!! We walk past the homeless man with the sign, hoping to not make eye contact. We see a man strike a woman and pretend we didn’t. A person shouts for help but we don’t react.

I remember watching the news not too long ago of an elderly man being car jacked, while a group of people stood about 20 feet away from him as he was punched repeatedly in the face. They never did anything to help.

Statistically the best odds of us helping someone occur when:

• The person appears to need and deserve help.
• The person is in some way similar to us.
• We have just observed someone else being helpful.
• We are not in a hurry.
• We are in a small town or rural area.
• We are feeling guilty.
• We are focused on others and not preoccupied.
• We are in a good mood.

When alone with a person in need, assistance is rendered 40% of the time. If in the presence of five other bystanders, only 20% helped. This is called the bystander effect. In a group setting we are more apt to believe “someone else” will do it, versus ourselves.

As a Christ Follower, I am not called to love people just under the conditions listed above! A person has to be similar to us, deserve help and be in a small town? I can’t be in a hurry, must be feeling guilty, but in a good mood to help? Absurd.

As a new creation we are to LOVE or neighbor as ourselves! Everyone is our neighbor, regardless of their situation in life, and regardless of ours! When we look at someone in need…any kind of need, we should see nothing but an opportunity to love our neighbor and HELP.

The Clean Sweep

Growing up in a small town I was afforded opportunities of community involvement that are not readily available in larger cities. In my hometown of Skagway, Alaska, Spring was host to a community wide project called Clean Sweep.

I am not exactly sure how long Clean Sweep has been going, but I remember being involved in it for most of my elementary school years continuing through High School. Most kids in larger cities cannot imagine taking time off from school to go walk around town picking up garbage. I really did not mind picking up trash for half a day, as it was such a reward to just be out of school, and of course at the end of the day the classes gathered for snacks and juice to get us sugared up for our unsuspecting parents!

The cleaning involved everyone from town who would take different sections of town and clean up, putting all their garbage into bags that were collected later. It was a great community building tool, bringing people together for a common goal and it left the town clean and ready for the upcoming tourist season. It was a great moment of pride when finished to look at the work accomplished and to see that we all loved our community enough to keep her clean.

This year my wife and I are tackling our own personal clean sweep in our house. We are ushering in springtime with some deep cleaning in our house. New colors will adorn the walls of the living room, kitchen and my daughter’s room. We will thin out our storage space to make room for our miscellaneous gatherings of junk we have collected in our patio space, and spruce it up for early morning coffee on brisk mornings to watch the birds fight over the feeder. The lawn will be finely trimmed, and the hedges prepped for a summer of growth and the last bit of fall leaves will be raked up. I love this time of year, as it leaves a crisp feeling of cleanliness and beauty that is the herald of summertime beauty.

Clean Sweep is also a spiritual task that I take upon myself. I often reflect on my walk with God, seeking direction from Him. It is during these times in which some clean up might need to be done. Either through lessons learned from life experience, conversations with wise friends, or by reading His words, I find areas in my life, which hold me back from a closer relationship with Him. Pure and simple that’s what life is all about, a relationship with Him, growing closer to Him and following where He leads. When I find my life cluttered with too much junk, it weighs me down and makes my walk with Him laborious and tiresome. There are times He wants to prepare me for a “summer of growth”, which may require some trimming of “self”, or painting His presense in an area that in my life that could use some sprucing up.

I hope that during this Spring you will reflect upon your own life. God just might want to prepare you for your own “summer of growth.”

"Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me." Psalm 51:10