Spork it

 You would think something like a storm coming down the street knocking over trees and catching nearby buildings on fire would be tonight’s main topics, but I’d rather talk about sporks. Lately I’ve been very aware of my carbon footprint. How many plastic bottles do I go through each week? Straws in the trash only to end up choking a turtle somewhere. You know how many plastic forks I go through away each week? Like 10-15!!! That’s not counting spoons and of course everything comes with a knife that couldn’t cut string cheese. I gotta say the guilt is really starting to make me consider carrying around my own set of silverware. Then I’d have to keep washing it off all the time and that seems like a huge hassle too. Poor turtles...

I’d like to stick my foot up the butt of the inventor of the spork. I mean pick a lane and do one thing well. Instead some doofus thought it would be a good idea to combine a fork that won’t stab with a spoon that won’t scoop. Just do one thing right!!! Ever try a yogurt cup with a spork? Hope you like leaving a full teaspoon in the bottom spork guy. How’s last night left over chicken? Better stab it and eat it like a popsicle cause that spork is only gonna get you so far. 

I get this is a lot of silverware talk...honestly when was the last time our silverware was made from actual silver? Some people call it plastic ware which makes me wonder how I’m supposed to wear it. Maybe like a cuff link or lapel pin. 

I’m the cure

I’ve been very open with my kids about my anxiety. I even went as far sitting down with them and describing my mental illness. At time I was coming off 5 years of being on meds and it was impossible to hide the side effects. The sudden bursts of anger. The extra energy. In some ways it was like I’d been gone for an extended trip only to find everyone around me had changed when I got back. And I guess there was a part of me that had been gone... lulled to sleep each day by tiny chemicals designed to quiet the voices in my head. At the start of the year I realized I no longer really knew who I was anymore. What was left of my personality after the drugs had been told their assistance would no longer be required? Five months later I still struggle with the feelings of worthlessness, depression, self doubt... but I no longer feel like a audience member to my life and instead I’m back to playing a staring role.  I understand there is no cure for what I have only relief through daily maintenance on my soul. Hence I’m gonna give journaling another shot. 

Christmas

Halloween isn’t even good and buried in the ground and already Christmas decorations are invading the entire landscape. Without even a thought to consider Thanksgiving, many of us have jumped straight into the holiday season. Attics are being entered for the fist time in eleven months and what is brought out is a winter wonderland in spite of the 80 degree temps we still seem to be having outside. Along with all the trees going up are questions by many who wonder out loud why does Christmas seem to get here so much sooner each year? While I’m sure the real answer lies in the dollars & cents behind it all, I like to think that what it desires most this time of year is what it feels is missing the remainder of it. That feeling of love & hope so closely connected to the holiday season.

In Philippians 4 Paul tells us to always rejoice in the Lord. He doesn’t say rejoice at the end of the year or when things are going your way. Rejoice! When? Rejoice always! Everyday the very same World that tries to move up the calendar and make Christmas happen earlier and earlier, also does it’s best to destroy and ruin and end any hope of a better tomorrow. Yet even as the days grow darker as evil spreads around us, as Christians we are to rejoice! Rejoice not in what did or didn’t happen today or in what holiday is just around the corners, but in the sacrifice that was made on that cross in Calvary and the promise of what a life lived in worship of God will bring to those that persevere.

The Dead Man's Float

There’s a song we sing with the kids during Vacation Bible School called Pharaoh Pharaoh. One of the verses ends with the kids going limp and singing “And all of Pharaoh’s army did the dead man’s float.” Swimmers know that this is an actual position used for life saving purposes for when things are at their worst. Imagine being stuck on a sinking ship in the middle of the sea without any land in sight or anything to cling to. If you can somehow manage to relax and let your body’s natural buoyancy take over, keeping your head just barely above water so your airways are dry; you just might stand a chance of letting the current take you to the nearest shoreline. Exhausted, beat up, at your mental and physical limits; the only thing you have left in you is to sit back and let the tides take you where they may. For better or worse your fate rests in whichever way the winds blow.

This may seem like a scenario most of us are not likely to face, but some of us are doing the dead man’s float this very moment and not even realizing it. Your feelings have been hurt. You’ve lost your faith, your trust in God, in His church, and you are just going through the motions letting the tide take you where it sees fit. You feel like you’ve got nothing else to give and you’re hurt too bad to do anything more than keep your head barely above water. Will you end up in a good place? Will you be worse off than before? Those questions aren’t up you to answer any longer….unless you kick. If you are reading this and find yourself floating through life, I urge you to kick! Point yourself towards God, towards His church, stop floating, and start fighting for your soul! I know these words are easier to write than they are to act on, but you are not alone! God is by your side, Jesus died so you would have a chance to survive, and there are people all around that want to help. Send up a flare, get somebody’s attention, ask for a prayer, tell them you are drowning and need something to hold on to. Stop floating and start swimming towards Christ. 

Do you know?

"Do you know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak" 

Isaiah 40:28-29 is one of my favorite verses because it speaks to the reader at the time they are at their most vulnerable. Down on their luck with all hope about to be lost, Isaiah's words are almost like a slap in the face as if he’s in shock that there may yet be those that do not understand God’s power. "Have you not heard?!" It is in these two verses that we are reminded of God's all knowing, all understanding, all powerful heart. His is the kind of love that wraps you tight like a warm blanket on a cold night and keeps you safe in the knowledge that you are stronger than you will ever truly understand when God is your focus. There isn't a greater love than His and with Him by your side during those moments when all seems lost, you can rest easy in knowing that one day soon you will stand tall in God’s shining light. 

Worth The Hype!!

Well there it went! The greatest and in my opinion most overly hyped scientific event this millennium SOLAR ECLIPSE 2017! finally arrived and was over in 2 minutes. For the past 12 months the legend of the SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 2017!!! got bigger by the day along with the expectation that we were all about to witness a life altering event the likes of which would never be seen again for 100 years. Hide your pets, blindfold your children, grab your welder’s mask, and stare in amazement as the world goes dark during the middle of the day…but not really. Lets be honest it barely got cloudy outside. I’m not saying it wasn’t something to take a peek at, but was it really drive 200 miles, rent a hotel room for 3 days, stand outside in a 100 degree blazing mid-day sun kinda neat? I just don’t see it (even though I did see it).

Frankly after seeing how packed Spring Park was, not to mention the millions of pictures on social media showing football stadiums at standing room only crowd levels, I couldn’t help but think of another day when we will all be staring up at the sky waiting for something truly amazing to happen. A time when as Jesus described it in Matthew 24 verses 29-31 “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

Now that’s something worth risking blindness over!

Bill Beck iii

The Words That Hurt

Matthew 26:69-75 describes what Peter went through as Jesus was being beaten. Three times someone within the crowd that had gathered pointed Peter out and revealed to everyone his connection to Jesus. With each attempt to unmask his true identity, Peter became more and more outrageous in his denial of ever knowing Jesus. Finally it is said in verse 24 that “he began to curse and swear, saying, “I do not know the Man!”

Peter was afraid of the large crowd and what they may do to him if it was discovered that he was a student of Jesus. Peter had to do something to separate himself from the man on the other side of the courtyard being spit on and whipped and he had to do it quick. So Peter did the only thing he could think of and that was to begin to curse and swear as loud as he could; the thought behind this being that if Jesus was who he proclaimed to be, than no follower of the Son of God would dare say such vile and disgusting words. The same connections are just as easily destroyed by us today when we proclaim our love for Jesus one moment and let loose a string of curse words the next. Whether it be while singing along to the radio or quoting a line from a movie or stubbing our toe on the coffee table and lashing out in a fit of rage, when the outside world hears us who profess our love for Christ and then say those same words Peter used that day in Gethsemane; the same affect is achieved…and the same betrayal is repeated.