Consider this

Luke 4:14-30 says, "Jesus went to his hometown and no one listened to him because they were too familiar with him”. That is my paraphrase anyway. The line that you may know from that section says, “No prophet is accepted in his hometown” (verse 24). In other words, when things are always there, it is easy to overlook them or take them for granted. One of the biggest challenges in life (I find anyway) is to keep looking at what you have instead of what you do not have. It takes some effort to see your blessings instead of your problems. In church this week, I asked people if they could see the blessing of their friendships and their families. Then I told them that I was going to give them 30 seconds to get up and say something nice to the people around them. When I said, "Go" everyone jumped up and it was one of the nicest things I had seen in a long time! People were laughing, talking, hugging and smiling. It was not something that I had planned to do, but it was ...

Bob Newhart once did a comedy piece for “Mad TV” in which he played a counselor who was giving advice to a young woman. After she described her problem to him, Newhart said, “Katherine I am going to say two words to you. I want you to take them from this office and incorporate them into your life. Are you ready? Here they are… STOP IT!” Each time she told him a new problem, his answer was to yell, “Stop it!” (The video is on the internet – Google it if you need a laugh). Now, on the surface, that seems to make sense. If you are doing something that you do not want to do anymore, then just stop it. However, it usually is not that easy. After all, if we could “stop it” on our own, we probably would have already. Too often, I think that the church sounds like Bob Newhart. Someone is struggling with a problem or a sin and some well-meaning preacher or church member encourages him or her to “stop it” or to “try harder”. Again, that sounds like good advice, but it is not...

Have you seen a commercial that says something like “Better TV. Better Life”? I only saw it once, but I could not believe it. I know that advertising companies are paid to make you want new things, but this was a little ridiculous. Did they really believe that someone would say, “You know what would make my life better... a 52 inch plasma TV!” That sounds crazy right? Unfortunately, in our most honest moments, we likely have to admit that we think that way sometimes. Maybe we do not dream about big TVs, but what about big houses, new cars, “hot holidays” on Caribbean beaches or big banks accounts? Now, let me make clear that, in principle, I am not against us having these things. However, my point is that they can become a problem in at least a couple of ways. First, we make a mistake when we begin to think, “I will be happy when…” (you can fill in the blank). When we think about it, we know that new TVs and more stuff cannot make us happier or make our lives better. ...

A friend of mine named Sam had what was possibly the most unpopular booth of all at “Showcase” (our local trade show) this year. If you were there, I guarantee that you noticed it. Candy apple booth (Yum!)… Hot tubs (Fun!)… Jewelry (Interesting)… Big screen TV and Rider game (Coo1)… Funeral planning booth (Ugh!). Sam said that it was interesting to watch people’s reactions. While some people stopped to talk to him, many either avoided eye contact or avoided the booth altogether. Some joked, “I don’t need that yet” or “I sure don’t want to talk to you”. Part of the problem, I believe, is our society’s “arms length” attitude to death and dying. Think about the old days on the farm. People used to butcher their own animals. Now we purchase meat in vacuum packs. Death is no longer a visible part of our every day life. In the past, when a loved one died, the family prepared the body and hosted the funeral. My Grandma still remembers her dad’s funeral that was held in th...

On the “Discovery Channel” last night, I watched an interview with Michael Collins, the third member of the Apollo 11 crew that landed the first man on the moon (the other two members, of course, being Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin). He shared many interesting reflections about that event, but one really stood out to me. I am paraphrasing here, but Collins said, “The one thing that I really remember is how often people used the word ‘we’ when they talked to us. They did not say, ‘Wow, you Americans did it!’ Instead, they said, ‘Wow, we did it!’ There was no ‘us’ and ‘them’. The walls were gone. Everywhere we went, England, France, Spain, Mexico, people talked about what ‘we’ as human beings had accomplished. And I really enjoyed that!” Collins went on to say that, unfortunately, the “we” attitude did not last very long. Soon, people were back to thinking about themselves, the walls went back up and life went back to “normal”. I liked Collins’ picture of a world t...

On Saturday, Estevan Motor Speedway held its Second Annual “Faster Pastor” race and I could not wait! I grew up going to stock car races and I go to the speedway here every chance I get. Carl and Blair Hanson had called me earlier in the week to tell me that I could drive their car and that was good news because I knew that their car was well built and fast. It was going to be a good day! When it came time to race, though, there was a problem. Due to breakdowns in the previous races, there were more ministers than cars. As speedway officials ran around trying to round up enough rides, I heard something that made me stop and think. One of the guys turned to the officials and said, “I got to drive last year and my friend here didn’t. If it comes down to us not having enough cars, I will sit out and let him drive instead”. Now, let me make clear that this guy really enjoyed racing last year. In fact, he was probably as excited about trying it again as I was. Yet, instead ...

As a kid, I drank many cans of “Tang” orange flavored crystals. I loved this highly sugared, fake orange juice. Oddly enough, I hated real orange juice! I could not even stand to taste a drop of it, but I would drink “Tang” by the bucketful. Now that I am older, that has completely reversed. Now I like real orange juice and I cannot even recall the last time I drank a glass of “Tang”. It is sort of strange that anyone would prefer an imitation to the real thing, but it happens all the time. In fact, it happens all the time in Spiritual things. All you have to do is spend 10 minutes watching “Christian TV” or “Televangelists” to realize that. I cannot stand most of those programs, because I constantly want to argue with what they are saying. Some of it sounds true and right, but most of it is an artificial message created to sound like the real thing. In fact, the problem is so bad that now the real message of the Bible is the one that sounds strange and odd. We have...