Monday, June 25, 2012

More Or Less?

My mother posted this quote the other day that got me thinking...

We have bigger houses but smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; We have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgement; more experts, but more problems; more medicines, but less healthiness; We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour. We built more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; We have become long on quantity, but short on quality. These are times of fast foods but slow digestion; Tall man but short character; Steep profits but shallow relationships. It's a time when there is much in the window, but nothing in the room. - Dalai Lama

The question that keeps going in my mind, where does Jesus fit all this? Not to sound cliche, but what would He want for us and what will we do about it?

T




Monday, June 18, 2012

Being A Panda...

First off let me say I love pandas. They're big, their fluffy, they're lovable animals. I've seen the video of the baby panda sneezing and watched the webcam of the panda baby at the National Zoo. But unfortunately...

I am disappointed in pandas.

Here's why. Panda's are carnivores. They are designed to eat meat. Their digestive tract wants small animals inside of it. And whenever you see them, what are they eating? Bamboo.

Panda's have learned to settle. Some believe they eat bamboo because they are bad hunters, some think they were forced from the natural habitat many moons ago and adapted to eat bamboo. Whatever it is, it has ruined them. Because they don't hunt, they don't eat meat. Because they don't eat meat they are unable to hibernate, there's not enough energy in the bamboo. This is also the reason they seem so lazy, they don't have the energy because of their diet. They will even eat meat if it's offered to them, but when left to fend for themselves, they eat grass instead of what they were designed to eat and because of that live a dull, dreary life.

It made me start thinking about our spiritual lives. Are we selling ourselves short when we were designed for so much more? Could it be because of our diet, we've settled like the Panda? A proper diet of thinking right, God's Word, spending time with Him, serving, love, kindness, maybe it's too much, but settling for just enough spiritual food to survive and living a life sitting around all day, that seems like a fair trade.

It all starts with the food we eat, and I hope we're eating what we need to spiritually. Maybe then, we'd be ready and full of energy when God needs us...

T

Monday, June 11, 2012

Summer Vacation

The other night I was lying awake (which happens often) and remembered travelling as a youngster on vacation, and I was thinking about some of the complaints I have heard from students about their travels, so to put things in perspective, here are some tidbits of vacationing a few decades ago.

No cell phones, internet, or in some cases, even phones where we were going. You could not check Facebook. Believe it or not, you went on vacation and didn't talk to your friends. And they survived. And so did you.

We did not have thousands of songs and movies in our pocket, internet in the car, DVD players or anything like that. We had these things called books. Or looking out the window. If you wanted music you brought a pile of your most precious tapes and a walkman with plenty of extra AA batteries. And we used the headpones that came with your tape player. If they broke you couldn't go to Wal-Mart and get new ones, you lived with a broken piece of metal jabbing you in the scalp.

You were able to take 24 pictures throughout your vacation. And you didn't get to see them right away. So after trying to get that perfect shot you would have to wait until after the vacation to get the film developed, pay $20 and wait another week only to find a blurry grey blob and you trying to remember what you took a picture of.

There were no vans with captains chairs. There was a big huge backseat with an imaginary line that divided your area from your sibling's area. Occasionally someone (or their stuff) would cross the line leading to a heated debate and parents demanding silence, to which you would retreat to your music on tape that is sounding a little warbled from dying batteries and a piece of metal jabbing you in the scalp.

There were also no exits every 2 miles. Going to the bathroom was few and far between and meals were either at the only greasy diner we could find or sandwiches someone made the night before that were now warm and mushy, eaten at a picnic table on the side of the road which for some reason had no trees anywhere near it.

So for all you weary travellers this summer who have to endure the suffering of a personal Laz-Y-Boy in an air conditioned vehicle with the world at your fingertips, I have zero sympathy for you. Go enjoy vacation.

T

Monday, June 04, 2012

Follow The Tiny Clues

I have become obsessed with the tiny. It's something in my head lately, how big really doesn't exist. Anything big it really nothing more than a pile of lots of little. A mountain is nothing more than billions of tiny pieces of dirt.

I was watching someone the other day teaching their student about tracking. The ability to follow an animal (or a person) through the woods. And the teacher said something very interesting to me. It's not the big things to look for, it's the tiny things. A bent leaf, broken blades of grass, the tiniest little things that unless you are looking for them you will easily miss.

Maybe in tracking God we need to stop looking for the big and start looking for the small. Instead of wanting God to do some amazing "big" thing that can only be God we start looking for the thousands of tiny clues God gives us every day. After all, God said to the people through the prophet Isaiah, "I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me if I could not be found." (Is. 45;19 NLT).

Where can you find God in the small?

T