A Vacation From Faith?

That seems kind of dumb, doesn't it? You suspend what you believe or how you live and take a vacation from it.

But if we didn't do it, the slogan "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" wouldn't apply.

The reality is we do this, more often than we'd like to admit. We suspend our daily faith rituals or devotions or prayers or whatever you want to call it all the time. And one of the big ones is coming up.

Summer.

For some reason when summer comes people don't go to church as often, serve as often, pray as often, give as often, the list goes on and on and on. I see it so much working with teenagers, even though most of them have more time on their hands now. They're on vacation and everything changes, including spiritual habits.

So as summer vacation has officially started (at least here in my school district) let's do our best to not just leave God on the shelf for the summer. Don't take a vacation from your beliefs, your relationships, your spiritual practices. If anything, take this opportunity to give them a little more time and effort.

T

"You Have Flies Because You Want Them"

This is a quote I heard the other day from Bill Marriott (of Marriott hotels). He was visiting a hotel that had flies in the dining room and he asked for answers. The staff explained how the dumpster outside had flies and they would creep in when they took the trash out or went out back. There were a number of reasons why the flies were in the hotel. Bill simply answered, "You have flies because you want them."

What he meant is, if you didn't really want flies you would do something about it. And the staff took it to heart. They added fly strips in the back room, they improved the doors so flies couldn't get it, they added fans near the back door so the flies couldn't make it past the rushing air.

And guess what? No flies.

Sometimes if you really want something you have to take the steps to get there. Too often I see this when people talk about Jesus. They want to know God more and live more as a reflection of Christ, but there's all these reasons why it can't be done. But if they would take the steps necessary, like the staff at the Marriott hotel did to get rid of the flies, suddenly Jesus won't be so far away.

You could change the expression.
"You see Jesus more because you're looking for Him."
"Jesus is more real because you take the steps to live like He's real."
"I am more service minded and compassionate because I chose to serve."
"I hear Jesus because I do what I can to listen for Him."

Get rid of spiritual flies. Do what you need to do to make it happen.

T

How Busy Are We? - Mother's Day Edition

Just an interesting observation of the world around me. I've asked a few moms how their mother's day was and you know what seems to be the most popular answer of what made a good mother's day?

We did nothing.

Not "we didn't do anything for mother's day", no, we chose to do nothing for mother's day.

If doing nothing is what we want as a reward or recognition, maybe we need to be doing nothing a little more...

T

How Awesome It Must Have Felt To Reverse Direction

The other day I was reading about Matthew, the guy who wrote the Gospel of Matthew, disciples of Jesus, all-around nice guy.

At least that's what we think. We don't know a ton about him but we know two things. He was a tax collector. His job was to get taxes for the Roman government from his fellow Jews. We also know that Jesus chose him to be a disciple, so it's likely he wasn't a corrupt tax collector. It's likely he was a really good guy, but still doing a job no one really wanted him to do.

But here's where I got stuck. Matthew is a tax collector. His job is to get money from his friends for a government they all hate. And there's no wiggle room. If his neighbor owes money Matthew has to get it. How do you think he felt having to do that to his friends?

Then Jesus walks up. Leave it all and be My disciple. Help Me free people from the bondage of sin and be forgiven.

Here's what hit me: How do you think Matthew felt going from the person who was forced to collect debts to being able to forgive them? How much did it weigh on Matthew to have to get money from people even when they couldn't afford it, hurting them in the process? Then how did it feel to completely reverse direction, to now talk about spiritual debts but instead of forcing people to pay, instead telling them how Jesus can forgive them?

Imagine the weight that was lifted. How awesome that must have been.

And we can still do that for people today...

T