Category Archives: Spiritual Life

Grace — It’s Positive Energy…

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I read today about the essentiality — yeah, that’s a word — of optimism in leadership. Corporations headed by pessimists, whether they be churches or tech giants, seldom overcome obstacles necessary to grow.  I need to be optimistic. What’s frustrating is how easy it is to be negative. It’s easier to say, “Nazareth?! Can anything good come from there,” than it is to say, “We have found the Christ,” (John 1). And it’s easy to be swayed by negative energy. It has a power to stifle both productivity and creativity.

Today I was feeling anything but positive about what God was doing in my life… until the UPS man came to my door. No, he didn’t drop off that 65 inch television I’ve been dreaming about. Instead, he dropped off the cross that we ordered to replace the one Anna bought in memory of her husband. You may recall the original cross had been stolen. Immediately, Laurel and I hopped into the car and headed up to see Anna. As we drove, I shared my negative feelings with Laurel and my struggle to be optimistic.

Then we arrived at Anna’s home. She showed us in and we talked about her health, the church, her home, and her family. I showed her the new cross and told her the story of how God had provided a larger cross for the same price as the smaller one with which we’d all been dissatisfied. We rejoiced together. We then prayed together, taking time to pray that the person who had stolen the original cross would turn to Jesus and find forgiveness. That was a great visit, but probably not for the reasons you would expect. It wasn’t because of the prayer. It wasn’t because of the new cross. It was because Anna epitomizes grace. Grace toward the thief. Grace toward her brothers and sisters in Christ. And grace toward people who crank out negative energy. She was so gracious and positive I left feeling like a completely different person. I said to Laurel, “Every now and then, God surprises you with a person who brings incredible joy.” Such people are people of grace.

As you go to God in prayer, may I suggest praying three ways:

  1. Pray that you can be a person of grace, for people of grace are anything but negative.
  2. Pray that God would use you to be a gracious influence on people around you so that when they leave they feel like life is a good thing.
  3. Pray for those who struggle with negativity — that God will so bless them they can’t help but see him in the world around them.

Oh — and pray for me, that I might have the optimism essential to ministry and life.

Let your conversation be always full of grace… (Colossians 4)

How do I stop regretting my past?

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Magnificence. What comes to mind when you hear that word? Webster does little to do the word justice. It defines magnificence with words like splendor.

OK. But what is truly magnificent?

If you like Westerns, you are surely familiar with The Magnificent Seven. Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, James Coburn — all carrying guns! It’s hard to get more magnificent than that!

Every Father’s day, I think of my dad. So in that sense, Father’s day is no different than any other day in my life. Even though he’s been dead almost a decade, I think of him every day. When I think of my dad these days, I think he was magnificent.

It’s like that with Pennsylvania. When I was in grade-school, our family took a trip and crossed the United States with a truck camper. I saw the Rocky Mountains, the Redwood Forest, the Grand Canyon. Colorado, California beaches. When we returned home, my mother, who was about the age I am now, said, “I don’t think there is anything prettier than these hills of Pennsylvania on a summer’s day.” I thought she was out of her mind. But I caught myself saying the same thing this past week. When I look at these Penn’s Woods, I think they are magnificent.

But there is something more magnificent than any of these things. It’s found in the story of Peter’s denial.

This podcast speaks of the magnificence of God’s grace, helping us overcome our own failures.

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How do I stop being so cynical?

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So recently I heard that Phil died. You didn’t know Phil, but I did. He was a pretender.

Phil came to church and pretended to be interested in order to get his wife to be a little friendlier with him. The only time Phil prayed was when the Pastor came to visit. He’d have the whole family hold hands at the table and pray together. Occasionally Phil would round up the clan and tell the he wanted them to be in church every Sunday. That lasted about a week. I say that Phil was a pretender because he was. Even those times he’d spend Sunday morning in church, Phil spent Saturday evening getting drunk. Phil had his picture in the paper for dealing drugs. And frequently, Phil’s wife would talk about his cheating and trashing the house if she objected.

So when Phil died and I read his obituary, I wanted to throw up. It said that Phil had led a life of great faith in God, that he loved God and served Him. I have to say that when I read things like that, it feeds something within me that is not healthy. It feeds my cynicism.

I struggle with cynicism. I’m not just a pessimist. A pessimist has a tendency to always expect the worst. Not just a skeptic. A skeptic has trouble believing anything good. I struggle with cynicism.

A cynic believes all people are motivated by selfishness. The outlook of a cynic is generally scornful and negative. Even if someone comes to faith in Christ and has changed, the cynic still struggles to believe it’s real. It’s not a good thing to be a cynic.

This podcast addresses the pitfall of cynicism and gives you some ladder rungs to climb to break free.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download