Thoughts From the Back Deck...

1 Samuel 3:10 And the LORD came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” Samuel was a young boy at this point and was serving Eli, a prophet of God. God called to Samuel a couple of times, but he did not recognize it was the voice of the Lord, but thought it was Eli's voice.  Finally, Samuel answers as Eli directs the young boy: "Speak, for your servant hears." It's hard to listen to the Lord. It's not natural for us. It's hard to hear the Lord. The noise of the world is thunderous. Yet, in our time, the Lord has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us hear.  The Lord has given us the written word. We can know and follow God's will and experience His peace.  This week was a particularly rough week for me emotionally. My emotions caught me off guard. Upon hearing that my long-awaited appointment to get the results and know what the next steps were was delayed...

The Book of James (epistle, aka letter) contains a lot of practical guidance. It was written for the believer more than for someone to read and come to faith in Jesus, like the gospels (Jesus' life and God's salvation story).   The verse for today from James chapter 1 reads... vs. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. So, who was wise? Our founding fathers? Abe? Winston Churchill? Your mom? Your Dad? Why or why not? And maybe the better question is, what is wisdom?  Let's break this verse down a bit... 1. Wisdom is not the same as intelligence.  There is a video circulating around right now of a college graduate who went to get graduate-level education claiming that on an IQ test, she'll test higher than a guy who just had a high school diploma and went into the military. As it turns out, the high school graduate had a higher IQ than the graduate student. That is a reminder that sometime...

Blame everything and anybody but where the blame rests.  When I was little, I mean very little, a comedian made the phrase "The devil made me do it" famous. His name was Flip Wilson.  Think of the most common meme (white cat meme for me), and that is how well-known Flip Wilson's catchphrase was.  1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Today, no one says the devil made me do it. Why? Because we have reduced the devil to a cartoon character and written the devil off a lore.  By the way, that is a mistake but that is a topic for another "Thought from the Back Deck." Yet today's "verse of the day" puts the spotlight of temptation where it belongs.  Not on the devil.  Not on God.  Not on our neighbor... or culture  or movies  o...

We have all been there! Been in the spot where we are asked to do something, and we begrudgingly do it, and we clearly communicate our heart is not in it!! We have seen our friends or kids or even our spouse just cop an attitude that clearly communicates their heart is not into what we are being asked to do. For example, I doubt more of these kids or their parents were excited ALL the time it came for them to gather with Nick for confirmation class!  I have very specific memories of my confirmation classes... Two years! Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings! As an awkward 7/8 grade kid, I did not fit in well with the other kids. I didn't go to school with them. There was no built-in "friend group" for me. I grumbled. I complained. I still had to go to classes! Philippians 2:14-16 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you...

1 Samuel 16:7 “But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'” I remember going and seeing Star Wars back in 1977-78 multiple times in the theater. Before the retouching and additional CGI additions. Before the controversy over whether or not Han shot first. Before the prequel or the three final wrap-up movies, or the Han Solo movie, Chewbacca was a standout character. By far, my favorite Star Wars character has always been Chewbacca. He was really tall. He was really strong. He had the most excellent gun. He did not have "L'Oreal" hair as in the picture above but he was neatly groomed and did not look like "Cousin It" from the Addams family. What I liked best about the Chewbacca character were not these things, but it helped make him an interesting character throughout the...

Reflect back on Christmas for a moment. Every household is different but my guess would be you did some things differently around Christmas that you don't do most of the year. Below are some photos of things we did with some captions... We went to worship together. We went to see Christmas lights together. We threw knives and axes in our pajamas and laughed hysterically together. (And the neighbors laughed at us!) We ate too much and took a few goofy pictures. We did a puzzle together and somehow lost 6 pieces of the puzzle along the way. We suspect the dogs OR they disappeared into the black hole where matching socks some how loose their match! We ate meals and talked together. We sat and talked and laughed and shared moments together. We made a ginger bead house.  We went shooting together. We sat by a TV screen fireplace and read books.  We dec...