One-Handed Quandary

This past hockey season I was given a new name. Apparently, "Tommy O" wasn't meeting an unwritten requirement that I needed a nickname. 

For years it had served me well to personify me as a hockey player, artist, pastor, and my youthful disposition. And it also simplified things as some people struggle to pronounce my last name.

The newest name given to me by numerous players is "Tommy One-Hand". Although given to me by teammates, I knew that it had stuck when players from the opposing team called out this to me as I skated past their bench.

"Tommy One-Hand" is making reference to the fact that I have a 'bad habit' of sometimes  (usually) having only one hand on my hockey stick instead of keeping two on it at all times.

I tried to dismiss this by saying that even Bobby Orr sometimes skated coast to coast with the puck using only one hand on his stick. They responded; "Yeah, but then he scored a goal!", dismissing my logic.

The only reason it is a problem for other players is because they believe that "two hands on the stick" is the only way to play. Most of them had this drilled into their heads by coaches who also deeply shouted this mantra to their players.

I'm not sure when I started doing this, but I know that it helps me reach my stick out further in an attempt to steal a puck from another opposing player. One hand on the stick allows freedom of movement and speed; even in close quarters. 

I find that this way I can use a shorter stick when playing forward and still poke at a puck, instead of using a longer stick (which I use when playing defense). 

So, it really is debatable whether using one hand vs two hands is a 'bad habit' or not.

Even Laura Stamm (power skating coach from New York) agrees with me; 

"For 27 years I have been battling hockey people who maintain, Two Hands on the Stick, Two Hands on the Stick. The battle still looms large, because too many coaches still teach players to keep two hands on the stick at all times. Wrong! For one thing, the stick belongs on the ice, where the puck is. Secondly, by keeping both hands on the stick, players are forced to swing the stick high in the air, and from side to side (pitching hay) when skating fast." (www.laurastamm.net)

I know that they are correct and that working on my stick handling would improve my skills. Or at least would help them feel better. 

But, as I said, it is a long habit that is ingrained in my game. And habits can be hard to break; even if one knows that doing so would (could) improve things in their life.

Some say that it takes twenty one to thirty days to break a habit. And that it takes at least sixty six days to form a new habit to replace the old.

So what do we do with other habits that are debatable on whether or not there is need to change them? Habits such as going to bed early or staying up late? 

Habits of what to eat or not to eat? Or what to drink or not drink? Or whether coffee should have cream or not? Or Tea should be sweetened or not? And whether or not it should be caffeinated or not caffeinated; as well as how naturally they should be processed?

Habits such as where to place your hands on the steering wheel? And how many hands should be on the wheel?

Habits regarding how quickly or slowly you are supposed to go up and down stairs? 

Habits of whether or not you should cut your grass? Or how often you should cut it if you are so inclined to do so?

Habits of whether you hold a door open for someone?

Habits such as whether or not you use a spoon and fork or just a fork to eat pasta? Or whether you put catsup or ketchup on your fries or just mustard on your hotdog?

Habits such as whether or not you have to cheer for the home-team or can you go with one that is from a state you don't live in or have never even visited?

Habits such as washing dishes as you cook or after the meal?

Habits such as whether or not you fold up your newspaper after reading it; placing it back in the correct order? Or if it's even OK to read the news in printed form, or does it have to be online? How about printed books vs tablets?

Have you realized yet that many habits we have are really simply preferences; based upon what was drilled into your head by your "coaches"?

The Apostle Paul addressed this in the fourteenth chapter of Romans. He had observed that many people were divided on what was acceptable regarding their diets. He addresses it head on and doesn't state which diet is the correct one to follow.

He isn't talking about the sin of what they ate, but the sin in judging someone else for what they did or didn't do. He's trying to get them to obtain a new habit of allowing others to have habits that may be different from theirs; knowing that each of us will give an account to the ONLY One whose opinion really matters.

Paul wrote; 

"So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way." (Romans 14:12-13)

Although Paul was specifically giving instruction regarding food, his instruction can be applied regarding how we accept differences or preferences or habits of others. Again, Paul isn't talking about sin, but preferences. Yes, it is Ok to challenge habits that are sinful.

Paul wrote:

"Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another." (Romans 14:19)

Let's give each other the freedom to keep only one hand on the stick if they so desire.

What Is The Gospel?

¹ Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, ² by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.³ For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received:

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

⁵ and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. ⁶ After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. ⁷ After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. ⁸ Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)

The Consequences of Saying Yes to Sexual Temptation

A quick scan of the major news media sources reveals that scandals involving infidelity and immorality are being exposed almost daily.

It seems that no one is immune including athletes, coaches, politicians, teachers, and yes, even more than we would like to admit, the clergy.

Careers and lives are ruined as families are ripped apart in the aftermath of a series of poor decisions by leaders who thought that it would NEVER happen to them.

Some of these decisions were caused by giving into temptation from simply being worn out from pouring out into others without refilling the tanks.

And yet, not everyone who is tempted needs to give in; there is a way out.

I’m thinking of Joseph (in the Bible). Let me refresh your memory from Genesis 39:6b-12 (MSG):

“Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. ⁷ And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” ⁸ But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. ⁹ He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” ¹⁰ And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.

¹¹ But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house,¹² she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.”

Did you catch that? Joseph, instead of giving into temptation to have sex with this woman was able to FLEE!

How? GRACE. There is always GRACE to assist us in fleeing:

“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.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Whenever I feel particularly vulnerable to sexual temptation, I find it helpful to review what effects my action could have:

·        Grieving the Lord who redeemed me.

·        Dragging His sacred name into the mud.

·        One day having to look Jesus, the Righteous Judge, in the face and give an account of my actions.

·        Following in the footsteps of these people whose immorality forfeited their ministries.

·        Inflicting untold hurt on my spouse and children; losing their respect and trust.

·        Destroying my example and credibility with my children, and nullifying both present and future efforts to teach them to obey God ("Why listen to a someone who betrayed us?").

·        If my blindness should continue or my spouse be unable to forgive, perhaps losing my spouse and my children forever.

·        Causing shame to my family; especially when asked to step out of ministry.

·        Losing self-respect.

·        Creating a form of guilt awfully hard to shake. Even though God would forgive me, would I forgive myself?

·        Forming memories and flashbacks that could plague future intimacy with my spouse.

·        Wasting years of ministry training and experience for a long time, maybe permanently.

·        Forfeiting the effect of years of witnessing to my family and reinforcing their distrust for ministers that has only begun to soften by my example but that would harden, perhaps permanently, because of my immorality.

·        Undermining the faithful example and hard work of other Christians in our community.

·        Bringing immense pleasure to Satan, the enemy of God and all that is good.

·        Heaping judgment and endless difficulty on the person with whom I committed adultery.

·        Possibly bearing the physical consequences of such diseases as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, herpes, and AIDS; perhaps infecting my spouse or, in the case of AIDS, even causing their death.

·        Possibly causing pregnancy, with the personal and financial implications, including a lifelong reminder of my sin.

·        Bringing shame and hurt to fellow pastors and elders.

·        Causing shame and hurt to these friends, especially those I've led to Christ and discipled:

·        Invoking shame and lifelong embarrassment upon myself.

I’m not sure where you are at today or why you’ve read this blog. You may be in a state of transition because you haven’t fled when given the opportunity. Instead, you gave in and you may be wondering; “Is there any hope for restoring me back to health and wholeness?”

I can heartily state; “Yes, there is hope that a broken life can be restored again!”

Need some help?: http://riverofhopeministries.org/wordpress/pastoral-restoration

All Scripture is from English Standard Version (ESV)

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Increasing Trust

Last week I had surgery to repair the meniscus on my right knee. Too many sleepless nights and painful years had taken me to a ‘fork-in-the-road’ of decision that it was time to get it repaired.

Mentally, this surgery recovery time has been difficult for me. No, not more difficult than any of my other surgeries. But it took longer than I thought it would. Part of this was because prior to surgery, my surgeon said that when he had this surgery, the next day he was on a bike.

Cathy jokes that perhaps when he sat on the bike, his wife said to him; "Hey, get back to bed; you shouldn’t be doing that!"

The surgery did go very well and after two days, because I had a lot of meetings and because I didn’t really have any pain, I went back to work.

But at the end of the day, my knee swelled up and made it difficult to walk or be comfortable so I decided that I needed to work from home; which, with technology and a great staff, should have been easy to do.

I say; ‘should have been’ because I really don’t like depending on others to take care of me or to do things for me. And because at work there were many fires that needed my attention and I was stuck trying to run the world laying in a bed in one of our guest rooms with my leg packed in ice and propped up as I tried to let my body heal.

And, to make matters worse, a squirrel was outside chewing on the soffits just outside the bedroom I was in! I knew how quickly a squirrel could damage a house and my mind went crash!

I wanted to let the staff try to do their jobs, but in-between emails, texts, and phone calls, I had way too much time on my hands to think and mentally get off track.

So, as I lay here writing this, I must admit I don't trust God as much as I think I do. Oh, I have trust for others, but I still look to myself to get stuff done. I trust my ability to work and my brains to complete tasks. But, my trust is really in me; not in God.

This was driven home to me when a coworker sent an email to me that said; "Tom, will you stop playing superman and take the rest and time necessary for your body to heal, please?!"

As I pondered his words, I thought about the theme message for our church.

Every year at church we have a theme message as a way to get some direction as to where we believe God is leading us as a congregation. Some of the themes in the past have been "joy", "simple devotion", and "thriving".

The theme is then woven into messages throughout the year sort of an anchor cornerstone for reference to what "prophetically "the Lord is saying to us as a congregation. Occasionally, I will hear that other congregations have the same or similar theme for their church as our church does… which makes me sit up and ponder what He is saying to the larger Body of Christ.

This year our theme is; “A Year of Increasing Trust”.

When I first heard of the theme I didn't think about it because I think that I do trust God…which basically means: ‘confident expectation of something or someone; hope, to rely upon’. 

He has been faithful over and over and over again. He has been our provider and confidant. He has proven David’s words from Psalm 37:25 which says; “Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.”

But the theme is trust that is “increasing” which basically means: ‘to make greater, as in number, size, strength, or quality; enlarging; augmenting’.

This is about increasing trust in HIM for: finances, healing, others to do the work that I need to get done, in the team in my life.

Even as I write this I think about all the other times I've had surgery and wondered when I would be able to run the world all by myself again. I thought about when I wondered when my hands would finally be able to work again, when my ankle would finally work again, when my shoulder finally work again. Today all of them work excellently.

Do I trust that God's presence is enough? What has God promised? What is the problem for you personally? What has He promised us as His children? What is the potential? What are the problems, giants, walls? How do we discover and obey God’s strategy?

What can I do to increase and trust? How will I study, meditate on, and obey God's word? What will I pray against? Say, "I trust you Jesus”; and then ask.

No, this was a new opportunity for me to trust God for everything.

Let me say that again: everything!

He wants ME to INCREASE in my trust in Him. To look to Him. To believe Him.

He doesn't want me just talking about who He is and what He can do for others.

He wants me to simply trust Him to increase my trust in Him.

Trust Him that He will do the work.

Trust that He will bring the increase and show His faithfulness once again.

“God answer you on the day you crash,

The name God-of-Jacob put you out of harm’s reach,

Send reinforcements from Holy Hill,

Dispatch from Zion fresh supplies,

Exclaim over your offerings,

Celebrate your sacrifices,

Give you what your heart desires,

Accomplish your plans.” (Psalm 20:1-4 MSG)

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Washing The Truck

My Saturday morning task was simple; wash our pickup truck. In a few hours, we would be heading to a family gathering out in the country and I saw this as an excuse to clean our truck.

 

While gathering the tools needed, I decide to wash and wax the exterior of the truck and “Armor All” the interior.

 

It was a task that shouldn’t have taken so long except for the fact that the bottle of wax was empty. So, I decided to head up to Target (yes, some of us still shop there) to purchase a new bottle of wax.

 

I also decided to stop at the Holiday Gas Station to fill up the tank for the long road trip. I returned to my scene of the washing one hour later.

 

As I washed and waxed the truck and cleaned the interior, I noticed that our other vehicle probably should be cleaned as well…which means that I ended up washing and waxing both vehicles and “Armor All” the interiors even though we would only be driving one.

 

Start to finish, the whole process used up several hours of my time. But, BOTH vehicles glistened in the sunshine and reflected everything surrounding them; that is until one day later.

 

Have you noticed that clean vehicles seem to get really dirty really fast? The next morning while getting in the truck to go to church, I noticed that even though it rained the whole time that we drove home from the party, the dust from the county roads still caked the outside of the truck.

 

In my opinion, the truck looked even dirtier than before I had cleaned it twenty fours earlier. One dusty road; one rainstorm was all it took to go backwards!

 

I suppose I could have put the vehicles in a garage or covered them with a tarp of some sort, but eventually, they would return to their former state of dirtiness.

 

All that to say this: Relationships are like that. We put so much effort into building, cleaning, repairing; and one misunderstanding; one conflict seems to make the relationship worse than before.

 

This was my mindset as I sat in church one Sunday when I felt as though I wasn’t on the same page as Cathy. We had migrated back to where we were before we had done some concerted efforts to move the relationship forward and make it stronger. And being a “fixer”, sitting still wasn’t an option and yet that is where I was at. Distant and detached and wondering what she needed to get us back on the same page again.

 

The worship team was leading the congregation in the song; “Oceans” by Hillsongs. And the words jumped off the screen to my heart.

 

And faith arose.

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

 

I always thought of that song as pertaining to moving mountains and believing God for a miracle; not mundane things like reconnecting relationships.

 

And yet the song proclaimed that His grace “abounds in deepest waters” and that His “sovereign hand will be my guide where feet may fail and fear surrounds me”.

 

And I thought of the truck; beneath the layers of dust and raindrops there was a fresh coat of wax. All it would take to get it back to the mirrored finish of yesterday was to wash it off.

 

The song shouted out to my heart: “You've never failed and You won't start now!”
 

Similarly; I needed to call out to the Lord to remove the relational dust and raindrops to reveal what was below those layers: A relationship built upon all of the hard work we had done before the dust and raindrops of misunderstanding and bad communication.

 

My response was to shout back to my troubled soul that was longing for help:

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

 

So I responded to the hand held out to me and cried out in my spirit:

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

Oh, Jesus, you're my God!

I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine

 

Grateful that the Lord responded with His grace to soften two hearts eager to once again go forward. together.