Social media sadness

I grow weary of social media. Scrolling through my Facebook feed in the morning to see people sad about the election results, disappointed with the candidates and a lot of hatred. I see people share their close minded general life opinions they don’t have the ability to listen to others or gain knowledge from other people. I see parenting tips from close minded people who only have their thoughts on the way kids need to be raised and anything else is wrong. Sometimes the bad can overtake the good.

Even with this I am a fan of social media. Social media is the only way I can connect with friends and family I don’t get to see that often. I get to see the good news of people getting married, advancing in life, awesome family pictures and the occasional throwback where I get to see what life looks like at a younger age. There is so much hate and love on social media. What if we focused on the good?

Philippians 1:9-10…

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

Life is full of disappointments, but it doesn’t have to be. I was a stringer writing for the Lansing State Journal when one of our editors had a great idea of covering a full day of sports on the first day of Fall practice with a timeline and stories based on the timeline. I was assigned to go cover the Holt Ram girls swim team as they opened practice and write about what happens during that time of the day.

Holt at the time had won something amazing like 10 conference championships in a row (I don’t remember the exact number but it was impressive). Rather then getting in the pool and to work, coach Brent Pohlonski spent time addressing their attitudes. He explained how swimming is tough and sometimes we have a bad day as we head to practice. He told the team no matter what, to have fun and be happy. He said even if you have the worst day in the world, fake being happy. Soon enough you won’t have to fake being happy and truly enjoy being happy. This was amazing and you could see the team buy into this philosophy and it led to a great experience for the team. It was nice to be able to witness this communication between a coach, a winning team and most important a happy team.

Why does Paul talk so much about love, because we miss the point. What if we focused on love instead of hate and being judgmental? What if we showed this love through life and social media? How would life be different? We have a chance to lift people up or tear people down with what we say and how we act. We are supposed to lift people up. How can life change if you chose to be happy with your outlook on life rather then sad? We are called to be blameless for the day of Christ. Today, I am going to try focusing on love.

Have a great day.

Struggling to breathe

As I strive for a better life, breathing can be tough. One of the ways I have tried to improve my health is to focus on getting in better shape. Every week I am usually swimming between 3-4 days a week and hitting the gym 1-2 days a week. Swimming is not always easy. One of the ways I improve in swimming is limiting my breathing. There is a t-shirt that says, “Swimming the only sport where your coach yells at you for breathing.” I completely understand this t-shirt. Learning how minimize breathing is part of really good training. Even while getting better shape and feeling better about my health, I still am struggling to breathe.

Over the past year, bitterness and anger slowly entered my life like it never has before. During this time I dealt with so called church leaders who wouldn’t even act like I was there. Every Sunday and through the work week I would see these people and if I didn’t start a conversation with them, they wouldn’t talk to me. I tested this scenario out. These couple of church leaders, I would purposely not talk to them and see if they would start a conversation with me. Six straight weeks went by when I would see these people throughout the church, they would see me, but say nothing. Once they even went as far to talk and have a conversation with the person directly behind me for a several minutes. They never acknowledge me.

After six straight weeks (Not kidding), I finally said this is ridiculous. Finally I started to talk to these people again. I conversed with them, but I notice they never responded. They would answer me, but it was a one-way conversation. I asked how they were doing, prayed for them and tried to show love. They would never talk back to me. They never asked about me. During this time twice my kids were in the ER/hospital. Once my daughter was in the hospital for several days. It was a scary and tough time. I had other ministers, church leaders and friends in town that came and visited my family, none came from my own church I served at (Other then Mark Willham, one of the most amazing men I have ever known and Kris who was awesome).

Finally the day we were leaving, the minister at my church visited my daughter. I was so thrown off by this. The previous year, my son broke out and was red all over. He ended up staying in the hospital as they weren’t sure what it was. My senior minister said I hope he is alright but I am not coming up there because I don’t want to get sick. Later that day another person from our church posted on Facebook being so thankful that the minister of the church came up to the hospital to visit them when they were so sick. It was the same hospital we were at. The senior minister was willing to get sick from a church member in the hospital, but wouldn’t check on a staff members family. Bitterness, anger and hatred crept in more and more.

I thought I was over this, I am in a better place and started to enjoy life more, I was wrong. There was a fundraiser dinner Hailee and I attended last week. Several of these church leaders were at this same dinner. That same bitterness/anger/hatred I thought was gone showed it’s head again. I couldn’t stand even seeing these people. Some came up to talk to my wife, and I couldn’t even stand looking at them, I had to walk away. I am still broken. As I struggle God shows me this…

Ephesians 4:2-3…

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make ever effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

I have to admit, I have failed at this. I am broken and have struggled with this. I thought I was over it, but now see I still am a work in progress. I can’t fix others, but I can work on me.

Today, I am going to start working on this and keeping this verse at the center of my mind. None of us are perfect and I need to focus on being humble and gentle. Keeping peace is my goal today, how about you?

39 game losing streak

Losing is never fun.

There is not a person I know that loves to lose.

During high school, I dealt with losing a lot.

In between cross country and swimming (The two sports I played varsity in) my combined record was 8-91.

We won one cross country meet in four years.

Losing happens.

Our school was more known for our football losing streak.

We had about a 39 game losing streak.

We went almost four consecutive years of losing in football.

Going to a high school that had a history of losing, it could be hard to be motivated to do well.

We did.

If you are not motivated to do well, you won’t, plain and simple.

I remember asking one of the football players how can they still try when they are down at the half by 28 points or more.

This is what he told me…

“Our coach motivates us.  I am a smart guy and honestly know the likely hood of a comeback is slim to none.  At halftime, our head coach speaks and by the time he finishes talking, not only do we believe we are going to come back, but we are going to crush the team afterwards.”

Makes me think of speaking bold.

The definition of bold is…not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger.  Necessitating courage and daring.

There are people I look up to that speak bold and I hang on every word they say, they can lift me up.

Bold is one of the key words used when the disciples spoke in the book of Acts.

During one of their prayers they said this in Acts 4:29…

“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.”

This is what was written after they prayed in verse 31…

“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

Bold.

How often do we speak with boldness?

Now one of the problems with speaking with boldness, people can think they are speaking with boldness when in essence, they speak like a dictator.

Part of the problem with Christianity is to speak with boldness while moving people closer to God.

Do you speak with boldness?

Do you do this at…

Home

Work

In public

Among friends

Among enemies

It can be difficult to speak in boldness and from the heart.

This is why the apostles prayed for God to fill them with boldness.

He came through.

If you struggle to talk or get your point across pray for God to give you the words to say.

Boldness can help out everyone.

Speak bold.

One day our football losing streak ended, if they didn’t have a coach that believed it could happen, it never would have.

Speak bold.

Have a great day.