Stuck - In the Past

“There’s a reason for everything,” he said. “The route my life took was meant to be that way in order for it to be the way it is now. It’s been incredible, and frankly, if He pulled the switch tomorrow, it’s been a great ride.” Those are the words of a man whose early life was a roller coaster ride that never seemed to climb. Born into poverty with an abandoned boxcar serving as his first home, by the age of 14 he had been in and out of juvenile detention over a dozen times for truancy. Theft sent him to jail several more times and a man-slaughter conviction in his early twenties eventually landed him in federal prison at San Quinton. It was there that he heard Johnny Cash perform and that became a turning point. Yes, the man who would turn out to be one of country music’s most prolific singers and an even better songwriter certainly didn’t take the easy way. In short, Merle Haggard had a past.

Ours may not involve regular brushes with the law but each of us have a past too. If you are like most, we can look back with joy and nostalgia, but with some regret sprinkled in there too. The paths our lives take though can have a lot to do with how much we choose to dwell on the regret, and when that happens we can find ourselves Stuck In the Past. So how do we get ourselves “unstuck”? How do we learn from the past and yet not be ruled or defined by it? Is there a way to use it for good instead of it being an albatross we continue to carry around for years, even decades? Well, life is about lessons, and the lesson we’ll learn this Sunday from the scripture about how to deal with a past littered with regret will definitely be worth the effort to hear it and learn from it. I would encourage you not to give up or give in to a past that has you in its grip but rather to, as Merle would say, look for “The Fightin’ Side of Me” and step into the battles with your past and begin to win them.

Stuck - In Hurt

When I was a sophomore in high school, I broke two vertebrae at the base of my neck (C5 & C6) by hitting a blocking sled with my forehead at football practice. It hurt a littlle at the time but I finished up practice that day and went home. The next morning though was a much different story. I had never experienced any pain like that before, nor since. I couldn’t move my head in any direction without sharp excruciating pain. I went on to school and immediately had a pow-wow with a couple of my coaches who suggested I go and get it checked out. I did and the x-rays revealed the fractures in two places. Today, they would be surgically repaired with a rod and screws but in 1974, the doctor gave me a foam collar to wear for 6 weeks and said I should be fine. After a few days with the collar keeping my neck stabilized, for the most part, my pain gradually subsided and I felt pretty good. But, as Paul Harvey would say, you'll have to listen to the podcast for the rest of this story.

Unlike physical pain though, mental and emotional pain doesn’t go away with meds followed by physical therapy. In fact, when you’ve been hurt mentally and emotionally there often seems to be no way out of it or around it. Those kinds of bruises and scars can sometimes last a lifetime. There are ways though to move through the hurt, instead of being stuck there for days that turn into decades. They require going to battle with the enemy and winning and, at the same time, making different choices that turn into different habits that God helps us to both see and navigate. So if you, or a spouse, or friend is Stuck In Hurt, be sure not to miss this teaching on how to navigate those waters and come out both healthier and wiser on the other side. Oh, and I recommend staying away from those big steel blocking sleds too.

Come and see.

Stuck -

How often do you take a personal inventory of your life in terms of where you were, as compared to where you are. Most of us probably don’t do that very often because we don’t like the conclusions we come to when we do that. The truth is that, sooner or later, all of us get Stuck -- stuck in the past, stuck in a hurtful place, stuck in fear, stuck in the same old same old. On July 18th, we’ll begin a new teaching series that addresses some of those very things, not the least of which is how we can get stuck in analysis. Whether not wanting to make the wrong choice is driven by fear or by pride, analysis gives us a safe place to hang out, as opposed to having to make an actual decision. Consequently, life, and its opportunities, pass us by as we wait on the sidelines for the next “sure thing” to come along. I hope you will make plans to join us over the next several weeks as we examine together what the scripture has to say about getting out of the ruts that we have allowed ourselves to get in and stay in.

Foreigners - Positioned as Fathers

Over the years since then, a number of military tacticians, especially of the naval variety, have analyzed the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to see what could be learned from it in order to hopefully prevent something similar happening in the future at Pearl, at San Diego, at Charleston, and at Norfolk. While the particulars of their analysis vary somewhat, the bulk of it says that our Pacific fleet were perfectly positioned in the harbor for an attack and for maximum destruction and that’s exactly what happened. Our carriers and destroyers were positioned too close together and weren’t able to get underway to minimize the damage or to even mount much of a defense. Consequently, the casualties were many and the devastation was great.

Our positioning matters a great deal when trying to see an attack on the horizon and prepare for it the best we can. That reality couldn’t be of greater importance or greater need than it is in the life of a father. Fathers need to be in a position to see, even anticipate, how the enemy could attack our families and put himself in the position of both scout and defender. Is that true of you, dad? Have you properly positioned yourself and your family to be able to not just mount a decent defense but to win the spiritual, cultural, and social attacks that your family faces on a continuing basis? Make no mistake... our enemy and his minions in this culture are coming after not just your family but the whole concept of family and weak, spineless, “go along to get along” dads are the first targets in their crosshairs. That’s why it’s so important to know that we have properly positioned ourselves for just that kind of onslaught.

Foreigners - With a Warning 2

Obviously, one of our nation’s greatest failures was early in our history when we bought and sold humans into slavery. As the ships when back and forth to and from Africa, American Christians turned a blind eye to the scriptural proclamation that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” It’s ironic then that one of the most loved and sang songs in black churches across America (and countless others too for that matter) is Amazing Grace, written by John Newton in the late 1700s. That same John Newton was one of the major players in the slave trade, both as a ship’s captain and as an auctioneer when the ships would arrive in the ports.

For most blacks in that era, slavery was not a choice, it was a matter of survival, it was a matter of even life or death. Today, we have more choices than at any point in human history. Choices over where we work, where we live, what we drive, what we eat, over friends, entertainment, fashion and over matters of faith as well. Yet many, in fact most in my view, continue to be enslaved to one or more of a number of things; their careers, their past, cultural expectations, a broken value system, food, a home. Let’s face it, anything that we’re allowing to “own” us, we’re enslaved to. We don’t set out to find ourselves working for them, instead of the other way around, but it just incrementally happens that way. And we take our shoulder off the wheel long enough to look up and find ourselves in bondage and wonder how we got there and how we can get ourselves free again. Good news, there’s a way out. And, as always, Scripture has the solution.

Foreigners - With a Warning

When you’re sixteen and finally get your driver’s license, that’s becomes a sort of rite of passage into semi-adulthood. You’re not really a full-fledged grown up yet but you are actually getting to do a few grown up things. I remember what came packaged with my license and set of keys that came with it was a couple of warnings. The first warning was from my dad who told me that the keys came with a curfew. The curfew was 11:00 and every time I was late I would have to hand the keys back to him for 3 days and couldn’t drive the car. The other warning was from my mom and was along the lines of, “You are gaining some independence and a little more freedom so be careful who you allow in the car with you and make sure it’s not someone who could get you into trouble.”

When you’re a kid, life comes with a lot of warnings and rightfully so, because you think you are invincible but actually have a lot to learn about the choices you are making, not to mention the ones that are coming down the pike. Consequently, warnings are good and necessary things that, when heeded, can usually save us from a bad decision and the regret that comes from it.

The life of a Jesus-follower has some warnings that come with it as well, not the least of which are -- be careful who you listen to and be careful what you absorb. You see it does matter what you believe and why you believe it, in fact it matters a lot. Not only does your eternity hang in the balance but the effectiveness and influence you have before you even get to the eternal part does as well. Peter, a guy who made his fair share of mistakes and missteps, is standing in the middle of the road waving some red flags for us and we would be wise to heed his warning. In fact, it’s one of the most important warnings you’ll ever receive.

Foreigners - Who Know the Truth

Webster’s three definitions of truth are; 1) the state of being the case, 2) the body of real things, events, and facts, and 3) a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality. All three are continuously eroding concepts in our contemporary culture. Why do I say that? Well, it starts in a home where the child can do no wrong, where upon inappropriate behavior the child is “redirected” instead of corrected. It moves into the community where, in an effort to not bruise their self-esteem, everybody gets a trophy rewarding mediocrity, or in some cases even failure. It then moves into academia, where all truth is relative, where whatever answer or consensus the “group” comes to is the right answer. Given that path, what other conclusion could a young person come to, except that real truth is an ever-moving target?

Fast forward a few years and truth begins to come into focus when the credit card company actually demands to be paid back, when they can’t stand to spend fifteen minutes with the person they wanted to “spend the rest of their life with,” or when their boss informs them that their job no longer belongs to them, in fact it never did. You see the truth is eventually going to stare us in the face whether we like it or not.

Just as in life, spiritual truth is as much a reality as gravity is. There are issues that every person has to come to grips with regarding their soul and their Savior, issues that can and often do have eternal consequences. Remember the old game show Truth or Consequences? Well, Peter seems to be one of its very first hosts as he pulls back the curtain to let us see what real truth looks like.

Foreigners - #motherlyadvice

I’ve seen the job of mother, through the lives of my mom, my wife, and now my 2 daughters and my definitive response to that job is, “No thanks.” It’s fascinating how intuitive a mother is when it comes to what their children need, even before they can say a word. They can detect that one cry is different from another and respond accordingly to what they perceive their child’s needs are. Sure, some of that comes with time and practice but I’m convinced that a healthy dose of that is just a gift from God in terms of giving a mom that extra “sense” when it comes to their children. Even though I feel like I was and continue to be a connected and engaged dad, that mothering stuff is just something on a “whole nother level.” It’s what has made me deeply appreciative of my mom, my girls’ mom and my grandsons’ moms and my admiration of that whole deal is as much or more of what God does in the equipping as it is in what moms do in the execution of it.

Regardless of whether your mom is still with us or whether they’ve already gone to be with Jesus, as we celebrate moms this coming Sunday, I would encourage you to consider the enormous task and responsibility that comes with motherhood. Having said that, I realize that not everyone’s story is blessed with a Christ-like mother and that saddens me to acknowledge. However, I know a God that can redeem value from even the most hurtful and devastating situations and I pray that is true for you. I invite you to join us for a little motherly advice from 1st Peter and then make sure you let your mom know how much she is valued by God (and she is) and appreciated by you.

Foreigners - With Attitude

For years, motivational speakers like Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins or Joel Osteen have told us things like; “Our attitude determines our altitude,” or that “Attitude isn’t everything... it’s the Only thing.” Cheesy phrasing or not, it’s true that often times, the difference between success and failure is attitude. Even doctors acknowledge that attitude affects our health in terms of recovery, healing, blood pressure, and, in general goes a long way in determining the quality of our overall health. Attitude affects our jobs, our families, our hobbies and life in general in a number of ways, either positively or negatively.

A few years ago at a leadership conference where she was speaking, I asked, then Lady Vol basketball coach Pat Summit, about what her biggest failure in life was. I could see and hear the angst as she struggled to answer my question. I believe her struggle in answering was not so much with her own willingness to be transparent but with the concept of failure in general. It just wasn’t in her mental makeup. Her mindset, her attitude if you will, just never had a willingness to even entertain the concept of failure, and not just in basketball but in anything.

In a spiritual sense, a negative attitude can keep us from realizing God’s best for us and even keep us from realizing His blessings or seeing His hand at work in our life circumstances. So what then do we do about it? How are our attitudes shaped in the first place and where does my relationship to Christ come into play in helping form the way I see myself, my life circumstances, and my relationship to Him. All great questions that our friend Peter addresses for us in 1 Peter 4.

Foreigners - Who Understand Suffering

In John 16.33, Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble,” and boy was He right. The picture of our city right now is of one in trouble. Our hearts break for the family of Anthony Thompson, the young Austin-East student who lost his life several days ago. It also breaks for the students of A-E and for those in the surrounding community and for the police officers who wish that confrontation with Thompson had never happened, and especially for officer Clabough, who will never be able to forget that encounter for as long as he lives. No one can hear or see the reports of that story and not be saddened by all of it and be left wondering why them, why there (again) and why now. The demand for solutions, for the fix, have been swirling about ever since and even before that, with no one having the fix to bring a stop to it all.

This answer doesn’t, and won’t, heal the hurts or solve the real problems in the hearts of folks, which is really at the core of this issue, but it’s true nonetheless, and that is this. Suffering, trouble, hurt, and hardship are all part of the consequence of a broken world, a broken nation, and a broken city. You see any solutions apart from true repentance and turning our hearts and hands to God are going to be temporary and end up empty in the end. However, after Jesus’ warning us “you will have trouble,” He goes on to say, “But take courage, I have overcome the world.” My friends, He is our only real and lasting hope. He who suffered, understands suffering and we who seek solutions in the brokenness need only to reach out to the One who doesn’t have the answers but who IS The Answer.