A Pilgrims Way

When my dad was in his late teens/early twenties he worked as a life guard at a local pool during the summers.  Growing up I loved hearing his stories of daring rescues and stupid swimmers.  One story that sticks out in my mind today was something he shared regarding his life guard training.

As a lifeguard your job is to rescue someone, save their life, but you can’t do so at the risk of your own safety.  There is a time and a way to save someones life.  According to my dad (As I remember anyway) when someone starts sinking, drowning and they are just flailing away that is not a good time to rescue them.  If you approach them, they could strike you in the face or cause other injuries.  Even worse they could reach out and grasp hold of the would be savior and take them down with them.  In that case a persons strength really works against them and the rescuer.

As I understand it, a life guard is trained to wait until the struggling swimmer has just about had it.  When they can fight no more, when they’ve given up on the struggle and are going under.  Only when they’ve completely exhausted themselves and become perfectly weak, can the lifeguard swoop in and use his/her strength to bring the person to safety.

For everyone still struggling and treading water like me hear the voice of God say today…

“My grace is enough; it’s all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”

I’m leading worship this week at church. One of the songs I’ve decided to do is It Is Well With My Soul.  It’s really been speaking to me this week so I decided to find out a little about the song/author to see if there was anything that might be meaningful and I wasn’t disappointed.

Check out this article at wikipedia about Horatio Spafford, the writer of the song.

Literally a guy that had it all, then his life was touched by one tragedy after another. Losing a child, losing everything, then losing his family…

I was moved by the idea of him standing on the deck of a ship somewhere in the Atlantic ocean. Peering out into the night, into the very waters that took the lives of his 4 daughters just weeks, maybe months, prior. Weighing in his mind the events of his life that have lead him to this place. The words came to him…

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

I don’t believe his words were wishful thinking, positive self-talk, or meant to encourage and lift up his spirits.  To me his words were more of a confident resolution.  No matter where I’m at, no matter what’s going on, God is in control and my life is firmly fixed in his hand.  I will trust him … I will love him …. I will serve him still.

It would be nice if Horatio Spafford’s life had a happy ending and that he never experienced tragedy again, but sadly that is not the case…but such is life.  Spafford and his wife had two more children a boy, then later a girl.  At age 4 his second son died of Scarlet Fever.

Spafford and family moved to Jerusalem the later part of there life where it sounds like they did some great things for the Kingdom.  His life came to an untimely end after he contracted Malaria and eventually died from it.

Can I honestly say, “It is well with my soul?”  If I lost everything…if I had nothing but Jesus…would that be enough?

I hope I never have to find out.  I pray I never have to find out.  And I pray that I have the faith and strength to trust and love and serve God like Horatio Spafford did.

And Lord haste the day, when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Thinking about love and acceptance today I turned to one of my favorite passages in the Bible (1 Cor 13) and this is what stood out in my mind today.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

When there’s no understanding.  No hope.  No peace.  No answers.  No way.  No reason.

Love extravagantly. Love extravagantly.

I saw this article today on slashdot.  Don’t know if it’s true, but shooting lasers has always been really cool.  Reminds me of Star Wars and GI Joe.  Working on that project would be every kids fantasy.

So I went to church on Sunday.  I left feeling a little unsatisfied, went to the mall and the next thing you know I’m joining a cult. Read more »

I saw this post today and have been thinking about this for awhile now.  You can share and stream your itunes library over the internet with your friends.  According to the post you can share over 30 libraries.

So I was just wondering if anybody was willing to try this experiment with me?  I don’t know how it all works out yet (if you know more let please tell), but I think it would be cool to be able to listen to my friends music collection.  Especially those that have a lot more and different music than I do.

I’m beginning to realize the paralyzing and crippling nature of fear.

First let me say I consider myself a pretty brave person.  There’s not many things I’m afraid of.  Not many things I’d back down from, especially if there was an ample supply of peer pressure applied.  That said, as I get older…I’m becoming a WIMP.

Last week when I was on vacation we went to an indoor water park as we’ve done for about the last 3-4 years.  Well, about 2 years ago I noticed I started having mini anxiety attacks when I would go down those enclosed water slides.  You know, the plastic tubes that are completely dark and feel like they’re closing in on you…and oh yeah, water is blasting in your face so you can’t breath and you can’t see the end of the tube and you have no idea if you can hold your breath that long.   (Give me a minute here…I’m having a flashback).

Fully aware of my newly developed phobia I was determined not to let that hinder me this year.  So wouldn’t you know it, the first slide (which was about 80% open) brought back all those underlying fears right off the get.   At the end of the slide my daughter asked, “Dad, wasn’t that fun?”  I lied and said “yeah”.  It was terrifying.  I wasn’t so much scared of the slide, but I was scared that I was scared.  Fearful that I was afraid.  And I couldn’t control it.

You really miss out on things you should be able to enjoy when you’re afraid.

Determined not to let this hinder my vacation I marched right back up the steps to go down that slide again.  You’ve got to conquer your fears right?  The second time I told my self “Don’t be afraid…Don’t be afraid”.  But I was so consumed with convincing myself to “Not be afraid” I got to the end of the ride and realized again I missed out.  Fear had won!   There was no pleasure in it for me.  I was starting to get upset.  I was not looking forward to two days of simply going through the motions.  For me, It wasn’t enough to just do it…to just finish the ride  and pretend everything was fun.  That’s not the purpose of the ride.  The ride was built for fun and pleasure and I wanted to experience that.  I wanted to enjoy it for myself and enjoy it with my family.

It took me till the third slide to figure out what I had to do to get over my fear.  But I’ll admit it was probably more by accident then anything that I stumbled across my solution.  It was on my third slide, my nemesis from last year.  It’s a long slide, full of twist and turns.  It moves pretty quick and it’s about 90% enclosed, Pitch Dark.  It was time to slay the giant!

With a huge push we set out of the safe, shallow and bubbling pool and headed straight into the abyss.  As I entered the darkness…I simply closed my eyes and laid back.   It makes no sense.  Darkness is darkness right?  But somehow it worked.  It enabled me to focus - not on the darkness, not on the fear, not on not being afraid.  But focus on every twist, every turn, every up, every down,  every tickle in my stomach and every chuckle of laughter from my son or daughter.

When I saw the light (even through my closed eyes) I knew it was over.  I knew we made it.  And I was filled with joy.  Filled with pleasure.  And I said to myself, “So this is what it feels like to be free”.

Here’s a quote from Eugene Peterson’s book “A long obedience in the same direction” that I enjoyed today and wanted to pass it along.

“Once we get this psalm [Psalm 121] in our hearts it will be impossible for us to gloomily suppose that being a Christian is an unending battle against ominous forces that at any moment may break through and overpower us.  Faith is not a precarious affair of chance escape from satanic assaults.  It is the solid, massive, secure experience of God, who keeps all evil from getting inside us, who guards our life, who guards us when we leave and when we return, who guards us now, who guards us always.”

Rest stops.

When I’m on a trip I hate to make stops.  I’ll only stop at a place that is right off the exit and promises easy on easy off access.  That’s why I love rest stops.  You pull in, do your business, then right back to the express way to continue your journey.  The thing I like about rest stops (other then the doing your business part) is the maps that they all seem to have.  You know, the ones with the star or arrow that reads “You Are Here”.  It’s reassuring to know where you’re at.  It’s comforting to know you’re not lost, that you’re on the right path and that you are right where you belong at that moment in time.

In regards to my family, friends, work, relationships etc…I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of “You Are Here” signs lately.  I think that’s pretty cool.  It’s nice to know you’re on the right road, with the right people, at the right place and at the right time.

Just got back from our mini-vacation tonight we spent two days and one night at Kalahari indoor water park and one day at Cedar Point.  I bought this DVD of our family riding the Raptor at Cedar point.  It was Conner’s first real roller coaster ride.   The first video is my son Conner and my wife Andrea.  The second is  my daughter Haylie and me.  The quality isn’t great, but it’s good enough.  Watch carefully as Conner goes from being utterly terrified to confidently courageous.  Halfway through the video he joins in the hooting and hollering, but his eyes still betray him.   That said, I’m so proud of him.  It took a lot of courage for him to ride the Raptor and then after the Maverick.  He’s definitely wild at heart.  And my daughter Haylie is positively a free spirit.  She didn’t back down from any coaster.  We had an awesome time.