Faith in Real Life – Page 5

In Faith in Real Life

Wipers Are For Wimps!

September 7, 2011 No Comments

It’s true. I’m more of a Rain-x guy. I prefer to have the water bead up and just move off the window. Wipers make so much noise! They never seem to be timed right, and overall there is something wimpy about turning them on. When Tiffany and I are driving together in the rain I can tell that it is time to turn on the wipers when she gets a little squirmy in her seat. It is a bit of a game, see how long I can go without turning on the wipers.

I was on the phone with my mom yesterday and she told me that she used her wipers for the first time yesterday since May! Take that…

Now, she lives in the Dallas, Texas area (Outside of the arms of Irene). They are experiencing a really dry season right now, which is actually quite dangerous. Fires are erupting and causing intense damage in their region.

The northeast region of the United States has received more rain in the last few weeks than has been on record for a long time. The one thing that I notice about all of this rain is that it invades every space exposed to it. In our region, the rain has been so abundant that our ground is saturated and cannot handle anymore rain. The excess water is flowing right over the ground, not being able to penetrate it anymore, filling up our streams, creeks and rivers. We are experiencing high levels of water and flooding like we don’t typically see.

While this can be a terribly devastating physical reality, in another sense it is a beautiful picture of the spiritual reality of a relationship with God.

What if there was no layer of our life that God’s power, conviction and grace didn’t invade? What if the soil of our lives was saturated with the presence of God? What if our lives were so saturated that there was no where for the power and presence of God to go in your life BUT to spill over into the lives of those around you? What would the trickle down effects look like?

I want that. I want that for myself, and I want that for you too.

Can you imagine having a relationship with God like this? How do you think this would change our Churches and our cities?

Wipers are for wimps! Embrace the rain, and ask God for more of it in your life!

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Fear Cripples

September 6, 2011 No Comments

What are you scared of? Noah has been lately saying that he sees things crawling out of the heat vent on the floor. I’m pretty sure that nothing is crawling out of there, but it is his mind that is saying, what if something crawled out of there? And I agree, what if something creeped, crawled or slithered out of the heat vent. That would be pretty scary.

Fear is that thing that creeps into the back of our mind and offers up the idea that something unsettling might, could or will happen. Fear is felt at all ages and in someways it grows with you. The older you are the more there is to fear.

As a child I never feared that we would have enough money for the necessities of life. I never feared that our cars would break down. I never feared that my home would catch on fire. I never feared for anyone else’s safety. As a college student I didn’t fear that I would hurt myself when playing sports. I didn’t have any fear that the cafeteria meal was heathy enough. As an adult we have a whole new level of fear. In this economy there are many people who are deathly afraid of job loss, market shares dropping, and mortgage payments being made. Fear is everywhere.

Fear is not uncommon.

The Old Testament shares a story about Isaac’s son Jacob. Jacob had tricked his father into giving him his brother Esau’s blessing. Jacob had previously purchased Esau’s birthright for a bowl of soup. This made Esau very angry, to the point that he was ready to kill Jacob. Check out more of this story in Genesis 25, 27-28. With fear for his life, Jacob fled from his father’s country.

Many years later Jacob is living with his father-in-law, Laban. The time comes for Jacob to leave Laban and he becomes fearful of seeing his brother again. His fear of Esau is building. Jacob sends some messengers to his brother to let him know of his intent to return. The messengers return with this message, “We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

I love that last part. I can almost hear it.

Messengers: “Yeah Jacob, we saw Esau. He said that he is coming to see you.”

Jacob: “Oh, cool.”

Messengers: “Um… Yeah, about that. He is also bringing 400 men with him.”

Jacob: “Gulp…”

It is right there, in the four hundred men, part that Jacob’s fear grips him and grows within him.

I love what Jacob does. Jacob prays. Jacob speaks to God and says,

‘O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ … Deliever me I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children.’

FOR YOU SAID, ‘I will surely propser and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.’

Do you see what he did there? He remembered God’s promise in his life. See, God had previously promised Jacob that he would be a great nation. So far he was not a great nation. I guess it means that Esau was not going to kill him. If God said it, it was sure to happen. Jacob clung on to that hope.

In the times of your most intense fear what do you do? Do you cling to the hope that you have, or do you throw up your hands and grasp at the wind looking for answers or any ear that will listen to you whine?

Have you ever been in a situation where like Jacob you had to cling to the promises of God’s word?

I have. It has been a scary but safe ride. Fear cripples, but faith clings!

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

A response to Hurricane Irene

August 27, 2011 5 Comments

In preparation for Irene, last night we, along with the rest of the world, picked up some food items and started thinking about what we may need to do to prepare. However, we are in a world of pain right now. I didn’t realize till this morning that we are almost out of coffee creamer. And we didn’t get any last night. This could be a tragedy.

As the east coast hunkers down this morning to weather what may be the largest storm to hit the east coast I felt it only necessary to respond.

I give you : Hurricane Irene

And on the serious side,

Here are some cool sites to check out with info on Irene:

So, let’s share… What are some of your storm essentials? What did you run out to the store to stock up on before you head inside for the next 36 hours?

Trying to stay dry,

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Texts you don’t ever want to get from your wife…

August 26, 2011 4 Comments

There are texts that you love to get from your wife.

Like:

I love you
I just made a steak dinner for you, hurry home
I was thinking you needed some alone time, go to starbucks for a while
You’ve been working really hard, let me give you a back rub
There is extra money in the budget this month

Then again, there are things that you never want to hear from your wife.

Like:

I Think there is a squirrel in our wood stove
There is a mouse in our heating vents- COME HOME NOW
A possum just declared war on the trash bag by the back door
There is water pouring out of the light in the family room ceiling. I need you here.

Yesterday was the day that I received the last one. Sure enough I came home to find one of the lights in our ceiling dripping a fair amount of water. In case you have never experienced this, it is a really great feeling. Or not. Here’s another clue, water and electricity go together really well. No really they do.

I climbed up into the attic and located the drain/light and much to my shock found this:

Yes, that is a lovely source of water leaking in through the roof. It has come through the shingles, and then the plywood underlayment, running down the joyce to the drywall ceiling below upon which it finds it’s drain through the can light in the ceiling. Fabulous! TADA… I had found the source of the problem, now to figure out the fix.

For this I would need to leave the ‘comfort’ of the 24 whole inches of clearance in the attic and clamor up on the roof in the rain. I headed over to about where I thought the light was and I found this…

For those of you who are just like me, NOT ROOFERS, what you are looking at is a thumb size hole in the shingle. It went through two layers and was a beautiful little entrance site for water to begin it’s decent down through the roof and ultimately into a bucket on my family room floor. So being the weekend warrior that I am, I gathered up the essential tools and headed back up onto the roof to fix it.

Weekend Warrior Fix for a hole in the roof

That’s right, a blow torch, and some caulk. That should solve every problem. I torched the roof and then smeared some silicone in the hole. Take that Norm Abrams. You should come and check out ‘This Old House’ here. I’ll teach you a thing or two about patching a roof.

So there you have it. Next time your wife texts you something like, “There is water pouring out of the light in the family room ceiling. I need you here.” you’ll be totally prepared.

You can thank me later,

~Peter

P.S. we’ll have to see how my patch job stand up to our lady friend Irene who will be staying with us Saturday and Sunday.

In Faith in Real Life

God, You Cheapskate… And Other Reasons to Eat Fruit

August 25, 2011 2 Comments

The weather here in Doylestown has been beautiful these past few days. So Tiffany and I have been taking advantage of these beautiful last few days of summer. We once again hit up the park for a walk and a bike ride. This time we headed over to George M. Bush Park in Buckingham to enjoy our evening constitutional. After our walk, the kids wanted to play in the massive sandbox, on the swings, and climb all over the playground equipment. This may just be the best part of the night–Tiffany and I get to sit on a bench and talk.

Well, about this time an ice cream truck pulls into the parking lot announcing its presence with bells and happy jingles. It was like somebody was shaking the treat box. All the puppies heads popped up and they went running to the source of the shaking. All that is except for two of them. Noah and Grace looked up to see what the commotion was and then set themselves back to playing in the sandbox.

I’d like to think that I have kids that are just so intent on their sandbox/playground time that they wouldn’t want to waste a moment of it on something as silly as an over-priced-four-wheeled-ice-cream-dispensing-handbell choir, but I’m not that naive. I think what really happened was my kids heard the droning of the bells, they looked at each other and silently shook their heads in agreement as to say, “Daddy is so cheap, don’t bother asking.”

In Genesis 3, right in the beginning of the temptation story, Satan asks Eve a similar question. He says, Is God so cheap that He told you that you couldn’t eat from any of the trees in the garden? I like the way that the message paraphrase puts it, “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?” What a question. Is God such a cheapskate that He won’t let you eat? Satan goes on to say, God just doesn’t want you to eat it because then you will be like Him. What Satan is saying is, God is selfishly withholding certain goodness or certain blessings from you. He just doesn’t want you to achieve the same status as Him, God is clearly not a good God like you thought He was, no is He?

The background to this story is that Satan is trying to do what He does best–deceive people and cause people to turn away from God and towards their own agenda. He uses a very simple tactic, challenge the goodness of God.

Have you ever thought to yourself any one of these things:

God can’t possibly love me that much
I know that’s a promise in the Bible, but it isn’t meant for me
Does God really care
I guess God has abandoned me
God doesn’t want me to be happy

If you find yourself saying yes to one or more of those statements or to a similar statement, watch out Satan may be trying to challenge the goodness of God in your life.

Without me giving my answer, and my list of reasoning let’s hear it… Is God cheap or is God abundantly good? Why or why not?

And… Go…

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Segways, Boomerangs, and The Beginning of Time

August 24, 2011 No Comments

Last night Tiffany and I took our kids over to Central Park here in Doylestown. It is one of our favorite places to walk while our kids ride their bikes. Not to mention that Noah and Grace love to run through this massive castle maze! Noah has recently learned how to ride a bike without training wheels and he is just ecstatic! Grace is still cruising along with her training wheels for now. The weather was beautifully cool and the sky was gorgeous. It was no secret, it was a great night for walking! There were a lot of people walking dogs, walking alone with their pure white apple earbuds jammed in their ears. There were young families, like ours, getting their kids out for a pre back-to-school hurrah. It was a great night for walking!

As great as it was for walking it must have been equally as great a night for segway riding, and the atmospheric pressure must have been premier for boomerang throwing. (add a hint of sarcasm there) Why you ask? Well, because I saw both of those activities happening.

Oh, no big deal you say? When was the last time you saw someone throwing a boomerang I ask you?

Just wait… It gets better.

The guy riding the segway was the same guy throwing the boomerang. I was impressed, that boomerang flew back to him each time. There he was out in the field doing his rythmic dance of throwing, leaning and catching.

Only in Doylestown right? Pretty cool if you ask me. I was slightly jealous of both his boomerang skills and his segway skills. Tiffany and I watched him for a while as we were walking back to our car. So, Mr. Segway-boomerang man if you somehow stumble on this please contact me and teach me your ways. Because that would be cool!

Yesterday I started a reading plan with YouVersion, the online Bible reader. I started “Reading God’s story:One year chronological plan”. So yesterday I read Genesis 1 &2. Today I read John 1:1-3, Psalm 8, and Psalm 104. I came across this verse in Psalm 104 (Great Psalm by the way… Go read it!)

24 O Lord, how many are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all;
The earth is full of Your possessions.

I wondered, was the segway made in God’s wisdom? What about the boomerang? And the sport of combining the two activities? The earth is full of His possessions. While shaving this morning I was looking at the drain thinking, what about modern plumbing? Did God give all of this to us in His infinite wisdom?

I’m not sure, but I do know that God gave us minds to think and create. I think God delights in the fact that His creation, who is made in His image, follows His patterns of creativity. The human mind longs to create, invent, and dream. So Mr. Segway-boomerang man, I think you not only brought a smile to my face, but to the heart of God.

Keep dreaming. Keep thinking. Keep creating. Who knows what you will come up with.

What is the best creation or invention that you have seen someone come up with lately? If it’s a website, youtube clip, or picture let’s see them!

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Blown Schedules…

August 22, 2011 No Comments

The other day on Facebook, my news feed was being blown up by every youth group kid’s school schedule. So I figured that it would be good for me to write down a schedule for myself too! Man that is tough! Does anyone else struggle with being scheduled? I want to keep a schedule more than anything. I have designed a spreadsheet of my to-do items and all that, it sits right in front of me at my desk everyday just staring at me, saying, “I dare you to follow what I’ve got written in these blocks.” I have it neatly laid out and it totally makes sense. I left on Thursday of last week feeling great about it. Yet this morning only a few days into the schedule I was already late to the second thing on my list!

HELP! What do you do to keep yourself task oriented and your productivity levels up?

Has anyone made an app yet that keeps you scheduled? What app works for you?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Frolicking Shaggy Goats

August 19, 2011 No Comments

Shaggy Goat This morning as I was reading from the book of Isaiah I started to laugh out loud at what was on the page before me. Have you ever done that? Do you ever find the Bible funny? (You should, there are some really funny parts…) I was laughing at the mental picture that was forming in my head as I was reading. I was reading Isaiah 13 when I came to these verses:

21 But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there.

22 Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers
And jackals in their luxurious palaces.
Her fateful time also will soon come
And her days will not be prolonged.

Seriously, shaggy goats and ostriches are the worst you can throw at me Isaiah? If you had mentioned nests of scorpions or ravenous-belligerent badgers than maybe I wouldn’t have laughed. But goats and ostriches? Owls? It sounds like a petting zoo is moving in.

Or not…

Here is what Isaiah is really saying…

Isaiah’s writing in the 13th chapter is a prophecy against Babylon. Verses 21 and 22 speak about what God is going to do to Babylon in the coming days. God is deeply disturbed by Babylon and has pronounced (through Isaiah) a coming judgement. Isaiah reveal that God is going to destroy Babylon and let it go to waste. Not only go to waste, but be given over to the evil of this world.

Wild animals will find their home their now— this doesn’t speak to the taming of the animals, but to the lack of human life in that space now providing opportunity for the animals to move in.

Owls will fill their houses. Owls, or howling creatures will fill the air with somewhat freaky noises. (ever heard an owl at night screeching? I’ve had to change my pants due to screeching owls) Isaiah is setting the mood, or the soundtrack to what is coming.

Shaggy goats will frolic there. Shaggy goats were connected with demons. (see Lev. 17:7 and 2 Chr. 11:15) He’s saying demons will frolic in your backyard. I don’t think that anyone of us wants our backyard to be the popular playground for demons to come hang out at.

This is certainly not the petting zoo moving into town. This speaks of destruction and abandonment. This is a prophecy of evil running rampant in a place that once teemed with life. This is downright scary, not funny. This is depressing and saddening.

This is written to Babylon, but what about us? Babylon neither acknowledged God or walked in His ways; the day of judgement was coming to them.

We need to learn from the past and encourage more people to turn towards God and walk in His ways. Otherwise the owls may fill their homes and the goats may frolic in their yards. I shudder to think.

It’s a good thing that Jesus came so that we could have life, and really full life at that! (Jn 10:10)

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Paper Towels, Arguments, and You

August 18, 2011 No Comments

Yesterday was a tough day. Noah had been having a “really hard day”. That is what he calls a day that has been filled with mistakes, arguments, and disappointments. Yesterday I tweeted a picture of a note that he gave me. It was drawn on a paper towel and folded up neatly ensuring that it was tightly packaged. The note simply says I’m Sorry, with a giant heart on the top.

There were several cool things about this note.

1. He was not prompted to write it. No one had to tell him to write an apology note. It flowed out of his desire to make things right. He spent time thinking through his visual expression of apology. Then he put creative effort into the apology.

2. It came quickly after the “issue”. It was not long after I had a conversation with Noah about his behavior that he went to the art table and proceeded to work on his note. There was no delay or gripe session to be had.

3. He was broken and gentle when he gave it to me. When he brought it over to me and presented his gift to me, his little voice was soft and gentle. He had an attitude of brokenness and a really sweet spirit.

What about you? Think back to the last altercation you were in, how did you resolve it?

It seems to me that we very often after we get in an argument with someone there is a long time before we get around to saying the dreaded words, “I’m Sorry”. Sometimes we may not ever even say it. If and when we do say I’m sorry, does your inflection, and body language declare that you are truly sorry, or was it said from an attitude that is far less than sorry?

An apology given that is not actually concerned with correcting and restoring the relationship is no apology at all.

Think, is there someone right now who you need to say I’m sorry to? If so, what’s stopping you?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

I’m a Pro Wrestler

June 9, 2011 2 Comments

This was originally posted on March 02, 2011.

Most of you probably don’t know this about me yet; but, I am a professional wrestler. It’s true. My pro wrestler name is Outlaw Monk and I’m telling you that you don’t want to mess around with me. I’m scheduled for two on one wrestling matches in the thunder dome about 2 times a week. Sometimes I’m asked and reminded while other times I just come in with a blaze of fury and knock some heads around.

Truth be told, I’m lying to you. No one other than the man in the mirror calls me Outlaw Monk, and I am most certainly not a professional. I do wrestle with 2 little people about twice a week. Their names are Noah- “Dash Snake”, and Grace- “Outlaw Pounder”. They are 5 and 4 years old. And in their eyes I probably am the Outlaw Monk. In fact I might start whispering that in their ears while they are sleeping, “The Outlaw Monk is coming to getcha!” It has a nice ring to it.

Last night at Biblical Seminary, in my Genesis class, we were talking about Jacob and his wrestling match with God. One of the questions we thought about was, “Why did God choose to wrestle with Jacob. Why not play chess, or croquet?” I’m not going to answer that for you. I want you to tell me why you think God chose wrestling.

This morning I was thinking about why I wrestle with my kids. I have come up with at least five reasons.

To hug them for extended periods of time. When we wrestle, we are linked up in a very intimate way, grappling with one another, trying to push and shove the other into a hold. It gives me time to just hug my kids and in a way say, “I love you: Now let me kick your butt.”
I want to wear down their energy. I remember being a little boy when energy was abundant and often overflowing that there were times when you just had to run around and get it out. When you combine to much energy with being pent up in the house, that usually leads to little boys getting in trouble. So to avoid this, we wrestle till we are both tired. It keeps us both out of trouble. 🙂
I want to make my kids laugh. Call me crazy, but I love to hear my kids laugh. It brightens my day and can make me forget about even the most difficult of situations. Ironicaly, last night Pete Wilson, tweeted this: “Rough day today. Amazing though how 30 minutes of wrestling with my boys brings a little perspective.” It is hard to beat knowing that you are the cause of their laughter and their face lighting up. It does wonders for me. Plus, I want my kids to laugh, I want them to enjoy life! (After writing this, I found Pete has blogged about this exact tweet this morning, check it out here.)
I want my kids to know how powerful I am. There is a time and a place to let your kids win. I’m not disputing that. But when we are wrestling, I can tower over them and bring them immediately to their knees. I never push them beyond what they can handle, but there are times when they may feel powerless in comparison to me. I want them to be able to turn to me in moments of weakness thinking that I am powerful enough to help them. (I realize that I am very limited in my power and strength)
I want to see how they will do. I want to know if they will give up quickly or if they will push through with endurance. I want to see if they can figure a way out of the Outlaw Monk’s death grip. I want to see if they will push back. In some ways I guess I am testing them.

In short, I wrestle with my kids because I love them.

So what do you think? Why did God choose to wrestle with Jacob? Are there any correlations to dad’s wrestling with their kids? If your a parent do you wrestle with your kids? If so, why?

~The Outlaw Monk

Side Note: [If you are in need of a pro wrestler name, check out www.wrestlingname.com for some help and guidance, or just for a good laugh. By the way Tiffany’s name according to wrestlingname.com is “Double Tornado” I thought that was funny seeing as how she is 31 weeks pregnant.]