Charlie's Wild Ride

The weather has been crazy lately. For about a week last month the wind was extremely gusty in northern Ohio. Everything that wasn’t tied down needed to be brought in. Lawn chairs, toys and small children were fair game to the sudden gusts and undercurrents of air. Every day it felt as if a huge thunderstorm was on the verge of cutting loose, but the rain just never came.

On one of those days I drove to the grocery store to pick up a few items but before going in I decided to eat my lunch. I parked in a secluded section of the lot and was almost done with my salad when all of a sudden something slammed right into my car door. I jerked my head around fully expecting to see an over-sized vintage car with a little old lady peeking out over the wheel. A bit of anger mixed with my surprise when I saw that the projectile was just a measly little grocery cart, recklessly abandoned. That single runaway cart was propelled from absolutely nowhere and somehow drawn to MY car like a magnet. What are the odds?

Afterwards, when I showed my friends the size of the dent and told them the story, they couldn’t believe a small cart like that could have such an impact. I have since then endearingly referred to the cart as Charlie, because even a pitiful grocery cart can be used for a lesson.

I generally reflect on potential lessons God is trying to teach me when incidents like this happen. Therefore, I went through my mental check list of the usual topics but, we all know, God is NOT usual.

• Even though I had to go inside the store and report the incident, contact the insurance company and arrange the repair, the process was a minor annoyance and everything went surprisingly smoothly. So, my patience wasn’t tested. Check.
• My insurance covered all the costs. So my checkbook wasn’t tested. Check.
• My rather new car was now damaged but it didn’t really bother me. So, my attachment to favorite things wasn’t the issue. Check.
• No one was hurt, so I was guilt free and my emotions didn’t get a workout. Check.

I pondered the incident for a few more days and then a subconscious thought that had been trying to develop for a while, finally began to take shape. It wasn’t quite an epiphany, but rather enlightenment on an issue we all deal with from time to time. For several weeks I had been wondering if MY life actually made an impact on other people. I know this thought sounds like a familiar “It’s a Wonderful Life” theme, but as a person gets older, they do wonder. The closer they get to the finish line of this rat race, they reflect on what could or should have been. Like Charlie, I was itching to make a dent in someone’s life. I wanted to make some kind of difference in my world. I wanted to leave my mark. We all do. However the great majority of us will never be the one person that will rock the world…and that is exactly how it’s supposed to be.

I'm sure most of us would like to have at least one mountain-top-impact experience...our 15 minutes of fame...a point in time where we can look back and know we were instrumental in changing the world. It would be great to be able to say I did something spectacular, saved millions of lives or invented the invention of all time. Indeed, it is wonderful to visit museums filled with tributes to historic icons. Many times they were ordinary stubborn people who were just plain old sick and tired of injustices and stood their ground. Others changed the world with imagination, hard work and late hours. More time was spent in the valley with failed experiments and suffering than on any mountain. Those heroes learned their steadfastness, skills and heroic ideals from other ordinary stubborn people who inspired and sacrificed. No hero becomes a hero by themselves.

OK, I'm content with the idea that I may never rock the world, but I can still rock the boat.  I WANT to be an inspiration to a potential hero. But how? Relationships. God surrounds us with family, friends and even enemies to cultivate our personalities. It's symbiotic. We all teach and we all learn. Christ wants us to encourage, be honest, and thrive in relationships. Through those relationships, our character is strengthened. We learn to shut up and to speak up. We learn to be sensitive to each other’s needs and develop passion. We learn to laugh, to morn, support and pray from examples set before us. He allows us to fall and to fail and then learn love, forgiveness, and compassion. Every generation challenges the next, one person at a time, to live like His love is true. The lasting affect we have on someone's life could come from a simple word of kindness, or the result of consistent intertwined relationships. We are always setting examples, good and bad, for all to see. We are constantly cultivating heroes with our actions. I want to be one of those people who leaves a lasting impression on lives. I want to be proof that God's Grace is real.

Charlie’s wild ride was not by his choice. He had no free will, an inanimate object whipped around by the wind. But, WE do. As Christians, we choose the wild ride. We choose to serve, to be available, to love and to impact lives in any way possible. We choose to be propelled by God’s Spirit, never holding back. We are joyously expectant in the vision we have been given whether it lands us in the spotlight or not. We want to give it all we have, land where we land and, through faith, inspire those near us to know Christ…who are then propelled and land where they land.

I appreciate Charlie the Cart's reminder, despite our abrupt run-in. Let us all live recklessly abandoned, to be a runaway overcome by the wind, to take risks and anticipate the bumps and bruises. Let's Live Like That.

What Would YOU Do?

Remember the whimsical commercials that asked, “What would you do for a Klondike Bar?” The commercials featured people making fools of themselves in order to earn the chocolate covered ice cream square. They were cute commercials with a catchy tune.

One of my favorites is where a man is getting his chest hair waxed off. Ouch. Another is a guy actually listening to his wife for a whole 5 seconds without his eyes glazing over, to earn a Klondike Bar. Then there is the Mother-in-law foot massage. I don’t like feet, so the reward would have to be a lot more than a KB for me.

 

All kidding aside, I want to ask this question. What would you do for Jesus? We would all agree that the Son of God IS more important than a chocolaty covered frozen confection so, it follows that the requests He makes of us would be more than thoughtless quirky antics meant for entertainment. Christ is like our training officer and His entreaties should be regarded as exercises meant to build in us faith and obedience. A Christian builds his faith muscle through endurance and repetition of action. Christ sees deep inside our hearts. He sees our flabby faith and goes to work designing a personalized fitness program. Some exercises are easy. Others, painful and the results are not usually seen immediately.

For instance, would you impulsively jump out of a boat without thinking, like Peter did? Cast your fishing net on the other side of the boat just because Christ said to? Would you sing praises to the Almighty while shackled in a filthy prison? How about feed the hungry and give money to the poor when your own finances need help? Sometimes we are instructed to act in impulsive obedience and other times we are asked to repeat our actions over and over until they become a part of us.

What are YOU willing to do? Would you learn patience for Him? What if Christ asked you to attend church every week! Would you tithe consistently? What if you listened to the inner voice leading you to cultivate a Bible Study at school or work or start a blog? These would appear to be simple tasks, until WE are asked to do them. Simple until we realize that we are scared, lazy, insecure and self absorbed. What has Christ been nudging you to do? Are you listening?

In moments of spiritual awakening and great resolute, we promise to do anything for Christ. But when life gets tough, we whine. I know, God's Boot Camp of Faith is hard work, but half-heartedness is NOT an option. There are no sissies in the Kingdom of God. If we are in this for the long haul, we cannot shy away from His hand of training. Our salvation begins with a personal one-on-one relationship with Christ and grows deep through the discipline of a long term commitment.

What would YOU do for HIM? Only you can answer that.


Galatians 5:22-23
From The Message 

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

The Rule

When I was a kid, my brother and I would play a lot of games. Card games mostly, but Monopoly and Sorry were favorites. In every game there are rules. Different games have different rules. Sometimes landing on an opponent’s square will send you back to Home. Other times you have to pay huge rental fees. If you can muddle through four hours of Monopoly and come out a winner, hats off to you for endurance. A person only jumps into that game when they are snowbound. My family used to play Hearts and spent a good deal of time trying to teach me Poker. That game drove me nuts. I could never remember which set of cards beat which…even with a cheat sheet. Never mind the bidding and raises and calls or trying to bluff. Poker is way too serious for me.

Ever try to play a game with a friend for the first time only to find out that each played by a different set of rules? I found out early on that rules for the same game can be different depending on the part of the country the players came from or if rules have been changed to meet the needs of the family. Those family rules traditionally get passed on to the next generation, and after a few times of that, the game barely resembles the original. A couple of new friends playing an old game with different rules is like walking a social tightrope. Whose rules will win out? Who’s going to concede to learn new rules? Or maybe the rules will be combined and a whole new set of rules will emerge. It didn’t matter. Friends just having a good time were never really serious about rules or who won.  Well, my brother was, but that’s my brother. He was a stickler for the rules.

Rules are boundaries. They are like fences keeping things in as well as out. They can be comforting on some level because you know the rules apply to everyone and you can do almost anything you want INSIDE the precincts of those boundaries. There is a sense of freedom and security inside a cage of rules, depending on the size of the cage and if the rules stay the same. However, rules do not encourage faith. They tend to lead the confined into comfortable routines whose only vision is to protect all the rules.

When we encourage ourselves and others to step out of the proverbial box of rules we can become what God intended and where Abundance waits. However, on the other side of the Wall of Rules is also the unknown. Risk may ask us to make adjustments in our thinking or change our lifestyle. Study, commitment and emotions may become involved. Our old ideals might be replaced with new ones.

Could it be that is why God gave us only ONE rule to remember? One rule isn’t a boundary; it’s the central idea. The open ended one rule “love your neighbor” encourages our imagination and faith. The rules of the Old Testament were about what NOT to do. The one rule of the New Testament is about what TO DO. Without a formal list to help us keep track, we are free to discover on our own what we CAN do to comply. If we are listening, the Lord will reveal to us new ways to spread the Gospel, help the needy, and make new friends. We might even become less serious about ourselves and have fun in the free fall.


Luke 10:27-28 

..."That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself."  "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live."

The List of SIX

"Make a list of SIX things to do today. Just SIX. Pick out the SIX most important things you have to get done."  While I was a Mary Kay Cosmetics consultant I heard that phrase, or variations of it, over and over again. The founder, Mary Kay Ash, was a highly respected, world-renowned businesswoman, as well as a wonderful Christian example.  She discovered that if you chose just SIX things a day to get accomplished you could get so much more done in the overall picture of things. Slow and steady.

A list of SIX things to do is not an overwhelming list, just large enough to help budget time. Mary Kay recognized that getting things done was important but finishing the list was not the priority. Writing down the main SIX things gave focus but still left some breathing room for busy ladies who would no doubt encounter unforeseen interruptions. Life is that way. We make plans and they get way-laid. She saw interruptions in the plan as life opportunities. She keenly recognized opportunities for business as well as for people everywhere she went. She was a lady of action and always wondered what SHE could do to make things better. She made herself available to the solution. She was a woman that used her time wisely but knew that the list of SIX took a back seat to engaging the opportunity.

Sure, we can make our lists but we should always be open to explore the endless opportunities disguised as interruptions. They are there for a reason.

Ephesians 5:15

So be very careful how you live. Live wisely, not like fools. I mean that you should use every opportunity you have for doing good, because these are evil times. So don’t be foolish with your lives, but learn what the Lord wants you to do.  (Easy-To-Read version)