Author: Paul Silcock

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My Free Time Got Fried!

Why is it that when time is freed up from one thing, it is so easily filled by something else?

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When you get a break from a regular task or project that gives you all kinds of freedom to work on something else. But what invariably happens is other things and people come along, take bits of that freed up time and leave you with nothing.

I’m not sure anyone else experiences this phenomenon but it happens to me every time I get a break from preaching.

The last two weeks I haven’t had to speak on Sunday which freed up a large amount of time I would spend studying and writing sermons.

That freedom was welcomed because I have some extra events around Christmas, some planning for early in the new year and a sermon to have ready a couple of days after Christmas.

So, though I did not have to preach, I had lots I needed to work on – the freed up time was something I needed.

However, now that I’m at the end of those two weeks, I didn’t get done nearly what I needed to and the hopes of having an easy, no pressure, leisurely Christmas is kind of out the window right now.

There are a few reasons why this happens to me, and I can pretty much predict it to happen every time I get a break from sermon prep.

First, I feel a little freer than normal. Without that thought in the back of my mind of needing to have a message ready for next Sunday, I kind of let my guard down.

I don’t protect my time as much as I do when I have to write a sermon. I will chat with people longer, and be open to making appointments at times I never would if I was working on a message for Sunday.

Secondly, I find that I am less focussed. I might be working on something but then become aware of something else that needs my attention. I will drop what I was working on and start plugging away on this new interest.

I’ll know that I shouldn’t be spending the time on this new project, but my lack of focus keeps me drifting from one thing that catches my fancy to something else.

Thirdly, I find I’m just not as motivated as when I have a sermon to produce. There is something about having the pressure of a deadline that keeps you moving in that direction. But when the pressure is gone, sometimes the motivation is missing too.

What it all comes down to is discipline. When I let my guard down, or am less focussed, or not very motivated, what it really means is I have not disciplined myself to use my time in the best possible way.

Man, next week is going to be busy!

Here’s the thing: When you get out of routine with God, whether that is attending church, spending time with Him alone, serving Him in some capacity, or learning more about Him by yourself or with others, what you find is that time gets used up by other things. If you don’t discipline yourself with God, you will find that you let your guard down to other things, you are less focussed on Him and you lack motivation for God. Stay disciplined.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What gets in the way of your routine with God? Leave your comment below.

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Bring On Christmas!

Well, our house is finally decorated for Christmas. It has been about a two week process. We’ve lived in a Christmas construction zone in that time, with boxes and decorations lying in wait to be placed where they need to be.

Christmas Decorations

It’s not just the living room that needs to be decorated, our family room gets almost as much glitter and lights as the upstairs.

For me, I’m glad that it’s all finished now because the in-between stage looks so unfinished and I really don’t like the clutter.

For two weeks I haven’t been able to walk around our pool table and if I need to get in a few more steps for the day, I need that space to pace around in.

But now everything is in place where it should be and the Christmas work site has now turned into a beautiful scene of lights, ornaments and ribbon. Lily’s happy with it and that makes me happy.

Not that I really contributed to the putting up of all the decorations – she has an idea of what she wants to do and I’d probably mess things up if I got involved … at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself of.

Sunday afternoon I sat down on the couch and ended up taking a well-deserved nap. When I awoke, Lily had just finished that last touches on the decorations. I figured I woke up just in time.

She asked what I thought and I said it all looked great. I think she was looking for something more, maybe something more flowery or possibly a “I’ll help take it all down”, but the best I could offer at the time was “great job, dear”.

Hey, I was still waking up.

It’s not like I don’t do anything to contribute to the Christmassy look around our house. I put up the lights outside … and Lil doesn’t help me with them.

I have to risk life and limb going up on a ladder to string the lights along the garage eavestrough and then use an extension ladder to secure the lights along the peak of our roofline.

I don’t see her needing a ladder to put her newly spray-painted star on top of the tree … well maybe a step stool.

I was able to get all my decorating done in one afternoon and not the two weeks that we have had to wade through the junk.

But it’s all good now. We are ready for this season we call Christmas.

The decorations are just a mood-setter for what the season is all about. I think the trimmings trigger memories and alter our mood to usher in a most special time of year where we celebrate the birth of Jesus, God’s Son, who came to restore us to God.

Here’s the thing:  Like decorating for Christmas moves us into experiencing the season with a greater depth of feeling, taking time in the next couple of weeks to focus your attention on Jesus and His birth will move you to cherish Him more. The thing is, like putting up the decorations takes effort, take effort to spend some time in God’s Word around the miracle of the Messiah’s birth.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How much effort goes into preparing for your Christmas? Leave your comment below.

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From Bad News To Work Out Room

I wrote earlier this fall about some bad news I got from my doctor. I had had a blood test, waited about three weeks, and thought I was in the clear, only to have my doctor pull me aside one day and tell me my cholesterol was high.

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I cringed, of course, but I kind of knew it – I had been pretty liberal with my snacking in the last while.

Since then I started to change my eating patterns. I wrote about this in a September blog called, “Difficult Choice” (your can read it here).

In that time, I’ve lost about 10 or so pounds. I say “or so” because on a given day I can go up or down as much as three and a half pounds.

It’s kind of crazy – I’m not sure if it’s my scale that’s lying to me or whether the pizza I had the other night really did put 3 pounds on me!

The thing is, I’ve been doing this for about three months and I think I’ve kind of hit a wall. I don’t seem to be able to get past the 10 or so pounds and go lower to reach my goal.

It’s time to start phase two of my plan. However, phase two requires Lily’s help.

No, I’m not asking her to make certain foods for me, or spot me when I lift weights, I need her to agree to let me purchase a rowing machine. I’ve wanted one for two years now since I took a  cardiac rehab course.

At the clinic they had a rowing machine and I really got hooked on that piece of equipment.  However, they are not cheap. I’ve wanted one but no one has sprung the cash to get me one for my birthday or anything.

Well that is until now. Somehow, without any real arm-twisting on my part, Lil thought we could make it a Christmas present to each other.

It’s really going to cut down on gift wrap this year, and Christmas morning we’re not going to have much to open because we ordered it and it’s already arrived!

My son had been telling people for ages that he no longer had a bedroom at our house, that we had turned it into a workout room. But all I had previously done was stick a weightlifting bench in the middle of all his stuff.

Now Mike has a real case for telling people he has no bedroom at home. I’ve taken his old room, cleared out most of the debris, set up my mountain bike on a trainer, put a weight bench in the room … and now have a brand new rowing machine as well!

My new gym room is nicer than many hotel workout rooms. And I’m counting on it to help me get past the 10 pound barrier and on to my goal.

Here’s the thing: To ensure I stay physically healthy, I’ve had to take some significant measures. What I was doing wasn’t getting me to where I needed to be. Your spiritual life is the same. You can’t just keep the same devotional time with God that you began with. To get where God wants you to be, you need to take measures to make your time with God more impacting on your life. You have to up your commitment level to spiritual growth.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you started that you realize you need to up your commitment level to? Leave your comment below.

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Hold That Thought

What do you do when you get a brainwave while you’re doing something else? By the time you can get back to that brilliant idea, it’s gone . . . long gone!

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I’ve had that happen to me more than I can remember . . .  See? Even the concept of it has been wiped from my memory.

More than once I’ve been sleeping, only to be woken by a thought regarding the sermon I’m working on.

For some people having a thought in the middle of sleep is more like an hallucination. The thought is wild and fanciful and usually the result of eating bad pizza late at night.

For me it’s usually really insightful. Many times I’ve said to myself in my half dazed state, “I have to remember this”, but by the time morning comes, I’ve forgotten it.

This has also happened to me during the day when I’m awake and doing something – like, for instance, today, this morning, just fifteen minutes ago!

I was starting this blog, wondering what I would write about, when I got this great thought that pertained to my daughter, something that I felt she needed to know for a particular issue she was dealing with.

The idea was good and I really wanted to move on it. I wanted to stop the blog and immediately call my daughter. But I was torn because I wanted to complete writing my blog and not get out of that writing mode I was in.

So this is what I’ve learned to do: I write my great idea down so that I won’t forget it, and so that I can schedule a time to act on it.

When this happens in the middle of the night, I have my phone by my bed. I will quickly type a memo to myself and then go back to sleep.

Sometimes I’m too tired to write so I use the voice recognition in the app. I just record my thought and the app types what I say. Then I can refer back to it when I am actually awake.

This morning I really had to fight the urge to put my blog down and contact Karlie right away. In this case I used an app on my computer called Nozbe. It is a sophisticated to-do list manager that I keep open all the time.

Once my idea is written down, it’s saved for me to get back to when I have the time, or when I decide to schedule following up on it.

It’s a great solution to not let those good ideas get away on you.

This morning I’m calling Karlie right after I finish this blog.

Here’s the thing:  God may prompt you of a sin or instruction in the midst of a conversation or at a time you’re doing something completely unrelated. Instead of forgetting all about it, simply note it in a silent prayer to God, right then and there. Ask for forgiveness, or guidance, or help. You don’t have to use proper sentences or proper English (Brits say we never use proper English!). Acknowledge you’ve heard God right away; you will be able to follow it up later.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Have you forgotten great ideas that came to you in the middle of the night? Leave your comment below.

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Perfect In The Moment

Have you ever been perfect? I don’t mean getting a perfect score on an exam – you just have to study hard to know the answers. I mean, have you ever done something perfectly?

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Maybe you assembled a BBQ and there were no extra parts left over. You marvelled over your feat … but that doesn’t really count if you had the instructions in front of you.

To be perfect in that, you would have to put the BBQ together with all the parts in the right place and nothing left over, WITHOUT using the instructions.

Now that would be perfect. It would also be impossible.

Being perfect is actually doing the impossible.  We are not perfect people; we all have some flaw … some more than others. But perfect we are not.

So when you find yourself being perfect, it does cause you to pause and cherish the moment, because it probably won’t ever happen again.

I’m telling you this because I was perfect a couple of weeks ago. It was just for a moment; it was over in a flash.

I didn’t even realize I was perfect until three days after my great accomplishment. In fact, I was already not perfect again by the time I found out I was perfect.

Have I got you hypnotized yet? Well let me tell you how it all happened.

I’m in a football pool. It’s not a high stakes, money laundering, loan sharking, football pool. It’s just for fun. No money at stake, the winner just gets the satisfaction of winning.

All we do is pick the winning teams from about 13 different football games each week. Oh ya, and they’re from three different leagues: US college games, NFL games and CFL games.

This pool has been going for the past nine years. And in the words of the league secretary, “… never before – not once – in our history has a franchise owner had a perfect weekend during the regular season. We’ve had 1 loss and plenty of 2 loss weekends, but NEVER HAS ANYONE HAD A PERFECT WEEKEND” (emphasis mine).

That’s right, I was perfect that weekend! I picked all the winners that week. And I did this with no manual, no insider information, not even a secret formula.

It was all pure luck – I mean, perfection.

I have to tell you, I felt pretty special for about 30 seconds after I read the announcement in my email. But I was alone at the time so I just got back to working on my sermon or something.

But as perfect as I was for that brief moment, my son was able to bring me down with a few words: “Dad you should have bought a sports lottery ticket. With those picks you would have won a lot of money.”

So what if I could have made millions, well, maybe thousands? What’s really important is I was perfect for that moment. No one can take it from me, and it probably won’t happen again.

Here’s the thing: Those times when you encounter God in a truly special way, in a way that only He can bring about, cherish those moments. Remember them. You’ll be able to find encouragement in them when you’ve lost your motivation. Those moments will give you strength to continue in times of difficulty. Supernatural times when God is so close and personal may not come every day, but they will always be crystal clear in your mind.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What encounter have you had with God that you will never forget? Leave your comment below.

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“Have To” Versus “Want To”

Have you ever noticed that when you have something you have to do, or are supposed to do, there are other things that you really want to do instead?

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The desire to do that other thing is strong then, but when you have free time to do it, you don’t feel the same desire.

There is a project I have been wanting to get to for a number of weeks now. It’s on my mind from time to time. It involves re-familiarizing myself with a database program and trying to add some new features to it.

I want to get to it but there are other things I feel I have to do first. So it’s been shelved. I keep looking for an opportunity to work on the program, but I haven’t found one for the better part of this month.

I’ve been very busy, but still there have been occasions when I have been free to spend a few minutes or hours on it. The thing is, I haven’t spend time on it, opting to spend that free time on something else.

But when I have to do a task I don’t particularly want to do, or when I’m working on some kind of deadline, that’s when the urge to work on this database project really comes on strong.

It’s that old, “If you can’t have it, you want it more” feeling. It’s the grown-up version of the childhood, “I want what you’ve got”.

You know the story:  a child has his toys strewn around his room when another child comes in to play. The first child is happily playing with one of his toys, but when the second child picks up a different toy, the first child all of a sudden wants to play with THAT toy … and a tug of war begins!

As an adult, I don’t have a tug of war with another person. I just have a tug of war with my own emotions. I know I need to meet my deadline, but I feel cheated that I can’t work on the project that’s been on the shelf for a few weeks now.

I feel frustrated that I can’t do what I want to do. Instead, I’m forced to do what I’m pressured to do. I feel it’s unfair that my time and energy is demanded by one thing when I would rather spend my time and energy on something else.

I feel like, “Poor me, having to do something I DON’T want to do, and never getting to do what I WANT to do.”

Temptation to not be disciplined is strong. My brain screams out, “Just work on your project! You want to; you deserve to; just do it!”

So I debate the pros and cons of not sticking with the work I need to get done. Then I see that there’s not an isolated outcome, but that my decision now to not do my work will cause a series of outcomes that will make things worse in the long run.

In the end, I get down to work . . . I’ll get to that database sometime.

Here’s the thing: When you have something to do for God, whether it’s serving, spending time with Him, attending, you can get the urge to do something else – maybe something really worthwhile. Think past the immediate feelings and temptation to the long-range outcomes if you don’t stick with God. Let the weight of those outcomes convince you to stay the course.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What project do you keep putting off because of other commitments? Leave your comment below

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How Blocked Shots Prevent Success

I went to a hockey game last night – it was an OHL game between the Kingston Frontenacs and the Owen Sound Attack.

New Jersey Devils v Philadelphia Flyers

You might think by their name that the team from Owen Sound was on the attack all night. But the opposite was true. Kingston had double the shots on goal and the play was decidedly in the Owen Sound end. It was like Kingston was on the attack for much of the night.

However, in the end Kingston lost in overtime. The Fronts outplayed the Attack and outshot them too, but they couldn’t outscore them … and in the end, that’s what counts.

The difference seemed to be all in the Owen Sound zone. They were on the defence for sure, but what they did on defence was pretty remarkable.

They blocked shots like a mother hen protecting her babies from the attack of a wolf. The Owen Sound players not only got their sticks in the way, but their legs and bodies too. I’m sure that Kingston might have had double the shots if it hadn’t have been for the Owen Sound defenders.

It must have been frustrating for our boys. They would come down and make a nice rush only to have a shot go off a player’s left shin pad and miss the net entirely.

I’ve preached sermons like that where I thought I had a great message. I was all excited about giving it. I had great illustrations, my points flowed together beautifully. But in the end, I felt like the congregation left with a shrug of their shoulders.

There was something missing, something that was preventing the message from getting through to the people and I didn’t know what it was.

It took me a few weeks, but I figured it out. There was something blocking the Holy Spirit from penetrating the hearts of the people in church. They were just getting my words, but no power that comes from the Holy Spirit.

My words weren’t making it through to the hearts of the congregation.

In the game last night, it was easy to tell that the Fronts needed to get more clean shots on the goalie. But that is something that will take some time to perfect. They will have to do drills and practice moving the puck around to get an open player a clean shot.

In the case of my sermon, it is just a matter of prayer, and continual prayer, for God to remove blockages and distractions so that the Holy Spirit’s power can work in hearts.

Here’s the thing: There may be times when you hear a sermon, or spend time with God and nothing seems to be getting through. It’s dull, routine, boring, and you may even be distracted.  That’s a good time to pray for God to remove Satan’s blockage so that the Holy Spirit can work in you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When have you felt that your good work has come up against a blockage? Leave your comments below.

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Embarrassment Can Last Forever

I’m sure everyone, at some point, has wanted to kick themselves for something they did or said.  For many of us, this happens rather frequently … too frequently for my liking.

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I remember entering a Sunday School class when I was in my teens and making a snide remark about the teacher, thinking he wasn’t there yet … only to hear the teacher respond. At that moment, I wanted to take my words back.

As I recall, I didn’t remain in the class for the whole lesson that Sunday.

Then there was the time I was with a bunch of friends on a bus and I saw a man burning leaves on his front lawn. I yelled some comment out to the man which, in the moment, I thought was quite witty.

But all my friends thought it was lame – I mean really lame! I was pretty embarrassed at that moment, and every once in a while, even 40 years later, I still feel like kicking myself for making that comment.

The times we stick our foot in our mouth – or do something so dumb that the actors of “Dumb and Dumber 2” would be embarrassed for us – stay with us and its hard to forget them.

But the worst are the times we say or do things that hurt someone else. Those are the worst because it’s about more than just being mortified or humiliated; you’ve caused someone pain as a result.

By the time you’re in your 50’s, you’d think those days would be over. When the person is a loved one, like a daughter, you’d think this couldn’t happen.

But it did happen with me the other day. I was in a meeting … a prayer meeting. Four of us had grouped together and shared some personal things we wanted prayer for.

I was just about to pray for my daughter Karlie – in fact, the first few words had come out of my mouth – when my phone started to ring.

I know, you’re supposed to turn your phone off in the movies, services and prayer meetings. Well I hadn’t, and my ringer is a funky piano tune.

I panicked and went for my phone, quickly swiping my finger across the screen and answering it.

Of course being in a prayer meeting I couldn’t talk loudly, so I quietly said, “Hang on; I’m in a meeting,” as I moved to an exit.

That’s right, I left praying for my daughter to answer a phone call!

I was kicking myself all the way to the exit. And I’ve been kicking myself ever since!

How could someone do that? How could I do that? What message did I send my daughter in that moment?

I know this is one of those moments that I will cringe about every time I think of it … for years! You can’t take your actions back; you can’t undo what’s been done.

All I could do is say, “I’m sorry, Karlie. I panicked and did the wrong thing. Will you forgive me?”

Here’s the thing:  When we sin, that memory can linger with us and Satan can use it against us to discourage us, to make us too embarrassed to go to God with it. But the best thing, the only thing we should do, is confess our sin to God and move on from there. You can’t take it back. You might not even be able to forget it, but it doesn’t have to keep you from restoring your relationship with God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What’s one of your most embarrassing moments and what did you do about it?  Leave your comment below.

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Why You Need To Start Something Gradually

There are some weird things about how our bodies work.

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You know how you can be fine one day and wake up the next morning and have a pain that wasn’t there the day before? You can’t put your finger on where it came from; it just showed up in your body … like Canada Post delivering the mail – you never know when it’s going to arrive.

But that’s nothing! I once went into the hospital to have an operation on my nose. It had suffered a little hockey damage and needed a tuck here, opening of the passageway there, kind of thing.

Anyway, when I came to after the operation, I had the worst charlie horse in my right thigh that I’ve ever had. I had to check to see if they had taken some tissue from my thigh and strapped it onto my nose.

Fortunately, there wasn’t any noticeable thigh parts in or around the centre of my face. But when I was leaving the hospital I had a little cast on my nose and a major limp in my walk. It wasn’t pleasant.

Then there was this week. I was playing ball hockey at our pastors’ retreat and, though my favourite position is centre in front of the other team’s goalie, I felt I needed to run a little to show my team I wanted to help out.

Near the end of the game I could feel my muscles starting to react to the running. An hour later, I was walking like a 75 year old who rode horses for a living until he was 65!

I was thinking, “It’s not like I haven’t used my legs. I play hockey regularly. I try to walk about 10,000 steps a day. Why all this muscle pain?”

But that was nothing! The next day I was worse – just thinking of having to walk up or down a flight of stairs sent me into a panic attack and looking for someone to piggyback me.

To say my muscles were barking is an understatement. It was like every muscle from my waist down was in agony; even the muscles in my feet were yelping. And getting up after sitting for a while threw all of them into creating a symphony of pain.

The pain was there the next day too, and even three days later I was avoiding all stairs if I could help it.

How could a little running up and down a gym floor generate all the pain that it did? It just didn’t make sense to me.

Well, it’s called lactic acid build up. I needed it to help me exercise but I produced too much and it couldn’t all be burned off. I had acidosis. It sounds like a contagious disease – I felt like quarantining myself to flat surfaces only.

The preventive measure is to ease into exercise, pace yourself, and do a cool down. Other things that help are water, diet and sleep.

… Lot of help that does me knowing that after the fact!

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we get energized to develop our devotional life with God, and so we go hard at it with big plans and commitments. What happens then is we get a dose of spiritual acidosis and we then back right off. Instead, take it slow, warm up with a short time with God, and build up to longer sessions of spiritual exercise.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you recovered when you’ve stopped your time with God? Leave your comment below.

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What Fall And Taxes Have In Common

Well, it’s late fall and you know what that means . . . winter is coming soon. Well, for most people that’s what it means. For me, it means running around and gathering information to send to Revenue Canada.

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It seems that every year or so at this time I’m politely asked to explain some of the deductions on my income tax.

I know it’s kind of late in the year. I submitted my tax return in March, received my notice of return back in April, and now in November I get a letter saying “wait a minute, we’d like to see some documentation to support your claim”.

I’ve had my refund for months. It’s pretty much been dispersed by now to savings, vacation and my children’s support fund.

That’s right, my kids are in their twenties but it doesn’t mean I’m not still doling out cash to them when needed.

Anyway, the revenue department usually wants to see my charitable receipts. They want to make sure I have receipts to back up my claim.

Coming up with receipts is not the problem, but because I claim receipts for previous years, I have to send them all the receipts I’m claiming and have claimed in those previous years. It is an aggravation I could really do without!

But this year is different. They want proof that I still have a son in university to claim his tuition.  Though he’s taking his sweet time finishing his degree, I don’t think 23 is an unlikely age for a son to still be wandering down the hallowed halls of higher education.

It’s an easy response – just one form to send in and I have it all ready to go. It’s the other request that bugs me: they want me to prove my claim for travel.

At one time a pastor would live beside the church and only have to walk next door. For that matter, his whole parish might be within walking distance and he wouldn’t have to drive his car very much.

But we live in the 21st century. I have appointments, meetings, visits, conferences, things to pick up, all that take place around the city and beyond … of course I use my car for work!

But the problem is they want all the receipts categorized, all my kilometres driven, and those that were driven for work, including the purpose of the mileage.

I have all that info, but it’s a pain to have to organize it all the way they want it.

Sometimes I wonder why they go after me so often. Every single time I’ve given them the documentation they asked for and it’s satisfied them.

But I have to remember it’s not some six foot, 250 pound, middle-aged man with dark grey hair and thick curly eyebrows stewing over my tax form. It’s some mainframe computer without a brain that spits out requests based on the number of 7’s or something I used in my tax return.

Next year I’m rounding everything up or down to eliminate those 7’s!

Here’s the thing: Occasionally, I don’t want to take the time to spend time with God because other things are pressing, or I’m in a hurry. Time with God then feels like an inconvenience – like having to send documents to Revenue Canada. If I keep delaying that I will be penalized. And if I make excuses for not spending time with God, I will miss out on what He has for me that day.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What gets in your way of spending time with God? Leave your comment below.