my experiences

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The Years Have Not Changed A Pattern

It’s been over 30 years but nothing has changed … between me and my golf partner. Recently I played golf with him, the one who got me hooked on the game.

When I was in high school he belonged to a private golf course, but would play golf with me at a municipal course close to where we lived.

At first I would hit more bad shots than good ones, but over time it seemed that the good ones stuck with me and I forgot about the bad shots I made.

I think it’s something like giving birth: a mother forgets what the pain was really like so that she is eager to have another child. … Okay, it’s nothing like giving birth, but somehow the good shots I made – as few as they were – kept me coming back for more.

I think I was a slow learner because this friend would give me a lot of tips each time I duffed another shot about 20 yards down the fairway. 

He didn’t do it too much, though, because too many suggestions can really get annoying after a while. … I know because I’ve helped Lily with her golf game. I have to catch myself or she gets a little angry with me.

Over the first few years I started to get better at the game until I was making more good shots than bad ones.  

I would still have some holes where I blew up and shot an eight or something, but it always seemed, by the end of each round, that I had made a really good shot that caused me to think I could do that every time. 

As I got better, I started playing more with my friend and even eventually joined the golf club where he was a member. 

We had a few really great years of golf there before I moved out west to go to school and then work.

In those years that we played together, he would do something interesting. He would club me on almost every shot. 

I don’t mean that he took a golf club and whacked me over the head with it; he just told me what club I should use. 

He did it when I first started learning the game and he never stopped. 

It got so routine that sometimes I would just look at him and he would say, “use a 7 iron”. I would pull it out of my bag without a thought of questioning his suggestion.

He was right about 95% of the time … that’s if I hit the ball well.

That was our pattern. But that was also over 30 years ago. 

When I recently had the chance to play with my old friend again, I noticed something interesting. When I would get to my ball he, like clock work, as if it was automatic, would say, “use a 7 iron” … and I just pulled it out of my bag. 

There were even times when I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him and he would tell me. 

It was like we’d never stopped playing together; he was still helping me play better.

And somehow I had the same effect on him. He had his best round of the year so far.

Here’s the thing: Get in the habit of asking God for help, even with the little things in your day. If you start to include Him more and more in your decisions, and really listen for His response, then years from now when you are making some crucial decision, or even a minor one, God will whisper in your ear which club to pull. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who have you come to count on for help? Leave your comments below.

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A Tick On The Loose

A clock goes tick-tick, in movies a bomb will tick down to detonation, and at times I have been ticked at something or someone. 

But the other day, I came face to face with a plain old tick – that’s right, that little critter that has become feared by even the strongest of men. 

Lily spotted it first and called me over. We both looked at it and determined that, yes, it was a tick. 

It was crawling on the wall behind our stove. How it got there we have no idea. But it was a little unsettling … especially when Lily, who really wanted to kill it fast, lost it behind the stove. 

She went to scoop it up in a paper towel but somehow the slow moving tick evaded her attack. 

These things don’t travel very fast. After we spotted it, and stood looking at it for a few minutes, I took a few pictures of it. We looked it up on the internet and, in all that time, it had not moved more than a few inches, despite the fact that it never stopped crawling. 

When we lost it, we had to move the stove out and look to see if any of the tiny little crumbs that had collected there over the past year of so were moving. 

Lily thoroughly mopped the area and hoped we got it. 

“Hoped?!”, I said. “You mean we don’t even know if we got the little tick or not?” 

He could be crawling around the cottage looking for someone to snack on. 

How it got in we have no idea.

We have three main theories: I could have brought it in on my biking clothes. A couple of days before I had been walking through the woods, scouting out where to make a new trail to bike on. 

I could have brought it in on my clothes when I washed the cottage siding. I was rubbing against a big tall cedar hedge for about a half hour. 

The other option is that it got in when Lily was cleaning the windows.

We don’t really know if any of these theories are right, but what we do know is that every little speck that we see in the cottage we have to stare at. 

We get up close and personal with every crumb to check it out to see whether it is moving or not. 

They say that finding a needle in a hay stack is difficult; well we have that beat – we don’t even know if there is anything in the hay stack after all!

Why couldn’t Lily have just been more careful in squishing that tick? Now we have these bad dreams that a tick is going to crawl on us at night and give us lime disease. 

One major inconvenience for me is that apparently none of my biking clothes can enter the cottage any more. They have to stay outside on the deck. 

Supposedly a tick can live for 2-3 days indoors before it dies. We will just have to wait it out and check ourselves to see if it has found a home.

Here’s the thing: Some people are more afraid of being bitten by a tick than of what they will face at the end of their lives. A tick bite might affect the rest of your life on earth, but not being concerned or taking precautions about your eternity can be eternally devastating. It’s best to be proactive with God, and ensure you have a relationship with Him now.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has a potential life-altering experience changed your outlook on life? Leave your comments below.

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It Was Perfect Timing

Nothing is really perfect, but this week I experienced perfect timing. 

Perfect timing is a moment in time when different things come together with an incredible result. 

You could say it’s perfect timing when you take a picture of a sunset and a seagull flies in front of the setting sun just as you snap the shot. 

You could also say it’s perfect timing when two people see a Volkswagen Beetle and, at the same time, scream “punch buggy!” It doesn’t happen often these days, but there was a time when you could end up with a bruised arm or leg because of those words. 

… If you didn’t understand that last sentence, just ask a child of the 50’s or 60’s about it. 

Perfect timing is a marvel; it’s like you scored a goal, or set a new record. Perfect timing is one of those things that causes you to say, “Hey, did you see that?” 

A story of something that is perfectly timed has to be told. It’s not something you just forget about and move on from. 

No, perfect timing is legend material.

This year at the beginning of spring I knew we needed a new lawn mower. I had a hard time starting it, and it was rusting out … to the point that you could see through a section of the deck to where the blade was spinning. 

I had hoped we could get a little more action out of it, but the next time I used it, the mower was even harder to start. And once I got it going, it seemed really old … like an old dog that needs a little assistance to jump up onto the couch, or an old man who seems to be walking in slow motion. 

This mower just wasn’t cutting it any more.

But since it’s the mower for the cottage, I didn’t want to have to buy a new one. After all, my grass only takes me seven minutes to cut. 

The next time we were there, I tried – for longer than it would have taken me to cut the grass – to get that engine to turn over. I couldn’t get it going at all.

I told Lily that I thought the mower was dead, and that we needed to get another one. I looked on Kjiji but there was nothing. I looked for repair shops that sold used lawnmowers but didn’t turn up any results. 

We were just going to have to be on the lookout. 

About an hour later, Lily and I headed out to do a grocery run. We passed a house where a guy was rolling out a lawnmower to the end of his driveway. 

I said, “Hey Lil, look at that!” and hit the brakes. I turned the car around and pulled into the driveway before the man had even walked back to his house. 

We asked him if it worked well, he replied, “Give it a pull.” It started immediately.

I threw that lawnmower in the back of our SUV and handed him forty bucks – no sense haggling over that price!

I’m sure the only thing the guy was ticked about was that he went to the trouble of making a “for sale” sign to stick on it.

That’s perfect timing!

Here’s the thing: Lil and I had prayed that God would provide an inexpensive replacement for our mower. Within an hour, one guy was marching one out to the end of his driveway. Perfect timing is when you seek God for something and He delivers an answer. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What answer have you received that was perfect timing? Leave your comments below.

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Do I Turn It On Or Leave It Off?

I’m not sure whether I should turn it off or leave it running. For the last month and a half we have had our dehumidifier going round the clock. 

It was getting far too chilly down in the basement – so much so that you really didn’t want to spend any time down there.  

I would go down to exercise, or to get something that I needed, but I really didn’t want to be in the basement for any length of time.

It was just too cold.

The cold was due to the humidity, however, and since we rolled out the dehumidifier, the temperature is just right. 

The only problem now is that the dehumidifier is so loud you don’t want to be in the same room as it. To watch TV you have to have the volume set ridiculously loud.

There are two issues with the noise. First there is a fan that runs all the time, and it’s not quiet. But then there is the hum – yes, a hum. It’s louder than the fan and you can hear it upstairs.

The good thing is that it’s so loud it drowns out any neighbourhood sounds of dogs barking, loud music or motorcycles.

I don’t pretend to know the process of extracting moisture out of the air, but this machine really has to work at it. You can tell it’s no easy matter to make it rain inside that unit.

Don’t get me wrong, though; it does a great job. We regularly have to empty its water collection bucket.

I think it’s time for that Dyson guy to take a crack at dehumidifiers. He’s tackled the vacuum, and he’s made a really cool fan … pun intended. A machine that sucks water out of the air and blows dry air into a room would be a perfect fit for his next project. 

I realize that if Dyson makes one, we would likely have to take out a mortgage on the house to pay for it, but it might be worth it.

I’m either going to go deaf or freeze to death in my basement. Neither of these two options are all that appealing.

It’s not that we haven’t tried to get the thing to shut up. I put a piece of duct tape on the container to stop the vibration. It worked for a while but not all that long. 

Then we wedged a rubbery grip sheet in there. Again there was some success, but nothing seems to last for any length of time.

I would like to figure out other methods to keep the noise of this dehumidifier down to a bearable decibel, but it’s so loud I can hardly think! 

I guess I might have to stay upstairs even when the temperature in the basement has become liveable.

Here’s the thing: There are side effects to every action. For example, if you take a pill to help correct something, there is often some other issue you will have to live with. When you seek God and He gives you a course of action, there will be something else you will have to live with. The temptation is to keep things the same, but if you take God’s direction the benefit will always outweigh the side effect.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you holding off considering because of an unwanted side effect? Leave your comments below.

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Making Judgement Calls

Sticking with your judgement call is not always easy. People will scrutinize your decision – even think a different call should have been made – and then use hindsight to evaluate your call.

It’s not always fun being the one who has to make that final decision, the one with “the buck stops here” responsibility.

Years ago when I was a youth pastor in Edmonton, one Friday afternoon we were experiencing heavy rain, even some flooding. We had a youth activity scheduled for that night, but I had gone home early because a lake was suddenly forming on the street in front of our church and cars were getting stuck.

I needed to make a judgement call on whether we would hold our youth event or cancel it. 

We never canceled meetings, but that day the weather reports were calling for extreme weather. By about 4 pm I made the decision: we would cancel that night’s activity. 

Phone calls went out and the feedback poured in … not much of it was positive.

Sometime after the decision to shut down our event, closer to the time we would have started, the sky changed.

I recall looking out the front window of my home and calling Lily to take a look. It was all calm, silent, even still. But the clouds in the distance were changing at a rapid pace, and were amazing colours of green, grey, almost black, and purple. 

It was mesmerizing; it looked ominous. 

Then, as the clouds came upon us, the wind picked up and was violent. It was loud and relentless. You could sense the tremendous power of the wind. 

But it didn’t last long. The weather calmed down, and it wasn’t bad outside.

I felt guilty for having canceled youth group that night, thinking maybe I had made the wrong call.

That was July 31,1987 – they called it Black Friday. A tornado had touched down and ripped a path through Edmonton’s east side from south to north. It left 27 people dead and 300 injured, in the wake of 417 km/h winds. 

You know, I didn’t get a lot of complaints about canceling that activity after the fact.

This past week we had our church picnic. Our plan was to hold the service and picnic on the lawn at the back of our church.

Early in the morning, the skies were all grey and it looked like it could rain at any moment. The weatherman was forecasting rain.  

Somebody had to make the call. We decided at about 7 am that we would have the service and picnic inside the church. 

We brought in a bunch of decorations to try and give an atmosphere of a picnic indoors. We even created space for people to sit on the carpet for the service, as if it were the lawn outside. 

In the end, the clouds lied. There was no rain in them; it just looked like there was. 

In hindsight we could have held the whole thing outside and kept dry. 

It was a judgement call.

Here’s the thing: When you have to make a decision, the pressure is on to make the right one. Often the pressure comes from inside, from you; sometimes it comes from others as well. It’s easy to question, second guess, even back down from your call. But God has given us the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us. Seek His wisdom in your decisions, find strength in the direction He gives you, and stand firm on your judgement call. 

That’s Life! 

Paul

Question: What judgment call do you need to seek God’s wisdom for? Leave your comments below. 

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Live the Dream or Live the Reality

When it comes to weekends, there is the dream and then there is the reality.

The dream we have for every weekend in the summer is to soak up the sunshine and warmth. You want to be outside in the garden, at the lake, or on the links. You want to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin; you want to be wearing shorts and T-shirts.  

On the weekends, you plan to get out camping, be out on the boat, enjoy dinner on the patio, or a walk by the lake. You want to BBQ with friends and sit outside until the mosquitos drive you insane. 

You want to live as much of the weekend outside as you possibly can. 

That’s the dream; that’s what you want every weekend. But the reality seems to be very different from that.

The reality is clouds, overcast, cool, and rain. I don’t know how it can possibly work out this way but it seems that that pattern is the standard weather for weekends.

You have great hope every week that the next weekend is going to be amazing, but by the time that weekend rolls around, you are looking out your front window changing your plans to doing something inside.

As I’m writing this blog post, the sun is shining as bold and bright as it can possibly be. I can’t see one cloud in the sky from where I’m sitting. 

The temperature is rising and it looks like an amazing weekend day … except for the fact that it’s Monday morning. 

The forecast for the rest of the week looks great as well. 

And by the way, last week we had great weather too, with lots of sun … except for the weekend – it didn’t have any. 

Saturday the cloud cover was about eight miles high. It was dark; it rained; it was cool – not a great day for a weekend. 

Then there was Sunday. It looked like it was going to rain at any moment; the sky was dark, and the clouds kept rolling through. 

It just happened to be the day of our church picnic.

It’s too bad the weather couldn’t have been like today or Friday. We would have had a great picnic outside in the sun and shade.

Instead, we had our church picnic inside. 

We tried to fix it up to look very picnic-like. We even moved some pews back to have some open space at the front of the sanctuary so people could sit on blankets and pretend they were attending the service on the grass. 

We had a few picnic tables in our gym that made it look a little different than a regular church lunch. We had a sun tent set up in our foyer and a couple of beach umbrellas to give an atmosphere of the outdoors.

But from start to finish the church picnic day was all inside. It was going to be all outside, but we didn’t get dream weekend weather. We got reality.

We did, however, create the dream inside the church, and no one went home disappointed.

Here’s the thing: You live out your reality, but God has a dream for you that is far greater than the reality that you are living. Tap into God’s dream for you by asking Him to open your eyes to His dream. Then seek to live it out and make it your reality.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What would you like to change about your reality? Leave your comments below.

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Waking Up Has Never Been Easier

There are some people who have an easy time waking up early … I’m not one of them.  

On Monday we had to catch an early flight out of Toronto. Even with staying overnight at our daughter’s, we still needed to get up early to make it to the airport on time. 

I’m definitely not one who wakes up by my inner clock. Even though I get up at the same time every day, I still need an alarm – otherwise I can keep sleeping.

As a teen, I used to prove that every weekend; I could easily sleep in until 11 or 11:30 am. But I didn’t like how much of the day I wasted so I started setting an alarm.  

I just don’t wake up unless that alarm goes off.

But not Monday. I actually woke up two minutes before my alarm was set to go off and it was set for a half hour before my regular alarm. 

I was amazed! … so amazed that I laid in bed those extra two minutes pondering what had just happened. This was a very rare moment for me and I needed to savour it, for at least two minutes – I think I even took three. 

I had gone to bed late, had to rise early and somehow my body knew when to stir me from my slumber.

If you don’t think that’s pretty amazing, let me tell you I’m the guy who would look forward to 7:30 am T-off times, yet be the one whose buddies would have to throw pebbles at my window to wake me up … while my alarm was going off. 

I also can turn off an alarm clock and never know I did it. I position my alarm so that I have to actually move rather than just flop my arm out of the covers and hit a button.

I’ve been getting up at 6 am for over 20+ years and I still don’t wake up on my own. I need a jolt to my system, that jumpstart to kick my brain in gear.

I need that voice calling me back from the deep.

This morning, however, I did the impossible, proving the impossible is possible. 

… I also fall sleep fast, and then not much will wake me. 

When I worked with youth, I never told them how soundly I slept because I feared they would leave the cabin as soon as I was out. I would try to stay awake as long as I could just to make sure my group was asleep before me.

I know, it’s a tough burden I bare.

But one miracle morning does not constitute a trend. I’ll continue to set an alarm to wake up … I don’t want to end up keeping the boys waiting for me Thursdays at 7 am for our men’s prayer time.

At least they won’t come to my window and throw stones at it until I wake up.

Here’s the thing: Christ is going to return one day. The question for each of us is, “How do we want to wake up to that?” If we only wake up to the blaring alarm, it will be too late to respond. But if we wake up to that inner clock, telling us it’s time to put our faith in Christ, we have time to ponder the amazing grace of God’s love for us and to respond by putting our trust in Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you like to wake up? Leave your comments below.

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How To Get The Right Temperature

Getting the temperature of things just right is not always easy. 

It certainly wasn’t easy for Goldilocks – she had to try porridge that was too hot and too cold before she found the bowl that was just right. 

I feel a little like that. My office at work is located in a corner of the building. At this time of year, as the day progresses and the sun moves around, the temperature in my office increases significantly. 

Without a window air conditioner I might as well be working in a tin box with the sun beating down on it!

In the winter, I also have trouble because the church is heated by hot water radiators – it’s an old system that doesn’t respond very quickly.

I find that I’m either hot or cold; there is no Goldilocks middle ground for me there. 

So I error on the side of being too warm; I just don’t like being cold. 

Lately, as the temperatures have risen, I’ve found that I’m avoiding the basement of my home. 

I’ll go down there to get something, but I won’t hang out in the family room. I have more of a “get what you need and get out” mindset because it’s cold down there. 

Either I’m getting old or this year it seems colder in my basement than in other years. I think it’s due to how damp it is down there; the last couple of weeks have been rather humid. In fact, even when it was not as warm, the air was humid. 

As I walk down the stairs, I can feel the temperature taking a nose dive with every step. 

I hate to say it but it’s a bitter cold. I just don’t want to be down there too long – unless I’m exercising; then my body temperature rises to counteract the frigid air.

We have the air conditioner going but it hasn’t really made any impact on the humidity. 

So the other day I rolled out our dehumidifier. I don’t think we’ve used it for a few years; possibly it wasn’t as humid as this spring has been. 

Anyway, I thought I would see what it could do to make it more inviting in the family room. 

It’s certainly done something! – I’ve been emptying bucket after bucket of water that it’s collected from the air. 

Now when you go downstairs, it’s a similar temperature to upstairs. 

It’s “just right”, as Goldilocks would say. 

There’s only one problem with this solution, however, and it’s that the dehumidifier is so loud that you can’t enjoy being downstairs while it’s on. 

Now I’m once again avoiding the basement, just for a completely different reason. The dehumidifier is too loud to enjoy watching the Stanley Cup playoffs on TV.

I may be in the market for noise cancelling headphones to watch TV in my family room. 

… I can’t seem to get things just right. 

Here’s the thing: Nothing in our lives stays “just right” for very long. Sooner or later something will come along that will change things and they won’t be just right until you make some adjustments. But think about our world … how long has the earth been kept the precise distance from the sun, ensuring we don’t burn up or freeze? Only God can make things just right and keep them that way. Turn to Him when thing aren’t just right and He will help you make the adjustments. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is not “just right” in your life? Will you seek God for His help? Leave your comments below. 

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It Was My Most Difficult Drive Ever

Even though the driving conditions were excellent, last night was one of the most difficult drives I have made.

I’ve driven through snowstorms when all you could see were the big flakes coming right at the windshield. 

I’ve driven in rainstorms that were so heavy and dark that I was thankful when lightning flashed so I could see the lines on the highway.

But a drive like the other night’s ranked up there as one of my all-time most dreaded times behind the wheel.

Ironically, the weather couldn’t have been better. The roads were dry; the sky was so clear the moon and stars lit up the road.

The traffic was light and I was never hindered by trucks or cars from passing slower vehicles. 

What made the trip one of the worst was that I was tired … really tired.

I’d done a lot of driving in the previous two days, and had some late nights. Earlier in the afternoon we’d taken a two hour trip to see Lily’s mother for Mother’s Day.

I never go to bed at 9:30 pm but that night I could have. Instead, we were just starting to make the two hour trek back home.

I’ve had some scary night drives in the past. When I was young and foolish, I fell asleep in a buddy’s car driving back home from out-of-town.

When he woke me up, I thought we were home. He instead said we had a flat tire. I also noticed that my shoulder was a little sore.

I couldn’t get out of my side of the car, but when I climbed out the driver’s side and came around to my side, I noticed we had two flat tires, and racing stripe-like indents all along the body of the car from the steel cable on the guard rail. 

My friend, who was driving, had also fallen asleep. 

Another time in my 20’s, I was driving up to my girlfriend’s cottage late at night after working all day and leading a youth group activity in the evening. 

My girlfriend was tired and said she was just going to close her eyes. I turned up the music but it didn’t help. I woke up when we hit the shoulder. I swerved back onto the road, and eventually stopped the car about twenty feet down in the ditch between the highway.

I sure didn’t want that to happen this time, but I was so tired it could have. I snacked on a few things, changed my position often, and kept shaking my head.

I leaned forward so that my chin was almost on the steering wheel. Lily rubbed my back and pinched my shoulders – anything just to keep me awake.

We talked to our daughter on the phone for about thirty minutes of the trip. It was a good thing because just being involved in that conversation helped to keep me from closing my eyes.  

I was never happier to turn into our driveway. I think I was asleep within minutes of walking into the house.

Here’s the thing: When you are tired, there is a tremendous pull to give in, close your eyes and rest – even when you know that it’s dangerous to give in to that temptation. The urge is so strong, it can be overpowering. The best way to prevent that danger is to not put yourself in the situation at all. … When it comes to sin, the same is true: don’t put yourself in a place where the temptation is too great to resist.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to keep yourself from temptation? Leave your comments below.

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It’s The Little Things That Make It Special

Often it is the little things that make something really special and stand out. 

Yesterday I attended an event at the Hockey Hall Of Fame in Toronto. We took in all the sights and looked at the history making events and people. 

There were even a few former NHLers who attended the event. One was Ron Ellis who not only was a Hall of Fame member but also has his name on the Stanley Cup.

A visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame isn’t complete without visiting the room where the Stanley Cup resides. 

The room itself is amazing. It’s set in an old bank with a high, domed, stained glass ceiling. The room is adorned with the many trophies that are handed out to NHL players for various achievements, as well as glass plates with images of those who have been inducted into the Hall. 

But the key piece, the item that stands out over everything else, is the Stanley Cup. 

I got my picture taken with the cup but I told Lily that I couldn’t touch it so I wouldn’t jinx myself from ever winning it … haha.

But that’s one of the things that make the Stanley Cup the most special of all trophies in sports. 

It’s a magnificent looking trophy, so large you need two hands to hold it. It’s also old, having been first awarded in 1893. 

Those little things are what make it the greatest trophy in sports. 

I joke about not touching the cup, but a Junior hockey player or a current NHLer won’t touch it until they win it. 

The cup has gone around the world, spending a day in the home town of each player who has won the cup that year. 

People have drank from the cup; they have sat babies in the bowl of the cup. The Stanley Cup has been left on the side of the road; it’s been tossed in a river. There was once an attempt to steal the cup. 

It has been touched and held by more people than any other professional trophy. 

And there is no other celebration of victory that centres around a trophy quite like the Stanley Cup.

Some trophies are handed out to the winning team in a press room or locker room. Some are presented on a high stage with all the focus on the owner who created such a great team.

But the Stanley Cup is the focal point of the hockey championship. It is presented to the captain, who skates around the rink and then passes it to his teammates who each get to skate and lift up the trophy. 

The win is all about getting your hands on that cup. Oh ya, and the honour of having your name permanently engraved on it. 

… Now that’s special.  

It’s all those little things that make the Stanley Cup the greatest trophy in sports. 

Here’s the thing: It’s the little things in Christianity that make it special. The big thing is that Jesus died on the cross to pay for all mankind’s sin – that’s a big deal! Other religions leave it up to you to have to work your way to their god. But the God of heaven did all the work for you. That’s big; there is no religion like it. But our God is also very personal. He meets with us, speaks to us through the Bible, helps and directs us on a daily basis, and lives in each of us by the Holy Spirit. Those are the little things that make being part of God’s family so special. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is one little thing you are thankful to God for? Leave your comments below.