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It’s Time to Look Ahead To Next Year

It’s that time once again to start looking ahead to what the next year will bring. And what it will bring is much more of what happened this year!

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Now if that doesn’t sound all that appealing, then maybe it’s time to set some goals for 2015.

“Goals” – that’s a nasty word, isn’t it? Setting goals is often like setting oneself up to fail. Goals take thought, planning and following through. There’s a lot of work that goes into setting goals.

They’re not like scoring a goal in hockey. Those goals come suddenly, sometimes with no planning and not much effort. Sometimes you can score a goal just by being in the right place at the right time (with your stick on the ice, of course).

But setting goals – whether they are personal, career or family oriented – doesn’t come all that easily.

For many years I didn’t really set goals for the new year. As a pastor, the flow of ministry is more in line with a school year, so I make preaching plans from September to August.

I’ve never been one who makes New Year’s resolutions because to me they are nothing more than some good thoughts no one’s going to follow through on. I know I certainly won’t.

But last year I took an online goal setting seminar and set some goals for 2014. Now in December looking back, I accomplished many of them.

It was a positive experience so I’m going through the seminar again this year and am now in the midst of setting some new goals for 2015.

I’d like to say I met and exceeded all the goals I set for this past year but that only happened in my dream yesterday morning.

In reviewing my goals, I now see that two may have been a little unrealistic, and one I just never got down to working on.

That doesn’t mean I failed. I accomplished most of my goals and what I’m really pleased about is that three of them I didn’t start until six months into the year.

But having said that, this year I hope to improve. I think I know some key areas I can focus on to ensure I do.

One area is addressing my limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are beliefs about yourself that hold you back from accomplishing things you would like to do.

These beliefs will keep you from setting some goals you should set, and prevent you from accomplishing or completing some goals that you do set.

A second area that I am going to give more focus to this year is keeping my goals on my radar all year long.

You can set great goals at the beginning of the year, but if you don’t keep reviewing them, you easily forget about those goals you weren’t planning on starting right away.

In my next two blogs I’m going to write about how I’m addressing these two areas of my goal setting so that I have greater results than I did this year.

Here’s the thing: We have this great resource that tells us about God and His will for us called the Bible. However, most of us don’t refer to it very much. We use it more like a manual that you pull out when you need to figure out how to do something. We don’t actually read it. As we approach 2015, let me encourage you to set a goal of reading through God’s Word this year. Pick a reading plan, and commit to reading through God’s great book for you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What’s your biggest blockage to reading through the Bible? 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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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.

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A Hockey Game To Remember

I went to a hockey game with my son the other day and realized just how much genetics and upbringing shape and mould us.

father son hockey

I remember growing up thinking that I was pretty unique, like there was no one identical to me. I was pretty naive back then – maybe suffering from an “I am special” complex that I’m sure annoyed some people … especially my parents and siblings.

But early in my twenties, I began to notice that I wasn’t all that “special” in the way I thought, in what I liked and disliked, in some of my habits, and in my choices.

I also noticed that my parents had lots of traits that I have; they were a lot like me. My first thought was, “They must be special too!”

But you know, just coming out of my teen years when I knew everything, I was quite conscious of the fact that they weren’t all that special … which left me with the realization that maybe I wasn’t all that special either.

Over the years I’ve realized that a part of what I am like is a direct result of being the procreation of Don and Helen. And then, added to that, a large part of who I am is also a result of growing up in an environment with them.

My genetics may determine how I process information, but my upbringing has shaped the angle,  view, or perspective from which I start to process that information.

When you think about it, our heritage – biological and environmental – has a huge part to play in us.

I was thinking about that when my son and I were talking together at the hockey game. He’s about the age now that I was at when I started to realize some of these things.

Our conversation uncovered how the pattern that formed who I am, is the same pattern that has been shaping him.

I understand some of the struggles he’s gone through … I could share similar stories from my days being in my twenties. There were times when we knew what each other was thinking.

We were both comfortable being in a hockey arena and also reflecting on the game and reminiscing about games we’ve played.

From the time he was little we’ve been watching sports together, especially hockey. When he was really little, in some fanciful way, he thought I played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, even though we would watch the first period together on TV … in Edmonton.

He’s developed a love for hockey and many sports probably because it has been part of his environment and was encouraged in our home growing up.

He even learned to share my love for the Toronto Maple Leafs … No, sorry, that’s genetic.

Here’s the thing: The goal of a Christian is to become more like Christ. Part of that is genetics, because we are made in His image. But a large part of that has to do with the environment we live in. If you are going to be transformed more into the likeness of Christ, you need to make sure your environment will produce those kinds of results. That means being around those who are ahead of you in the transformation process, and it will mean developing the habits and thinking of Christ which we find in His word. To become more like Christ, arrange your environment so that you come under that maximum influence of the Son of God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you arranged your environment to come under the influence of Christ? Leave your comment below.