activities

by

How To Transition To A New Season

We’re into October and it’s time for me to transition into the new season. Some of you are thinking, “Great. He’s finally recognizing the leaves are changing and that it’s fall.”

hockeybiking

That might be the transition some people make. They put the fall decorations around the house, get the rake out to bag the leaves, and start thinking of pumpkins and of the colours brown, yellow and orange.

But that’s not the transition to the new season I’m referring to. For me, the transition is going from biking and golf season to hockey season. And with that, I guess you could say, there comes some decorations.

One thing that I have to do is ditch the bike rack, and the clubs from the trunk, put the hockey sticks in my car and make room for my equipment bag.

But not so fast. I’m having a hard time making the transition to the new season. I still want to bike, and there may be a few more rounds of golf left in my clubs.

I have to admit I have some urges to make the transition. Every time I drive past the arena I think, “Boy, it’s time I get those blades out and hit the ice.” But I still am hesitant.

I just don’t want to put my bike away yet. I realize that there are fewer and fewer opportunities to mountain bike. It rains more at this time of year. It gets darker sooner. It’s getting cooler.

Also, making the transition will mean I have to lug my equipment out to the car and back into the house. I’ll have to put up with the annoyance of hearing “That equipment stinks!” from one unnamed person in the house (it doesn’t really smell).

I think what might put me over the edge to make the changeover is going a week without being able to bike, or finding there is not enough light to see the trails.

I know it’s just a matter of time, but I want to ease into it. Maybe I will play hockey once a week just to get my feet wet (or frozen, in this case). I’ll keep biking but I’ll play a little hockey as well.

I’m going to slowly make the transition … like when you go swimming in a lake, and slowly walk out into the deeper water, allowing your body time to adjust to the cooler temperatures. Lake Huron, where we swim, is like that – you can go a long way out before you have to go all the way under.

Once I’m in, it’s all good; I can stay in. I will have made the transition; I won’t be pining away for my bike or golf clubs. And I’ll enjoy the new season … until it’s time to transition again.

Here’s the thing: When God wants to change something in us, we often resist that change. We’re comfortable and don’t want to change. If we focus on the good or the blessings that change will bring – instead of the loss of what we have – we will slowly let God work that new change into our lives and let go of that thing we’re hanging on to.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you found to be a difficult transition to make? Leave your comment below.

by

How Instinct Can Automate Your Life

Instinct is a marvelous thing. It protects us, automates us, and it works fast! The other night we arrived at our cottage at about 9:30 in the evening. At this time of year, that means it’s pitch black dark out.

waiting_spider_web

Before we can turn the lights on in the cottage, we have to turn on the main switch at the power box outside around the back of the cottage. That’s my responsibility. So, I went around back, bent down to flick the switch and put my head in a spider web.

My immediate reaction was probably the same reaction 99% of people have when they do that: I pulled back and started swiping at the web. I did what anyone would do and for three good reasons …

The first reason is the web is sticky and it feels kind of gross. Secondly, we’ve all seen enough scary movies and there are always spider webs in scary movies! And thirdly, there may be a spider attached to that web that is going to start crawling all over you.

In a matter of a nano-second, I reacted for these three reasons and started flailing away. Right about then, Lily came with a flashlight so I could see the next spider web – which I avoided – as I reached to turn on the water to the cottage.

That instinctive reaction not only comes into play with spider webs. Early this summer while riding my bike I rode right into a swarm of tiny little bugs. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and mouth to protect myself from getting an eyeful or mouthful of the tasty little morsels.

It was amazing that I could be riding at about 20 km’s per hour right into the bugs and still get my eyes and mouth shut in time.

Instinct works like a machine. There is no processing time; it’s all reaction that happens in a split second. You don’t have to think, analyze, choose, or decide; it’s automatic.

There are many other things that we do instinctively. When we put something bad tasting in our mouth, it’s automatic that we all make the same face and spit it out. Some of us have better expressions than others, and some spit it out in more appropriate places that others. But instinctively, we all react without even a thought.

There are tons of things we do instinctively that are just built in to our nature. But there are things that we react to because we’ve learned to and it has become automatic.

You don’t think about what to do when you sit in a car, but you do the same thing every time. When you go to shave, you start in the same place every time. There are countless things we’ve learned to be instinctive about.

… Except putting out the garbage! I still have to become instinctive about that.

Here’s the thing: We can become instinctive about many things, and one of those things is prayer. Our instinctive reaction to life should be to pray … and developing such an instinct requires repetition. The more you repeat the same action (prayer) to what happens in your life, the sooner it will become instinctive for you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you learned to be instinctive about? Leave your comment below.

by

The Secret of Optimism

I think optimism is something that every one of us would like to possess. Optimism is a “hopefulness and confidence about the future”. It is being hopeful of a successful outcome.

glass-half-full-640x360

I wrote that definition not because I think some people don’t know the meaning of the word. I wrote it because optimism is such a foreign concept to some, that seeing a definition might stir them to the possibility of experiencing an optimistic thought.

Yes, some people are “glass half empty” folks and others are “glass half full”. It’s how we are wired and for good reason.

I always say that if Lily followed my thinking we’d have lots of fun but we’d be broke, and if we did things Lily’s way, we’d have lots of money but man, life would be sooo dull.

We need both perspectives. We’ve been given one, but we need to appreciate the other.

Regardless of how we are wired, there are times we need to see good in the bad, and find contentment in disappointment.

The other day, I came home from work and, as usual, pressed the button to my garage door opener from the street behind my house, so that when I turned the corner onto my street and reached my driveway, the door was already up.

It’s like I’m driving into the bat cave. If my neighbours looked out the window they would wonder why my garage door goes up when there’s no car in sight, only to then see my bat mobile (I mean, my Hyundai Accent) come bombing around the corner, up the driveway and into the cave.

I bet my associate wishes he had one right now. But that’s not the point of my story. … I got out of my car and with my back to the garage door, I pressed the button for it to go down.

As I fumbled for my keys to open the house door there was a huge bang. I jumped, and almost dropped the keys.

I couldn’t tell if something really big and heavy had dropped or whether the ammonium nitrate in our fertilizer triggered a small explosion (our lawn has been doing well this year).

As I looked around the garage, I noticed that a wire on my garage door was loose. Then I saw that the spring for that door had broken. My immediate reaction was, “No way! This couldn’t happen at a worse time.”

You see, we had just booked a company to come and replace our other garage door for the next day. Now, we would need the second garage door fixed as well.

I just shook my head. But then I thought, “Maybe the timing on this couldn’t have been better. The repair guy is coming tomorrow; he can fix both garage doors in one visit!”

Yes, it did add to our expense, but we didn’t need a whole new door (just the spring assembly).

The great thing was it could have happened the day after the repairman came, or a week or month later. Instead, that door broke just in time to get fixed the very next day.

Here’s the thing: When you experience a glass half empty circumstance, don’t just settle for that perspective. There is greater value in looking for the glass half full perspective in that circumstance. God will always provide something of greater value than what’s on the surface … if we will look for it.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you turned a half empty circumstance into a half full one? Leave your comment below.

by

How a Plan Would Have Improved My Day

Maybe it was the weather that made me lazy, but I sure needed a plan last Saturday. I felt like I accomplished nothing, like I wasted my precious day off, like I frittered away the day.

plan

That doesn’t happen every day to me because most days of the week I make a plan. I have things that I want or need to get done and so I put them on my reminder list or right into my calendar.

Some people can keep it all organized in their heads, but I need to write it down. I like to see it and check it off.

Saturday was different for me; I wasn’t motivated to do anything. Well, I was … I wanted to go for a bike ride but the rain put an end to that dream, and with it any motivation to do anything else.

It was like I was thinking, “If the weather’s not going to let me go biking, I’ll show it. I’ll do nothing instead.” I didn’t actually think that, but in hindsight that was what I was doing.

I spent my day getting lost in the new iOS for my phone and iPad. I’d look at the time every once in a while and shake my head, but then go back to the nothing I was doing.

There were a couple of things I did during the day but they weren’t things I scheduled. They were things that others scheduled for me, and they didn’t give me a sense of accomplishment.

All I really needed to do was to spend about ten minutes writing a few things down and that would have changed the pattern of my whole day. I would have gone from floating through the day to having some kind of purpose.

Having a simple list of things I wanted to work on or complete would have also changed how I felt about my day. I would have progressed through it instead of being annoyed at how the time was advancing.

I can’t figure out why I would keep doing something – in this case nothing – that I didn’t like doing and not do something about it. (I hope I didn’t hypnotize you with that sentence!)

But that’s what lack of planning does – it keeps one stuck in the past/present while time is still moving. It’s like for me, time was standing still, but in reality time was passing me by.

I could say that I was tired and I needed a day of nothing, but why, at the end of the day, didn’t I feel good about the nothing I did? No, even planning one or two things would have brought me fulfillment.

Here’s the thing: If you’re not planning God into your day, either connecting, growing or serving Him, you will float along in your relationship, stuck in the past/present with Him. Time will keep moving while your relationship will be standing still. Simply thinking of how to include Him in your day is all you need to improve your day.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has planning made a difference in your life? Leave your comment below.

by

Four Reasons To Stay Focussed

Bad things can happen when you don’t stay focussed. I learned that lesson (again) the other day while biking in the woods. Mountain biking is a little different than road biking.

Andras-Parti-falls-mountain-bike

On the road you just stare at the pavement in front of you, maybe a white line as well.  But when you are biking on a trail amongst the trees, there are all kinds of obstacles you have to watch out for.

You have to focus on what’s ahead of you, like that rock (whoa), or that root, log or (yikes) that cliff! If you’re not paying attention you’re going to crash. If you lose your focus for a moment – even on a trail you know by heart – you could be in trouble.

I found myself in that place the other day. I was biking on a trail I’ve been on at least a hundred times. It was near the end of my ride and getting dusk so I turned on a light to shine on the path ahead of me.

I was going down a steep hill, which I like to take fast at the top and then slow down near the bottom because of the obstacle that’s there. At the bottom of the hill the path also makes a 90º left turn.

That’s not that big a deal, but to make that 90º turn you have to go over a huge log that lays across the path. If your front tire hits the log at the wrong angle, you fly over your handle bars. If you’re going too fast, you’ll miss the turn and smash into a tree.

You have to focus, start slowing down near the bottom, hit the log on the right angle, get off your seat, get your weight over your back tire, (oh ya) AND turn left.

I was doing everything right as I approached the log. I barely have to think about it, but I do need to focus on what I’m doing.

I’m not exactly sure what my light reflected off of, but out of the corner of my eye I saw something. And instead of staying focussed on what was ahead of me as my tire hit the log, I turned my head slightly to see what caught my eye.

About three seconds later I was six feet from my bike, picking myself up off the ground!

What had happened was I had stopped focussing on what I was doing. In other words, I lost sight of my goal (literally); my eye was not on my target. That’s the first reason not to lose focus.

Next, I lost my balance. Going downhill, having to turn and go over a log was impossible without staying focussed on the path. I could NOT navigate the course without focussing.

Then I fell. In my case, I bailed in mid air. I knew it wasn’t going to end well and I figured I’d do better if I wasn’t attached to my bike. … When we lose focus, we fail.

Then lastly, I hurt myself. I really banged up my shin (the same shin I had hurt one week earlier). I will heal but I’ll be sore for a bit and carry a scar for a while.

I just hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow so I can get out there and try it again!

Here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter whether it’s biking or the Christian life. If you lose your focus, you’ll lose sight of your goal of living for God, then you’ll lose your balance, making mistakes which will cause you to fall, or sin, that will leave you and/or others hurt and with scars … Four good reasons to stay focussed on your Christian life.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When have you lost your focus and witnessed these four things? Leave your comment below.

by

What Everyone Ought To Know About Maintenance

The word “maintenance” has a tag-along emotion for me . . . it’s called frustration.

I get frustrated with maintenance because I want to enjoy the thing that needs to be maintained; I don’t want to work on it.

Bike Maintenance

Bike Maintenance

I want to use something and not have to care for it or fix it. In the 80’s I didn’t want a PC because you needed to know DOS and a series of commands and what pressing the “Ctrl+Alt+Del” keys did. I just wanted to use a computer, not figure out how it worked.

I like to ride my bike; I don’t like cleaning it. I want to just pull the cord on my lawnmower and start cutting the grass. I don’t like having to scrape the grass off the undercarriage or keep it tuned.

The problem is, in the last week, my avoidance with maintenance has accentuated my frustration. I broke the chain on my bike, probably because I didn’t clean the gritty oil off it.

My lawnmower is having a hard time starting these days and it’s not cutting evenly because it needs a tune up and a wheel adjustment.

And my computer needs some file maintenance soon or I will run out of space on my hard drive.

This was all fresh in my mind when I watched a little 3 minute video on how to clean your bike after a ride so it’s ready for your next ride. The guy on the video said you could do it in five minutes, but somehow (through the magic of video, I guess) he showed us in three.

I’m almost convinced that I need a new attitude toward maintenance, but for that to happen I really need a new emotion to go with the word. I’ve been thinking of some emotions that I could associate with maintenance – emotions like affection, confidence and satisfaction … but I can’t seem to trick myself and instead I feel annoyance, contempt and suffering.

Some people love maintenance, maybe even more that using the item. But not me. I know my things would last longer if I had a warm, fuzzy attachment to the word but it’s just not that easy. I can’t turn a switch on and like it.

I thought of a couple of solutions. I could give away my stuff when it needs some maintenance, and just bless people with things that sort of work. But that would require me needing a lot of money to replace my items.

Also, I could farm the maintenance out to people who like doing it. But that too would be costly and I would be without my beloved whatever, while it was being serviced.

There doesn’t seem to be an easy solution for me that works. I might have to do maintenance even though I don’t like it, even though it frustrates me. I might have to just discipline myself in spite of the piggy-backed emotion that comes with the word.

Here’s the thing: Relationships, like with things we own, require maintenance. We might like the idea of just enjoying our relationship with God but to maintain that relationship, we need to connect with Him, grow in Him and serve Him. That kind of maintenance might seem like work that we might not want to put our energy into, but maintaining our relationship with God will require us to discipline ourselves in order to connect, grow and serve.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How disciplined are you at maintaining your relationship with God?  Leave your comment below.

by

So . . . I’m Easily Distracted

Writing a sermon is a curious thing. I’ve been writing them weekly for over 17 years now and I still haven’t found a formula that makes the process easy and predicable. There are parts that I have systematized, but the actual sit down and write part, it’s like a new adventure every week.

distracted guy

Let me give you a little insight into my week. I’m pretty regimented early in the week because I know if I’m not ready to write by Thursday, the end of the week will be a disaster.  And we don’t like disasters, do we?

When I first started to preach, I worried about staying up all night Saturday to get ready for Sunday morning. That fear was real because every paper I ever wrote from high school until the day I graduated with my degree, involved burning the midnight oil.

The day after a paper was due I was a zombie. I needed coffee bad – except I didn’t drink coffee, so I’d substitute Super Big Gulps to get me through.

There was no way I would be able to sustain a weekly routine like that for very long. So I decided I needed to have a routine for preparing messages: I start on Monday and do a little work each day.

But I don’t start writing until Thursday or Friday and that’s when all the scheduling, routine, and systematizing goes out the window. It’s new every week. There are distractions, interruptions, unexpected issues to deal with.

But probably the worst issue of all is me. I need to be mentally and emotionally ready to write my sermon. And if I’m not, oh baby, it’s going to be a long day.

That’s what it was like this week. I had a great Thursday, finished my outline, even wrote the introduction to my message. But Friday … I just couldn’t get my mind to settle down. I might have ADD – but in my day the medication for that was a slap on the back side of the head and a scolding of “PAY ATTENTION!”

So Friday I was on my own with no chemicals or synthetics to bring my mind into sync with my sermon. My mind even had the added bonus of a few interruptions to my day that lured it to wander in unnecessary directions long after the interruptions ceased.

By the afternoon, everything and anything was a distraction. The lint that glistened in the light streaming through my window caught my attention for a while. I read an email that lead me to a website which led me to watch a video debate on science versus creation.

My message is not on creation this week. It was interesting, but I couldn’t even extract an illustration to work into my sermon. I was so distracted that I forgot I had brought a lunch to work, so I went out and bought my noon meal, only to come back and see my lunch sitting on a table in my office!

It came in handy because I worked so late I ate that forgotten lunch for dinner and kept working.

Here’s the thing: You may not get distracted like me, but every one of us runs into distractions of some kind. When we get distracted from serving God or spending time with Him, that’s when it’s time to employ a strategy to deal with those distractions and get back on course.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you been distracted in the past?  Leave your comment below.

by

Late Again!

Estimating one’s time of arrival to a pre-planned destination is not always easy. It takes great skill, insight and determination … and I’m not talking about being on time to pick up wings from your favourite take-out place.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

I know that my wing joint is five minutes from my house; they tell me my order will be ready in ten minutes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I better get myself together right away and leave the house in five minutes to get my wings on time.

No, what I’m talking about is figuring out when I will arrive to a place that’s out-of-town  with packing involved … like the other day, when I left our cottage and planned on stopping by our daughter’s place in Richmond Hill on the way home.

My wife is a very poor time estimator and I found out that I’m not much better. I texted my daughter that I would be at her place by noon on Saturday – that gave me all Friday evening to pack up and be ready to go in the morning.

I knew what time I needed to leave – the trouble was actually leaving when I knew I needed to!

I packed most of my things the night before. I even got everything lined up at the door so I wouldn’t have any problems. Well . . . in the morning, I did have problems.

I got up on time, but I kind of lost track of the time as I did my devotions. They ran a little long. I wasn’t worried though. I was packed and still had lots of time. But I also needed to post a blog and write a new one.

Posting the blog was easy; I was all ready for it and got it off in record time. Writing a new one was a different story. Maybe I felt under pressure, but it took way too long to write.

About half way through writing the blog I realized if I didn’t get moving I’d miss my 9 am departure to be on time. I started to think of ways I could beat the time. I reasoned that I could leave at 9:30 and still get there on time. After all, I had given myself a little extra time in my first estimation.

So I kept writing. By the time I was finished, I realized I wasn’t even going to make my 9:30 exit from the cottage. Now I had to go into “hurry” mode.

I still had too many little things that had to be done. I was in a rush to shower, eat breakfast, wash dishes, clean out the fridge, vacuum, and complete the shut down routine of the cottage.

By the time I was in the car, and driving out, I was two hours later than my projected time of 9:00 am. So what else could I do? I had to speed . . .

And that’s the subject of another blog.

Here’s the thing: I know what I could have done to be ready on time. I needed a better assessment of what I actually had to do and the time it would take. When I promise the Lord I will do something, I need to take a thorough consideration of what that will involve and then plan for it accordingly, so that I keep my promise to Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to make sure you leave for your destination on time? Leave your comment below.

by

All Work and No Play!

What a week – maybe the best week of the summer! What could be better than to experience it all at the cottage? The sun, the sand, the waves – what could be better than that?

Work_piled_up

Well, not much if I hadn’t been stuck INSIDE that cottage all week doing my yearly planning. I take a week there every August to pray, plan and seek God’s direction for my church for the coming year.

So while every day was a picture of niceness, I was slaving away inside or on the porch, reading, praying or hunched over a computer.

It was so nice – even unseasonably warm at night. After our vacation of cool temperatures and rain, this week really made up for all that. But I didn’t even get down to the beach, let alone go in the water.

Since I never know how my week will go, I don’t plan anything fun throughout the week. I need to stay on task until I’m done. So, by the time Friday rolled around, I was hoping for a little fun.

Things had gone well and, by late Thursday night, I knew that I would finish in good time on Friday. In the back of my mind I had a plan. I would work until about 3 pm and then go golfing.

When I got up Friday, I pictured myself standing on the t-box at the Sauble Golf Club, smoking a drive down the fairway on the way to a great round. But I needed to work first, so I got to it.

It was the first day all week that I wasn’t sure about the weather. It was warm alright, but the sky was overcast. It did sprinkle in the morning, but it only lasted a few minutes and I thought, “That’s nothing. It won’t keep me from enjoying my round later.”

By noon I wasn’t as far as I hoped to be and the weather didn’t look any better. I decided I would get the grass cutting out of the way. I took about 20 minutes to do the lawn and then made my lunch. Still overcast, but warm, and still no wind at all … Oh, that is golfing weather!

I quickly got back to work, making good progress. It looked like I would finish in time; in fact, I thought I might be done by 2:30 pm. I disciplined my mind to keep those images of the golf course at bay while I worked.

Then at about 1:45 pm I heard a very distinctive sound. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like the sound of a squirrel scurrying across a shingled roof, or like the sound of a bug flying straight into a glass window. It’s quiet, it’s faint, but you hear it.

Only what I heard sounded like hundreds squirrels scurrying all over the roof. It was raining! My first reaction was, “Really? I’m almost finished here and now it rains?!”

This was no sprinkle either. There was thunder, and it started to come down hard. I couldn’t believe it. All week the weather had been great. All week I kept myself focussed on my task. And now, now that I was done, the clouds couldn’t contain their moisture any longer.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. It’s not right for a pastor to express those thoughts and words … Oh well, I did get to see my daughter for a few hours on my way home from the cottage.

Here’s the thing: I have a tendency to delay gratification until the end, to get the work done first, then have fun. But we don’t know what the future holds and sometimes in doing that we find that the gratification we were hoping for vanishes. When life is busy, it’s easy to think, “I will spend time with God later when my work is done, when I can slow down and take a break, at the end of the day”, only to get there and find something unexpected or that you’re too tired to spend time with God. Day after day we have good intentions, but they don’t materialize. Start your day with God – the work isn’t going to vanish.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has waiting until the end to get what you want left you with nothing?  Leave your comment below.

by

Getting Out of a Bad Cycle

Have you ever noticed how one bad thing sometimes seems to be a catalyst for other bad things? Some people say bad things happen in three’s, but that’s just superstitious – “touch wood” (just kidding!).

olyblog 02

Seriously though, since I’ve come back from my vacation, I’ve been engulfed in this phenomenon of experiencing one bad thing after another. Enough already! And with each bad thing that’s happened, my mood has darkened a little more.

Ever felt that way? You want it all to stop, but like they say in social media circles, “it’s trending”. What adds to the discouragement is how difficult it is to change the trend. It seems like you need some kind of emotional pick-me-up to snap you out of the downward spiral.

I remember watching volleyball in college – that was a prime example of how one bad thing is a catalyst for another. I don’t want to pick on volleyball players as being more moody that other athletes (well, maybe I do), but that sport seems to exemplify it more than most.

When a team would hit a great spike for a point, its players would roar with enthusiasm and give each other high fives, even hugs. That would pump them up and they seemed to play better.

While that was happening, the other team would make more mistakes and seemed to have a hard time doing anything right. Then, at some point, they would manage to block a spike and get the serve back. Their players would get all charged up about it, congratulating each other.

Then the momentum would change, the trailing team would play better, and the first team would start making mistakes. It wasn’t because they lost their ability or skill; it was all in their minds or emotions.

When we get down or discouraged, when one bad thing happens after another, we tend to make mental errors in judgement, or emotional reactions, which lead to more bad things.

We can react to something bad rather than respond to that bad thing. When you react, you let your emotions lead the way or you make an error in judgement. But when you respond, you look at the desired outcome and follow through with that goal in mind.

I would like to say that I am really good at responding rather than reacting, but let me tell you, I’ve done my fair share of reacting over the years.

This past week there have been about six bad things that I could have easily reacted to and probably, as a result, caused several more bad things to happen.

… On second thought, I have done some reacting … but only to myself in the car by getting all upset with the drivers on the road. What I need is a great block or spike to turn things around!

Here’s the thing: To break the “bad” cycle, you can mope around until something good happens, but that might take a long time. A better choice is to turn to God, make a list of all the good things God had done and is doing in your life, and begin to praise and worship Him for it. You will find your mood brightens and you can let go of the bad and rejoice in God’s goodness. It worked for King David in the Psalms; it’ll work for you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you gotten yourself out of a “bad” cycle? Leave your comment below.