It rained at my house yesterday. Its been 26 days since we’ve had rain in the Seattle area, and it came in yesterday. We were sleeping with our window open and it was nice to hear the rain coming down.

Here’s the best part- yesterday I spent the bulk of my day cleaning out the gutters on my house. For once, I was able to plan correctly in regards to the rain and was able to get them cleaned out before the rain came. Woo-hoo.

I’ve got to tell you though. I’m not the guy who loves cleaning gutters. I don’t like being on a ladder. It was a stretch for me yesterday to be 20 feet in the air up on that ladder, cleaning the gutters. We have a pretty steep roof line, so I’m unable to get on the roof to clean the gutters, you have to do it with a ladder, and move it around the house.

As I was standing up on that ladder, grabbing gunk from the gutters, I was thinking of the spiritual implications of this domestic task. Here’s what I came up with- we all have junk in our lives that sits around, either literally, or figuratively. Much like gutters, its usually in a place that isn’t visible or easily accessible. And, much like gutters, if we don’t clean out that junk, when the rain comes, it will clog us up, cause damage and create more problems.

If we can be proactive in removing some of that gunk, we’ll have a better chance of weathering the storms when they do come.

Get the gunk out

matt

As it was, we would have our toys, bikes and other things and would be playing with them and inevitably, some kid would always want to borrow it, or play with it, or take it home.

What we always said when we were kids when we didn’t want to share what we had was, “I would, but my Mom won’t let me”. It was a real safe statement that put the decision to not share on my mom, instead of on me. It made her the bad guy, and didn’t put me in position of having to stand up for what I believed or what I wanted. It put it on my mom.

Its interesting. A lot of people still use this tactic today- not owning up to their own ideas or wants, but putting it on someone else.

It usually comes in different forms depending on where you live, work or interact with.

1. The teacher says no
2. The research suggests
3. My spouse said
4. The Boss doesn’t want
5. This book I read said

All of those put a person in a position to not own what they think or believe.

Here’s a thought- when you want to do something, or want to make a point, don’t pepper it with any influence from which the thought came. Simply stand on your own two feet and make the declaration. Don’t apologize, don’t hide behind someone else. Don’t be afraid to state your wants and needs without adding in some other influence that has nothing to do with what you truly want.

Example- in a church setting, people often say “God is leading me to…” when making a decision that will affect other people. In a lot of instances, it is my contention that people are doing what they want to do, and adding the “God” card to justify what they want to do anyway. It has nothing to do with a leading or a prompting, but everything to do with what they want anyway. Understand- I’m not saying that God doesn’t lead or prompt. I am saying that there are times when people do what they want and add the God part after.

I guess they feel if they add in the God part it will ensure they are less likely to be challenged, or viewed in a negative light.

The ability to be truthful, while understanding that some people may not agree with what you are doing is an art form that is not easily learned. What you will find, is that when you begin to respond to people without a ‘reason’ or an ‘excuse’ you’ll find that they respect you more, and you’ll respect yourself more. Because you’re owning what you say and do.

Everything doesn’t have to always have a reason. You can, as the Bible says, let your yes be yes, and your no be no.

Be Blessed

matt

Its not the best part of being a pastor, but I guess its something that you do when people know you’re available during the day. Actually, its not that bad, well, usually not that bad. Typically you get a meal of pizza, or some donuts or something. If I get real lucky, I’ll score some sort of tool or unused electronic that the person moving doesn’t want anymore. Best of all, we get time to fellowship and hang out, that to me, is really what pastoring is all about.

Yesterday I was called to help a family from the church load up their moving van for their move. We got to the house at about 10am, and the truck was already there.

Let me back up for a minute. I have issues with people who have lack of planning for their move. I have had experiences in the past where the move/pack was not planned well, that were quite interesting.

So anyway, knowing that, when I showed up and surveyed what we had to move, and the size of the truck, I was concerned. Quite concerned in fact. So concerned that I pulled my wife aside and whispered in her ear “I want to go on record saying that all of this stuff will not fit in this one truck”.

I was wrong. Rich, the guy I was helping to move was able to cram every last bit of stuff in his house into the Uhaul with one trip. There was actually room left over. This guy was amazing. I don’t think there was more than a one inch gap anywhere in the whole truck. He was quick, efficient and the most amazing packer I have ever seen.

Here’s the nugget- at times, based on past experience or personal issues, we assume that things are going to be a certain way. We come into those situations with pre-conceived ideas that may not prove to be true. Sure, this example has to do with helping someone move, but don’t we do that in other situations also?

I’m not sure the reason why we find so much comfort in making up our mind prior to having all the facts, but I think we would do better to give most things a little more time, and realize that we don’t have to have it made up in our mind before it happens.

Have a little faith. Give people a chance. Allow God to move.

Be blessed today

matt

I didn’t want to pull up the lines. I wanted to catch some fish. I remember him telling me as he was pulling in the lines, “Matt, don’t you worry, I promise you you’ll catch a fish before you go home”.

We didn’t go fishing again that day, or any other day, and I never caught a fish that trip. Its been about 25 years, and I still remember that promise, and how it wasn’t fulfilled. I have to tell you, it still stings a little bit.

I’m sure you have a story like that also. A time when someone gave you their word, and they didn’t follow through with it, as much as I’m sure there has been a time when you haven’t followed through with your word either.

There isn’t much left in the world when we can’t believe what people say. I know I used an example from childhood to illustrate this point, but I have many others that I could share, but they are probably too close to home at this point. I know there have been times when I have been guilty of this myself, but its something that I work on not doing.

What’s the nugget? Be a person who follows through with what you say to the best of your ability.

If you can’t do something, don’t agree to it or talk around it. Give people the courtesy of telling them the truth about what you are willing to do for them. Don’t tell people what they want to hear, thinking that it will in someway increase your stature with that person. If you don’t follow through, your credibility is lost, and the relationship will be strained.

I like what is says in the Bible in Ecclesiastes 5:5-It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it.

Marinate on that today.

Choose your words wisely. Agree only to what you can do. Don’t promise what you know you will never deliver. Don’t tell people what you think they want to hear.

Be blessed
Matt

Most of you know the second part of that phrase, and its “And if it comes back to you, its yours”. Well, the day after Faith lost the visor, we went to the lost and found at Disneyland and put in a request for Faith’s visor.

I have to be honest with you. Disneyland sees about 50,000 visitors a day, so I figured this was an exercise in futility. But, being the father that I am, I wanted to show my daughter that Daddy was willing do whatever it took to get that visor back. The lady at the window had us fill out a form, took our address and said that if the hat comes in before we leave town, they’ll call us, but if not, they’ll send it to us.

You can probably imagine our surprise this last Friday when we got a padded envelope addressed from Anaheim California. Crystal and I knew exactly what it was. We were so excited for Faith! We went inside, brought her up to the kitchen table, and had her open the envelope. I can’t describe how excited she was, but she squealed “My Visor!” and proudly put it on.

There’s a few scenarios that play out here.

1. Some worker at Disneyland found the visor and turned it in.

2. Some person who was at Disneyland found it and turned it in.

Either one of those options warms my heart. Apparently there is some good left in this world. I would think that most people wouldn’t take the time to turn in a kids visor at an amusement park, but someone did. Furthermore, that Disneyland would send it to us, is an added measure of goodness.

Here’s the best part- We had prayed with faith (and Faith) and asked God to bless her with her visor and left it in His hands, and he delivered.

This small little gesture imparts hope in my daughter that God does move on people to answer the prayers of his people. Its exciting to know that no matter how big or small, God is still in the business of blessing people.

Remember that today. It may not be a pink visor for you, but God does still bless.

Be blessed today.
Matt

Part of our vacation, I had the opportunity to stay with a college friend from Seattle Pacific University, Jason and his wife Emily. They are superb people. They were so hospitable to us, and took great care of us while we were there. I am sure I gained weight while there because of the scrumptious food.

Jason’s Dad has a boat, so they decided to take us out in it while we were there. They live in Encinitas, right out side San Diego, and the place they took us was in San Diego Bay, right off Coronado.

Jason, his dad, and I went down early to the boat launch to ensure that we would get some prime parking, so to waste some time while waiting for the rest of the family, we went out to the open ocean through the bay.

What’s interesting about the mouth of the bay, is that you can be a mile from shore and the water is only about 30 feet deep. While we were out there, we spotted a pod of dolphins! Man, it was so so cool! There was about 5 or so of them swimming together, so we drove the boat up to try and get closer to them.
We got so close that our boat was actually right on top of them, I was laying down on the bow of the boat and there were two dolphins on either side of the boat under the water just a few feet. It was exhilarating to see two fantastic creatures in the wild! I had never been so close to a dolphin before in my life!

Jason did his best to maneuver us close to the dolphins, and as I was laying on the bow of the boat, with my arm fully extended in the the water, I came about 6 inches away from touching the dolphin!! I was literally screaming with excitement! It was one of the neatest experiences of my vacation.

As we were coming back into the bay, I was thinking to myself how awesome it was to see such a beautiful animal in the wild. To watch them swim and jump with each other and think how God wonderfully made these creatures. It occurred to me, how is it possible that people think that there is no God?

To me, there is no possibility that we are a random organism that evolved out some green ooze. Viewing those dolphins brought to my mind the fact that God created them, and us, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Remind yourself of that today. You were created by God. So were the dolphins.

be blessed today
matt

here’s the pic I took with my phone when we were coming up on them.

Well, through a weird coincidence, MJ died a few months later, and my son has now become very interested in his music. I updated his mp3 with some Jackson 5, Bad, Dangerous and of course Thriller. We were on YouTube the other night watching videos of MJ. Pretty cool.

So my son walks around the house singing MJ songs all day, and yesterday he was singing “It don’t matter if your black or white”. It really got me thinking about race a bit. Its been quite an issue in the news the past week, with the whole Cambridge Police vs. Gates/Obama thing. I’m not sure why that is, but it seems that this race thing is something we can’t seem to get over.

No matter what you’re race is, I’m sure that at some point you were treated a certain way because of your race. Its sad, but true. There are still people out there that make decisions based on race. It shouldn’t be that way, God never intended it that way, but its the way that it is for a lot of people.

Here’s my thought- God doesn’t care what skin tone someone is, and we shouldn’t either. God is going to deal with us on the heart level, and to us, we are called to do one thing- love. That’s it. Nice people, bad people, funny people, dumb people, tall, skinny, fat, ugly, pretty, smart and dumb. No matter what, we are supposed to LOVE people.

One of my favorite Bible verses is from 1 John, it says “whoever does not love, does not know God, because God is love”. That’s our calling. That’s our mission. To love with the passion that God loves us.

As ol’ MJ says, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, and it doesn’t. Truly doesn’t. If we would love people, all people, this race thing wouldn’t be such an issue.

Go love someone today.

Matt

On our vacation, we went to Disneyland. Yes, we went there again. I know, some of our friends think we’re crazy, but we love Disneyland. Its a great place for us.

While we were there, our daughter, Faith, wore a cute little pink visor almost every day. It said, “25% cute, 25% sassy, 25% something, 25% something (I forget), 100% princess”. Its a cute visor. And she loved to wear it.

Well, at the end of the day, after we had been at the park for about 15 hours, we had to get on that train/tram thingy and ride back to the parking lot to get our car. As we were riding, Faith became aware that she didn’t have her visor, and became quite upset. Apparently, she had set it down somewhere in the park, and forgot to pick it up.

Obviously, this did not sit well with her, and she began to cry a little bit. I know, its only a visor, but she’s 6, it was a long day, and she was hot. Crystal and I tried to console her, to no avail. And then, it happened. My 9 year old son Gabriel offered his wisdom to the situation- “Faith, if you love something, set it free”.

Then she really started to cry. I’m not sure if it was because of what Gabe said, or because of our uncontrollable laughter, but she wailed, and we laughed harder. It was so hilarious to hear that nugget come out of my sons mouth.

I know the blog title is about coping with loss, but on some level I think this story illustrates a truth about all of our own condition. We all have things that we love and cherish, and at times we lose them. Its not easy, or fun, but it happens. It may be something big or small.

Gabe’s truth has an encouragement for us all. Sometimes, when we relinquish our own need to control and possess that which we truly love, we show our ability to truly love it, by setting it free. In a Christian connotation, it could be manifested by giving something over to God. Its hard. Its not easy, but sometimes its the best thing we can do.

Is there something you need to set free today? Something you need to let go of? A thought, a pain, a person? Let it go to God today and put it in his hands and watch what he can do with it.

Oh, and we bought Faith a new visor.

Blessings
matt

We started our vacation on the Oregon Coast, drove down the 101, saw the redwoods, went to Monterey, San Diego and Anaheim (Disneyland). Met people, visited people, and had a ton of fun.

There are some great stories from my vacation that are going to be blogs over the next few weeks. I don’t want to use them all up on the first day back. That wouldn’t make sense would it?

Vacation is what it is, its a vacation, from things, from people, from responsibility, but the reality is that when you come back to reality, you have to realize that is not the way that life is. You have to work, you have to be connected, you can’t eat bad food every day. There has to be some sort of order and continuity to your daily life.

There is a certain comfort found in routine. Sometimes you have to break it, but its nice to come back to it.

Maybe you’re in your routine right now. Perhaps you’re stuck without being able break your routine, and that’s okay. We honor God with our routines, or at least we have the opportunity to. We can decide, in the midst of our daily grind, to realize that we honor God, our families, and ourselves with the daily things that we do.

Here’s to having a great week. I’ve missed writing the blog. It will take a bit for me to get back into the ‘swing’, but it will be good.

Keep watching this week for more from vacation!

bless you
matt