Todays desk doodle

I've got this !!

Am I bragging? Nope, not at all. I'm not even talking about me. So, you ask, who's got what? I'm glad you asked. You can easily find out more HERE.

Just know that "I've got this!!" is huge.

Todays desk doodle

Behavior Spectrum

Is it just me? Doesn’t it seem as though the opposite ends of the decency spectrum are much more pronounced recently than they have been in the past? I’ve been thinking that this Covid-19 scare has brought out both the worst and the best of folks in much more visible ways than we are used to seeing.

On the one hand I’m hearing of and seeing what are some fantastic acts of kindness, often random in nature. There seems to be a greater abundance of them, and they involve more of someone(s) going out of their way to help someone(s) out. They also seem more along the lines of selfless acts, whereby no payback or acknowledgement is wanted or necessary. I could perhaps sum it up by simply saying bigger, more heart driven, often sacrificial acts of kindness are being done for more people.

On the other side of the spectrum it’s completely different. I’m seeing much more visual (and often verbal) evidence of poor behavior or behavior choices toward mankind. We saw it in the grocery stores in the panic buying. “Hey, I’m getting mine, screw you” type attitudes on stupid stuff like toilet paper. Hoarding! That and Purell and like products. There was clearly lots of evidence of this distasteful behavior on the part of some folks with their “screw you” attitudes…not just in buying, but in their disregard for the safety and welfare of others—particularly those more at risk.

Perhaps it takes something like the coronavirus to clearly distinguish between beauty and the beast., between ugly and beautiful, between obnoxious and kind, between disregard for fellow man and empathy for them. Is their hope for those on the wrong side of the spectrum.

Ah, human nature. A fascinating study.

Todays desk doodle

Out of alignment?

Sometimes all it takes is a short daily devotional. “To what?”, you ask. Allow me to answer a question with an unusual question. What happens when your car is out of alignment? Several things, starting with a steering issue—the car wants to pull one way or the other. Then there is the matter of the tires wearing unevenly. Essentially it becomes a control issue with the car.

So, back to your original question. Don’t people get out of alignment, perhaps even you? You know, just a bit off kilter—like when your head and heart aren’t quite in sync? When you feel as if you are being pulled and tugged away from what you know to be right, when you feel the tentacles of temptation pressing in…when you sense you are somewhat out of control.

What brings you back to the straight and narrow, that path not always the most easily trodden? Better yet, what helps keep you there? Yes, you may go to church. Is it once a week? Yes, you may be in a small group that meets. Is that once a week, or maybe every other week. Yes, you may read scripture. Is it mostly out of obligation, or do you really get into the Word? Yes, you perhaps associate only with like believers. How does that test your ability/desire to witness? I thought so. A short daily devotional can help you on your path in multiple ways; it is daily; it will usually have a life application aspect in each article, one that jives with the scripture cited; it will thus be typically relevant to you.

Short daily devotions do not have to be in printed/book form to accomplish their purpose. You are reading one of sorts now—an electronic version. Websites and blogs for the Christian abound and are readily available. Let your fingers do the walking!

HERE's a good start.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Egg-zactly !

Oil and water don’t mix, or so we’re told. If you’ve washed greasy dishes or pots in a sink, you’ve most likely seen the oily schmutz that floats on the dishwater.  Until, that is, you put the emulsifier in. That would be the soap, which emulsifies the solutions, so they work together for the common good—clean dishes and pots.

Mayonnaise, which has been around since the mid-1700s, is mayo only because of an emulsifier, one of the unlikeliest of sources—egg yolk. You see, it is the lowly egg yolk that allows the water and oil in the mixture of the batch of goo which will ultimately become mayo to work together, to join despite their opposing natures. Egg-zactly. Now you know.

You may now be asking yourself “what has this got to do with me?” I will share—it has everything to do with you. Unless, that is, you are a hermit, stranded on an island thousands of miles away, alone. Here’s the deal. Humans are made for relationship and community with each other. That’s how God made us and wired us. He also made each of us different, and it’s not uncommon at all for those differences to be like oil and water. It happens in relationships, marriages, group settings, churches, you name it. It happens because it is natural to mankind. Just as God designed it. But here’s the kicker. God has also given each of us an emulsifier, THE emulsifier—the Holy Spirit within us when we believe. It is the Holy Spirit which emulsifies our differences so that we can work together for His glory. I bet you never thought of the Holy Spirit as an egg yolk did you?

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Monkeys throw poop

If you have ever taken your young children to the zoo, you’ll know exactly where I am going with this. Kids always love to go see the monkeys. One only needs to refuse to go to that area of the zoo with the kids to get to observe ugliness you never imagined possible in your kid. Hey, monkeys are fun to watch. They are always busy doing something, they are typically active and entertaining. But, and yes, it’s a big but, one must be prepared to see spontaneous acts of off-limits behavior (well, certainly for humans that is) like picking their butts and masturbating. If that’s not bad enough, they also throw poop. Their own poop. And any other monkey’s poop. And while they are no Sandy Koufax’s, they nonetheless can toss some rather good fast balls, er, fast poops.

While listening to a Christian radio station this morning, I was enjoying the topic of conversation—fear and overcoming it. As you might imagine, the call-ins were robust. There was story after story of fear that folks faced, what it did to them, and how they overcame it. It was a great biblically based couple of hours on the topic.

Toward the end, the host shared one of his stories about himself in his younger days when in college. The long and short of it was that he was all but paralyzed with fear on an on-going basis and couldn’t seem to shake it. He ultimately met with a campus Christian psychologist. He shared that after he addressed his concerns with the gentleman, the psychologist looked at him, pausing for a moment, and then shared three words with him as his response; “Monkeys throw poop”. That was golden! That was sage advice.

You see, in truth, throughout our lives we will be pooped on, and most often we never see it coming—just as when we are visiting the monkey cages at the zoo. We need to know that it will happen, that we can expect it to happen, and that we can get messed up by it. That’s simply life. We can thank that first couple in Eden for that. But throughout the Bible we are told repeatedly, 365 times to be exact, that “I am always with you” (including other similar wordings). God is always with us. And when the monkey throws poop we have the choice of either fearing, or having faith in that God who is always with us.

Don't toss the trash

I’m not into genealogy—it’s not my thing. But I’ve engaged in conversations with enough folks who are really into it to sense that most likely all our family trees could be called nut trees. There always seems to be, somewhere in the lineage, at least one crazy one, and undesirable or two, maybe a criminal, or any number of jaded, twisted or wicked folks should one go back far enough. In some cases, they are the relative that no one wants to acknowledge or talk about. Some might say that they are the family trash. Can you relate? I sure can. I have an uncle, who all I know him by is Uncle Bill, who I never, ever, learned anything about, because no one talked about him at all. Period. He was simply a name in the family line. That’s it. I’ve often wondered why, and I’ve always been under the impression that he was the family “trash”, but I have never known.

If you have read the first chapter of Matthew, perhaps you found it to be, well, rather boring. It’s genealogy at it’s finest. It offers to the reader, the full lineage of Jesus, name by (in some cases) unpronounceable name. And, you know what?  If you were to do a bit of study on the lineage you will find that it isn’t pretty, just like our family trees. In fact, it’s quite ugly. There’s some real trash in there by today’s standards, which, in my humble opinion, would have made them very, very undesirable folks back in those times. There were adulterers, a murderer, prostitutes, an outcast, and an idolater. Since this isn’t a Bible Study piece, I will leave the exploration up to you, but know this—there were no less nuts and undesirables (trash) in Jesus’s family tree than there is in any of ours, and perhaps more.

I think the point Matthew was making (excuse me, the Holy Spirit through Matthew) was two-fold:  1) God always has a plan, and He never fails to execute it, and 2) God’s plan involves everyone, those who we might label trash, and those we wouldn’t. Matthew didn’t toss out the trash in his narrative for just that reason. We shouldn’t toss out the trash for the same reason.

Todays desk doodle

A big job!

Adam, of Genesis fame (no, not the band—the Bible) had a big job. Were you aware of that? He was tasked with naming all the animals that God had created. I can almost visualize how that went. I picture Adam sitting naked on a rock there in the Garden, perhaps in the shade of a luscious tree, surrounded by the most beautiful flowers ever seen gracing the banks of a casually flowing stream of crystal-clear water. The scene brings a smile to my face as I try to envision how he may have come up with such names as elephants, hippopotamuses, and gnus. Or perhaps why he didn’t name those striped animals striped horses instead of zebras. But none of that is the point, which was—he had a big job to name all of the animals, which included birds and fish and every living thing. Wow! I wonder how any of us might have handled that job.

The truth is, we all have big jobs, jobs that were not only given to us by God, but jobs which God commanded us to do, probably just as He did in assigning Adam his job. Frankly, I can’t see God saying to Adam, “Hey Adam, can you please do me a favor and name all the animals?” I’m sure there were no caveats such as “when you get time” or “if you’d like to.” He hasn’t done that with the jobs He has assigned to us either.

Here’s the deal. The big job God has assigned to us is, in my opinion, far easier than Adam’s big job, and yet we fail miserably in doing it. He’s given us all the tools necessary to do it, and yet we don’t use them. Our simple, yet huge job, is to love God, and love others. No more, no less—and yet we find excuse after excuse not to do it. Do we really have it that bad that we wont just do our job?

I almost shudder to think what might have been if Adam hadn’t done his job and done it right. Would we now have giraffes as house pets? As regards our big jobs, I’m inclined to think Adam did much better than we are doing, sad to say.

Todays desk doodle

It's in the publishers hands

Dog Walk Talk: while I'm walking, God's talking

The manuscript and all necessary materials were submitted to the publisher yesterday evening. Now the wait begins as the production phase kicks in. Hopefully we will still see it launch at the end of this month, but there is a slight possibility that it may not due to some delays in getting a few things necessary for the submission process. 

At any rate, the book is inching ever closer to becoming a reality. It's exciting to know that a process that started in October of 2018 is coming to fruition.

Todays desk doodle

Is your kid worth $300K a year?

So the question is....is your child worth $300,000.00 a year? He or she is to human traffickers. Were you aware of that? Did you think that the trafficking victims are simply victims so that the perpetrators can have unrestricted sex with them? Sure, that is a horrible thought. But, it's not the reason for the industry (yes, it IS an industry--a dark one) to exist. It is ALL about the money. Each victim is worth an estimated $300,000.00 per year to the perpetrator because they sell the victims out for sex, and when the victims get worn out, they are sold as property.

So many folks act like they have blinders on when it comes to this problem, and yes, it is a problem. A huge problem, because it revolves around a crap ton of money! So many folks act like they ignore the problem because it hasn't affected them or anyone they know, or they think that it can't happen in their sanitary little suburban communities. Well, it does happen, and it is happening--because it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. Read about it HERE, and please wake up!

Route 66

A true piece of nostalgia is anything Route 66 to many people. It’s an iconic piece of American history. Thousands, and perhaps millions, of stories revolve around some aspect of that cross-country route of days long gone by. To me, from days when I was much younger, it provokes memories of purity and simplicity. In those days when I was on and around Route 66, my life was simpler, and much purer. At the time I certainly didn’t think so, but now I can grasp retrospectively that indeed that was the case. There is a catch to that thinking, however. The simplicity and purity of those days is the same in todays time, and it is available should we choose to grab it.

I’m not one to live in the past, though I know many who are and seem content in doing so. Living in the now simply allows me to be more aware of where I am at (inside) in the present. The present that I long for and strive for most consistently is that present when heart and my mind are in sync with each other. That is when my soul reminds me with its loudest affirmation “it is well, it is well in your soul”. I sincerely think that most of us humans are like that. We seem to innately have that desire hardwired in our DNA. God saw to that in His infinite wisdom.

When I am clear about where I am in this present moment, when my heart and head are in sync with each other, when my soul is reminding me that “it is well”, I am experiencing that same simplicity and purity of days gone past. I’m simply on my now Route 66.

You can as well.

Todays desk doodle

I am anxious now

It's getting real. Dog Walk Talk, my book, is going to the publisher at the beginning of the week. Then the wait begins. Now I have a question....I'm seriously thinking about using this picture for the author picture on the back cover instead of that guy in the orange sweatshirt you see on my Facebook profile (HERE). Would this one lure you into checking the book out more if you were first seeing it and you didn't know me than the one in the orange sweatshirt? My author Facebook page is HERE.

Division

Our hearts were made to move blood through the veins and arteries of our bodies. There are four chambers within that closed container whose sole purpose is to pump that blood. Our blood is no different than the blood of Jesus that ran on that day He shed it for us all. There is, and never was, room provided in our hearts for division and hatred.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Summary of Dog Walk Talk

As reported yesterday, the manuscript is complete. Following is a summary of the book.


Dog Walk Talk: while I’m walking, God’s talking is a collection of anecdotes about a variety of real-life issues written from a Christian perspective. In each, the author presents the issue, sometimes using humor, shares his own life example briefly, and then engages the reader with directed questions about the topic to provide an opportunity for introspection. Each is followed by appropriate biblical citations to provide the reader with further study should they choose to do so.

It is hoped that the book will help the reader see themselves through the offerings, and to embrace their uniqueness in a positive way as they face their own everyday life issues. Further, it is hoped that they will come to embrace any brokenness or messiness in their lives by knowing or sensing that it is but a steppingstone toward wholeness and spiritual growth.

Todays desk doodle

IT IS FINISHED !!!

The manuscript is completed, so I printed out the hard copy to keep on file in my office. Next step--submit it electronically to the publisher. That will be within days. Then  the wait begins. It's a good feeling to reach this point. It really frees me up to continue to write on book #3.

Todays desk doodle

Bad isn't always bad

This is the first “newish” car that I had purchased in a long, long time. When I purchased it I went into it way over my head financially. Drastically so—but I wanted that car, I had to have that car, I deserved that car. Or so I thought. At the age when I bought it, I was very certain that it would be the last car I would be buying. It was spotless when I bought it. Seven short months later I totaled it. I was devastated. I had killed my baby.

We tend to go through some rather raw emotions when bad things happen don’t we? We find ourselves so absorbed in what is happening in the now of the situation that we often fail to look at the big picture. It is in those bad moments of time when we typically don’t to God for any reason other than help in the immediate time frame. We seldom see the possibility of that bad event as a part of God’s overall plan for us, or protection of us. Almost always those thoughts arise when we retrospectively look back at the bad situation.

At the time that I killed that car, I had just started to think about writing my second book, Dog Walk Talk. Within ten months of the wreck, I had signed a contract with my publisher for the book—a financial obligation that would last just over a year because the payments were tailored to what I could afford. As I looked back over that whole scenario recently, I was bluntly reminded that bad isn’t always bad, that good can and does come out of bad—perhaps more often than we might think. I am convinced that God had His plan for me, and it wasn’t for me to own that car. His plan was for me to write that book and afford to get it published. I messed with His plan when I over-extended myself to buy that car. He took care of that!  I am humbly thankful for that wreck. I am very grateful for the fact that the book will be released in a short while. I can almost hear Him when I bought that car— “Don’t do it Joe, I have other plans for you”. Bad isn’t always bad.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Can't have it both ways

One lifts you up. One pulls you down. They are opposing forces. They don’t work in harmony with each other. You have to decide which one it will be, which one you want, which one is more important to you. You can’t have it both ways. Being in the middle (which is always the case) is an uncomfortable place to be. Ego isn’t referred to as Ease God Out for no reason. Decisions, decisions, decisions—but you cant have it both ways.

Feet to the fire

Do I have the guts to stand firmly in my convictions and principles when the going gets tough? Do you? Do we even know if we would or could, should the occasion arise? One thing is most likely certain about all of us—we would like to think we would, right? What if the going didn’t just get tough, but perhaps a life-threatening situation whereby if we stood our ground, we would surely die as a result, but if we caved in, we would live? The answer to that is the “tell” about just how strong we are, or aren’t, about our convictions and principles. Let’s toss in a word switch here and substitute the word faith for convictions and principles and ask the same questions of ourselves.

If we sneak a peek into the Old Testament book of Daniel, we’ll note that there were three dudes who faced those same questions in their lives. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were offered the opportunity to life if they would abandon their faith in God and worship the ghastly idol King Nebuchadnezzar had built of himself (and ordered all in his kingdom to worship). They refused, and the King, angry to the extreme, ordered them tossed into a fiery pit. The pit was so hot that the Kings soldiers who tossed them in were disintegrated by the extreme heat as they followed the Kings orders.

The King had a problem on his hands, however. The three dudes didn’t perish in the extreme heat. They survived, and when the heat eventually died down, there they were, alive and kicking, none the worse for wear. Obviously, old Nebuchadnezzar was, well, astonished, and couldn’t quite understand. Once it dawned on him that God had spared the dudes, he acknowledged the error in his ways and declared that their God, our God, was the one true God.

Those three dudes—their feet were put to the fire, and they didn’t cave in. They didn’t waver in their convictions and principles. Their faith never wavered while they faced eminent death by roasting. They had no trouble answering the above questions in the manner we would like to think we would answer, were we to be faced with them. They didn’t dilly-dally around deciding. I’m pretty sure they may have simply said something like, “Well, it looks like we’re toast.” I’m not so sure many of us would jump on it that quick if our feet were held to the fire. I’m also guessing that our capitulation regarding our faith is in evidence during routine days as well, perhaps more than we may realize.

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Hawks

Vigilant

Cautious

Diligent

Focused

Alert

Prepared

Watchful

Persistent

Patient

Dedicated to purpose

Have you ever sat still long enough to watch hawks? They are a study of all that we, as Christians, should be. They exhibit each of those qualities every single day of their lives. They must, or they don’t eat. Watching them bears that out. They will sit on a pole or in a tree for the longest time using every single one of those ingrained traits while observing all that is around them as they await the rodent that will be their next meal. Their traits enable them to get the reward—their food.

We all have those same traits within us. But when it comes to feeding our spiritual lives, we don’t use them quite the same way the hawk does for its food do we? And yet, the food for our spiritual lives is every bit as important isn’t it? And isn’t our ultimate reward far greater than the hawk’s rodent? Perhaps we are much more lazy than the hawk, even though our reward is so much greater.

Todays desk doodle

Silly flies !

If you ever watched a fly, you may have come to the same conclusion as I did the other day when watching one—they are silly. I watched a fly for perhaps ten minutes as it kept flying into the glass on a window trying to get out. The operative word there is “kept” because it did it for probably a half dozen times before it seemingly decided that something was in the way of its forward progress to the outside world that I assume it was looking at. Then it went to another nearby window where the process repeated itself. Silly fly. It just wanted to be free.

Watching the fly reminded me of me. Perhaps that tale may remind you of you as well. I looked back at the time in my life when I could see something better for myself, a better way of life, a deeper meaning, a longing for a sense of being real, of being free. That was a dark time in my life, and I just kept beating myself in the head trying to find that freedom—from the me that I no longer liked. I was that fly in the window—I saw it, I knew it was there, but I couldn’t get past the self-imposed stumbling blocks in my way. All I wanted to do was to be free of the crap in my life.

Freedom came in the form of one thing. Surrender. I had to surrender myself to One greater than myself, God. In doing so, my window to a better self, a brighter future that was predicated upon spiritual health, and freedom was opened. Not by me, but by God. This fly was able to finally get where he longed to be—free.

Are you one of those silly flies that keeps running into the window? You don’t have to be.

Todays desk doodle

Check in the lost and found

One definition of the word awe is “wonder that is inspired by the sacred”.    Psalm 65:8 addresses awe in this way; “They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.”

Because of the never ending routineness of our daily lives, in combination with our inherent brokenness, isn’t it pretty darn easy to have a diminished, sporadic, or dulled sense of awe (or lose it altogether)  for all that God is and what He represents in our lives? Sure, we may witness a beautiful scene, or a particularly special act of kindness, or anything—and our sense of awe goes off the charts. But I’m of the opinion that most of us do have a diminished sense of awe about God.

When you first came to Christ, weren’t you excited? It was something special, and you most likely felt a strong sense of awe about all things God—for a while. Be honest, did that feeling last? Is it the same now as it was then? To help understand those questions, let’s move briefly to an earthly parallel for comparison; do you still feel the same sense of awe about your spouse that you did in the months before and perhaps a couple of years after your marriage? How is that awe fire now after perhaps quite a few years of marriage?

In either of the cases above, our sense of awe 1) doesn’t have to diminish (it does because we choose to allow it to), and 2) it can be recaptured if it does (if we choose to recapture it). It’s all a matter of choice. Our choice, and ours only. What is the result of making that choice for awe in our lives? Simply, more joy.

Have you lost your sense of awe? Perhaps if you checked in the lost and found box you might find it. If you do, why not choose to allow it back into your life?

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

Todays desk doodle

The cupboard of our mind

I was once contracted to paint a kitchen in a very nice home for a long-time customer. One afternoon the owner told me to get a pop out of the refrigerator. To my amazement, the contents of that fridge were lined up so categorically and neatly that I am sure it was a significantly better display than in any high-end grocery store. Later, it got to the point in the job when I had to remove the cupboard doors. That day I fully discovered what OCD is. Everything was perfectly placed, all labels to the front, all by category, etc. Here is some full disclosure—it was nothing like the cupboards in my home, nor, I would bet, many, many others.

The insides of my kitchen cupboards are vastly different. If one were to look, he would see disorganized clutter, random “what is that’s”, some stuff way past their expiration dates and thus completely useless, and other gems of uncertain origin and use. There is absolutely no trace of OCD there. None of that stuff which really doesn’t belong there for obvious reasons (yes, we do go on a cleaning binge occasionally) interferes in any significant way with anything. It just gets moved around every now and then during our need to find something we do need.

The point of this is that each of us have cupboards in our minds. We store everything in those cupboards, often a lot more than we need to store. Useless stuff like past shame, past hurts, past anger situations, past lies about ourselves and others, past guilt all of which takes up perfectly good space. The problem is, however, that it doesn’t just take up space. It affects us in many ways and the troubling thing is we aren’t always aware of it. That junk, as I call it, is often at the root of how we react to situations, and more importantly, to people. That junk, when it is (knowingly or unknowingly) in the driver’s seat, drives how we think about all things life. Most importantly, Satan is keenly aware of that junk and uses it to make us less than we can be as people, so the junk messes with our ability to grow spiritually. Finally, we often seem to just plain enjoy holding on to that junk.

The more we are open to allowing God to enter our lives, so that He can clean out the cupboards of our minds of that junk on the back shelves of it, the more we will grow spiritually. He won’t be OCD about it, and neither should we. We just have to get rid of it.