The Bully on the Playground of Life--Day 4

Today we have to face the bully that seeks to take down our physical health. Face-to-face with this bully is a look in the mirror.

Prison camps dictate food, rest and exercise. We would never think of voluntarily entering one. Yet that is exactly where we drive ourselves through our day-by-day decisions.

It looks like God decided, when designing the whole mortal body/immortal soul thing, to house the soul in a place that needed our active participation to keep it running strong. Every decision about food, rest and exercise either strengthens or weakens the house.

So why the self-sabotage? Why do we act as our own worst bully?

We are the bully when we overeat or eat poorly.

We are the bully when we shortcut sleep and rest.

We are the bully when we sidestep exercise.

We usually expend a lot of energy and care on the people and things we value most.

When we bully ourselves through our carelessness toward our physical health, are we saying we don't care about ourselves?

That sort of puts a hurting on the biblical admonition to love your neighbor as yourself. Unlucky neighbor. Unlucky self.

Throw the bully off the playground of your life. This is one bully over which you have complete control.

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.

The Bully on the Playground of Life--Day 3

A bully on the playground holds someone hostage, even if just for a moment, though the hostage effect may linger long after.

When the bully on the playground of life is emotional confusion, we are held hostage to thoughts and feelings that drive us away from strength and power and freedom.

Even as we begin to triumph over the confusion, the hostage effect can linger long after.

Our beliefs, assumptions, past experiences and current circumstances all mix into a recipe unique to us, producing the thought batter swirling in our head. Our actions are the baked version of this batter, so like a cake, our actions are only as good as the "batter" that produced them.

Test the ingredients going in:

Is your belief system carrying you into a more destructive than constructive mentality?

Are you making valid assumptions about your life or are you continuing with what someone mistakenly taught you?

Do your past experiences need the ingredient of forgiveness added to cut the power they hold over your current emotional state?

Can you improve your present circumstances with a tweak of gratefulness, focusing on the blessings rather than what you lack?

Everything going on in our head and heart become our display to the world. It is the most amazing truth that God knows every thought. He is an expert on the thought batter that swirls in our heads even now.

If He is the Master Chef, it makes sense to ask Him for help.

Lord, our Master Chef, show me the ingredients of my thought batter that are producing emotional confusion--that are acting as a bully on my playground of life. Help me sort them into a new and improved batter that opens me up to new strength and power and freedom.

(Image from http://catholiclane.com/a-spoonful-of-grace/chocolate-cake-batter/)

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.

The Bully on the Playground of Life--Day 2

We are calling a bully anyone or anything that carries us away from a life of strength and power and freedom.

I have recently been engaged in a word fight with a handful of people who tried to paint my belief system into a picture it is not.

It seems the worst kind of bullying to present others in a false light. Our beliefs shine through our words and our actions, and twisting them into something they are not plants seeds of doubt into onlookers.

The strength and power and freedom of the Gospel lies in its Truth. When a Christ-follower lives out Truth, Scripture promises opposition.

When the opposition enters from the unbelieving world, it is expected. When it comes from inside believers, it is distracting, confrontational and unattractive to the watching, unbelieving world. It gives unbelievers new ammunition for their accusations that believers mistreat each other. Why would they want to be a part of that?

There is a better way to help each other as believers. We don't have to bully. We can listen. We can treat each other as fellow travelers, journeying together, comparing what we are learning.

The point of fellowship among believers is to strengthen each other so our message to the world is one of unity...and something to which this world would be drawn.

Is it true that the real desire of the playground bully is to have and be a friend? Let's treat fellow believers as friends.

Tomorrow: the bully of emotional confusion

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.

The Bully on the Playground of Life--Day 1

There are many bullies on the playground of life.

Even now, you and I are engaged against one or more.

Something, or someone, is constantly influencing us to veer off a course of joy and hope.

Where do we find the strength to persevere?

What are the rules of engagement against the bullies?

How do we sort out which one(s) to fight first?

For our investigation here, we'll call a bully anyone or anything that carries us away from a life of strength and power and freedom.

The child on the playground who presents himself as a target through timidity, self-doubt, and/or apparent weakness is the one toward whom the bully gravitates.

If we see ourselves as that child and assess how we present on the playground of life, we get a glimpse of why bullies seek us out. Where are we timid, doubting of self, and displaying apparent weakness?

Take heart. The journey to defeat the bullies of life is doable; the fights we must engage in are winnable.

Let's do it.

Tomorrow: the bully of disturbance of belief

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.

The Curious Thing About Put Downs

We all know the drill.

We put down someone or something with criticism, an unflattering remark, an innuendo, anything inflammatory:

Church A over Church B...or vice versa

Homeschooling over Public School...or vice versa 

Democrat over Republican...or vice versa 

Anything I'm for that you are not if I'm choosing to be antagonistic toward you or your cause...or vice versa 

Put downs are encased in antagonism.

I often advise parents of teens: do your best not to antagonize. Adolescence is a chilling showcase of up and down emotions that seek order and find little. Teens need to bump up against someone calm and stable and well-thought out, able to advise without becoming inflammatory. In short, someone who can talk without put downs.

The world is a bit adolescent--it is a chilling showcase of up and down events, positions, and emotions that seek order and find little. The world needs to bump up against a set of someones calm and stable and well-thought out, able to discuss without becoming inflammatory. In short, a set of someones who can talk without put downs.

As believers, as Christ-followers, that set of someones could be...us.

But too often, and sadly, the model of put downs begins with us. We stake out a claim the world needs to know and become so glued that we trade inviting for inflammatory: well-thought out words for put downs.

Healing from put downs is found in the words of the old song, Let There Be Peace on Earth:

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.

(Product shown above available at etsy.)

I Think of Someday

Yesterday words of a worship song (Gungor, The Earth is Yours) lit up for me:

Creation sees You and starts composing...

What an awesome thought to take into our workweek. So much more is going on than meets our small world eye. All of creation is responding to the God of the universe because He is that powerful.

Perhaps it's like a physical world flash mob. This link takes you to teens singing The Earth is Yours in a mall. That in and of itself is encouraging. I want to think young people are ready to break out in song for God anywhere and anytime. We need them to be growing in stature in all things God to guide our country into the future.

But an even bigger thought is that the physical world is crying out to God all the time:

Your voice it thunders/the oaks start twisting/the forest sounds with cedars breaking/the waters see You and start their writhing/from the depths a song is rising

I think of someday, 200 years from now, when every one of us will be where our faith has carried us. In the Presence of God, will we break out in praise, like a world-sized flash mob, praising the Creator that stands before us?

Before the week consumes you, think of someday. See yourself breaking out in worship as all creation around us does every moment of every day.

Be a flash mob of one with God this very moment, breaking out in your song of praise. His heart will be blessed.

No better way to start a Monday.

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.

God's Story Named Nina

A young girl is getting married today. It happens all the time.

But Nina, and her mom Dawn, live a story that reminds us of what it is to know Jesus.

Nina was born ill. Now in her twenties, she is an indomitable spirit housed in a fragile, petite body.

The hospital, 60 miles from the town we call home, is literally her second home. Her several times weekly dialysis treatment is 25 miles away. Best friend and on-demand caretaker, Dawn runs the road between and lives in a medical world most of us will never know.

Yet both of them are always looking for ways to give. Nina works with high school kids--on her good days out of the hospital; Dawn works another job and volunteers as sound tech at our church--on her chance days not helping Nina.

Where does giving like that come from? I can only guess from a Jesus heart.

God gave back to Nina and Dawn. His name is Matt and he is the knight on a white horse who has blended right into the medical care and vigilance required as husband to Nina.

Goodness, what stories of valor God writes.

I know the world is full of these God-written stories; this is ours. I hope you know and are inspired by a Nina of your own.

To Matt and Nina--and to Dawn--may the day, and the years ahead, be filled with the giving you have so richly lived.

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.