Activation Energy

In chemistry there is a concept called "activation energy".  When chemicals are mixed together they may not start reacting on their own.  They need a little push.  Their chemical bonds are stable and without some energy to break the bonds initially, nothing is going to happen.  So a candle won't light itself; it takes the heat from a match.  And the match won't light itself, it takes friction  against the striker.  A little energy is needed to get the whole thing started.

This makes me think of going to social events.  It seems like whenever any event comes up, I really need to talk myself into going.  I'm not sure why it is.  It may be a consequence of being too busy that makes me want to avoid anything that comes up.  Or maybe I'm a hermit at heart and I really want to be alone in a shack on a mountain.  What ever the underlying cause, I often find myself wishing that I didn't have to go to some event that is going on.  The odd thing is that once there, I am usually happy to be there and afterwards I'm glad that I went.  Maybe I'm just a bit too comfortable at home and getting out the door takes a little push.  I need a little activation energy.

We all need a little activation energy in our lives.  We need a little emphasis to do the things that are good for us.  We need that extra umff to keep us on the straight and narrow.  And that kick start can come from our relationship with God.  Now going to church and a relationship with God are by no means one and the same.  It is possible to go to church and never actually develop a relationship with God.  It is also possible to develop a deep, thoughtful relationship without. 

But it usually doesn't work that way.

Teddy Roosevelt wrote this,

Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in one's own house, just as well as in church. But I also know as a matter of cold fact the average man does not thus worship or thus dedicate himself. If he strays away from church, he does not spend his time in good works or lofty meditation. He looks over the colored supplement of the newspaper.

If we want the kick start.  If we want the activation energy.  We need to seek out God and be in His presence,

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

If we seek God's presence, we will find it.  And throughout the week, His presence can give us the activation energy that we need to get going on the right path.

Thank You for the One Day

There is an organization called the Make a Wish Foundation that tries to do nice things for sick children.  You have probably heard of them.  They raise money and use it to do something that a child with a life threatening illness really wants to do.  So maybe they go with their family to Disney World or the Super Bowl.

And it would be easy to be cynical about this effort. It is true that for all of the money raised, the children are still very sick.  It is possible that the money would be better spent on medical research.  But for the children and their families they get something special.  A Good Day.  When someone is sick the burden and the worry can be a crushing load to bear.  One Good Day can be worth its weight in gold.

It is easy to get caught up in the hectic pace of our lives.  We can get so busy that we can forget to appreciate a day as a blessing.  No matter what it is, if we lost it tomorrow, could we be thankful for having it today?

Each day is a blessing from God, and not just the one good day where we get to travel or meet someone famous.  Each. And. Every. Day.

This is the story of Derek and Heather Carr.  Derek Carr is a quarterback for the Oakland Raiders in the NFL.  He and his wife Heather tell the story about faith and the birth of their son.  It is worth a watch on the video below.

To be grateful for the one day.  It is hard to imagine.  The birth of a child is full of excitement, anticipation and worry.  It is a time where we have great hope, but also know that sometimes things go badly.  Very badly.  

It is an amazing testimony of faith to be able to say in a circumstance like that, If I lose it all tomorrow, I will be thankful for your blessing today.  

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

Each day is a gift.  We never know what tomorrow will bring.  We never know if what we have today might be gone tomorrow, so we need to take a moment to appreciate our blessings and if today is all we have, let's make it a good day.  One Good Day.,

Resolutions

So how are those New Year's Resolutions going?  It has been like two weeks into the new year.  How many of them are still a thing?  Just before New Years I was watching the news and they were doing a man on the street interview asking about people's resolutions.  One person said that they wanted there to be more snow.  I thought that they really didn't understand how resolutions work.  But that being said, right now I look outside and see a lot of snow.  That one seems to have worked out better than most.

Real change is much much harder.  It can feel like the resolution for snow.  Something that you would like, but completely out of my power to do something about.  We have reasons for the way that we live our lives.  We can quickly fall into old patterns.  And a pattern is something that you follow.  So one thing leads to another and there we are back in the old habits.

 

I think that the key to making a real change is coming to the understanding that it is probably not within our own power to do.  We need to surrender our will and our problems to God.  If we make our single resolution to listen and accept His guidance, then we can have a better chance at success.  

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

A fresh start.  With the guidance of God we can have real change.  And the best part is that we don't need to wait eleven and a half months to get started.  God is available 24-7 when we are ready to make a resolution for a real change.

In the Whisper

I was recently reading an article called "5 Travel Letdowns".  It listed five places that people go to see and they don't live up to expectations.   Number one on their list was the Mona Lisa.  They say it is smaller than you would expect, crowded and it doesn't WOW you.  And that is the way of things.  Somethings are just better in anticipation.  There may be a book that you really look forward to the movie, or the party that is only so so.  Or the amusement park that was more about standing in lines than riding rides.  Some things are just disappointing.

But have you ever had the situation that the event went off perfectly well, you just aren't happy?  Emotions are funny things.  Sometimes it's hard to rise to the occasion and allow ourselves happiness.  We can tell ourselves that it is silly, but that doesn't change the feelings that we are having.  

Now depression is a real disease that causes real problems for many people.  But that's not what I'm talking about here.  I am barely qualified to write this blog, let alone weigh in on a serious medical issue.  What I'm just talking about is the blues.  We feel sad, disconnected and alone, but we really don't need to.  We need to reset our attitude and get a fresh perspective.  So how do we do that.

The stories of Elijah in the Bible are pretty amazing.  He is part of one of the great smackdowns in history.  He challenges hundreds of the priests of Baal to a contest.  They are going to get their god to light a fire.  The priests pray and sacrifice, but no fire.  Then Elijah has water poured over the fire pit and with a quick prayer fire comes from the sky and engulf the alter in flame.  

Did you catch that, FIRE FROM THE SKY ENGULFED THE ALTER.  Now I don't know about you, but that would be a big deal in my book.  But Elijah is down and out.  He retreats to the woods and sleeps by a stream.  Then he is woken by an angel who feeds him.  

Did you catch that one? HE WAS WOKEN BY AN ANGEL WHO FEEDS HIM.  Now this would also rank right up there on the amazing affirmations from God list.  But Elijah, he is still down and out.  He is sent to a mountain where he is reflecting in a cave.  God sends the wind and an earthquake, but the finally speaks to Elijah in a whisper.  

Yes, in a whisper.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Sometimes we just need to reset.  We need the affirmation from God that everything is good and right and heading on a proper course.  In those cases we should look for God, not in the amazing or the incredible but in the small quiet whispers.

Supporting Cast

Mahatma Gandhi had a reputation to keep up.  He was a simple man who spun his own cloth.  But the problem is that he was also a world leader and a public figure.  So the challenge was to keep up his impoverished life style while still being able to do his work.  One of his assistants once commented that it cost them a fortune to keep Gandhi in poverty.  For every famous person or notable event, there is the supporting cast.  These are the unsung heroes that make it all possible, but rarely get attention.

When Apollo 11 went to the Moon there was a crew of three astronauts.  Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin got to walk on the Moon, and they are household names, But what about the other guy?  Michael Collins was the pilot for the command module.  It stayed in orbit while the others landed on the Moon.  It would not have been possible, but few remember his contribution.  And that doesn't count the dozens back at mission control or the hundreds that had a role in building the rockets and space ships.  For every famous person or notable event, there is a supporting cast.

Sometimes, the supporting cast is more subtle.  In our town there are many Amish.  The Amish try to honor God by living a simple life.  But how complicated is this simplicity.  The stores sell goods made in factories, designed by engineers and transported by trucks.  Without this significant supporting cast, their simple life would be a lot different.

Which brings us to the Biblical shepherds in the hills near Bethlehem.  Their responsibilities with the sheep kept them from many of the religious practices of their day.  But without their efforts the others would not have had lambs for the sacrifice.  They are part of the supporting cast.  

But the birth of Christ was the time for the supporting cast to get a main role.  

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

The supporting cast, the shepherds came to proclaim, announce and reassure.  And although their role was to be in the background.  Through God they were good enough to be significant.  That can be true for any of us.  We are good enough to do the work of God if we follow His lead.

Upwardly Mobile

Henry Ford grew up on a farm in Greenwood Twp, Michigan.  His father was an Irish immigrant and his mother was orphaned and adopted as a child.  So he started from very humble beginnings.  At 15 he started taking apart watches and putting them back together again.  Through this he became a self-taught watch repairman.  Over time he became a machinist, then worked on steam engines before starting Ford Motor Company.

 

The rags to riches story is part of the American fabric.  Stories like Henry Ford are both astounding and familiar.  We can cite many similar examples.  Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey to name a few.  Barack Obama is such a story.  No matter what you think of his politics, the story of a boy born to a single mother with an absent father growing up to be president, is this same story in a nutshell.  

However, upward mobility is a very modern concept.  For most of human history it was just not possible to rise above your social status.  We see shows like PBS's Downton Abbey (Set in the early 1900s) and their images of the lives of upstairs verses downstairs.  The scandal of one of the Earl's daughters falling in love with the chauffeur, or one of the maids aspiring to one day be a secretary.  It is hard to wrap our heads around it all.

 

The changes through the twentieth century broke down social classes and made it possible for people to rise beyond their station of birth to become more, 

Similarly, when Christ came to Earth, He turned the world upside down.  Not only were there systems of class and status, but also regiments of prayers and sacrifices.  Jesus came to say that the meek would inherit the Earth, that we should love our enemies and embrace the unclean.  That we should should not stone others for their sins, but reflect upon our own.  And his birth was not proclaimed by a royal herald, but by shepherds straight from the field.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

The barriers of social class would take centuries to break down.  And to be honest with ourselves, they aren't completely gone.  But the message brought by Christ; the idea that we need to we need to worry about the content of our own heart and that we need to show compassion over condemnation was a truly revolutionary idea.  It changes the world forever and allowed us all to rise above the status to which we were born.

How Much More

There was a story about ten years ago about a person who went about the task of trading a paper clip for a house.  Now that seems like an impossible task, but he traded the paper clip for a fish shaped pen, then the pen for an ornamental doorknob and so on and so on.  Then, one year and 14 trades later, he traded a role in a movie for a house in Saskatchewan.  You can read about it here.  It is a classic case of building something out of nothing.

We love the rags to riches story.  The movie, "The Pursuit of Happiness" is the true story of Chris Gardner, a man struggling to make his life better.  He has been evicted from his apartment and is trying to make it through an internship as a stock broker while he cares for his son.  It is an inspirational, rising from the ashes story.  These types of stories leave us with an uncomfortable question, if he can rise from being homeless, or if he can trade a paperclip for a house, then what is my excuse?

If they can do all that with so little, why can I do so little starting with so much?  If they can do that, how much more should I be able to accomplish.

So goes the story of the early days of the Christian Church.  The original church was built on those who deserted, betrayed, denied and crucified Jesus Christ.  This group was then persecuted, tortured and stoned for their efforts.  If God can build a church using them, how much more should he be able to do through us, if we are willing.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

How much more?  We live in a society where each of us have a great many advantages.  Living in this country with these freedoms and protections, imagine what God can do thorough us, if we are willing.

Now there is a New Year's resolution.  Resolve to do the great things that God calls you to do.