A Decision Revisited: six years after

In the spring of 2005 an agreement with my wife to allow her to pursue a doctorate had passed the first 'fleese,' my bride had a job in the DFW area. So here I sit four months shy of six years later amazed that I have been out of church vocational service, My reflections are prompted today by the message delivered through my pastor to my heart today.

GRAND PLANS

After multiple 'cattle calls,' (job fairs) I received an offer to go to work in what proved to be a dream job. Six years later I've been a part of winning three state championships and involved in four state finals games. I've been able to work on a campus that despite a socioeconomic status change has maintained a high achievement standard on state assessments. But my plan was to use this as a TENT MAKER Ministry to allow me to do summer camp recreation or speak or something else for little cost or free to those doing the camp. I got to do a couple of those my first summer, but ever since I've been working to just keep up with all the extra training required to be a teacher/coach in Texas that teaches math. My plans, to say the least, have not come to fruition.

MAJOR QUESTION

Is Christ supreme in my life in such a way that I, as a Christian, am about the "Right Motives for Working Hard? If God is not Lord of our work then it is indeed a major miss as far as Him being supreme, because work is the major portion of what we do in our life today." -Ross Sawyer, 121 Community Church, Colossians 4/10/2011

"...in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work whole heartedly, as for the Lord rather than for men." - Col. 3:22-23

PERSPECTIVE

For six years I "tipped my hat" to God as I've worked. Oh yeah, the work ethic that God instilled in me through the discipling of my Dad has insured that I gave MY best to the job. I've put in the six and seven day work weeks. I've put in the ten to twenty hour days and the forty-five to seventy hour work week. I've spent countless hours attending professional development to improve my skills as a math teacher and coach so that I stay on top of the game.

Unfortunately, my attitude has not allowed Christ to be supreme in all areas of my current vocation. I've struggled with 'food addiction.' A nice way to say that my eating habits are terrible and I am jeopardizing my heath and ability to perform my duties. i've struggled with exercise. I lost over forty pounds to get ready for the career change that I knew would be even more grueling than being a youth minister. Because even as a youth minister with the countless hours of planning, attending, etc. you can always find time in a day to sit down and relax. Almost all of its back, its time to get up off the couch and get this 'bubble' out of the middle, AGAIN!

I've struggled with authority. There are days that I don't want to attend all the meetings, do the never ending paperwork, provide the extra tutoring or come up with lesson plans. I just want to get by. I've struggled with personal discipleship. Making time daily to be in God's word and visit with Him. I have hurt hearts, under influenced those in my circle of influence, and allowed the wrong motives to direct my actions (and reactions).

While not all of my 5 years and 8 months have been totally devoid of God's supremacy, I dare say that there is much more He could and would have done in these years for His kingdom if I'd been willing to allow Him to be LORD every day in my work.

Now the question becomes will I allow Him consciously to be the Lord each day as I work for Him.

DOES YOUR JOB MATTER TO GOD

If you've made it this far let me ask you to take time to consider the fact that your job does matter to God. No matter what you do you have an opportunity to be of service to God's kingdom in it. It could be that your job is a "tent maker" job that would allow you to use your talents to serve God part time in a vocational ministry starting churches. It could be that your position would allow you to minister to those with whom you work in such a way that they would open the door to Christ and His Lordship in their lives.

It could be that you own your business and you could rewirte its purpose to be one that provides funds for missions around the world. This week I had a chance to be with Norm Miller. Norm is the Presiden/CEO of Interstate Battery. The Mission of IB is to sell batteries so that they can fund ministry around the world. They support many work place ministries silently, but one ministry they support is currently in the forefront, "I Am Second." Talk about being on mission in your job.

Or it could be that the vocation you're currently in is one you know doesn't honor anyone, much less God. The way that job might matter is to rid yourself of if and allow God to place you where He truly would have you be.

It is my hope that as I continue on this road of life that I will daily allow Christ to reign supreme as Lord so that the work I do matters in His kingdom.

"I must decrease, He must increase."

Waiting Is Not A Strong Suit

I have come to realize that the "American way" has reached epic Biblical proportions. Am I talking about a return to the beliefs of the found fathers? No. Are you talking about a might revival filled with repentance resulting in reconciliation? No.

What I'm referring to is the customer care service industry and its use of a "patience developer." Since seven o'clock I have made two customer care inquiries. One concerning my cell service and the second concerning a furniture delivery.

The wireless call was prompted by an email informing me that one of the phones on my package was using excessive off-network hours and would be turned off if this did not cease. Took 30 minutes to find out it was a problem the sim card.

Called the furniture delivery service. Their automated service kept telling me to enter my phone number followed by the # sign. When I did it kept having me go through the cycle again. Finally I left off the # sign and it told me I didn't have a delivery today. Called back, talked to a customer care person, they confirmed I have a delivery in route. However, the time could not be confirmed because it was a 'RUSH' delivery; therefore, it could arrive sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. today.

Is all of American service taking this "I could care less about the customer" attitude? TV/Internet provider gave us a 3 hour window for instillation and arrived with only 5 minutes left in the window, then took 3 hours to do the job. Also had to have our landline separated from the 'bundle' to keep our phone number. We'll have to wait a month before we can go digital again with phone.

We signed up for a new electric plan, I have to wait a month before they'll give us the reward because we have to send THEM a copy of our BILL that they generate to confirm we have their service. Also, the agency that helped us relocate says we'll have to be here two months before they'll send us the gift card for mentioning them.

Have no clue as to when we'll receive our deposit from place we moved from. We're waiting on them to check the apartments cleanness? We've been out a week.

Everything seems to be we want your business, but.... Texas allowed electricity to deregulate which basically means that the same guys still provide the power, they just subcontract the billing to every Tom, Dick and Mary that wants to put their name on a piece of paper and give them a cut of the action. It also means that the people who do the real service are under another layer of red-tape and harder to find.

Oh well, guess we can thank their lack of top performance for helping to develop patience!

Complete Savings

My previous post shared with you my disdain for the online practices of Pizza Hut and its affiliate Complete Savings in their marketing of a $10 coupon and discounts in a way that I perceived as deceptive. This is a follow up to that post.

My contact with Complete Savings produced quick and wonderful results. Not only did they return the June and July payments that had been withdrawn but also April and May for a total of $48 in refunds. While I will not be using them I cannot but help to commend them for the fair way that they did business quickly and promptly.

Who knows I may even eat a piece of Pizza Hut pizza again some day.

For any of you that find a $12 charge from Complete Savings on your bank statement and don't know what it is, rest assured if you contact them they'll refund you money.

Online Ordering

Today as I was balancing my check book I discovered a charge for $12 from a company in CT called Complete Savings. I searched and discovered that the same charge appeared in the previous month. Evidently I wrote it off the first time as a lost stub from either my bride or myself and just charged it off. But charge number 2 on the same date made me have one of those "huh" moments.

I ran it in a search engine and discovered its a Pizza Hut online loyalty affiliate. They have a window pop up offering a discount coupon and when you close it they take your info from the pizza hut account and charge you for your online loyalty, pretty cleaver scheme.

I called the company and as of this writing waiting for an email that will allow me to tell them I don't want their services. As if I ever did! The young man on the other end of the line assured me that once we did this I could expect my money back in my account within 24-48 hours.

After this I called Pizza Hut corporate, the young lady with whom I spoke said that someone would have to call me back to answer my questions. She said that it would be 5-8 business days before they'd get back to me. I guess because so many "loyal" customers are discovering the scam taking their business elsewhere and now their doing CYB work.

The moral of the experience? Don't do business with The (Pizza) Hut online!

Keith Urban's Theology of God's Goodness

"Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness
while I am here in the land of the living."

Psalm 27:13

This morning as I walked my three miles I was listening to my hymn and country set when Kieth Urban's "God's Been Good to Me" began to play. The words to the song give an interesting 'theology' of God's goodness and His direction even in life's dark times.

...Hey there ain't no doubt that God's been good to me

'Cause he put me smack dab in the middle of paradise
In the heart of the city where my dreams have come alive
And everything I have, and everything I see
Is just another reminder that God's been good to me

This golden road's been long
And sometimes I've lost my way
I've been down some darkened detours
Leanin' heavy on my faith
But where the devil had me chained
Lord your love done set me free
Hallelujah! God's been good to me.

How often do we take the opportunity to inventory our life and mark God's reminders in our lives. The testimony of the song speaks to life for many of us. Our lives encounter detours that take us off God's path and the only thing that set's us free is our faith in God through Jesus Christ.

Today I am thankful for the gift of eternal life, a wife whose kept her word for 35 years and for children who honor God with their lives. Thank you Lord for the gift of my grandson and his mother. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you teaching and coaching students.

Urban "theology of sin" is found in the reference to loosing his way and taking detours, but leaning on his faith brings him back to God's goodness. King David said it this way, "Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness." Urban sings of the righteousness of God whether he intends to or not.

The message in this song helped to remind me of God's goodness and how He desires to provide salvation. Hope you'll take time daily to be thankful for what God's done in your life!!