Give Your All For God

Thomas and I spent last night working on his pinewood derby car. Well, I did. Thomas and I were at loggerheads almost from the moment that I got home. “Clean up the dishes” I said. “blah, blah, blah blah” he heard. “Feed Lucky” I said. “Blah blah” he heard. Finally I got fed up, and sent him to bed around, oh 6:30pm.

Thomas has a wonderful way of apologizing when he has messed up, and last night while on our way to Home Depot, (yeah he went to bed for all of about 3 minutes) he said “Dad, I’m sorry”. “Sorry for what” I pushed. “Anything that I did or might do over the next hours” he said. That was priceless.

Thomas’s response is sort of like my prayers sometimes: God forgive me if I have done anything wrong, and kinda keep an eye out because I feel like I am gonna mess up here soon. I am so glad that God is a more loving and patient father than I am.

9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Matthew 7:9-11

I talked with a friend on Monday, who taught me a good lesson about managing failure. Mike, whose father was an alcoholic asked if I knew how alcoholics kept up with their progress. I had no idea.It seems that there are two popular methods. The first method was the Alcoholics Anonymous method which says that I am an alcoholic and I took my last drink 300 days ago. Obviously this reinforces the idea that you have walked away from it. The other method was I am an alcoholic, and I have failed 10 times, but I have gotten up 10 times. The focus is not on failing, but learning to get up when you fall.

That is a good lesson for me. I have a high tendency for guilt, and the act of falling down is almost as traumatic for me, as the failure itself. Mike suggested that I begin making a checklist for when I failed. Not try to walk a tightrope hoping not to fail.

I had never thought about giving myself the opportunity to fail, and I welcomed the chance to not feel so nervous about failing.

The first thing that I need to put on my checklist is to ask for forgiveness from God, and then to accept it. I cannot keep going back and not forgiving myself. This leads to loads of guilt. Next, I need to surround myself with the things that keep God real to me in my life. The kids laughter, the smile of my wife, the smell of a fall morning, the roar of the crowd at Neyland when a touchdown is made.

I can fail. In fact, I am one of the best ‘failers’ that I know. I am ok at getting up. I most always get up. It takes longer than I would like, and I feel it necessary to have a pity party first. I will work harder at being the best ‘getter-upper’ that I can be.

The last few weeks I have been doing a lot of Geographic Information Systems work. More specifically, the work has been using maps to find relationships within data. It has been amazing at the levels of data that are available, as well as the possibilities of future growth. Cell Phones that can track your location, RFID tags that track product movement, Video Surveillance systems that can recognize facial features. We immediately think of the privacy concerns – and wonder who is watching.

Location has played an important part in my life over the past couple of years. I have struggled with how and where I fit in. I moved “home”, only to find the intense sense of longing for another place.

Isn’t God Fantastic though. Like the Big Brother cameras that we fear, he is constantly watching and hearing. He knows when we mess up. He hears the unkind words that we say below our breath, and the impure images that we see.

More importantly though, He see’s the challenges that we face. He is there with us, to overcome those challenges. He walks with us, urging us on when the path is tough, and when our faith falters.

I travelled to Abingdon this past week to help install some computer equipment. I was excited about the trip, but was apprehensive about the flight segment from Johnson City Tennessee to Charlotte. This segment was on a propeller plane. I have flown a good bit, but have never gotten adjusted to the “puddle jumpers”. Even before I left for Abingdon, this segment from Johnson City was on my mind. Leaving for the airport, I decided that this would need to be a two dramamine trip.

Needless to say, God had different plans for this flight segment. My terror gave way to an incredible peace, and some fantastic pictures. I was reminded of the hymn Trust and Obey: