Next Year People

I’ve recently developed a fascination with the Dust Bowl and all of the events leading up to it. Just to give you a little history recap, the government was selling large chunks of land for cheap and promoted the Great Plains as a thriving Mecca of sorts.  This persuaded families from all walks of life and a variety of cultural backgrounds to uproot, leaving everything they know to head out West. 

The 150,000-square-mile area, encompassing the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, has little rainfall, light soil, and high winds (A potentially destructive combination to say the least!).

Due to the high grain prices during World War I and advances in agricultural mechanization, farmers began to plow up millions of acres of unplowed grass.  This rapid expansion exploited the land in unforeseeable ways.  When drought struck from 1934 to 1937, the soil lacked the strong root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called “black blizzards.” Recurrent dust storms wreaked havoc, choking cattle and pasture lands, and driving 60 percent of the population out of the region.

However, the 40% that fought to remain on their cheaply purchased land were hopeful that things would change.  Continuously holding out for a better crop and a better life the following year, they were known as “next year people”. 

Nearly three months of this "new year" have come and gone and probably a few of your “resolutions” and New Year commitments along with it. What commitments have you made to the Lord this year?  I challenge you to not become “next year” people when it comes to pursuing the Lord and His will and obeying Him.

Life: A Box of Chocolates

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think about Valentine’s Day without the image of these heart-shaped boxes popping into my head.  I always felt like these boxes were the food version of Russian roulette….each candy was an unknown and the only way to find out if you were going to like each piece was to take a little bite out of it. 

In the movie Forrest Gump, one of Forrest’s most infamous lines is “Momma always said life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get”.  There’s some words of wisdom there….

While I wouldn’t call myself a control freak, I’m definitely a planner. I always want to know what the next step is and where I’m heading in the grand scheme of things. That being said, sometimes it’s hard to trust the Lord in the unknown, but Psalm 23 calls Him our Shepherd.   

I honestly never spent much time studying the 23^rd Psalm until this year.  Until now I really only associated that text with funerals, but we’ve been in Psalms 23 for several weeks in Children’s church and its definitely challenged the control freak or “planner” inside of me.

This Psalm is usually classified as a psalm of confidence in the Lord’s care.  In other words, it’s about trusting that God is in control and will take care of you. Unfortunately, if you’re anything like me, you’d rather have a “guide” telling you all the answers so that you can know what flavor each piece of candy is before you commit or take that step of faith. 

But a Shepherd cares for His sheep; He guides them, and the sheep’s job is simply to follow.  Sheep are always called stupid…I’ve been told that they’ll even get themselves stuck in a corner and are too dumb to realize that all they need to do is back up.  They NEED a Shepherd, but so do we. 

Those first four verses tell us that we can trust Him.  We don’t have to know everything that the future holds, because we have a Shepherd that will guide and protect us; we just have to follow and obey Him. 

Verses 5 & 6 tell us that the Lord cares for His people.   Verse 6 says that God’s goodness and love follow us all the days of our lives.  While we, like sheep are easily distracted from the Shepherd’s direction, His goodness and love never leave us.  We can trust the Shepherd with our hearts even when life is unpredictable and we never know what we’re gonna get.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,^[a]
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Build A House That Will Stand

As I’ve observed and worked with families over the last few years, I have developed a great amount of appreciation and reverence for the family unit.  Parents, you have the most important job in the world.  More than just keeping them alive, you are responsible for the shaping and forming of your tiny human’s spiritual development.  

Life gets busy and raising a family is hard. But, if our work is not spirit-led, then it’s just work.  All throughout Scripture, honoring the family and the continuation of a lineage is of extreme importance.  We as Americans have lost the importance of “maintaining the family name”, but in other cultures, representing your family well is tremendously valued.  

In Hispanic cultures, individuals keep both their father’s last name and their mother’s maiden name so that others will know to whom they belong.  Is it evident to whom you and your children belong? 

When leaving their house, my dear friend’s mother would always say to me “remember who you are”.  Mrs. Melody wasn’t saying don’t forget your name, but more importantly, remember who you represent.  

We’re all guilty of getting so caught up in our work; our own little worlds, pursuing what’s good that we forget what is best. We have forgotten to Whom we belong.  Parents, I pray that you never get so busy “changing the world” and doing what’s good that you forget what’s best for your family. 

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. -Matthew 7:26-27

In Matthew 7 Jesus makes it clear that without a solid foundation a house will fall.  The same is true for our children; without a solid foundational upbringing, they will struggle to withstand the storms of life.  Do you remember whose you are?  Are you proclaiming that same truth to your children? 

May we build our houses, our marriages, and our families upon the Rock.

Just Keep Swimming

In Athens, the apostle Paul responded to the people’s worship of “an unknown god” by declaring, “[God] is not far from any one of us.  ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:23, 27-28). Do you ever feel like God is far away? 

In the Pixar movie Finding Nemo, a clown fish named Marlin living in the Great Barrier Reef loses his son, Nemo.  After Nemo ventures into the open sea, despite his father's constant warnings about the many dangers of the ocean, Nemo is abducted by a boat, netted up, and sent to a dentist's office in Sydney.
 So, while Marlin ventures off to try to retrieve Nemo, Marlin meets a fish named Dory, a blue tang suffering from short-term memory loss.  Often feeling overwhelmed and alone, Dory chants to herself, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” 

               Dory was onto something in coping with her feelings of aloneness.  Sometimes we lose sight of the Lord and His plans for our lives, but we must press on as He continues to draw us near. 

Diana Butler Bass asked “If the water is invisible to the fish, is God, as the One whom we swim, also invisible?”  When we feel alone and can’t see God, it’s not that he doesn’t exist or can’t be known; rather, he surrounds us so closely that sometimes we miss the fact that God is the Living Water in which we swim.  Sometimes we need to just keep swimming until we become aware of that again.

When things get hard and we lose sight of where we are heading, we just need to keep swimming, keep seeking, and keep serving. For in Him we live and move and have our being.

Just keep swimming

Do We Really Believe that the Bible is Enough?

Jesus overcame temptation with Scripture stating: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  Do we live and thrive on the Word of God?  In the face of temptation, have we hidden God’s Word in our heart to the point of being able to call it to mind when the evil one has shot flaming arrows in our direction? Scripture tells us that God’s Word is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). But do we really believe that?

The God who gave us the Bible chooses to use His Word to change people.  Are we allowing His Word to change us?  

His Word is sufficient to do what He says it is sufficient to do.  (Sidebar: Scripture tells us that it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness-so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.)

Without God every aspect of our being is depraved, but with God we have everything we need for living and for godliness (2 Peter 1:3). 

It’s funny how we look to finite man to fix our problems and offer solutions when we serve an omniscient, omnipotent God.  Let’s stop exchanging the Truth of God for the opinion of man.  

I’m reminded of the first verse of Sammis’ hymn Trust and Obey:

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

When will we finally believe God and do what the Scriptures say? If we truly believe that God is who He says He is and that His Word is sufficient, then when are we going to start acting like it? 

May we trust and obey. 

Peter Pan Syndrome

August is here again.  For many, August means school is back in session.  For me, August means I’ve lived another year.  As I’ve prepared to enter into the later half of my 20’s (26), I have thought and read a lot about my fellow twenty-something’s and how we have struggled to become “real adults”.  

Over the last decade or two, the number of young adults that have returned home after college, or never left, seems to have skyrocketed.  What is happening to us?  Why can’t we find real jobs and be financially responsible/independent?  

Brian Simmons defines this awkward stage of life as Emerging Adulthood.  It’s the idea of living in that place in between…knowing that they are no longer teenagers but not feeling fully grown up yet either.  Simmons goes on to say that “...they experience life for several years suspended in mid-air between the trapeze of adolescence and the trapeze of adulthood”.  

 I’ll admit that there is definitely a tension present, but there’s got to be more of an explanation than just not being able to lock in your dream job.  Part of the issue is something I like to call Peter Pan Syndrome.  Us twenty-something’s grew up at a time that aging and growing up was considered the enemy.  We’ve progressed through the years with a “Never grow up!” mentality.  

The Trap of Upward Mobility

Throughout the course of the 90’s and into the new millennium, attending a 4-year college became the norm.  We were taught and encouraged from an early age that the thing to do after high-school is go to college-because if you don’t go to college then you’ll never be able to get a good job or find anything outside of the realm of flipping burgers for the rest of your life.  

College truly is a great thing-pursuing higher education and being the best you can be is wonderful.  BUT, accumulating thousands of dollars of debt before the age of 22 is not so great.  

Dozens of my college friends thrived and even excelled from semester to semester all just to return home after 4 years of higher education.  You’ve got the degree, but no one will hire you without any work experience.  I’ve literally had this conversation with friend after friend.  So now, you can’t find a job within the realm of your degree, you have no money-scratch that, you OWE lots of money, and the only place to go is home.  

There is nothing wrong with going to college, but maybe it isn’t for everyone.  Perhaps those that do go to college need to be more intentional in seeking out real life experience rather than just reveling in your first “on your own” experience.  

My college experience shaped and molded me more than I ever imagined it would, but what shaped me the most was my work experiences while in college.  Sure, I missed out on tons of the fun activities on campus, but I had a pretty impressive and established resume for a 20 year old.  Sometimes, we have to skip what’s the most fun in order to pursue what’s the most advantageous for the future.  

Can we just blame our parents?

The answer is a big fat no. Let’s be honest here, to a certain extent, our parents were (and in many instances, still are) enablers.  Mom and Pop want to give us the things that their parents couldn’t offer to them.  For many of us, this included way too many clothes, buying our first car for us, not making us work in high school, and holding our hands all the way through college.  

Now mom and dad, we love you for it, but maybe your helping is actually hurting.  Yes, mom and dad, we will always be your babies, but as J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan) explained, “All children, except one, grow up.”. Adulthood is inevitable, but we’ve got to do a better job of preparing children and teens for the realities of growing up. 

Jeffery Arnett noted that since 1950 there has been a trend in America toward delaying or postponing the things which complete transformation into full adulthood.  As Americans ages twenty to twenty-nine delay their transition to full adulthood, they create another phase of the life cycle: emerging adulthood.  AKA: Peter Pan Syndrome. 

            So now we have 27 year olds working 12 hour night shifts and playing video games while their parents are at work.  We’ve gotten to a point in which seeing people in their mid-twenties still living at home is the norm. 

The age at which young adults get married has gone from 18-22 up to 27-35.  Is this because our 20-something’s don’t really understand how to adult yet?  My concern is that the issue seems much deeper than just the age in which we marry. Are we avoiding responsibility until certain things fall into place for us?  We spend this decade wandering around waiting for the next big thing rather than being a successful contributor to society in the here and now.  

            It’s time to move out of mom and dad’s basement and blaze our own trials.  It’s time to actively pursue rather than sit around waiting for everything to be handed to you on a silver platter. It’s time to stop blaming society or your degree choice. It’s time to grow up. 

“To live will be an awfully big adventure.” –J.M. Barrie

^{*Information gathered from Brian Simmon’s Wandering in the Wilderness, and Jeffery Arnett’s Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century.}