25 Illustrations
Grief
As a little boy my favorite thing to do with my father was to fish. And whenever we went, dad would always attach to my line a bobber. I would cast my line into the pond, and for the next several moments I would fixate my attention on the bobber, as I watched the waves take it up and down, and up and down. There would even be moments when something would strike my line so suddenly and hard, it would take the bobber all the way under the water. In many ways, what I have just described to you is grief. Grief tends to hit us in waves, taking us up and down and up and down. There are even moments when it feels as if we are all the way under, overwhelmed by it all. But in those moments when my bobber would be all the way under the water, I wouldn’t be hopeless, because I knew the bobber was not out there by itself; it was attached to the line that was a part of my pole, which was held in my hand. In order to get to the other side of grief, you need to be connected to and held by something greater than you. For Christians, the one who holds the line that the bobber of our life is attached to is God. God is the one who sustains us in seasons of grief.
Grief
I watched a television show once where in a specific scene there’s an elderly man seated at the dinner table pouring his heart out to his wife. He’s telling her all of the things he had done that day- how many patients he waited on (he’s a doctor), what he ate for lunch, and the interesting people he talked to, along with what they
had talked about. It was a really touching scene and you couldn’t help but come away inspired in your own relationship. And then the problem pulls back for a wider shot and you discover he’s at the table by himself. Come to find out his wife had died, but when she was alive they had this daily ritual where he was always telling her about his day. Now that she has passed he just can’t stop their routine. This man is clearly grieving. And here he helps us to see a very important thing about grief…the definition of grief- love that has no place to go.
Sacrifice
In the game of baseball, right before the batter steps into the batters box, he will always look down the third base line to his coach who will give him a set of signals. Sometimes the signal the batter receives is to bunt the ball. Now to bunt the ball simply means to angle the bat in such a way that when the ball hits it, it dribbles down the infield for what is just about always guaranteed to be a sure out. So why in the world would the coach tell the batter to bunt when he knows he will be thrown out? Because the batter has a teammate on base, and they want to move him into scoring position. So even though the batter may want to swing for the fences and better his stats by getting a hit or a homerun, to bunt means I have to think beyond myself and do what’s best for the team. Great relationships require bunting- doing those things you may not normally want to do, but it’s necessary to do for the good of the relationship. The best friendships and marriages are those who think beyond themselves and for the good of others.
Pride
The story is told of the time when the heavyweight champion of the world, Muhammad Ali, was on a flight which was experiencing some turbulence. The captain came on the public address system and requested everyone to move to their seats and fasten their seatbelts. As the flight attendant was moving to her seat she noticed Ali did not fasten his seatbelt. She quietly asked Ali to follow the captains instruction and buckle his seatbelt, to which Ali remarked, “Superman don’t need no seatbelt.” She replied, “Superman don’t need no airplane, now please fasten your seatbelt.”
Pride
Joe Dimaggio was one of the most beloved baseball players to ever play the game. Not long after America entered World War II, Dimaggio stepped away from the game and enlisted. His first game back after his tour of duty, Yankee stadium was packed with excited fans to welcome their centerfielder back. Right before the game, Dimaggio grabbed his toddler son, Joe Dimaggio, Jr., and walked out onto the field to thank the fans. As he walked out the crowd cheered, “Joe! Joe! Joe!”. While they were doing this, his son, Joe Dimaggio Jr.,
looked up at his dad and said, “Dad, they’re calling my name.” Pride is taking the credit which rightly belongs to God, and ascribing it to ourselves without acknowledging him.
Suffering
The problem with suffering is not so much the suffering itself, but it’s the psychological toll it takes in not knowing how long the suffering will last. I was reminded of this a few years back when the Peloton bike I ordered was delivered to my house. The representatives set up the bike in our upstairs television room.
Without reading the instructions, I hopped on the bike, picked some class which had something to do with interval training (had no clue what that was), turned on the television, and muted the Peloton instructor. Not long into the ride, I looked down and saw that the monitor wanted me to go between 90-110 miles an hour,
but because the instructor was muted, I had no clue how long I was supposed to go at this speed. After a few moments of sheer agony, I decided to mute the television and turn up the volume on the instructor. Now I could hear her say things like, “For the next thirty seconds we are going to go one hundred miles an hour,” and things were a lot more manageable. It’s not that the intensity changed, it’s just that I now new how long the suffering would last. I’ve often thought how much better things would be if God would come to me and say, “Hey Bryan, for the next thirty days your life is going to be miserable. But it will just be thirty days.” The problem with suffering isn’t so much the suffering, it’s not knowing how long the suffering will last.
Fatherhood
I do a lot of traveling, especially from coast to coast, and one of the things that initially baffled me is why the trip between the same two cities took considerably longer going one way than coming back the other way? What I quickly discovered is when you fly from east to west you are battling a headwind, while flying from west to east you are riding a tailwind. Dad’s, by our presence or absence, our intentionality or passivity, our care or neglect, we will either be a headwind in the life of our children or a tailwind. Some of us had headwinds for dads- dads whose poor example worked against our development. And yet the encouragement is we can still get to our destination, even though we had headwind dads. In fact, some of the best dads I know- dad’s who became tailwinds in the life of their kids, pushing them to their destiny- had headwinds for a father, and yet somewhere along the line they made up their mind to not be that in the life of their kids.
Meaning
I grew up down south, but because my parents are from the northeast, our home was not one influenced by southern culture. In fact, I didn’t even know what grits were until I spent the night over a friend's house. I’ll never forget waking up one morning and sitting at the breakfast table, and there is this white concoction with the consistency of oatmeal on our plates. I watched him take a few spoonfuls of jelly, plop it on the grits and stir it up. Amazed, I asked my friend what the white stuff was? He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Grits.” I then asked him what grits tasted like? He paused for a few moments, shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know. I guess grits taste like whatever you put in them.” By themselves, grits are pretty tasteless, but stir a little butter, or throw some seasoning in there and now you got something. That’s kind of our lives. By ourselves our lives can feel meaningless…pointless. But if Jesus is in the mix- woven into the essence of who you are, now you got something.
Seizing the moment
In the game of basketball there is something called the shot clock. What this means is when the offense has the ball they don’t get all the time in the world to shoot the ball. Instead they have a small window of opportunity. They have a moment. Fail to shoot the ball in the allotted seconds they have (And it has to hit the rim), and you have what’s called a turnover. To be a great basketball player means you have to keep one eye on the defense, and another eye on the clock. No one will live forever on this earth. We’ve been given a moment. Or to say it another way, there’s a shot clock on their lives. To make the most of our moment means we keep one eye on this earth, and another eye on eternity.
The kingdom of God
I’ll never forget the first time I went to Australia. I had this eerie sense I had seen this before. They drive on the opposite side of the road from what I was accustomed to in America. They stop several times a day for tea, and there were roundabouts everywhere. The whole place was giving me England vibes. How did this place on the other side of the world come to look so similar to England? We all know the answer to that one.
Many years ago, thousands of people left England, and came to Australia where they took the culture and practices of the far away place of England, and transported it to this new place called Australia. The result was Australia ended up looking just like England. And that’s the call on followers of Jesus Christ. We are to
take the culture and practices of another world- the kingdom of heaven- and inject them into this place called earth, so that earth looks like heaven. This is exactly what Jesus meant when he taught us to pray, “Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Turning loss into victory
In the game of football there’s a play every team runs called a screenplay. All this involves is the offensive line, whose job it is to block the defensive line, letting the defensive line slip through without blocking them. Now as this play unfolds it looks like sheer madness. It looks like the quarterback will get crushed, and a huge loss will be inflicted on the offense. It really does look like the defense has won. But keep watching, because at just the last moment, the running back will slip behind the defensive line, and the quarterback will pass the ball to him for a substantial gain. What looked like a loss will all of a sudden turn into a substantial gain. As long as you are living the play is not over. What looks like a loss today could be nothing more than a setup for a sizeable gain tomorrow. God is the expert at arranging screen plays in our lives- those moments where it looks like life has gotten the best of us, can turn into victory just like that. Keep running.
Assumptions
Like most people, I enjoy a bag of popcorn. If I’m feeling a little hungry after dinner, I’ll grab a bag, place it in the microwave, and a few minutes later I’m on the couch munching away. But one of the things which continues to baffle me to this day is every time I take the bag out, there’s always plenty of kernels that did not get popped. Chances are you’ve felt this same frustration with me. I mean how in the world could all of the kernels be placed in the same environment, subjected to the same heat, yet some are transformed and others remain the same? I’ve learned a long time ago never to make the assumption that just because a thing or a person is in a certain environment means they will be changed. Jesus said the church will be composed of wheat and tares, good and bad, so don’t assume that just because a person attends church they have been “popped” (transformed) by the gospel. And don’t assume that just because a person comes from a certain background, and went to certain schools and has a certain pedigree that means they are a good person.
Hope
Hope is uncertainty tied to certainty. This is different than optimism, which is nothing more than uncertainty tied to positive thinking. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always been fascinated by people who are really good at manipulating a yo-yo- you know the round object which has a string which is tied around their finger. I mean they can throw it down, make it stay down for a few moments, and then with a jerk of their finger bring it right back up. They can do tricks, like one called “walking the dog,” where they will throw the yo-yo down for a longer period of time only to bring it right back up in their hands. People who really know how to yo-yo are experts no matter how long that object stays down to bring it back up, and this has nothing to do with the yo-yo, but everything to do with what it’s tied to. Inevitably life will throw us down. We will find ourselves down at times in our emotions, our finances and our circumstances. It’s in these down moments where we need way more than optimism. We need the assurance of being tied to something or Someone that is beyond our circumstances. Someone who has the ability to pull us up no matter how low we are.
The object of faith
The reason why it’s hard for so many to exercise faith is because they don’t really trust what they are being asked to place their faith in. When my kids were little we used to play a game where they would stand on the steps and I’d ask them to jump in my arms. At first they would be scared and shake their head and say, “No, daddy,” all while I was pleading for them to trust me. Finally, I’d stand them on the first step a foot away from me, and they would jump, and I would yell, “Got you!” as I would catch them. Emboldened, they would back up a step to the second one and jump again as I would yell, “Got you!” while I caught them. Then they’d back up to the third step, then the fourth step, and beyond. What gave them the faith to jump? It wasn’t in their act of faith- you know their leaping ability. Their faith was rooted in the object of their faith- their dad. Little steps of faith developed their confidence to take great leaps of faith.
The blessing of adversity
When I was in high school I decided to try out for the varsity football team. In preparing for tryouts I thought it would be best to begin lifting weights- something I had never done before. So I walked into the gym, which was packed, waited for the bench press to clear, and when it finally did, I walked over, put the weights on the bar and did a few reps. In the middle of my third set, one of the high school football coaches walked over to me and told me I didn’t have enough weights on the bar. I’m thinking, “It’s my first time working out, and these ten pound weights on either side seem just fine.” He pulled the ten pound weights off, and put these huge forty-five pound weights on. Standing over me while I was on the bench, he demanded that I lift the bar three times. I’m terrified out of my mind, but a lot of people were looking at me, and to a fifteen year old sophomore in high school, peer pressure is a real thing. So I said a silent prayer asking for divine assistance, and lifted the bar, and struggled to not let it cave my chest in. Seeing that I could barely manage to lift the weight, the coach began to tap the bar up. Once it was up, he told me to do it again. Same thing- the bar came down fast, I struggled to lift it up, while he tapped up the bar. He then told me to do it a final time, to which I thought, “I haven’t done it one time.” Once my third rep was done, the coach said to me something I will never forget, “Son, if you want to get big, you have to lift something heavy.” Like you there’s been moments when the bar of life has seemed beyond my capacity. I’ve dealt with marital weights, financial weights, parenting weights, and so on. But it really is true- what doesn’t kill you actually makes you stronger. We just have to choose to not quit, and to hang in there.
Growth
Growth is not just something that should happen to us during one particular season of our lives. Growth should be a lifelong commitment each of us make. During the press conference to announce Nokia being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia’s CEO ended his remarks by saying, “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow we lost.” For years Nokia had been a respectable company. Some of my earliest cell phones were made by them. They were dependable products that never really changed, and that was the problem. The world was changing too fast. The smartphone came along, and Nokia kept making the same reliable product that over time, fewer and fewer people wanted. What killed Nokia wasn’t some big scandal, it was their refusal to learn, to grow and to adapt that led to their downfall. What’s true of Nokia, is sadly true of so many people as we age. We get stuck in our ways, become closed off to new possibilities, and along the way we miss out on wonderful opportunities. Growth has nothing to do with age, but is a mindset we all should carry with us to our graves.
Contentment
Do you know where we get the word tantalizing from? It comes from Greek mythology of course, where the Greek King Tantalus thought it would be cool to steal ambrosia from the gods. As punishment for his crime, he was condemned to an eternal torment of hunger and thirst where nothing would ever satisfy him. When he stooped down to get a drink, the waters would recede. When he reached up to pick some fruit from the tree, the branches would jerk out of reach. King Tantalus lived in a state of perpetual thirst and hunger, and
that’s all of us. Everyone in this world knows what it is like to never be satisfied by the things in this life. To be human is to be in a constant state of being tantalized. No amount of money can scratch us where our soul itches. Do you know how many depressed people there are who have thousands of followers on social media? On the flip side, there are plenty of people who have found contentment we never thought possible. One of the most famous passages on the blessing of contentment was written by an incarcerated Apostle Paul. Gandhi, lead a contented life, while at the same time rejecting the riches of this world. And Mother Theresa immersed herself among the poor of Calcutta, without a complaint in the world. All of these individuals (and so many more) broke free from the chains of being tantalized, by finding contentment outside of this life.
Priorities
I wasn’t very good at math, but I do remember a unit of math called order of operations. Remember order of operations? This was where you would have a parentheses filled with an equation, and in that equation would be addition, multiplication, division and subtraction. Now the temptation would be to jump in anywhere in the parentheses and just do the math, but what order of operations says is that you can’t just do the math according to any sequence you want, you have to do it in its correct order. In other words, it’s possible to get the math right, but if you got the order wrong, the whole thing was wrong. Life has its order of operations. For the follower of Jesus, the sequence always begins with the priority of our relationship with Jesus. If I put anything first, in front of Jesus, be it my marriage, work, money and so on, then I make the whole thing wrong, because what I put first becomes my god.
Anger
Anger in itself is not wrong. Therapist’s will tell you that anger is a sign of what you care about, and expressed in the right way can actually be helpful. The bible doesn’t condemn anger, just unrighteous, hurtful expressions of anger. God gets angry in the Bible, and so does Jesus. The apostle Paul actually instructed the Ephesians to be angry and do not sin (Ephesians 4:26). One night, I was seated with my sons around our outdoor fire pit. I pointed out how we were enjoying the warmth of this fire because it had boundaries. I also wanted them to see that if the boundaries were removed, we would run for cover. The difference between something that we are bettered by, versus something we run from is the boundaries. That’s anger. With helpful emotional boundaries in place, it can be something used to improve the lives of others. But unfettered, boundary-less anger, can actually kill people’s confidence and sense of self worth.
Self-control
If you’ve ever seen a NASCAR event you’ve probably been amazed by how fast these cars go. Some years ago I was shocked to discover these cars, which clock well north of a hundred miles per hour, don’t actually go as fast as they could. See, each of these cars have been outfitted with something called a restrictor plate. Motivated by a concern for the safety and well being of the drivers, NASCAR has mandated these plates so the cars can’t go as fast as they could. All of us need restrictor plates, because we all have basic human appetites, which if they are not held in check can actually harm us and others. Food is good, but remove the restrictor plate of self control and it can become deadly. Sex is a wonderful gift, but without the restrictor plate of self control it can destroy marriages. And there’s nothing wrong with a shopping trip every now and then, but without self control it can spell financial ruin.
Gratitude
In October of 1942, Eddie Rickenbacker’s plane crashed into the Pacific. For the next several days he and the surviving members of his crew were adrift at sea, and soon ran out of rations. On the eighth day, a bird landed on Eddie’s head, where he swiftly killed it, and used pieces of the intestines as bait to fish. Sure enough he was able to catch enough fish for he and his men, allowing them to survive. When they were finally picked up, Eddie was filled with gratitude for that bird. For the rest of his life Eddie would never forget that bird, so much so that when he retired you could find Eddie at the end of a pier with a bucket of shrimp, tossing handfuls into the air to a gathering flock of seagulls, and if you listened closely you could hear old Eddie say, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Serving
It’s the early morning hours of August 28th, 1963. He’s a six foot, four inch basketball coach who has come down from Villanova to witness history. Because of his height he catches the eye of some of the organizers for the March on Washington event, and they ask him to serve on Dr. Martin Luther King’s security detail. This wasn’t what he had come for, but okay, why not. Good choice, George. A few hours later he’s standing right behind Dr. King as he gives the iconic, “I Have a Dream,” speech. Seventeen minutes later, Dr. King finishes, and at the end of the event as King turns to leave, George Raveling (1937- ) follows him and then stops. He notices Dr. King has left his notes to his iconic speech, so George collects them and catches up with King to give them to the leader of the civil rights movement. “You can have them if you want,” King mutters. So he holds onto them. No, “Are you sure’s,” or any questions asked. Today these notes are valued at over three million dollars and still owned by Raveling…all because he decided to not just be a spectator, but to serve. Thanks George for teaching us that when we serve we always get far more than we give.
Everything is for a Reason
I once had to fly to a location to spend the day recording a series of bible studies I had written. Now, in my mind I figured I’d spend all of my time talking to a camera on location. Oh how wrong I was. I ended up spending about twenty percent of my time in front of the camera, and eighty percent filming what’s called in the industry, “B-Roll”. These are shots where a person is standing somewhere looking around, or walking off in the distance. They would tell me to walk a certain way, in a certain direction and at a certain pace, and when I finished they had me come back and do it all over again…and again. Then we’d move to another location and they wanted me to stand a certain way, look at a certain thing. You get the point. And to think I did this for hours. I battled frustration at what I thought was a useless exercise, until I saw the finished product. The director and producers were able to take the most “random, mundane” moments and turn them into sheer beauty. It was then that I realized that what I thought was meaningless, was actually meaningful. There were truly no wasted moments. And the same is true for our lives. So much of our days and weeks and months and years seem to be an exercise in B-Roll. But the apostle Paul had it right when he told the church at Rome that all things work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. God specializes in taking every experience, no matter how pointless we may think it is, and use it for our good, ane most importantly, his glory.
Grace
My wife has a dog (Do you like how I said that?). Several times throughout the day she will take her dog out on a walk, and when she does, she takes with her an expression of grace called a leash. My wife does this because her dog likes to wander off and do her own thing. Whenever this happens, Korie will give a gentle tug on the leash. It’s her way of saying, “Harley (the dog’s name), I’m not going to let you venture off and do
your own thing. I want you to be close to me so we can enjoy this walk.” There are plenty of times when God will do the same thing to us. If you think hard enough you can probably imagine times in your life where you tried to do wrong, where you tried to wander off and do your own thing, and God gently tugged on you through unforeseen circumstances, canceled plans and even his discipline, to get you right back to where you need to be. It may not feel good, but at the end of the day it is his grace.
In the early 1990s, the great entertainer, Sammy Davis Jr., was dying of throat cancer. As he lay in his bed the door opened and in walked Gregory Hines- the man he had invested in, helping him to become a better entertainer. At the sight of Sammy, Gregory begins to cry. He bends down and kisses his mentor on the cheek, as Sammy sheds a tear. Gregory goes on to tell Sammy how much he meant to him, and how he would not be the man or entertainer he is without his influence. As Gregory turns to leave he hears a commotion behind him. He looks back to see what it is, and is shocked to discover Sammy has gotten out of bed and is tap dancing! At the end of his dance, Sammy thrusts his hands forward to Gregory several times it’s his way of saying, “What I’ve given to you, take it and run with it.” That’s what investing in others truly is, isn’t it? It’s taking all of what we have been given and passing it on to others, so they can pass on to others.
