The Truth is ...

It should not be a surprise to any of us that each day God has a lesson in His word for our situation that day.

I posted a blog earlier and used the WWF as an example.

What you may not know is that I wrestled in high school. Initially it wasn't because I thought wrestling was cool. I, like most other freshman boys in my high school tried out for the basketball team. Basketball was the big sport at Faith Academy (Manila Philippines) and coach Hardeman was a legend at putting together winning teams. My older brother had made the team so I thought there was a good chance that I would too.

I was very disappointed when I saw the final cuts and my name was not on the list. Which is why I joined the wrestling team. Amazingly, I really enjoyed wrestling. I wasn't very good at it, but I enjoyed the camaraderie that the team had . What I did learn from wrestling was that it took hard work, disciplined eating and you almost always felt pain, especially when you lost.

I had never seen WWF until after I graduated from high school. The first time I saw it there was a sense of awe that these guys could do these amazing and spectacular things and was beginning to think, "I could do that, with a little more practice", until one guy picked up a chair and hit the other guy with it.

And then I knew, it wasn't real. They were faking it. But as I watched the crowds around the ring, I could see that some of them .... most of them were so captivated by what they saw, that they truly believed what they were seeing. And they were so engrossed in it that they would yell and scream at their hero's opponent, and they were willing to do just about anything for their hero. But their enthusiasm did not make the spectacle any more real.

Our lives can be like the WWF. This morning I ran down to the Ronald McDonald House and then walked back with Ilene. We missed the dogs pulling at their leashes, but it was good to just walk. When I got back to Josh's room I opened up the devotions book (Unto The Hills by Billy Graham) that the Miersma's gave him and read the devotions for today.

The passage was from Romans 1, and specifically looking at how we tend to look at imitations and start acting like they are the real thing. Take clothing for example. If you can't afford that brand name designer dress, purse or shoes, then you find a "knock-off" to make you look like you could afford it. The fact that there is an imitation tells us that there was an original that was copied. And the world tries to copy God, looking for a short cut that doesn't involve giving up personal desires.

We look for things in our lives that will comfort us, make us happy or give us hope for what we are going through and then we begin to use them as good luck charms. If bad things result we blame chance or someone else and then try to appease the good luck charm to get our good luck back.

I am so thankful that there is no such thing as luck. I have a God who knows and controls my destiny and is intentional about using the circumstances (sometimes bad circumstances that I have caused) to draw my attention back to Him. It would be easy to look at what is happening to our family and blame it on bad luck.

But the truth is ... I have the choice of believing the truth or a lie. If I choose the lie, I will spend my life trying to find hope and peace and love in or through the things of the world. But if I decide to seek truth, I will find God and in finding him, will experience a peace that passes all understanding.

Right now, at 9:30 am on Thursday morning, there is a calmness in our lives. Josh is still sleeping and nothing traumatic has happened this morning. But today, Josh will have 3 different types of chemotherapy treatments. The roller-coaster may drop, but if the world around us goes into chaos, we have a God who is faithful and gives peace, and loves my son more than I do. And I can take comfort in knowing that He has been where I am going and He will provide what we need, one day at a time.

Buy into the truth, don't settle for an imitation and what ever you do, don't eat a greasy burrito before riding a roller-coaster.

Remember, this is all about God wanting to use you to influence the 8-15 people that He has strategically put into your life. Because if you tell them the truth, they will believe it, because they should be seeing it in your life.

There is a great book written by Tom Mercer, a good friend of ours, that explains it better than I can. Here is a link to his website, Oikoschurches.com