Scott’s Blog

Jill and I did a modified version more along the lines of the Daniel Fast for 3 reasons:

• I had fear of failure and of bailing mid-term having never attempted something so trying
• Jill is breast feeding
• I have done a shorter fast (3 days) and found it very difficult to dig up the energy and emotional stability to run a business and also to keep after the heavy work on the Snavely farm of tree felling, chain saw work, and hauling wood that this time of year requires.

Physically:

• I lost my “edge”. It was very difficult to maintain that spark that allows a man to fight the battles he deals with every day. Jill commented shortly after we finished that it was nice to have me back.
  • This was incredibly humbling and often forced a choice between taking it to God and dealing with it internally. Shamefully, I often tried to get a grip on this myself.
• I had extreme fluctuations in body temperature and had difficulty controlling my metabolism
  • I shivered uncontrollably at times
  • Beat juice, broth,and light exercise would cause me to sweat profusely and become flushed and over heated in a matter of minutes
• Sleep at night was incredibly peaceful and nourishing
• Both Jill and I were shocked at the emotional food habits we had - from when I first come home at night and usually grab some pretzels to how and when we eat when we are relaxed. Food is central to our family’s social life (not necessarily in a bad way) and it was difficult to maintain family norms without a joyous supper or pleasant food occasions.
• Jill lost her breast milk and had to change course in week 3 much to Emily’s displeasure
• The treats we loved just aren’t as important anymore (chips and salsa)
• Dried apricots and pecans are actually pretty tasty when you have been off Jill’s homemade chocolate/peanut butter swirl ice cream.
• The “detox” was a healthy side affect
• Some healthier lifestyle choices will stick (oatmeal and fruit for breakfast for instance)

Spiritually:

• I felt led by the Holy Spirit to make two apologies to others - one was silly and involved my talking behind a friend’s back in 3rd grade. Every time I would go before God, these two outstanding issues blocked my ability to communicate with Him. It took me the first full week of the fast to swallow my pride, be broken, and seek out forgiveness. I was really ticked at God and I fought tooth a nail. “Why would you have me do something so degrading and seemingly inconsequential?”
• Massive spiritual swings - one morning could be a fantastic experience with God and the next just a dark pit of despair. Jill and I both agreed that a serious spiritual battle was under way during our fast. We had an extremely dark moment and actually opted not to go to church one Sunday because I was so rattled I was simply unable to emotionally cope with interacting with other people in a public setting. Ultimately, the result was brokenness and reconciliation.
• There were many “layers” of spiritual awakenings. It seemed that as soon as one area was addressed, another layer was exposed that I was never aware of.
• There were 3 moments of complete darkness and despair that I have not yet figured out. Yet, I experienced extreme peace during the vast majority of the fast. In fact, it has been difficult coming off the fast and entering into my normal emotional existence by experiencing the pressures and stress of life very intimately. During the fast, the pressures were there but I was insulated from them.
• The boys were fascinated and worked hard at trying to understand the fast. Near the end, Gabe asked, “Mommy, could we just have a sandwich today?” Of course, they weren’t on the fast but the family diet and meal plan changed for everybody. Ben was very excited when it was over too and talked about all the food we could eat together.
• The fast created a special bond between those of us doing it. Sure, we could commiserate but we could also share the spiritual challenges and victories.

Near the end of and several days after the fast, I was not convinced that the struggle was worth it. Perhaps, that shows my spiritual immaturity and weakness. Perhaps, like any discipline, fasting creates a deeper experience in successive attempts. After one week, my motivation and self-control started to erode. During the third week, food and hunger was less of a temptation yet I wandered about in a stupor and found it difficult to maintain a healthy emotional state.

I am most struck by the clash of good and evil the fast caused in me spiritually. I was expecting more of a “monk smelling flowers in a pasture full of butterflies” type of experience when in reality there were times of the child hood nightmare of running from an unseen evil that you simply can’t understand.

I am certainly humbled by the experience. I haven’t fully come to grips with it yet. Yet, I fear if I don’t put my thoughts down now, they may just slip away.

The thought that was ever present and is still burned in my consciousness, ” My food is to do the Will of Him who sent me and to finish His work”.

For what it’s worth!

nate

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Today has been a long and productive day. Wednesdays are meeting days for me and it was fun for me today to see our staff energized to keep serving our family for God’s glory. The TV is off, Bren is working on her school work (she’s taking 17 credits this semester), Caleb is coaching his youth basketball team and I’m sitting on the couch reflecting. It just dawned on me that today marks the half way point for the fast. Depending on the moment I think that’s great or terrible. When I’m not hungry I think it’s great, when I’m hungry I think I can’t go another 10 days on only liquids. Most of the time, though, I feel fine physically.

The question that matters is not am I comfortable, but what is happening in my spiritual life. Fasting is about helping me remember that I’m not home, and that the real pleasures of life are not the food I eat or other conveniences I have, but my walk with Jesus. Brenda and I were talking last night on a road trip to watch Caleb play basketball at Dallas. She’s doing the Daniel fast and she said that it dawned on her as she was missing eating some trail mix that she really doesn’t typically deny herself anything she wants. If she’s feeling a bit hungry she eats some food. If she needs a mental break she grabs a soduku puzzle. If she’s thirsty for coffee we have this neat machine that gives you a cup of coffee any time. When you live in lavish circumstances like that life can become cheap. It can become simply walking from one little pleasure to another. You can get to the point that you think that life is about your hunt for pleasures. Then you start to experiment and tweak your pleasures. Your focus is on making your house just the way you want it to be, or a hundred other little things. That is very dangerous. I’m grateful for the fast, even though it’s hard because it is a gracious, glorious reminder that my life is not about the stuff that’s around me. My occasional hunger is a reminder that I’m not home yet, and that home is so far better than even the best of life here. That homesickness makes me want to talk to my heavenly Dad more. It makes we want to connect with Him and enjoy Him and define myself by my status in Him. If find myself searching the Word more. Rather than thinking about what I want for a snack or what I’d like to watch on TV I just grab a Bible and enjoy Dad’s love letter.

Being homesick changes the way I see everything. That alone is worth it.

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Many people in our church family are working through various forms of a three week fast. We have some folks fasting from technology and others are fasting from all or certain kinds of food. Matthew 6 assumes that Christ followers will fast. The question is why should we fast, what is the payoff?

The book of Daniel is a great place to get that answer. Daniel begins with a tragedy. Judah, Daniel’s homeland, is invaded by another King, the temple is defiled, sacred objects are dedicated to foreign gods and Daniel is taken prisoner. Daniel was selected, among some other captives to be schooled and trained to become a servant to the new King. This select group of people were given a portion of the kings food and wine. The problem was the kings food would have been unclean to a Jewish young man. Daniel was faced with a choice. He was given a pretty good situation as captives go. He could melt into the country and assume this was God’s will for him, or he could refuse the good food of the king and remain faithful to the Jewish law for God’s glory. Daniel chose to go against the grain, along with some of his friends, and fast from the rich food of the king, and eat only vegetables and water. A diet like that would insure faithfulness to the Jewish law and Daniel and his friends would therefore not be defiled or unclean. God blessed their obedience and, later, when the king inspected his captive trainees Daniel and his friends looked healthier than the others who were eating a full range of foods. Verse 15 of Daniel chapter 1 says: “Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the food assigned by the king.”

From my perspective, Daniel’s fast did at least two awesome, worthwhile things. First it continually reminded him that he wasn’t home. I don’t think I’d criticize Daniel if he’d have chosen to eat the kings food. I think that would have been a reasonable decision given the circumstances, certainly that is what most of the captives did. However, by separating himself from the kings luxuries Daniel was continually reminded of who he was. He did not place his hope for joy or pleasure in the gifts of the enemy territory that were around him. He kept his hope and joy tied directly to his relationship with God, who was very faithful to him through his captivity.

Fasting does the same thing for us. We live in the wealthiest culture in the history of man. We deny ourselves so very little. We have almost endless food and entertainment and we can become centered on the things that come with living in this enemy territory. Our enemy is more than happy to watch us weaken as we eat and drink and entertain ourselves while our passion for our real home is greatly lessened. We become obsessed with our homes and cars and bank accounts, all of which is, and forever will be, locked to enemy territory. You can’t take any of that home. Colossians 3:1-3 Since you have been raised to new life in Christ, set your sites on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Every good thing around you is a gift of God’s grace and is given as a hint of the joy of heaven. Fasting helps us move our passions home.

The second thing fasting does for us is also from Daniel’s story. In Daniel chapter 2 the king has a dream that he can’t understand. None of the advisers around him knew how to interpret the dream either. Daniel, however, was close to God. He listened closely to God and God gave him supernatural ability to tell the king the meaning of his dream. In fact, Daniel did that three times. When we pull away from the noise of life and simplify our daily routine by not eating, or by turning the TV off and withdrawing from the computer we reduce the noise in our life to the point where we can hear God’s still small voice speaking to us.

The two very best things of life are knowing that our future is a trillion times better than our present and that our hope in that future is more real than anything else in my life, and fellowship with Almighty God where I hear him and rest in him. Fasting brings both of those awesome things.

Really, what could be better than that?

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This post, by its nature, will be a bit more personal. But since I don’t get much chance to just chat with many of our folks it seems this is a good forum to stay transparent before you. It is also a bit longer than most simply because a year is a long time!

Every year as the noise of Christmas starts to diminish a bit I intentionally turn my mind and heart to looking back on the ending year and surrendering the year ahead. It is a good time of evaluation, reflection, repentence and learning for me. It normally also serves to fill my emotional tank to keep swinging because there is a clarity of personal mission that comes out of times of silence and seeking God. (This is one reason I’m so excited about our coming 21 day fast)

As I jotted notes and random thoughts I realized that 2009 was a year of great progress. I rejoice over those who have come to faith in Christ and are, even now, taking steps on that journey. I celebrated marriages that have been healed or are in process of being healed. From my vantage point 2009 was our best year yet in terms of eternal fruit and taking back strongholds previously dominated by the enemy. Realizing this caused me to write down the names of some folks for whom I am very thankful as a part of the journey our church is on. I’m thankful for gifted counselors that slog through the murkiness of difficulty with those entrusted to our care. That is an exhausting job and I’m grateful that God has provided us with some fantastic counselors. I also listed our elders, who for well over two years sought God for His future for ebc and then had the courage to make the decision in March of 2009 to do all we can do to become a missional church. I also listed our staff. We have a staff that is first rate. They’re gifted and talented, but beyond that they are sold out to our mission. They work way beyond what any “normal” employer would require and do it for pay that is less than they’d make even at other churches. God has been so gracious to us with our staff. We also have the best church family and volunteers! The volume of ministry that happens through ebc is staggering and that is because of our volunteers. Yeah God. I also wrote that I’m grateful that God has placed us in a place that has a very real opportunity to reach the Susquehanna Valley. I believe God is building a perfect storm of His costly grace through which he will welcome more and more people to his family.

As a husband and father 2009 was wonderful. I got to know Brenda at a deeper level. We decided to put her degree on hold to get married 24 years ago, and she’s now getting back to that. She has a long way to go, but it has been fun to support her as she climbs that mountain. I’m ever amazed at her ability to adapt to whatever has to be done. My bride is one of my hero’s.

We are in the launching stages of parenting. Jake got back into college football and is only a few more semesters away from finishing his degree. Seth got to jump out of an airplane at the Air Force Academy in Colorado this summer as part of the Air Force ROTC program. And Caleb is learning that leadership is a messy business as he is appointed to be captain of some of his sports teams and student government at school.

I rejoice in God’s lavish grace over our family and 2009 was a continuation of that.

2009 was also a year of challenge. It was a  year of transition and transition is always hard.  No matter what we do 10% - 20% of our family will wish we were doing something else. That is just the nature of things.  It is hard to ask people to give up what they think is important and correct to do something else. Transition also tends to reveal truths about us that need to be corrected. One of the things that has become apparent to me is that some of us fundamentally misunderstand spiritual maturity. We equate spiritual maturity with biblical knowledge or church attendance, or attending a church that does things a particular way or with a particular style. Consequently we have a small group of people who act in sinful ways (complaining, murmuring, assuming negative intent, spreading rumors, gossiping and being unloving) in order to preserve what they mistakenly believe to be spiritual maturity. We must lovingly try again to confront that sin together this year.

On a personal level God revealed significant dysfunction within me personally. I have not built healthy boundaries in my own life regarding two things in particular; work and food. So I don’t take days off as I should and I stay in touch while on vacation. Then when I feel tired or stressed because my life is out of balance I eat food. Workaholism comes from nothing less that insecurity and pride and gluttony is a way to sooth myself without counting on God alone. So, in 2010 God is expecting me to restore a healthy rhythm to my life. No more email on days off, I’m going to take real vacations and try not to feel guilty about saying no to some things even though some may become upset with me for that. I’m going to stop dealing with over eating as a physical problem and deal with it as the spiritual issue that it is.  

As a family we are so well positioned for God-glorifying Kingdom impact. What could be better than that? See you on Sunday.  

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In the last ten years the way we stay in touch with each other has changed drastically. Facebook and Twitter have reshaped communication. As of this writing there are 350 million active facebook users and the average user spends 55 minutes every day on facebook. Think about that for a minute. There are more than 12 million regular daily users of Twitter. I have been a twitter user for several months. I follow people that I’m interested in hearing what they have to say. Twitter is a micro blog site where “tweets’ can consist of up to 148 characters. Everyday I’m encouraged by people like John Piper and Mark Driscol as they “tweet” various thoughts and insights. I opened a facebook account a few months ago mostly to watch and see how the thing works and what the potential is for ministry. I have been amazed that facebook is a central gathering place for ebc.

Even though many large corporations are rewriting their corporate training programs around social media the news is not all good. Many folks complain that social media sites like facebook and twitter shorten attention spans, discourage substantive reading and disembody relationships. Those concerns would be true, among others.

But the question for us is since facebook and twitter are here and are a big part of our world how do we respond as the church? We can fear the downsides and refuse to participate, or we can join in and be as creative as we can to infuse a Gospel - centered, Christ exalting world view into the culture.

After experimenting with Twitter and facebook as a user and observer for several months we are gearing up to launch an updated facebook page early in January and I will begin “tweeting” when we launch our “Your Place at The Table” series in January.

Since tweets can be set up to be forwarded to your cell phone as a text message my goal will be to provide short thoughts that will spur you on to significant, Christ-exalting, God glorifying, people edifying daily living. It is a form of spiritual formation that I pray will help us take steps toward total surrender to Jesus in moment by moment relationship.

Let’s pray to that end, and we’ll see what God does.

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We have an unquenchable thirst to be kings. We want to be at the top of some mountain and say we climbed there on our own. We want our lives to have distinction and we’ll go to almost any lengths to make that happen. I recently read of a sub culture whose prized possessions are their car stereos. Now I can appreciate good car audio as much as the next guy but this group takes it to a whole new level. Going by the moniker “decibel drag racers” they cross international lines to come together at competitions where the prize is given to the car audio system that can raise the decibel meter to the highest point. Never mind the fact that in the quest to be loudest the cars and vans can’t even be driven any more, they have to be trucked to the competitions! The holder of the world record at this point in time had poured 900 pounds of concrete into the floor of his van to accommodate the equipment and its decibel production. One competitor seemed to miss entirely the irony that there was no room for him in his car as he lamented the fact that he needed more batteries but there was just no more room in the vehicle.

We are passionate about making our statement whatever avenue we may choose to do it. This is entirely human and it is entirely dangerous.  Our passion for distinction and achievement can become an idol that infects everything we touch. We create things as a testimony to our own ability and then we passionately find ways to call attention to that which we’ve made. Because that thing we’ve made becomes our source of pride we protect it with everything we have. We need it. It really is idolatry.

Now here’s the problem. For some of us, that thing that we’ve made is the church. The irony is that we take over the instrument that is to carry the banner pointing to Jesus and we turn the arrow so that it points to us. Church becomes a testimony to our own pride and commitment to a task that really isn’t about God and his mission at all, it’s about us. Oh we’re very subtle about it to be sure, but our hearts reveal the truth of our real motives. The good news is that God can still use for his eternal purposes churches that are more human idol than divine instrument. He can still reach and grow people through those churches. The bad news is that the people with hearts tilted toward personal idolatry through ministry will lose all their rewards, that is of course assuming that they really are saved.

The very hard thing is that churches that are really idols to humans can look exactly the same as churches that aren’t. The difference is in the orientation of the heart. The difference is revealed in two things; our thought life and our talk life.

If you find that your thoughts are consumed with things of the church rather than things of God you’re in danger. Are you constantly thinking through the “issues” of church and coming up with things it could or should be doing or changing? Does this happen more than your dreaming of and enjoying of the beauty and majesty of God and your future in Him? If so you’re in danger.

Is your conversation with friends consumed mostly by the wonder of God and his grace toward you and the joy of your experience of that grace? Or do your conversations revolve around the church and whether it is everything you want it to be?

The church is a means to an end and the end is the moment by moment worship of God as our greatest pleasure.  When the church becomes a source of personal passion and pride it becomes an idol to human  achievement and is counterproductive. It’s churcholotry and it could cost us not only our rewards, but our souls.

Did you pass the thought life and talk life test? Let’s help one another stay faithful to the real purpose of the bride of Christ.

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One of the things our elders have done over the last eight years is open our building to the community. I think you’d be amazed at the cross section of folks that hold events here. Girls scouts, the YMCA, various support groups, Berwick schools and community athletic leagues among many others. We’ve done this to try to and build a bridge between our church and the community. Sometimes just getting people into the building removes some of the hesitance they have about us being a “church.” This has been very effective. I know of several folks who have come to services at ebc because they’ve come to some other event here and became curious about us. As is the case with anything, sometimes building use requests are controversial and present difficult judgments. One of those was when the YMCA wanted to use our gym to hold their basket bingo fund raiser. Basically, in basket bingo, everyone makes a donation to the Y as an entrance fee. Then they play bingo to win prizes of baskets. After discussing this with our elders we allowed the event in our gym. I’ve blogged about that decision in the past. This week one of the local midget football teams made a request to have a Halloween party in our building. My first reaction was to just say yes on the grounds that our building is open to the community and we’d love to have them here. After some reflection however I asked Colleen to hold off on getting back to them so I could think and pray a bit more. Halloween is not something we celebrate and I wondered if allowing a Halloween party might somehow be an endorsement of the things Halloween is about.  I tried to think through how Jesus would handle the request and I thought about what message we’d be sending either by allowing or not allowing the party. Then I thought back to my own childhood in Ashland. I remembered Halloween. We dressed up in funny costumes and visited our neighbors who gave us candy. That was it. I didn’t learn what the real Halloween was about until well into my adult years and our childhood celebration of what we called Halloween was very different from that. I then thought about my own sons. I remembered Brenda dressing them up in costumes that she made and their delight in getting candy from neighbors and relatives. I remembered pastoring in Selinsgrove where we had big “fall fun nights’ on Halloween so kids could get all dressed up and come and have fun and get candy. It occurred to me that there are really two Halloweens. One is a fun time of kids dressing up in costumes and having parties and getting candy. The other is an evil celebration of pagan worship. They have nothing to do with each other. I thought through what it would feel like to the families of this midget football program, who in their mind are having a fun, safe event for their kids, to hear that we think that Halloween in evil and we will therefore not allow them to use our building. I can imagine them wondering what kind of kooky person thinks having a protected party for kids that keeps them off the streets is an evil thing. So in the end I made the judgment that we would welcome this group to come and enjoy a safe, candy filled evening of playing games. While they’re here I hope their parents look around and get curious about what we’re all about. Through it all I was reminded that missions is messy and I’m glad that we’re a family that is willing to deal with the messiness of effective outreach so we can build a bridge to those who need to be rescued by Jesus.

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One of the areas of feedback that I’ve gotten over the past few months has surprised me. No one has said this to me directly, but three or four people have told me that “Other people are saying…” I’m never really sure what to do with things like that because they’re rather nebulous. This particular piece of feedback has left me unsettled because I can’t figure out the belief that motivates it. In short, I’ve been told that some folks feel like moving forward in being a missional church invalidates the last thirty years of ebc’s history. Kind of like if being a missional church is correct, then all those years of not being a missional church must have been wrong.

Is that correct?

The short answer is easy; No. Next question; why?

First, ebc’s history is both rich and fruitful. Ever since I served here briefly under Mark Cain (in the mid 80’s) my dream was to come and be the pastor at ebc. Watching Mark had a defining influence on me. He told me the truth about me and was one of the best Bible teachers under which I’ve ever sat. We were blessed to have him here and ebc grew and was fruitful in many ways during those years. We’ve sent perhaps millions of dollars into the mission fields of the world and many believers were fed well by the Scriptures because of Mark’s gift of teaching and preaching. Our church benefited in many ways from Marks integrity and character in leading our family during that chapter of our church life.

In many ways our pursuit of missions as everything that we do is possible because of the investment made in many of our folks during those formative years of our church. We don’t move on to being missional because our history was wrong, we move on toward being missional because our history makes it possible to do it. We stand on the shoulders of our past leveraging who we’ve been to be able to pursue our missional future. The whole point of sitting under some of the best teaching in the country is so that we can put shoe leather to it and participate in God’s mission of redeeming the world, including, and even perhaps primarily, here in mid Susquehanna Valley.

I’m 45 years old now. I’m different in many ways than I was ten or even five years ago. Does that mean that my past is invalid, or somehow wrong, because I’m different now? Of course not. If I’m going to keep growing as a man I have to stand on previous year’s growth to see what I can see for my future because of that growth and development, not in spite of it.

Our church family is a living, growing organism. I’m certain that we’re going through  experiences now that will change what we do in the next several years, not because we’re wrong now, but because what we’re going through now will grow us to be what God has for us in the future. We can’t get there without going through these experiences together now.

Are there things from our past that we need to repent of and move away from? Of course! The perfect church does not exist, neither does the perfect person. Our task is to humbly learn from our past while celebrating God’s grace in being faithful to us for the future.

Does change for the future invalidate our past? Not at all. The only thing that would invalidate our past would be not leveraging it for our future. Our future is possible because of God’s grace in our rich past.

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In two weeks I’ll be 45. No Fetterolf male, that I’m aware of, has ever lived beyond 72. That means that in all likelihood for the last seven years I’ve had less time left than I’ve spent on earth. I am right now, and for the next 15 years, at the prime of my professional career.  Entering this chapter of life has prompted me to ask a probing question. It’s important to me to enter this chapter with the desired end in mind. I want to be intentional. So, the question is simply this; what do I want to give to those who are following right behind me? I have no control over what has gone on ahead of me, and I have no control over what happens when I’m finished. The only thing I can control is what I try to leave behind. Because I’m a dad, and I’m on the last chapter of full time parenting I’ve thought about this a lot. There are lots of good answers. I want my sons to have a solid work ethic, I want them to be respectful and value people. I want them to see how to cherish God’s gift of a wife for them. I want them to pursue life as an adventure rather than just experience it as it goes by. There are lots of ways to answer that question but I think there is only one answer that really satisfies. Psalm 145 has given me the answer. David is writing and right after his introduction he says this in verse 4: Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts. That’s it. That simple statement burns through the fog of the good and advantageous to the vital and supremely necessary. David goes on to describe what that looks like in the next several verses. He says in verse 6 and following: Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue; I will proclaim your greatness. Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness; they will sing with joy of your righteousness. Then later he says: They will talk together about the glory of your kingdom; they will celebrate examples of your power. They will tell about your mighty deeds and about the majesty and glory of your reign. For your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. You rule generation after generation.

One thing is sure. The generation that follows me is more different from me than I am of the one that preceded me. Their world is different from mine in so many ways. They interact differently than I do; they experience things differently than I do. They learn and serve and live differently. But there is one thing that I have that I can pass on to them that will have a fundamental defining impact on them. That is my story of God and how he’s loved, provided for and changed me.  They are well suited to figure out how to reach their generation. They don’t need me to do that. God is more than capable of guiding them in those things. What makes me sad is that so often we have tried to give them our way doing things or our experience of the church before sharing experience with Jesus. Sometimes we give the impression that our methods are more important to us than our relationships. They already know our way of doing things has not been completely effective so it’s no wonder they turn us off pretty quickly when we pretend our greatest gift to them is stuff we think they should do.

Psalm 44 finds David dealing with national tragedy. Israel was being plundered. David, however had great faith in God’s faithfulness. Why? He gives the answer in verse 2: Our ancestors have told us of all you did in days long ago.

In Psalm 78 Asaph writes: We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders… so the next generation might know them— even the children not yet born— and they in turn will teach their own children. So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.

I want to encourage you to join me in developing a laser focus for the last half of your life with me. Let’s take the advice of the psalms and tell those that follow of the mighty acts of God. Let’s share his glorious loving kindness and the joy of walking with him alone.

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I receive a daily email from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries called “A Slice of Infinity.” It’s an apologetic essay that I really enjoy reading. Today the author told the story of a nineteenth-century rabbi known for his mastery and teaching and living an unwieldy Mishnaic teaching called ayin tovah, or as we would call it the “good eye.” To live with the good eye is to carry yourself in such a way as to intentionally focus on what is most pure and good in each person.  It is to see their potential rather than their failings.

The essay got me thinking. We’re in a super busy time right now. There is a lot going on at ebc and in most of our personal lives. Someone shared with me recently that summer was supposed to be the more relaxed time of year and their lives certainly weren’t reflecting that. I don’t know about you, but when there seems to be a lot going on I tend to look at people and the world very quickly. I tend to miss the best things because I’m in a hurry to keep going.

An article from the Washington Post illustrates this perfectly. The article describes an experiment called “Pearls before Breakfast.” The question was whether one of the world’s great musicians could cut through the rushed fog of the Washington D.C. rush hour. They hired violin virtuoso Joshua Bell, who only three days prior, had sold out Boston’s prestigious Symphony Hall, where the not-so-good seats cost $100.00. Bell performed at the crowded Metro where he made music with his handcrafted 1713 Stradivari for nearly an hour as thousands of people rushed by.  The researchers recording their observations noted that perhaps 27 people noticed and they threw $32 into a hat which was in front of the world renowned master musician. They concluded their report by saying “There was never a crowd, not even for a second.”

I don’t know about you but there are times when I miss God’s gift of the virtuoso because I didn’t budget the time to listen. Sometimes I miss the great, but quiet, movements of God that happen all around me because I’ve built up an artificial self-perception of importance for the precious tasks that must be completed today, at all cost.

Today, while I pursue what I’ve been called to do, I want to keep an ear tuned for the beautiful music of the Grace Master while he performs all around me. Now that’s living.

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