Did I Hear You Honk?

Most things don’t work unless a team pulls together to make it work. Years ago I read an article from an unknown author about Geese and Teamwork.

As each goose flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird behind it. By flying in V-formation, the whole flock adds 71% more flying range than if each bird flew alone.

The Lesson? People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier when they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

When a goose gets sick, wounded, or shot-down, two geese drop out of formation and follow him down. They stay with the goose to help and protect it until it is able to fly again or dies. Then they launch out with another formation to catch-up with the flock.

The Lesson? If we have as much love as geese, we will stand by each other.

Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.

The Lesson? If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go.

When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.

The Lesson? It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership.

The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

The Lesson? We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging and helpful, not discouraging and critical.

“Therefore, however you want people to treat you, so treat them…” Matthew 7:12

Can You Wrap Your Mind Around This?

An unbelievable course of events had taken place. Jesus Christ died on the cross and on the third day His body was gone from the tomb, but His burial clothes lay undisturbed. A large number of His disciples actually saw Him and talked with Him; on the road, in a room... It staggered the minds of His disciples and they struggled to piece together what was happening.

Actually, before He was put to death, Jesus told them all that was going to happen, but they couldn’t wrap their minds around it. I think we are often like that. We have God’s Word, but sometimes we find it hard to wrap our minds around what it’s saying to us.

A case in point is Jesus’ teaching about giving the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Him. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you…Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” John 14:26-27.

When Jesus ascended to the Father, the Holy Spirit was sent to live in those who accepted Jesus’ death on the cross for their sins. If you are a Christian, have you thought about the POWER that lives within you? It’s hard to wrap your mind around it, isn’t it?

Do you realize that with all that power, God expects you to use it for good? That puts the power of God in your hands to reach out to friends and enemies alike with God’s LOVE.

Can you wrap your mind around this and purpose to show God’s love?
“I will extend God’s love to those I know, those I meet, those I’m estranged from, those in my family, those in my neighborhood, those I work with, those I live with, those I go to Church with. I will extend God’s love to my enemies as well as those I love. I have the power of God living in me to do good and I will!"

Fixing the Fix

Have you ever been in a fix and couldn’t fix it? I often talk to people who are in that place. They are so far down; the only way they can look is up! But looking up is exactly what we should do. We should look up and ask our Father in heaven for help.

After all, He’s our Maker, our Manufacturer and only He can change us, fix us and restore us. He will maintain our peace, comfort us, enable us, protect us, defend us and empower us to do everything He calls us to do. But we work against Him when we try to fix our problems without consulting Him, waiting on Him, and obeying Him.

Some Christians I know find the Christian life pretty hard. They’re in the habit of taking control of their life and running everything…and making a mess of everything! They don’t realize that when they gave their life to Him, He took it seriously and He has control whether they realize it or not.

They’ve formed habits that are hard to break. They keep looking for another fix to fix their fix instead of giving it all to God and waiting on Him.

They don’t realize that the fix they’re in is there to teach them something and they will never fix it outside of giving it to the Lord.

A Pastor friend used to say, “If you fix the fix God fixes for you, He’ll have to fix another fix for you.”

Many of us have a habit of trying to fix the fix instead of giving our fixes to the Lord. But if we are faithful to yield our habits to Him and ask Him to change us, sooner or later we’ll learn that it’s an exercise in futility to even try and we’ll begin trusting Him more to fix our fixes for us. Thank goodness He never gives up on us!

Hmm, it’s so simple to come to Christ and be born again. But becoming mature and growing up in Christ - that’s the hard part!

Laugh

It seems like the harder I tried to find the time to write, the more things got in the way of writing. So here I am, with numerous obstacles out of the way, back to blogging!

One of the things that got me off track was some day-surgery to remove a small skin cancer and a benign cyst, both on my forehead. It turned out to be a bigger deal than I imagined. Thank the Lord the cancer was not threatening, and they got all of it! What I discovered in the process was my vanity.

You don’t know how vain you are until they start cutting on your face! After the surgery, they put a big bandage over both the surgery sites. To apply pressure, they piled cotton on top of that and then applied tape to the whole thing. I wore that big, bulging bandage for almost a week.

I looked like I had a big growth on my forehead that was covered with tape! I assure you, make-up did not help my situation. I had a feeling God was snickering at me. He knows how to deal with our pride, you know.

The big, bulging bandage has been replaced with a big, flat bandage which will be coming off within a week or less. I will probably have a whole new set of pride issues to deal with when I have no bandage at all!

I am in awe of the Lord for the unique ways He operates in our lives. While He’s been hacking away at my pride, I’ve come to realize how silly pride is. I actually got a big laugh at a teenager who looked at me in horror and said, “Oh my goodness, what happened to you?!”

Laughing is good - especially when you laugh at yourself.

Have You Got Your Ears On?

If we want to hear God speak to us, we have to listen. In Matthew 11, Jesus spoke to the multitudes and said “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Can you remember what the sermon was about last Sunday? Or the scriptures that were read? You will if you were listening for God to speak to you. Part of hearing from God is expecting to hear from God. And if we want to keep hearing from Him, we must be obedient and do what He tells us.

This is a key principle when it comes to us witnessing spontaneously. If we are to be effective in ministering to the world, we must be alert to what the Holy Spirit is telling us as we go about our daily routine.

It saddens me to think about it, but I wonder how many times I’ve missed the Lord simply because I wasn’t listening.

How about you? Have you got your ears on?