Answer me this: how do you read that statement?

Do you see it saying, "any level of effort is good enough, as long as you are trying," or does it say, "doing nothing is not acceptable?"

To me, these two are mutual exclusive when it comes to living as a Christian.  While God understands we are fallible and we will sin, screw up, let him down, and generally not live our lives as we should, the simple fact of the matter is that everything we do should be done to glorify God.  Simply being a good person — i.e., "any level of effort, as long as you try" — will not find you favor with God.  First Corinthians 13:3 says, "If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."  In other words, if we do not love God, and do not love our brethren as He loves us, all the good deeds we can do mean absolutely nothing.  Our deeds need to reflect God, but also need to be done directly, actively and clearly glorify Him.

It's not complicated.  All you need to ask is whether you are doing your deeds for God's gain, or for your own.  For, when you die, your deeds for yourself may be remembered on Earth, but are forgotten in the eyes of Heaven.  And if you've spent your life doing seemingly good deeds — giving to charities, working to eradicate disease or developing new technologies to improve the quality of life — and your intentions were never to extend God's reach into the community, your deeds are no better than the evilest of evil — and, therefore, are unacceptable.

The line is a fine one: it's not what you do, it's what is in your heart.  If you have a prideful heart that strives to bring glory to yourself, you will not find the tiniest shred of peace in the eternity you've dealt yourself.  But if you have a humble heart, that of a servant in a life where God is the master, your eternity will be one of peace and unimaginable joy.

It's not what you have done for man, but what you have done for God, that counts.  Because, by doing good deeds for man, you show that man can be compassionate.  By doing good things for God, and letting your deeds for God shine with the glory of the Father, you show that God is Love.

I was having trouble coming up with a good topic for the first weekly installment of The Journey.  Then, I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with one of my favorite people, and as I passed along some advice on life, I thought about something my mom once said to me: you can't be happy with anything else until you're happy with you.

The problem most of us face isn't the desire to be happy.  Few people, aside from the unlucky minority who have just totally given up, could ever honestly say that they don't want to be happy.  The hard part is finding out how.  And, the longer you search in vain, the harder it becomes to find the path to your happiness.

Having been through years of depression, and having found my way out of it by no means other than my own overwhelming desire to laugh until I cried again — to live this life, rather than just move from one work day to the next — I feel like I'm at least remotely qualified to say this.

We all think, because of this world we live in today where everything is available instantly, that there is some magical way to find happiness.  Maybe there is, but don't count on it.  The big-ticket item probably isn't going to give you an ounce of long-term happiness.  A vacation, a new house, a new car, having a child…they may bring you happiness now, but they aren't going to fix you.  You're treating the symptom rather than the disease..

Okay, so I haven't mentioned God up to this point, and The Journey is all about my spiritual journey.  So here goes.  God's timing almost always means one thing: the big fix is going to take a long, long time.  God wants us to find happiness in Him, but he also wants us to learn from what valleys we walk through.  Chances are good that he's not going to put a Big, Red Button™ in front of us.  Instead, we're going to have to take baby steps.  He'll reveal a piece of the puzzle here, and another one there, and at the same time he'll make us look back at all the pieces we've already put together to remember where we are.  In the end, it's just foolishness to expect the home run from God when we need to find a way to make a major change in ourselves — in this case, being content with who we are.

Which brings this whole thing around, full circle.  When we're looking for instant happiness, that's something we can buy.  But the moment — the glory — is fleeting.  It's the lessons learned through struggle that will stick with us and continue to bring us happiness for the rest of our lives.  And, to stick with the analogy, no one remembers the home run forever.  They just happen way too often to be worth remembering.  But, when you're down by one run in the bottom of the ninth, you have a runner on third, and the pitcher is stepping up to the plate, everyone will remember the little tap down the first-base line that gave just enough time for the runner to make it home.

Much in the same way, keep this in mind when it comes to learning how to be happy with who you are: legends aren't made with dime-a-dozen home runs.  Your best choice isn't always swinging for the upper deck.  Sometimes you've got to bunt.

There's a certain sense of vulnerability late at night that you can't help but feel when you are the lone adult in the house.  Unless you are asleep, you are infinitely more aware of yourself and everything around you.  The silence augments the slightest bump in the darkness, and lightning can wake you — abruptly — from the deepest slumber.

About 25 minutes ago, a ridiculously severe thunderstorm passed directly over Raleigh, specifically targeting the eastern side of the suburbs outside the beltline.  In other words, the very heart of the storm passed directly over my house.  I was just about completely out cold when the first flash woke me.  The storm was probably still a good five miles northwest, and I thought little of it.  I closed my eyes…

Flash.                      Rumble.

Flash.                 Rumble.

Flash.        Ruuuuuuuuumble.

FLASH-BOOM.

A booming crack of thunder roared up so quickly after the flash that the two were impossible to separate.  While far from the worst thunder I've ever heard (that title is reserved for the mid-summer thunderstorms over the plains of Texas that literally can shake the concrete slab most of the houses there rest upon), it was enough to make me instinctively reach my hands to my ears.  There was no rumble, just a sharp crack, the very sound of which seemed to actually be visible for just that fleeting moment in the flash on which it was borne.

It's not the thunder itself that scared me.  I've grown up fascinated, nearly obsessed, with severe weather.  Tornadoes intrigue me like nothing else in the universe.   No, it wasn't the thunder, or the lightning, or the storm as a whole.  It was, in that instant, being suddenly and minutely aware of the world just outside my house: tall trees, wide-open skies, and the hill upon which my home resides, making it the tallest structure on the street.  Every possible threat of nature to me, my home and — above all else — my daughter was revealed to me in stark contrast as the thunder roared outside.

As adults, these are the monsters in our closets.  It's the fear of a home invasion, or a fire, or a flood, or any other disaster beyond our control that can strike without warning and do devastating damage.  It's our role as protectors that often leaves us feeling entirely and utterly defenseless in the knowledge that we can only control our own bodies, and nothing more.  All the promises we make to ourselves and our families — that we'll never let anything happen to them, that they are safe with us, that there's nothing to be afraid of — are entirely fantastical.  While saying those things may be comforting not just to those at whom we direct them, but also to ourselves, there's a moment each time you stare into the face of danger that you realize one of two things: either God is in control of your life, or no one is.  No matter how much we try to buy into the illusion of control, the complete lack of it becomes obvious to each of us in the presence of a mortal threat.

For me, God is in control.  No matter how reluctant I am most of the time to admit that fact, it is infinitely more satisfying to know that I don't have to cover my eyes with the fantasy that I have to be the grand protector of all.

What this is driving toward is simple: the same crack of thunder than made my heart skip one beat before pounding out a hundred more than it should have also woke Kaylee, scaring her to death.  As frightening as the known threats can be as an adult, it is undoubtedly the fear of the unknown threat as a child that is the worst thrill known to man.  In a span of time equal to the instant I became aware of the dangers outside my door, I forgot them, at least momentarily.  I was down the stairs and had her in my arms in a period of time that seemed so tightly compressed that it was almost as if I was transported instantly from beneath my own covers to her bedside. 

I am not my daughter's protector; God is.  But, to her, I am the physical manifestation of His loving hands.  I am the one she looks for at every moment of uneasiness, and it is my grasp that calms her again.  As the one she perceives as her protector, the urgency of "being there" brings what feels to me like an out-of-body experience.  When her fever spiked in November to over 105 degrees, I wrote here the next day that I stepped out of myself, out of "dad mode," and instantly separated myself from the emotion of the situation.  It was purely instinctive, knowing that I was going to be of best use to her if I was able to think as the rational protector rather than the emotional parent.  Again, tonight, I stepped outside myself momentarily and snatched her from the grasp of her own fears.

But then, as we sank into the couch, I became dad again.  I became a frightened, vulnerable man holding a frightened, vulnerable child.  In that moment, I felt for the first time in more than half my life the frightened longing for my own parents, who long ago calmed my fears just as I calmed those of my child.  And I came to the realization that my mother and father undoubtedly must have felt the same longings, the same fears, and the same incomprehensible feeling of being so infinitesimally small in a world filled with so many enormous dangers.  In that moment, I finally and truly felt like I had grown into an adult, but at the same time I became a child again.

Because, as I sat there comforting my daughter as she drifted back to sleep, my daughter laid there comforting me. 

Just as I did at Christmas, I want to take this time to remind you all exactly what it is we're celebrating.  Amid your colored eggs, your baskets full of candy and even your array of gifts, remember this day was set aside to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his subsequent ascension to Heaven (which, of course, happened weeks later).  The Easter Bunny may have visited your house, but have you let God in too?

We teach our kids about the Easter Bunny.  He has nothing — nothing — to do with the meaning of the holiday aside from the fact that the Christian holiday of Easter was a "mash-up" of the Christian celebration of the resurrection and the pagan ritual of fertility each spring — celebrating a goddes called "Eastre" or "Oestre" depending on your preferred spelling.  It was done that way by the church because potential pagan converts were willing to give up their gods, but not too thrilled about kissing their celebrations good-bye. 

People who celebrate fertility with orgies, and who don't like to stop partying.  Wow, sounds like college.  But I digress.

The point is that most kids who aren't Muslim or Buddhist can likely identify the mainstream view of Easter.  Fewer, probably, can identify the real meaning of the holiday — even in Christian families.  So I challenge you to sit with your children today, no matter their age, and explain to them why we are celebrating today.  Explain to them that the candy and toys and colored eggs are nice, but this would still be the most important day of the Christian calendar even without them.  Today is bigger than Christmas, people: on Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus; on Easter we celebrate his ultimate conquering of sin and death, so we can each have the chance to accept his love for us and, ultimately, join him in Heaven when we, too, rise above death. 

Hey folks.  Just wanted to drop by and leave a quick note that I'm on hiatus from the site for a little while.  I've got some soul searching to do right now, and I'm just having some trouble putting together something coherent enough to write about.  With it being the holiday season, it's a little tougher than I had expected.  It's been lonely, but in a way it's good for me too.  James 1:3 nails it: "… because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."  It is only through our struggles that we can most clearly see our blessings.

Bear with me and, if you are so incline, send a little prayer this way.

This is a few days behind, I know, but the last five days have been a whirlwind.  Please forgive me. 

 It's old. cliched, overdone, etc.  Everyone does this.  But given the summer I had, and the subsequent fall, I need to take some time to look back on what has been important to me.  I need to make sure that every day I see the blessings God has given me, not just the pitfalls that have been placed beneath my feet.  There is good in everything, and right now I'd like to take a moment to remember that which has been good.

• I'm thankful for my family.  Through the last four months, they've been there every step of the way.
• Specifically, I'm thankful that I got to spend the holiday with my brother.
• I thank God endlessly for Her Cuteness — she's the one constant in my life right now, and is my favorite person.  She's truly my world, and even if she's sick, or sad, or cranky, or asleep, or bouncing off the walls, she's the greatest gift God could ever have given me.
• I'm thankful for my home.  God put me in the right place at the right time to finally have a place to call my own.  I've got great neighbors, in a great area of town.
• I'm thankful for the three years I got to spend with Brittney.  While I'm happy with my life as it is now, I wouldn't trade back a second of that time I had with her.
• I'm thankful for a great job and a career path I truly enjoy.  It makes the rest of my life that much easier when I don't spend all my time complaining about my job.
• I'm thankful that God gave me a thrifty, frugal mind, so I don't have to spend every day worrying how I'm going to pay the bills.  And I'm thankful to be in a situation to help those less fortunate, rather than feeling as if my hands are tied when a brother or sister needs help.  On top of all that, I'm glad God has impressed upon my heart that I need to give more than I have been.
• I'm thankful for my health.  I've spent the last 14 hours extremely ill, but I'm already on the way to recovery because the Good Lord takes care of me.
• I'm thankful for the perspective that God has given me on my impending divorce.  I could sit around with a woe-is-me attitude, or I could learn the lessons in the heartache and apply them to my own life and those of my friends who are in need of help.  I've chosen the latter, and now I'm not just a better person, I'm a completely different person.
• I'm thankful for diversions from life, like watching sports on television or talking to a friend by phone.
• Above all, I'm thankful for God's second chances.

I'm a few days behind on my writing.  That's because I've been struggling to "hear" God for the last week and a half.  And then I realized something: in order to learn about the deepest parts of ourselves, God will leave us to our own devices on occasion.

See, we are taught, as Christians, to give our woes to God.  I've written about this, and I've spoken out adamantly about it in recent weeks.  But the one thing we don't always realize is that part of God's way of dealing with them is to let us deal with them ourselves sometimes.  It's at these times when God goes quiet that he speaks the loudest.  It's his way of telling us we have to do the leg work sometimes.

A lot of new believers tend to think that things will suddenly get easier when they accept Jesus and and confess their transgressions.  In some ways they do, but God is not our butler.  We cannot snap our fingers and expect him to cater to our whims.  And, as I said a moment ago, sometimes he goes to the extreme of making us take the load ourselves.  He'll be right there with us along the way to make sure we don't fall flat on our faces.  But from time to time God will let us take some lumps, and will force us to answer our own questions.  I've been dealing with one of those times myself, lately.  The question in my mind was, "is what I think I'm feeling really the way I feel?"  The answer has been a resounding and emphatic "yes!" but I didn't get a study guide for the exam.  God made me take the time to focus on my emotions rather than ask a question and get an answer.  God is not a Solution Vending Machine.

So I looked deeper into myself.  I sat here for most of the last few weeks listening for God, and only hearing myself.  And what I heard in myself was a constant reinforcement that I've been right all along this fairly recent path I've been on.  And while it was even more lonely than usual in this house, that solitude and Heavenly silence has been a blessing. 

I try to post every week, and for a while it's been happening on Sundays.  Well, yesterday was a bit of a struggle for me, as I didn't feel the normal burden from God that I've been getting each week as to what I should write.  Last night, I got that burden through a small crisis.

Her Cuteness has been under the weather since Friday.  Her sitter noted that she had a runny nose, and when I put her to bed that night I noticed she was a little warm.  A quick check later and I saw she did indeed have an elevated temperature,but at just over 100 degrees it wasn't anything to worry about.

Saturday told a different story.  Her temperature shot up to 103.8 in the morning, but fluctuated all day with each dose of Tylenol.  She still had her energy, until about 5:00.  From that point through her bedtime at 7:00, she was pretty lethargic.  She woke up several times throughout the night and I maintained a rigorous schedule of dosing out the Tylenol.  And by morning, the fever had broken.  She was a perfect 98.6.

Things started to swing back toward bad throughout the day, though, but we kept her temp below 103 all day.  An hour after I put her to bed, though, she woke up crying.  She was a sweaty mess, and was so hot she was uncomfortable to touch.  A quick visit from the pediatric nurse next door confirmed my thoughts that we should be on our way to the emergency room, and a few minutes later we arrived.  By the time they took her temperature — 20 minutes after I had seen it rise to 104.1 — it topped out at 105.  I've never seen her look or sound so pathetic in my life, and God willing I'll never have to witness it again.   Throughout the night she was subjected to two temperature measurements — that hard way — a catheter for a urine sample, a large needle for a blood sample and a second needle for the I.V. (they nicked the other side of the vein with the first needle, eliminating the ability to administer fluids and antibiotics through that vein), and finally a chest x-ray.  We were finally discharged a little after 1:00 a.m., and she was asleep again before 2:00.

The night was not easy, as she had been so traumatized by that point that every time she woke up alone in the dark she panicked.  Even me holding her couldn't console her.  It was such a tough experience, and never in my life have I wished more that I had someone familiar close by my side.  I did talk by phone with some family members, and had a wonderfully distracting call from a close friend as Kaylee slept in my arms while receiving fluids via the I.V. 

But the point of all this is that sometimes we have a view of our lives that we think is set in stone, and then something happens to completely change that, whether it's momentary or permanent.  I thought she'd be fine — we licked the fever by Sunday morning and she was back to her old self again.  But then modes changed quickly, and I knew I had to change my view from "dad" to "field marshal."  I was no longer in a position to just administer love; at 104 degrees, the human body begins to enter the danger zone.  At 105, it's severe.  Kaylee's condition necessitated me stepping out of my Dad Suit and into a somewhat detached mode, where I had to make sure logic prevailed over emotion.  For instance, catching myself doing 80 in a 45 and knowing that getting to the ER safe was far more important than getting there fast; the drive is only three miles anyway.  Once she was in the care of the physicians, I could be Dad again, but that wasn't an option at the time.

It's much like a lot of other things we experience in life.  God has a way with throwing us curveballs.  Just when we think He's pointing us one way, He tells us it's time to go a different direction.  It's not that He changed his mind, and it's not that we were "hearing" God wrong.  It's just that His timing is perfect, and our view of it is imperfect.  We can only see the change in direction, not the reason for it, at least not at the time it happens.  In retrospect we'll see the perfection of it all, but at the moment it may be hard to swallow.  Jeremiah 29:11 says, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"  The simple fact here is that God will not bring us to harm, no matter what we think of his plan at a given time.

It's important to note that it is unwise to fight God's intentions.   A few weeks ago in Letting God Lead I talked about this subject; it's never a good idea to "take back the wheel" once you've chosen to let God drive the bus.  The struggle here is that we develop our own plans based on current and past events, and then when God bends the road on us we keep wanting to go straight.  It's at these critical times in our walks with the Lord that we need to be attentive and pray that we can see the new road ahead.  Don't pray to change the road, just ask that it will be well-lit.

In closing, I'd like to ask you to pray for Kaylee, as her temperature has gone back up again tonight.  It's not as bad, but still a matter for concern.  And she's been through enough this year as it is; she doesn't need this, too.  Pray for me, too, that I can handle this on my own without letting emotions get the best of me.  But most of all, pray for her. 

There's one very comforting thing in life: we always have a safety net.  No matter how bad we screw up, God will be there to catch us before we plummet to the ground.  Sure, the fall will probably scare the crud out of you, and the landing may not be a soft one, but we'll survive to learn from our mistakes.

But, as Shakespeare once wrote, "Ay, there's the rub!"  The key is that we need — I stress "need" here — to look for the lesson in our failures.  There's an old adage in Christianity that "God helps those who help themselves."  The idea is two-pronged: the most common translation of that phrase is that God will only give assistance to those who don't sit back and expect God to do everything, like pay the bills.  But the more obscure meaning of the phrase is that God will continue to catch only those who stop making a mistake they know they're making.  It's not because he's given up on you; it's just that he's giving you the lesson the hard way.  And while you may fall to the bottom, know that the bottom of God's love is infinitely greater than the top of the world.

Three years old and his father asks him
To take a leap of faith
From the safety of the dock
Into the dark, cold lake
Standing with his arms stretched out
The child looks so small
Scared to death he whispers
"Daddy catch me when I fall"

Seventeen and he's been pushed
To drinking by his friends
At a party one night he's caught
With a beer in his hands
At the station the sheriff says
"Boy, you've got one call"
He dials home and whispers
"Dad, catch me when I fall"

Thirty-five, on the streets
Begging for a meal
No more wife, no more kids
His pain is oh, so real
He bet on booze and his cheating ways
Now he's lost it all
Tears stream down as he prays
"Father, catch me when I fall"

A child-like faith in the one
Who finds him when he's lost
As a kid he looked to daddy's arms
He now looks to the cross
Knowing those same outstretched hands
He jumped into long ago
Will catch him when he falls
And they won't let him go

When I face uncertainty
When I need some help
I remember Him who caught me
Every time I fell
I've never faced the world alone
Any time I can recall
I walk beside the one I know
Will catch me when I fall

– When I Fall, ©2001 Mike Frazer 

As Christians we are taught to love and to accept — within reason, of course.  The point of "within reason" is to emphasize the fact that there are times when we are not to accept someone as they are.  In fact, that happens a lot more often than we may realize.  And if you're a naturally caring person like me, sometimes you lose sight of the difference between acceptable and unacceptable.

Acceptance and tolerance, as a Christian, are two things that should be handled with care.  Regardless of what you have been taught, the simple fact is that we are not to be tolerant of sinful behavior.  We are to recognize and deny it in our lives.

We need to be diligent in our efforts to identify those who seek to drag us down — and that can be difficult at times.  The strongest weapon Satan has against us is deception, and this is where the caring, trusting people are at a huge disadvantage: we seek to help all, and to be compassionate to all, and as such we let ourselves get close to the wrong people.

Paul listed a handful of the types of people who would deceive and destroy us in 2 Timothy 3:2-7 as he says, "People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power.  Have nothing to do with them.  They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning, but never able to acknowledge the truth."

God's instruction through Paul was in reference to the end times.  While we never know when those times will be, the one thing we know for sure is that these same things have happened all throughout history.  These are the works of Satan and his charges, who only desire to steal, kill and destroy.

Your best protection is to simply follow Paul's advice and have nothing to do with them.  But Satan is the great deceiver, and is good at what he does.  It's often difficult to see the difference between sincerity and deception.  Your only defense is to pray, and pray regularly.  Pray for God to protect you from deception, to keep you on the path he has set before you, and above all pray that God will open your eyes so you can see the deceivers for who they are.