Peace…

This school year, our boys are enrolled in a charter school that is a virtual academy. This means they are each home during the day and Leigh-Ann has a lot more work.

It also means more competition, more arguments and of course more love…well…maybe.

There has been one game-changer though….

As a pastor, I would like to tell you something spiritual….like they are memorizing and now fearlessly living out the fruits of the spirit…or they spending an extra hour in prayer a day….or they are rushing to spend their free time planning how to advance the Kingdom….

Not yet anyway….

Do you want to know what the game-changer is?

NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONES

When I was their age, our headphones were a one-inch diameter speaker covered in cheap foam held in place by a band of metal that never fit right. They either slid down to my jaw or wedged above my ears…and the fact they were plugged into a Walkman with a cassette tape didn’t help much….

But nowadays….the headphone game is strong. A few weeks ago, I tried on the kid’s noise-cancelling headphones and it felt like I was in another world.

I was in the middle of our living room, there were two parents, four kids and two dogs getting ready for dinner. There was movement everywhere….and it felt like I was alone at a private concert.

I was experiencing peace like a river…

Have you ever wished there was noise-cancelling headphones for life…a way to simply block out all the loud voices and confusion and turmoil?

Well actually there is such a thing…in fact, I look forward to sharing more from John 16:25-33. In these verses, Jesus is preparing his disciples for trials and tribulation and the final words the Apostle John records before Jesus begins His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is, “in me (Jesus) you may have peace.”

We can take heart because no matter what is going on in our world, through Jesus we are promised peace…and that’s even better than those noise-cancelling headphones.

I sure hope you can join us in person at 8:00, 9:15 (Full KidCity) or 10:45 am, or watch the Livestream on YouTube (Like and Subscribe) or Facebook at 10:45 am.

Have a great weekend,
Troy

Backpedaling…

A week or so ago, I was helping coach one of our kid’s soccer games. It was a pretty close game and the referee was struggling. It seemed more difficult than normal for her to get to the correct vantage point to make the best calls.

And then…in the middle of live play, while she was backpedaling she tripped and fell straight back.

A few seconds seemed like forever.

What do you do when the referee who is in charge of the game goes down?

Before anyone on the sidelines could get out to see if she needed any help, she got back up and waved for the play to continue. Although everyone was most certainly thinking the same thing, no one said a word.

I could tell she was mortified and to be honest, I know if it was me that had fallen, I would have been counting down the seconds to get that game over and leave.

However, she pushed through the embarrassment and stuck with it till the end. I’m sure it would have been easier in the moment to walk off the field and never referee again. But she made the tough choice and endured till the end.

There are times relationships can be like this…sometimes we may feel like giving up and walking away from a friendship. And in the moment, that may be the path of least resistance. However, the right thing to do is to find a way to reconcile what has gone wrong.

This Sunday, we begin a four-week sermon series entitled, brokenness and forgiveness studying through the book of Philemon. We will learn about Philemon a slave owner, Onesimus a slave and Paul a peacemaker. Paul writes to ask Philemon to accept Onesimus who was at one time useless but now he is useful.

Life brings bumps and sometimes we fall…flat on our face…brokenness is a part of our life.
Instead of giving up on a friendship, by the grace of God, it can be restored….maybe even better than ever.

I sure hope you can join us on Sunday in person at 8:00, 9:15 (Full KidCity) or 10:45 am, or watch the Livestream on YouTube (Like and Subscribe) or Facebook at 10:45 am.

Have a great evening,
Troy

New Life Sunday – Dirty socks…

This morning I stepped out of my car on the way to an appointment at a hip coffee shop downtown KC. I was feeling pretty urban and cool if I do say so myself. I glanced back at my car and then I noticed…there were socks in the back window. Leigh-Ann and I often joke about how having 5 kids somehow tends to meddle with the cool factor…lol. One of the boys decided to take off his socks and throw them in the back window.
 
I often wonder the thought process that happens before throwing socks in a back window…
 
I can only guess, but I am thinking the reasoning (if there is any of that going on in 3 and 4 year old boys minds) is that if the socks are out of sight, then they don’t have to worry about putting them back on or bringing them in the house.
 
I have attached a pic for a Friday morning laugh…. :). Or in my case a reality check…
 
As crazy as this may sound, sometimes we are more like the boys than we may care to admit. We have memories, regrets and poor decisions that can get in our way, and too often we try to find ways to hide and ignore our deficiencies.
 
The problem is that from a different perspective, those regrets and poor decisions are obvious.
 
There is hope!
 
I am extremely excited for this weekend. We are privileged to have Bernie Carbo with us for a luncheon today at noon (www.reallifedowntown.org). He will be joining us for our men’s retreat this evening through early afternoon tomorrow (there is still room for a few more men/boys). He will also be speaking at New Life on Sunday morning at 10:45am.
 
If you want to talk about regrets….Bernie has plenty of them. During a 12 year Major League Baseball career, he has said that he played only one game sober.
 
Bernie talks openly about regrets from his childhood, his baseball career, personal choices, etc…but here is the GREAT NEWS….Bernie has learned to deal with those regrets and through the power of Jesus, he has moved beyond a life of regret to a life of satisfaction.
 
Bernie has a message of hope for anyone dealing with regret. If you can make it happen, please come out to hear him speak. Here is a link to an ESPN video of Bernie:http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=5183120.
 
Now I need to go retrieve some socks out of my back window :).
Troy