4-3-2020

If you are like me, you already had your summer vacation all planned out. We were planning a trip to North Carolina with another couple who has a son that is friends with Cayden. Cayden and his friend were scheduled to go to Duke Universities Basketball camp for training by Coach Mike Kryzewski. While Cayden looked forward to the camp, Cindy and I were excited about traveling through the Smokey Mountains and spending time in Pigeon Forge on the way back home. This would be the perfect family vacation and get me rested up before SOAR 2020. If you have ever been to a SOAR conference as a counselor, you know a relaxing vacation is needed before and after! If you have never had to room with 3 teenage boys whose momma sent them to Soar with nothing more than Mountain Dew, Jack Links beef jerky and AXE body spray you can’t begin to grasp. Some of these boys never bathe or brush their teeth during the whole conference. Some of these boys I am forced to room with have severe ADHD and are prescribed Ritalin to help them cope. Problem is, momma is saving money in the summer and only buys the Ritalin during the school year to keep their son from getting kicked out of school.  Oh yes, how I was looking forward to this much needed relaxing vacation. Then yesterday, I got the email from Duke University notifying us that this year’s camp had been cancelled because of COVID 19. Nothing that we had made plans for is coming together. 

All of these plans changing reminded me of the importance of scripture found in the book of James. James 4:13-17 says Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. 

A few thoughts on James 4:13-17 and COVID 19 before I close this blog. 1)Were not in control, God is! We can’t even get up out of bed in the morning unless He allows us to. As I prepare for retirement, I can be faithful for years to put back money to prepare for that day but at the end of the day I have no guarantees my 401k plan won’t crash. I can start a business, be faithful to do everything by the text book and yet still fail. I can live a healthy lifestyle, never smoke or drink, eat properly and exercise and still get a heart attack or cancer. God is in control and if He can tell the ocean it can only go so far and then has to stop…so should I stop and realize He is in control. 2) Let’s begin to live in His “will” not ours. We too often chase things that we think will make us happy. Once we get those things we just get disappointed because they don’t satisfy. We leave God out of the equation…because honestly we know what we are chasing after is not of Him. And finally point 3, If we know the good we out to do and don’t do it, it is sin. Let’s make sure our time on this earth counts. Let’s make sure in a world full of evil that we are full of good deeds. Let those good deeds point people to Jesus!

I look forward to the day when COVID 19 is behind us and we can once again assemble together as a Church family. 

If you are like me, you already had your summer vacation all planned out. We were planning a trip to North Carolina with another couple who has a son that is friends with Cayden. Cayden and his friend were scheduled to go to Duke Universities Basketball camp for training by Coach Mike Kryzewski. While Cayden looked forward to the camp, Cindy and I were excited about traveling through the Smokey Mountains and spending time in Pigeon Forge on the way back home. This would be the perfect family vacation and get me rested up before SOAR 2020. If you have ever been to a SOAR conference as a counselor, you know a relaxing vacation is needed before and after! If you have never had to room with 3 teenage boys whose momma sent them to Soar with nothing more than Mountain Dew, Jack Links beef jerky and AXE body spray you can’t begin to grasp. Some of these boys never bathe or brush their teeth during the whole conference. Some of these boys I am forced to room with have severe ADHD and are prescribed Ritalin to help them cope. Problem is, momma is saving money in the summer and only buys the Ritalin during the school year to keep their son from getting kicked out of school.  Oh yes, how I was looking forward to this much needed relaxing vacation. Then yesterday, I got the email from Duke University notifying us that this year’s camp had been cancelled because of COVID 19. Nothing that we had made plans for is coming together. 

All of these plans changing reminded me of the importance of scripture found in the book of James. James 4:13-17 says Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. 

A few thoughts on James 4:13-17 and COVID 19 before I close this blog. 1)Were not in control, God is! We can’t even get up out of bed in the morning unless He allows us to. As I prepare for retirement, I can be faithful for years to put back money to prepare for that day but at the end of the day I have no guarantees my 401k plan won’t crash. I can start a business, be faithful to do everything by the text book and yet still fail. I can live a healthy lifestyle, never smoke or drink, eat properly and exercise and still get a heart attack or cancer. God is in control and if He can tell the ocean it can only go so far and then has to stop…so should I stop and realize He is in control. 2) Let’s begin to live in His “will” not ours. We too often chase things that we think will make us happy. Once we get those things we just get disappointed because they don’t satisfy. We leave God out of the equation…because honestly we know what we are chasing after is not of Him. And finally point 3, If we know the good we out to do and don’t do it, it is sin. Let’s make sure our time on this earth counts. Let’s make sure in a world full of evil that we are full of good deeds. Let those good deeds point people to Jesus!

I look forward to the day when COVID 19 is behind us and we can once again assemble together as a Church family. 


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