Rewired for the Journey

  Oh oh oh Merry Cancelled! What? I have realized that over the past three decades that people talk about the traditions of Christmas slowly fading away. That the public square is little by little pushing out the celebration of Christmas. I hear and read people saying that you should say Merry Christmas and not Happy Holidays. So the appearance is that Christmas is being canceled. As I have wrung my sweaty palms and worried about Christmas becoming a thing of the past I had an epiphany. "How can you cancel a past event that is still rippling through eternity." Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. You cannot cancel that reality, that truth! His birth is a holy day for Christians worldwide and the word holiday means "holy day" so if someone says to you, Happy Holidays, they are simply saying have a happy holy day celebration. This is just as accurate as Merry Christmas. Now as to the public square, if the non

  The world went into panic mode when the world's largest social media company went offline. The day before a whistleblower on the company's immoral practices appeared on a TV show 60 Minutes. I say it is way too coincidental that after the dirty laundry came out the network went down completely. We honestly will never know what the real reason was for the collapse of the network. But what I do know is that the world learned that they can have life after Facebook. Secondly, for one company to have sixty percent or more of the world on its knees is way too much power. Whatever happened to the Anti-trust Law? Ivan Pavlov a scientist for Russia in the 1890s discovered classical conditioning using dogs and food to see their reaction when food was placed before them. The dogs started salivated just hearing the assistant walking the food over to them. The natural response was a learned behavior. Humans can be conditioned just like the dogs in Pavlov's tests. We hear a ping or a d

  The greatest blockade to human achievement is internal fear. Some of the best in the field of sports, music, business, and you fill in the blank were never known to be the best because they let fear of failure from ever letting them be known as truly the best in their perspective field. This is very sad for them and for us to never get to watch them play or read the book that they could never get up the nerve to write. Some people get so anxiety-ridden that they turn to drugs or alcohol or something else to numb them from thinking about achieving.  One of my fears was looking incompetent. In trying to not look incompetent I worked twice as hard as everyone else out of fear and there was pride in my work also but mainly a quiet fear. I sometimes wonder if I could have achieved more in my life without the haunting fear of failure but the truth is there are other complex scenarios in a person's life that can at times dictate the path of their life that simply is out of their control

  Sometimes being in silence is a beautiful cleansing experience. But being silent too long can begin to make one become a blank sheet and you can begin to get writers' block. I found myself writing and speaking for years and then right before the Pandemic of 2020 I was not writing and speaking as prolifically as I once was which became disturbing and frustrating. I got to the point that I believed it had all been said before. There is nothing new to be said. I so wanted to come up with something brilliant to say that had never been said before. I was haunted by the Bible verses from  Ecclesiastes 1:8-11 which read, 8. All words are worrisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. 10. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new?" It was here already, long ago; it was here before our

Sadly, too many Christians think or feel they aren't doing anything for God if they are not a pastor, missionary, or worship minister. What has been failed to be taught to new Christians is how to live a sacramental life. Vital to understanding a Christian life is that you do not have to be on a church payroll to be serving our Lord Jesus. What I want to talk about is living a sacramental life. I am an ordained pastor but a bi-vocational one. I supplement my income as a drywall finisher. I have gone into hundreds of homes and businesses and found that just being a drywall finisher presents more opportunities to share Jesus and help people than when I am in a pulpit or even teaching a Bible study class. Why is that you ask, because I am meeting them on level ground in the daily routines of life and they feel no judgment from me because they have no idea that I am a pastor. When people find out I am a pastor they usually stop talking or put on the masquerade of the pious church-going