God's Amazing Creation

For June 5th

NOTE on the Video from Monday - I might have one from Saturday - keep watching!

Tuesday was a driving day, a site-seeing day, looking at the hand of God - and the hand of man - and some of the wonders they've created. We began in San Francisco @ the Golden Gate Bridge, driving across then scaling the closest hill for some incredible views of the Bridge, the Bay, the City and the Pacific.

I even got to feed my history taste buds, learning that the highest point was a WWII Battery for the defense of the mainland in the event of a Japanese attack after Pearl Harbor. This complemented a smaller, earlier, Battery nearer the Golden Gate. The Bridge also provided the perfect location for foot patrols in the days and months after Pearl.

We decided to take the scenic route although I'm not sure the inland way would have been any less scenic, just through the Napa and Anderson Valley's, vineyard country, instead of coastline and the deep blue of the Pacific. Highway 1 it was suggested by the locals should be avoided! So the Raker's took it anyway. It was certainly winding and windy (20-30 mph again) but beautiful doesn't describe it well enough. The biggest hardship was when you have to pee, you're 20 miles from anything and the road sign just read "Road narrowing and winding for the next 20 miles." We survived! And found a great restaurant, Alexander's, along the way.

As soon as I get a better Internet connection I'll upload a nice video.

The scenery was simply stunning, mile after mile.

God's amazing creativity blanketed this day. I couldn't have gotten away from His presence if I'd wanted to. I know it doesn't take the Pacific Ocean for creation to remind me of God. His creative power is seen every morning with the sun and every evening with the moon. Today the vastness of the universe came close to us as Venus traversed the face of the sun. How small and insignificant we are. How inconsequential is our little planet filled with people. How incredible that God looks upon us with such care and kindness in the immensity of space!

Man has created some spectacular designs like the Golden Gate Bridge. There are houses along the coast that are simply magnificent creations, on just the right piece of property. I was reminded by these man-made things of the intensity and meticulous nature of God's work to mold us just right. He graced us with the gifts He chose. He put us together with intention and fore-thought. He took time to set us in just the right place at the right time to fulfill His purpose.

PSALM 139:13-16 "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them." (NASB)

1 CORINTHIANS 12:18 "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired." (NASB)

Thank God today for how He created you. He didn't mess up. He didn't make a mistake when He made you. On the perfect coastline, He placed your life, in just the right spot. Admittedly, I'd take the low humidity of California to the dog days of August in Ohio but I still believe it's the right place for the right time. What will you do with His gift(s) in the place He has planted your life?

Unconnected

Jeff certainly hasn't forgotten to post. He's just in a remote area of Northern California with little connectivity. He managed to squeeze out just enough bandwidth to send these two beautiful pictures. He'll catch up once he runs into the net again!

 Irish Beach

 Mendocino, CA

Are you just noise?

NOT SURE WHY BUT MY VIDEO WON'T UPLOAD. 

WILL TRY SOMETHING LATER

HERE'S A PLACE HOLDER

I was reminded of a song by FOR KING & COUNTRY while watching the sea lions off San Francisco's Pier 39 today:

The Proof of Your Love

If I sing but don't have love

I waste my breathe with every songI bring, an empty voice

A hollow noise

If I speak with a silver tongue

Convince a crowd but don't have love

I leave a bitter taste

With every word I say

Chorus:

So let my life be the proof

The proof of Your love

Let my love look like You

And what You're made of

How you lived, how You died

Love is sacrifice

So let my life be the proof

The proof of Your love

If I give to a needy soul

But don't have love then who is poor

It seems all the poverty

Is found in me

I heard a lot of noise today. I saw some showmanship between males while some young ones played around them. And I wondered how often the world hears only noise from Christ-followers? We're noisy when we...

• care more about being heard than hearing another
• want to feel good more than we want to help
• look for what we can gain more than what we can give
• love the inside of our church buildings more than the surrounding community
• use our wealth on ourselves and give the leftovers to God
• gossip
• walk away when times get tough
• think about our answer instead of listening to a life
• WHAT WOULD YOU ADD?

Here's how Eugene Peterson translates 1 Corinthians 13:1-3:


(The Message) "If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. ³If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love."


I don't want to be just a bunch of noise, footprints in the sand. Love is what makes the difference. Love doesn't look for what it can gain it just gives. Love sticks around, sees it through. Love shows up but doesn't need to be recognized.


How's the noise in your life?

Leadership Lessons from a Pool Deck - Part 1

I'm not in California often but when I am I'm reminded why people love to live here. Cool mornings - cool evenings - and warm sunny days, for the most part. It makes for a great outdoor swim meet which we don't get in Ohio! I'm in Santa Clara for the International Grand Prix, a meet filled with swimmers from around the world - Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, Argentina and more. It's been a good weekend of officiating and swimming with the added plus of the incredible California weather.

A big piece of this Sabbatical is about pursuing my passion for the sport of swimming. I still can't believe the opportunities I have to meet other officials from around the nation, be at meets with world record holders and gold medalists and enjoy a sport that was so good to me. The coming Olympic Trials are a rare privilege indeed. One of the benefits of this hobby is learning leadership from people around the country.

I'm constantly on the lookout for lessons on leadership and a pool deck is a great place to learn. Officials teams give me an up close and personal opportunity while watching coaches and swimmers from afar brings a different perspective. Pool decks are filled with some incredible leaders. They've taught me to be a better official, a better team player and a better leader.

One goal I have for the summer is to capture as many of those lessons as possible to compile them into a book(let). There, I made it public! So check up on me!!

Here is my 1st Draft of possible sections or chapters, all of which have been very much informed by my mentors:

1. Be A Team Player – fit in – don't complain about your assignment and stay "in your box" as far as offering suggestions or even if asked for feedback. If you're not supervising or evaluating, then stay clear.
   
   
2. Be a Servant – just take care of it and don't worry whether anyone knows about it or not. This is not a contradiction to staying "in your box." One is for verbal advice giving while serving is about just doing it to be helpful.
   
   
3. Be Consistent – do the same thing that got you to where you are. Be yourself. Learn but don't try to imitate someone who is a different height, size, gender or person. Be you. And conversely, don't try to make someone else fit what you do.
   
   
4. Always Learn - at every meet learn something. That's what makes for a successful meet.
   
   
5. Encourage others – catch people doing something well, especially for those on a national deck for the first time
6. The deck has ears – and so much can be misinterpreted so watch what you say. Better to be a quiet presence. Simply do your job, do it well and let others notice.
7. Anticipate instead of Assume
8. Smile - if you're not enjoying yourself then take a break or be done. If you find yourself complaining more than complimenting, then make a change.

Steve (a fellow official) and I were discussing a leadership scenario about leading persons older than you. Steve has more experience with this and so I asked: "What is the smartest thing you've done in your career (as an engineer, project manager, working with lasers) when leading such a team?" His answer was straightforward: "Respect their experience, ask them questions, listen and then be ok with being responsible for the final decision."

That's probably good advice for any leadership scenario. Listen first. A leader isn't the one who knows it all or knows more than others. A leader has to make the final decision but the leader is also wise to want more data, more input, different perspectives. Don't take it personally when someone says they didn't like a decision if you gathered advice and thoughts but then made the leadership choice.

Everybody is a leader somewhere, if only leading yourself which is where all leadership begins. What are your leadership lessons? How are you learning and growing your leadership? 

Encouragement

Everybody needs and encouraging somebody in their life. Encouraging people are easy to spot - they are surrounded by people. 

The pool deck I've been on our here in Santa Clara can be described with this one word - encouraging. "What's the big deal?" you might ask. "It's just swimming and officiating, right?" True. But every deck is not the same and unfortunately not enough of them can be described as encouraging.

Another official started me on this line of thinking. "Why can't all decks be like this?" It's a high caliber meet with world records holders, Olympic gold medalists and elite international athletes It's no slouch of a meet. But it's not all tense. The officials are having fun while doing our jobs. We're meeting new people, laughing together, eating out together and finding ways to support the various roles we are in.

Maybe it's the California sunshine. Maybe it's the experienced officials staffing positions. It could be Joel Black, our laid back Meet Referee from North Carolina. There's our head starter, Rich Robinson, who is one of the most encouraging people I know. Everything together has created a nice deck to work.

"Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means 'son of encouragement')" - Acts 4:36

Barnabas is a guy other people wanted to be around. In just a couple of verses through Acts 4 to chapter 15, we see Barnabas living life according to his name. At one point he chooses to encourage a young man named John Mark while at the same time Paul (the traveling companion of Barnabas at the time) wanted nothing to do with the young man who had abandoned the mission (Acts 13). Barnabas, though, feels so strongly, that he breaks with Paul and goes off on a missionary journey with John Mark to Cyprus.

Eventually near the end of his life, Paul asks for John Mark. I choose to think it was because of the encouragement of Barnabas that helped grow and mature John Mark. And Paul harsher treatment was also part of the process. We need both approaches in our lives and leadership.

2 Timothy 4:11 "Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry."

Maybe the good Lord knew we'd need such a demeanor on deck with the shirts we were given to wear for finals. You know you're in trouble when the tag in the shirt has bowling pins on it! Can I just say, it used to be all about the shirt but not any more. 

I wish I could bottle up this atmosphere and sprinkle each pool deck, every church, home and neighborhood.

Who can you encourage today? Need to be encouraged - encourage someone else first. Tell someone they're a great mom or dad, a great cook or grass cutter. Say "Thank you" to everyone today, for even the smallest of gestures or for things you'd "expect" them to do anyway. It doesn't matter what it is. Everybody likes to be encouraged.

Trials & Then There are Trials

Tri*al - the act of trying, testing, or putting to the proof

The approaching Swimming Olympic Trials got me thinking about......Trials. An athletic trial is a contest to match yourself against other athletes or against a time. You are trying to prove yourself against others in the most emotionally charged atmosphere imaginable (at least so I'm told - I never swam in Trials and I've never officiated yet). I can only imagine the actual Olympics take it to a new level.

These athletes take on the trial deliberately, figuring out ways to conquer the mountain. They work every day, twice a day on most, triples on some. They run, lift, swim, do yoga, Cross-fit, P90X and Insanity. All of this to prove themselves on a stage.


They know the trial is coming - dates, times, place are all advertised well in advance. Athletes can work backwards to lay out a plan. How will they be at their best when the time comes?


1 Peter 1:7-8 "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."


Trials are a part of life. We're strengthened by most of them. We don't always like them. Sometimes we ask for them, working toward them with great expectations. Sometimes we don't ask for them and they kill us. A spiritual trial is a test of faith, in Whom do we really believe?


The goal when faced with a spiritual trial is not to try to get out of it. Instead, we are called to bring honor to the name of Jesus within the trial. I just thought of at least 10 trials in which I did not do exactly that! WHEW! Whenever I've taught about trials I've always focused on the trials but it occurs to me the most important thing is our preparation for the trials.


That's where we have some disadvantage with an athlete. Our trials aren't scheduled. We don't know when they'll come or where they'll come from. We don't even know what kind they will be. So how do you prepare? What are the spiritual equivalents of athletic training?


1 Corinthians 9:24-27 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. ²⁵ Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. ²⁶ Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. ²⁷ No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."


We train every day through the practice of prayer, scripture reading, fellowship,  journaling, silence, serving, unplugging from the our electronic world, choose any of the numerous spiritual disciplines. They are training. These are the weights we lift, the laps we swim, the yoga we do to stretch and strengthen our core. Our goal is not to per-fect the training but to be ready for the competition of the "real world."


In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul is referring to the Olympic Games which offer a simple crown that will wilt and die. We have a far greater prize for which we train. This is why James can say:


"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." (James 1:2-3)


Training is what we do, for a prize that will outlast even the most decorated Olympian. How's your training? Your guage is how Jesus is honored by your life. Train well for our prize is eternal.

God Was There @ 36,000 feet

Flying hasn't been ruined for me by a weekly or even monthly trip. It's still somewhat of a novelty. I am fascinated by the mechanics of an airplane even though I don't know a thing about how they work. I do, however, look at the engines and think about all my good, capable, conscientious engineer friends at GE and wonder: "Did they build this engine?"

I'm fascinated by people. Who will be in the seat next to me? Or perhaps it's the person on the other side of the plane whose life story we all get to hear! On an airplane is a great place to find a detour, a serendipitous meeting, a God-moment if we'll pay attention.

I'm presently 36,000 feet up going from Chicago to San Francisco. The first flight provided a God-moment. Sitting on the aisle I was asked my a husband if he and his wife could sit together instead of separated. I did what I would have wanted anyone else to do for me and shifted to the seat across the aisle. An easy conversation began as I saw a Bible Study book in the young lady's hands. We talked churches and families and faith walks, mine being far longer (mostly because I am far older) than hers. In two years the Lord brought her from little faith, an atheist for a father, depression and attempted suicide to a faith-filled life of joy and anticipation via a mission trip to Kenya. She said it this way: "What medication and counseling couldn't do, God did in Kenya."

Her story is filled with hope. Nothing should have worked the way it did. But God showed up and everything changed. She paid attention to some nudges, she said, to go to Kenya even though everyone was a bit worried about her mental state. She ended up choosing the college she is attending because God spoke to her through the Kenyan speaker in chapel on her campus visit.

God meets us in each place, every place, if we just pay attention. He uses nudges and impressions. He shows up always engineering for His purposes and plans in our lives.

The movie YES MAN reminds me to say YES to more opportunities. Not to the same extreme as Jim Carrey's character but still, say YES more often than NO to the people and circumstances that come before me. You might say spontaneity is not my strong suit! SURPRISE! And I wonder how many times I've missed a nudge, a space being opened up by God but I didn't step into it? Regret? No, that's too strong of a word. Not as curious as I could have been? Yes, that's a good way to describe it. Too busy. Too much to do. No time to smell the roses. Don't want to be bothered and in the process the possibility of missing God's possibilities.

I was thankful that I was given the opportunity to switch seats on that plane. I sat down and God encouraged me through another one of His saints.

What will God bring your way today? Where will you step up to meet Him?