You Won't Believe This!

I'm resigning!

I'm pregnant!

I've gained 100 pounds in 1 week!

Nope, none of these are true. Bring on the ridiculous because it's April 1. April fools!

I trust nobody today. I believe no one. My apologies if something big, good or bad, happens to you today, because I'll be skeptical. I've steeled myself to not be fooled. And that got me wondering...

What if we lived everyday as prepared to live for Christ as some people do to not be fooled on April 1? Or as prepared to fool people, if you're that kid. By the way, I think I accidentally grew one of those kids.

My 12-year old daughter had no less than 5 pranks at the ready for home and school today. My wife's last word of advice to her was to not get suspended. We'll see what happens.

But what if my approach to everyday was to be on the lookout for people I could love? What if I was prepared to help people as the need arose? What if I prayed in such a way to be prepared for the crisis that will come my way each day?

If I was that prepared everyday, then I would not be a fool.

Comments

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...

Crossing the Lines

I'm sure this has been said before. Certainly I'm not the first to rant about this. I'm positive I won't be the last. And in my usual manner of coming to a story late, I want to comment on Bobby Petrino, recently fired head coach of Arkansas. But this isn't really about Bobby, or I should say, not just about Bobby. He is simply the latest in a series of stories where big-time athletes, coaches, or celebrities does something stupid and gets caught. But that's not the story, because, quite frankly, we all do dumb stuff. But when too many people get angry, defenders line up to separate the personal life from the professional life. I actually heard a woman quoted, in relation to the Arkansas story, saying that Bobby has won a lot of football games for them. Oh, so that makes it ok? Arkansas went 11-2 last season, so the head coach can be immoral? Is that how this is supposed to work? Why draw the line there? If splitting personal decisions from professiona...

Rick Nier...Woo!

Search This Blog