Laundry and Marathons

This would be a great holiday

There are some things in life that I hope to only do one time. 

Get tonsils removed, go to high school, have braces, and.... do laundry. 

When I was in college and the task of keeping my clothes decently wearable fell upon me I would stretch out time between cleaning as long as possible.  Practicing the old "sniff" test to verify that I indeed had a few more days to go.  And honestly it wasn't even that hard to do then.  I barely cared if it was wrinkled and we had a washer and dryer in the house I shared with my friends.  After the dryer would ding I could just throw it in a basket and grab clothes straight from there without even needing to put them away in "drawers".

Getting married and then having kids really changes a mans perspective on what constitutes "clean" clothes.  It's one thing to look like a slob as a 19 year old college student, but you can't send your children off to school with stains on their shirts.  And your wife won't go out with you in an embarassingly wrinkly smelly ensemble. 

And here is the terrible thing about laundry with a family.  It is NEVER FINISHED!!!!

As fast as I get it done there is still a pile of it ready to be started.  The washer and dryer could be on literally 24 hours a day and I don't think that it would be overkill. 

Whether it is an overwhelming task, or a simple part of the day, has been directly the result of my chosen consistency with it.  The amount of work laundry for 6 people takes is always going to be exactly what it is.  The way it impacts and controls me has nothing to do with the amount of it, but my approach.

If every day I take steps to keep it moving, it almost becomes a task that takes no thinking or effort.  There is no "all day" laundry day that everything else has to be put on hold to deal with.  When I put it off until "I have the time", the time that it piles up to needing to confiscate from my life is overwhelming. 

Laundry is not a sprint.  It is a marathon.  It requires a constant moving forward.  Not in a furious cacophony of limbs swinging wildly, but a deliberate daily discipline of one step in front of the other knowing that it will not be a task that is over anytime soon. 

All of our life.  Or, at least the things that matter.  Are like that.  We are so good at putting off that which we should be doing.  To save it for "some day".  When there is "enough time".  When that other stuff is "taken care of".  And drip by steady and reliable drip it piles up the little issues until we are overwhelmed and consumed by a mountain.

The Apostle Paul gets right to the root of our problem as he addresses our spiritual malaise,

24 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.- 1 Cor 9:24-27

We run our lives so aimlessly so often.  Then we are surprised when our relationship with God feels so distant and bleh.  All week long we put off who God is calling us to be, to do those simple steps with the hopes that we can save it all up for a marathon spiritual connection on Sunday mornings. 

And we get farther and farther behind. 

Are you living your life like you are after a prize.  No, there is no trophy for a caught up laundry room.  But a person who disciplines themselves to run hard after God every single day will not regret it.  But we will always regret letting it slip and fall farther and farther behind.

This plays into all areas of our life.  Think about the many important things that God has given you responsibility for.  How many of them have you avoided the daily work of working towards the goal that is set before you.  Instead we avoid and deflect always telling ourselves that later we can do that work when we are really ready for it.  And far too often there is never a later. 

Stop running FROM what God has for you and start running TOWARDS God.  One day your race will come to an end.  Don't be found never having even started. 

Testing Wet Paint by Touching, or, What is Good Grief?

Thomas did not practice social distancing

Obtuseness is a genetic condition that runs in my family and has lodged itself quite deeply into my DNA.  What I mean is that I have a preternatural gift for making things much harder on myself than they needed to be.  When I come upon a sign affixed to a wall labeled "Do Not Touch, Wet Paint", I will be soooo "careful" and touch it with just a little tap of a finger just to be sure it really is wet paint. 

I so do wish that I was able to hear the instruction the first time, to heed the warning at its first cry.  But there is something deeply woven into me that only trusts what I can see, touch and experience in a practical(and sometimes hurtful way).  Like the Disciple Thomas, who had spent 3 years of his life at the feet of Jesus.  He had seen the miracles, heard the words, experienced the power and majesty of the Son of God, yet even as everyone else was able to celebrate the resurrection he just had to touch it with a little tap of his own finger to just see for himself.

Perhaps in the years to come he thought back to that moment that Jesus didn't rebuke him for his doubting, but instead invited him to touch and see for himself.  Even though we call him "Doubting Thomas" today, Jesus was gracious and let Thomas do what he needed to do as he struggled in his own heart to grasp what was right in front of his face. 

I wonder if knowing Jesus loved him enough to let him "find out for himself" was what gave him the confidence to travel as a missionary to India where he would be killed for his faith.  A man who had to touch to believe, believed in that hope to the point of dying for others far from his home. 

Even though I am slow to learn, here is my good news, God is very patient with me.  And He loves me enough to do whatever it takes to help me grow.  This is good news for you as well.  God will let us go through what we need to for the sake of finding Him there at the end of our desperate attempts to try to be in control and figure it all out for ourselves. 

Often our obtuseness leads to heart ach, but the Apostle Paul presents it to us this way,

"Fod Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death"- 2 Corinthians 7:10

I think Thomas was grieved over feeling doubtful in the presence of Jesus, but it was a Godly grief.  It was a grief that drove Him TO Jesus for help.  And Jesus met him there in his struggle and doubt.  And it changed the trajectory of his life to live with boldness, and without regret. 

Worldly grief is a grief that drives us away from God.  Instead of a heart willing to cry out, "Help me God", it says, "I won't let that happen to me again". 

God lets us test and see and experience grief and heartache SO THAT we turn more fully to Him.  But far to often, we do not bring our grief to the cross, we hold it up as a wall and a shield to keep out more risks and possible pain.  And then our grief never meets its healer and will eventually consume us. 

The love God has for us is such that He will let us touch that wet paint, make that stupid choice, wade through the consequences of sin and pain.  He invites us to come to Him WITHOUT all those stupid detours, but He is patient with us when we jump into the mud.  He wades right in with us and carries us out.  And He lets that grief drive us closer to Him. 

Sometimes the grief is because of what we have done, and sometimes the grief is just because life is really hard.  But we choose if it is Godly and will lead to life, or, if it is a grief that will lead to death. 

One Factory Still Hard at Work: The Idol Factory

One good thing about the global pandemic is that we are forced to face the reality of what we count on for our sense of well-being.  And it has revealed how fickle all these things that we have counted on truly are. 

Here is what I mean. 

Take a hard working husband/father who deals with a lot of stress with their job.  Bosses, deadlines, obnoxious co-workers.  And then he gets home and there are needs he feels pressure to provide for, emotionally, financially, relationally, etc. 

Under normal circumstances he is pretty frazzled and just a few small pushes away from snapping at those around him.  One bad external event from entering a spiral of depression and anxiety. 

Until recently he counted on his weekly basketball games at the Y and an evening at the bar with his friends to open up the pressure valve a bit and decompress the building up stress.  They were so important to him, that any disruption of that pattern would always be directly tied to problems at home and work.  They were what he was counting on for balance and peace. 

But these were all just "things" without any real permanence.  Circumstances could always temporarily eliminate them from his calendar, and now they were completely taken away.  Look at your local police docket.  You shouldn't be surprised to see the growth of reported domestic violence over the last few months. 

Playing basketball at the Y, going out with friends, whatever it is you do to blow off steam, are not inherrently bad things.  But this pandemic does pull back the curtain and reveal our heart.  If something is "taken" from you and it causes your to become angry, bitter, engative, to have your personality deeply impacted, it reveals that you were not internally healthy or whole, but had become reliant on a crutch that had become your source of well-being and hope.

To put it more Biblically, what we are talking about is idolatry. 

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.- Romans 1:25

Everything in this world, even good things, like, family, friends, food, etc, are finite and imperfect.  When they become the essence of what keeps us content and at peace, they are an idol.  And idol that will only take from you and never give back the hope and peace you are truly in need of. 

John Calvin said this about our condition, "the human heart is a perpetual idol factory"  And I once heard that expanded to the concept by saying, "The human heart is a perpetual idol factory AND IT NEVER IDLES IN CREATING IDOLS"

Why are we perpetually making idols for ourselves.  Because we are desperate for hope.  And time after time we place our hope in things that can never truly satisfy.  But instead of saying, maybe I need to dig deeper, we just throw away with contempt that which we had hoped in and try to fill that void with a new fancy thing that surely won't let us down in the same way.

We throw away relationships, jobs, friendships, homes, gifts, etc in a constant turnover in a desperate attempt to finally find the thing that sticks.  And sometimes we do find something that lasts for a long time.  But we can never forget that in a moment, it is something that can be taken.  Even if we think we finally have found that "thing" that will make us feel peace and contentment, a snap of a finger it can be ripped from us. 

Paul points out to us in Romans the simple truth of our condition.  There is one thing that is eternal, perfect, complete and a source of lasting hope and peace.  God, the creator of the good things that bless us.  But we too often celebrate the gift and not the maker and giver of the gift.

If your child makes you a handmade card for mothers day this coming weekend.  Which do you prefer, the card, or your child?

Of course you prefer your child!

But everyday we say God my happiness is not in you, but only in this object, this person, this thing.  And if I don't have it, I will throw a fit.  Because it is the only thing holding it all together for me.

Until we can say like the author of Lamentations,

I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."- Lamentations 3:24

Then we will never find perfect peace.  As long as we say God, I will be happy as long as you protect this, give me that, change these circumstances....as long as there is anything we count on to do for us what God made us to only perfectly experience through Him, then we have set ourselves up for pain and heartache.

And if we go to our graves with our hope in anything else, the idol you have put your hopes in will not save you.  It is a thing, it is not God. 

Only God saves, gives hope, grants peace, shows purpose.  And this He does for eternity. 

Are We There Yet? Or, the Pain of Waiting on God

Moses probably had it pretty rough

Do you know why dad's get mad driving their family to vacation?  Because hearing, "Are We there yet??" every 2 1/2  miles is enough to break the most hardened Navy Seal.  If you ever wanted to interrogate a terrorist to find where the dirty bomb was placed, don't waterboard, just have them drive my kids somewhere more than an hour away.  I give them 30 minutes before they help us permanently shut down ISIS. 

It is a part of our fallen nature that we struggle with the patience that a journey requires of us.  A significant part of that struggle is that;

1- We are so excited we want it RIGHT NOW, and, sometimes,

2- We are afraid that we will never get there to experience what we are hoping for. 

My kids sometimes are worried that if it takes too long the resort will be closed, the beach will be shut down, the vacation home will be unavailable. 

These two emotions, impatience and anxiety, are at war within us even as we try to joyfully anticipate where the journey is taking us.  And here is where it gets dicy for us.  Sometimes we can become so impatient and anxious in our behavior that we rob all joy from the journey and make arriving at our destination a less than joyful moment. 

Have you ever been so exhausted of your trip, and the constant heckling of some backseat drivers, that you feel you are going to need a few days to just recover from the journey before you can even enjoy where you have arrived??

This is an ongoing battle within our own hearts as we "try" to wait on God.  We can grasp the concept that there is a reason for the wait.  But we become frustrated and even fearful that what we are waiting for will never materialize.  We cry out, "But why not yet God??!!?"  And every time we give into that emotion and let it dominate us we are creating the environment that, instead of giving us peace and joy, gives us increasing anxiety and unhappiness. 

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.- 2 Peter 3:9

Why is God seemingly slow to fulfill those hopes, dreams and promises in our lives? 

Because he is PATIENT WITH YOU!!

There is something that YOU NEED.  That cannot be appropriately accomplished by rushing to the end of the journey.  God isn't asking you to please be patient with His apparent slowness.  He is gracefully extending the journey to give you what you need the most. 

What is actually at the heart of all your pleas and felt needs is this:  To be saved and to know God as Father, Savior and King.  And when that primary goal has been accomplished then He keeps the journey going so that you dive deeper and deeper into what it means to know and be known by the God who made you and bought you with the blood of His own Son.

The waiting can be painful, but God has never failed us yet. 

God is ever true to His promises- I Corinthians 1:9

If the journey from Ohio to the beach was only 30 minutes what would we find.  No sunshine and no beach.  To have that warm beach vacation in deep and dark February requires many long(and painful sometimes) hours.  But it is worth it.

As we wait on God, instead of asking are we there yet, be grateful that God loves you enough to keep your journey going for your own sake.  Because His destination is the only destination that is worth our patience. 

Who Is In Charge Here? Or, What Corona Tells me About My Heart

How many of us have just given up on taking anything seriously when it comes to the Corona virus stuff?  I am not saying that's where I am at, or where we should be at, but I am burned out.  You probably are as well.  One of my kids cried over their friends the other day, and I will admit I gave in and set up a play date. 

You can call the Governors office if you need to, but I am a big softie and seeing my kids cry over the world they are facing breaks me. 

And I have heard so many different opinions about what is and isn't safe, what we should and shouldn't do, that it has become so confusing and cumbersome that I kinda just make up my own mind.  Whether or not it is the best choice, I am taking and choosing what is the most convenient for me to currently listen to.....

It is probably not far from the mark to assume that for a lot of us one of the significant ways we are experiencing frustration and stress is that no one is following the rules in the same way that you are following the rules.  And if those idiots keep doing things the "wrong" way it will clearly make everything worse for the rest of us.  But even as we feel that way about others, we are just gathering around ourselves the voices that tell us what we want to hear anyways. 

When there is no unity as a culture, a community, a neighborhood, or a family when it comes to who we listen to the results will always be destructive. 

In the book of Judges we see over and over that Israel is blessed by God and then in a blink of an eye they forget God and do whatever they want.  And things crash and burn pretty fast.  The book even ends with the line,

"In those days Israel had no king, everyone did as he saw fit"(Judges 21:25).   

This wasn't a statement that Israel did not have a human king and if they had one things would smooth out, but it was a reflection that they refused to follow God as the King of their lives.  Every cycle of destruction and pain is the natural outflow that each person decided that they could do whatever they personally thought was best without the unifying truth of the living God. 

While this does not directly apply to "Covid-19 Quarantine 2020", here is the that we cannot miss.  Our societal problems and our mistrust of one another and our lack of unity is a direct outflow of our personal realities. 

Everyone is doing what THEY see as fit.  

Millions upon millions of individual fiefdoms set up with our own castles outfitted with alligator filled moats and drawbridges.  We sit on the rotting thrones of our own design and declare our personal feelings and living out of "our truth" as the sacrosanct non-negotiable standard of what is "good".  To hell(literally) with anyone who says differently.

As we shout out our autonomy and freedom we conveniently ignore the clashing and destruction of the millions of others who are all clamoring for the same recognition.  There is no gold at the end of the rainbow of self-centeredness.  It is a prison that builds walls between us because our "truth" is nothing more then wavering opinions and fickle feelings that we go to war over with other peoples equally vacuous statements of self-indulgence. 

Maybe we briefly intersect with another self-centered self-proclaimed monarch when our current opinions on "things" align, but like two ships passing in the night there is nothing permanent and fixed that we can lash our bows together with.  They were brief travel companions as we head towards nothingness so we can try to feel justified as we proclaim with our false confidence to one another that surely this will all work out and hoping that if we say it enough to one another maybe we will believe it and feel safe.

It's two friend leaping out of a plane who hope that if they keep shouting over the rushing wind to one another that the ground really isn't rushing up to greet them it might just be ok.


You and I are not made for selfishness.  We are made, designed, called and shaped by God.  Not an amorphous ambiguous concept of deity, but a real, living, personal and loving Father who sent His Son to declare

"He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,"- Luke 4:18

We are oppressed.  Not by corona, not by finances and family problems.  Those are all real issues, but our oppression and imprisonment is that the castles we are trying to build for ourselves are crumbling all around us and Jesus has come to rescue us.  Not for autonomy, but for Himself and His Kingdom. 

The DNA of eternity is imprinted on our hearts and only at the foot of the Throne, made from a Cross, can we know what freedom, hope, love and purpose really means. 

CS Lewis said it best about our corrupted mindsets.

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” 



Do you want to have hope when you are locked in your home, separate from loved ones, when you aren't sure what the future holds. 

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.- Matthew 6:33

There is no other allegiance that your heart will be healed by.  That your family will be healed by.  That our world will be changed by. 

Being Good, for Goodness Sake

If you would ask most people about their spiritual condition they would respond in a way that was related to the goodness they perceive within themselves.  Generally speaking, everyone ranks themselves as being a fairly good person.  On the grand measuring scales of "Walking Old Ladies Across the Street VS Tripping Old Ladies" most people feel that things are heavily weighted in favor of them being quite good people.  And SHOCKINGLY most people rarely would stack the cosmic karma scales of their life to be heavier on the "Not Good" side.

Now we all know someone(or many ones) who are themselves not in any way a "good person".  But when it comes to ourselves, we consider it a fairly cut and dry case of being quite good indeed.  Sure, we did that one thing that one time, but...there was a good reason for it...and we won't do it again.   And if God exists he must surely be measuring and evaluating us by the very standards we have accepted on our own behalf...and therefore....we are good to go!

This self-assured self-rigtheousness is a natural philosophical outflow of the moral autonomy of our age.  If WE are the final arbitrers of what is right and good then we can set the standards and provide the weights and measures of evaluation and however it is we set it we obviously will find ourselves on the good side of things.  How illogical would it be for us to create our own self-defined system of morality that we didn't personally agree with and line up with??  Our personal preferences rule the day.  And when we feel "righteous anger" at immoral people it is based upon the standards that we have agreed to as being what is and isn't morally appropriate.

But are we truly morally autonomous?  Is morality simply a constructed and flexible system that bends to the wills of the individuals and groups who seek to employ its paradigm for preferential reasons??

While other, much more smarterer people than I, have delved deep into this topic I will only simply say that if morality is self, or even culturally, constructed, than it is not an absolute morality in any meaningful sense.  What is good today is only perhaps going to be good tomorrow.  If morality is not an immaterial absolute that we can count on then we all just have little self-created kingdoms of preferences and opinions.

So back on the treadmill you go, running hard after that elusive ill defined concept of morality and being good for the sake of being "good" without any promise that it has any actual significance beyond the reach of your own experience.

Philosophically speaking one must hope to no small degree that there really isn't God out there.  If we honestly recognize that we are not able to self-discern absolute morality, yet feel driven to care about morality, we recognize that morality is a burden set upon us.  And the God who is Himself absolute(by definition) assuredly has more stringent standards of morality than that which you place upon yourself.

Recall how you easily recognize the moral failings of those who aren't you, how much more so will an infinite God recognize within yourself?

In response to that we have two popular forms of addressing this disconnect.

Secular Moralism and Religious Legalism

They are basically different sides of the same coin.  An attempt made by the effort and the will to jump through enough hoops to be "good enough".  We set forth tasks and rules by which we can rank how succesful we have been at accomplishing the important task of being as good as we need to be.  But even that "need to be" is hard to pin down.....how good really is good enough????

The easiest way we deal with this internal struggle is finding more and more faults in others.  Because, if we are obviously better in our moral choices, lifestyle, and religious practices, than THOSE people, then we must surely be "ok".

But is that really the whole story and our hope?



14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 
  - Colossians 2:14-17

The message of the Good News is that there IS truth, morality, ethics, value in choices, etc.  AND that we are all falling short.  Now, instead of Jesus offering new and better ways to just be good enough to be good enough, He takes our sin and failures to the cross and nails them there.  The morality that yous sense, and the rules you try to follow, all exist to point to the hope that we have in the finished work of Christ.

Our hope is not found in how good we can be, but in Jesus.  God's love for you is not dependent on how honestly you try to be really good person.  But in Christ, and Christ Alone, you have been made Good for His Goodness' Sake!

Everything else is a promise of new ladders to climb and treadmills to run on.  Christ invites you to stop trying to make yourself good enough, but to rest in His goodness.  Everything flows out of that.

Are you good because you are trying to earn something, or, are you good because He was good to you?  It's a difference that makes all the difference.

American Exceptionalism and Unexceptional Candidates

Americans love winning.  Second place is first place loser!  Even the way we look at the legacies of people is directly related to what and how they won.  If you are an athlete who retires without a championship we put you on a special list of "Great, but not All Time".  You just need to win!  We don't even care if the victory comes at the end of your career when you aren't even a significant factor(cough cough Peyton Manning).  All that matters is that you are a winner.

A big argument that we keep hearing during the primaries is that we have to support a candidate who will actually win.  And we want to be winners, right?  The opposition is so wrong that just being able to say that they "lost" is worth whatever compromise of conviction we have to make in order to be winners ourselves.  This leads us to a terribly frustrating reality;  We might choose the winning candidate, but we all lose.

When elections become gambling at the track, simply putting our money on the horse we think will win, instead of selecting the individual who deserves our support due to principles, convictions and history, we don't get closer to good leadership, we keep running farther away.  Everytime we have a high quality candidate who can't get off the starting blocks because we are more concerned with winning we move the system farther from where we should be.


"Of two evils, choose neither.  Christians must turn from the endless cycle of voting for the lesser of evils and expecting an unrighteous act to produce a righteous result.  From a communist to a cultist, choosing the lesser of evils is still evil, and never should we do evil so good may come" -Charles Spurgeon


I am no historian, but it seems strange that at some point we stopped voting for what we are convicted by, but by some sort of pragmatic winner takes all mentality.  Politicians know they can lie to us because we will still vote for them....because they will win!!!!!

What about us Christians, how should we approach all of this?  We know that compromise with evil is not God honoring.  Can God use evil rulers for His purposes??  Of course.  Do we deliberately allign ourselves with evil just because it might be useful in some way??  Of course not!!


8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. -Philippians 4:8


Can you look at your chosen candidate through the lens of Philippians 4:8 and say, "Now this person fits into this paradigm"?  If not, move on.

But but but Adam(you say...).  The only people who can fit this passage will never win.  And if we don't stop "X" our country will be lost.  What about the children?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

So, dear friend, are you saying that the only way you and I can save our children from Godlessnes and national destruction FOR the sake of God Himself is to collaborate with sinfulness????   What God are you reading about in the Bible....???

Isaiah 14:27 tells us that NOTHING God has planned will be thwarted.   So what if America burns to the ground and the crosses of the churches are pulled down?  Are the purposes and glory of God suddenly extinguished??  God doesn't need us to run around playing politics to "save" the nation through immoral compromise so that maybe, just maybe, one day, at some point in the future, we can make sure that Christian values win the day.

When the Gospel calls us Jesus doesn't say, "Come join the winning team, next election cycle Pilate is totally out!!".  The Gospel is to.... DIE to  yourself, to give up YOUR HONOR, to forgive your ENEMIES and proclaim that the Kingdom that will never End is marching forward and is not waiting on us getting our local politics straightened out.

If Trump wins the election....Jesus still wins.

If Hillary wins the election.....Jesus still wins.

If Chitalu wins the election.....Jesus still wins


The Gospel doesn't invite us to make sure we choose the most likely wordly winner, but to go and die with the King.  Do what is right, and trust that God is still God.