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Bigfoot Doesn't Believe in You

I have a sticker that reads, “Bigfoot doesn’t believe in you either.” It’s been a long standing joke in my family to keep your eyes open for Big Foot if we leave our high desert and travel over the mountain passes to the valley.  

According to a Washington Post poll, 11% of Americans believed in Bigfoot in 2014. With the emergence of YouTube and the ability to share video footage like the recent Parker video from Durango, Colorado, that percentage has grown to over 15%!

Despite a legendary Native American heritage, the first written report of a Bigfoot or Sasquatch sighting and subsequent capture was in the British Columbia Daily Colonist newspaper on July 3, 1882.  Although, turns out….you guessed it - there was no capture.  Four hundred people came to view the creature and all they found was a man at a jail wanting to tell them about a creature they had captured and was now sailing to England, but then died aboard ship and was disposed of in the ocean.  

Cliff Barackman, operator of the North American Bigfoot Center in Boring, OR and former host of “Finding Bigfoot” on Animal Planet says, “I know they are real animals.” But in reality, no one has actually touched one and there is no definitive proof of existence beyond hoaxes, jokes, and a lot of hair of other animals.  Yet, people still believe.

So it boggles my brain that people cannot accept that Jesus died and rose again when He appeared at least eight times to multiple people. But lest you think he was a ghost or hallucination, people ate with him. Luke 24:38-43 records, "He said to them, 'Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.'

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, 'Do you have anything here to eat?' They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence."

In an entirely separate incident, his disciple, Thomas, actually touched His scars. 

John 20: 27-29 states, “Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I have not seen with my own eyes Big Foot, Jesus, or the President of the United States. Does that mean they don't exist? What harm does it cause if I believe? But perhaps the real question should be, what harm does it cause if I DON’T believe? 

Even atheist Albert Camus said, “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is."

Thankfully because of God’s grace, this is a choice we need not doubt. God exists. God sent His Son, Jesus, to die, to rise again, and to give us all eternal life. ALL. Eternal life available to everyone!

1 Timothy 2:3-5 confirms, “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.”

I believe.

X Marks the Spot

 

 

X Marks the Spot

I went for a walk to clear my mind. As I walked I prayed,

Dear Lord,

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what you are asking me to do. I want to serve you, fulfill the purpose you designed for me. Couldn’t you give me a clue? A message? A sign?

And the contrails in the sky wrote, “Hi.”

I heard [Esther 4:14 CSB,]  “Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”

But Lord, I’m not poised in a royal position. I don’t have anything to offer for such a time as this.

And I heard [Matthew 6:34 CSB,] “Don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself.”

I know Lord, I’m trying to trust that you have all this under control. No, I know you do because You said so, but maybe past decisions and choices were big mistakes and I don’t know how to fix them!

And again I heard [2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB,] “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!”

And the contrails made Xs in the sky over and over again. X marks the spot. I am here today, right now at this very moment, in this very season, by God’s design. He doesn’t make mistakes, there are no accidents or coincidences. X marks the spot so BE. Be patient, Be in the moment, Be present with the Lord right here, right now. Let the what ifs and whys slip away.

And I said,  [Psalm 118:24 CSB] “This is the day the Lord has made; let’s rejoice and be glad in it.” Thank you, Lord.

And the sky answered, X.

(*X is the symbol for the letter 'chi. ' Chi (or X) is the first letter in the Greek word for Christ. In the early days of the Christian church, Christians used the letter X as a secret symbol to indicate their membership in the church to others.)

Avoiding the Bunny Hop

 

Avoiding the Bunny Hop

It’s easy to celebrate on Palm Sunday and take one giant bunny hop over to Easter Sunday. We innately enjoy the happy celebrations, but as tempting as that may be, don’t miss the amazing week that changed the whole world - Holy Week. It’s a bit like wanting to binge watch a whole series by watching only the first episode and the season finale. Not only are you confused, but you miss the opportunity to form a deep relationship with the characters.

There are so many incredible stories that take place in one week. Matthew 21-28, as well as Mark, Luke, and John, record these events. It reminds me of the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction” or “you can’t make this stuff up.” Holy Monday to Black (Holy) Saturday is packed with Jesus turning temple tables on their ends, healing, and so much teaching like cursing a fig tree and numerous parables. Jesus is anointed with oil by a woman with great devotion all the while Judas, one of his very own, plots to betray him to the very scholars that should have known who Jesus was but were instead blinded by their political and financial interests.

Jesus gives us our greatest commandment in Matthew 22:37, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Then set the great examples of service and true love when He washes the feet of his disciples before the Passover meal that would come to be known as the Last Supper, and memorialized in our communion. Jesus tells his disciples of his impending death, but they too just can’t seem to grasp the multitude of prophecies being fulfilled right before their eyes!

Good Friday chronicles the brutality and the torture Jesus endured on our behalf. We want to shrink away from the gruesome details and shield ourselves from our responsibility. We just want to skip over that to the “good parts” and “Good” Friday doesn’t seem very good.  But John 3:17 reminds us that this had to be done for our salvation because, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” One completely perfect man saddled with the sins of an entire world for all generations is the most profound, magnanimous, and glorious gift the world could ever know and so very worthy of remembrance. Even though in John 19:30 Jesus says, “It is finished,” Holy Week is not.

So, Saturday comes and we are inclined to just hope for good weather for Easter egg hunts. We are ready for the party as if it was Easter Eve, because we aren’t very good at quietly waiting. The women at the cross wanted to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, but they couldn’t because it was time for the Sabbath Day, a day of rest. We too should observe this day of rest, prayerful waiting, a vigil, and steep in the renewing presence of the Lord as Jesus did while his body was entombed.

Then with all its light and glory, Easter arrives! I think it actually it feels like it is the real New Year’s Day and a time for joyous celebration. Yet, among the eggs and the bunnies remember to keep Jesus a part of your celebration.  To borrow a phrase from another holiday – Jesus IS the reason for this season and He wants to be a part of your family and you to be a part of His family. Shower him with love, worship, and like the story of the ten healed lepers in Luke 17:11-19, don’t be one of the nine that didn’t even bother to simply say, “Thank you!”

A Love Letter to Jesus

Dear Jesus,

Thank you!  God loved me so much He sent You and You loved me so much that You sent your Holy Spirit, but so much selfless love is incomprehensible.  Thank you for finding ways to wrap me in that crazy magnanimous love so I can feel it in such palpable ways. 

Creator of the Universe, I am incredibly grateful that You come to me in the quiet of the snow and bring my heart supernatural peace. My ears hear your babbling creek merrily singing songs of joy and in the gentle breezes, the trees whisper, “I love you too.” 

And the Birds! Oh! The happy riotous chatter of your birds reminds me that You provide for them and how much more You provide for me.

Your mighty power is felt and smelled in the thunder and in the cleansing rain when You are indeed my rock and my shelter. My eyes seek for your rainbows filled with unending promises! 

Your sunrise ushers in new and fresh days full of your light that is my guide until the sun sets in glorious arrays of colors, a feast for the eyes before a restoring rest.

Humbly I know, that You, the Creator of the stars and moon decided to create me too. But in my humanness, my heart is crushed because I know I am so unworthy of all this love. Still, You, the Potter, again and again create new in me out of what I rush to crush. 

You lift my eyes up, up to the mountains and away from the darkness, and You always will until the day You call me away from this terrestrial boundary.

Oh Lord, my Lord, how I DO love You so.

Humbly,

Your Child, Your Creation

Snow Crystals

 I worked at a ski lodge that had a “cut-off” trail from the slopes straight to the front door of the lodge.  On nights when the moonlight would bounce off the snow creating more light than a lantern, a few of us would hike that trail backwards up to the ski run and secretly ski the rest of the run. Then hike back home along the railroad track. The silence I experienced on those covert missions was unprecedented. Rarely do we have a chance to experience such deep and utter quiet.

According to Accuweather, when snow accumulates on the ground, it acts as a sound absorber. Sound waves are trapped in tiny pockets within the snow crystals and the waves can't bounce and make their way into our ears as sound.

Of course we were being quiet because we didn’t want to get caught, but more so because of the exquisite sound of solitude. Despite our bodies being in motion, we were wrapped in stillness, no crunch of snow, like our very exhalations were being silenced and all we were left with was the pounding of our heart from within.

I think that is what God means when He said in Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” He isn’t calling us to inactivity, to sit idly by, but instead to allow chaos of the world to be absorbed by his love leaving only the pure sound of His voice. 

New Seasons

 

A little bird landed on an old gnarled stump and spat a seed from his beek.  As he did, he proclaimed in the presumptuous way of a youth, “Old stump, you are dried up and useless!” Unfazed, the old stump replied, “Not so my little friend. It is now in this season of my being that I can nourish the little seed you have just planted within my yielding roots.” 

Never underestimate in any season of your life what God has planned for you. You can be the bird, the stump, or even the seed.

Isaiah 43:19

 “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Who is Jake Phelps?

Who is Jake Phelps? And why is he tagging my neighbor’s fence?  While I don’t actually know Jake Phelps, I know OF Jake Phelps.  He is one of the 86% of American youths that would rather be famous than go to school, get a job, become a doctor, lawyer, or astronaut. That is a 32% increase since 2010. 

It would be easy to blame social media for this upswing, but that isn’t truly the case. Social media may provide a new venue, but only 9% of Americans work in a “fame” industry. That’s just the industry, that does NOT equate to being famous so even with social media the odds aren’t in your favor. 

Faced with the choice of anonymity or the chance at recognition of some kind, people are literally dying to be famous. This reminds me of Young Guns, the 1988 action/western film, when Billy the Kid laughs hysterically prior to murdering someone and cackles, “I’ll make ya famous.” If that even had one hint of truth to it, we would know his victims instead of Billy the Kid. 

 

In the early 1980s, a man attempted to assassinate two former Presidents in order to impress a famous actress and “level-up” to her notoriety.  So we see this isn’t a new problem, but sitting in the wake of yet another school shooting, it is a problem worthy of being readdressed. And frankly, guns aren’t the problem, it’s the people pulling the trigger that are the problem.

An Institute for Violence Prevention study concluded, “Many of our insights have come from analyzing the violent fantasies of adolescent shooters. These imaginings take root in a desperate mind that yearns for recognition. Often these young assassins are inspired by examples set by previous shooters. The fantasies typically intensify over a number of years before they are acted on. With time, the mental images become more detailed, and they often become buttressed by a distorted sense of what is just or moral, such as the need to avenge a perceived offense or the belief in a divine right to decide the fate of others.”

In a fast food must have right now society, people forget to look at the consequences of their actions.  They fail to see, it's not a movie, they don’t actually have divine authority and these fantasies never have a happy ending!  In reality, they end with death or at best incarceration. And sadly, if they actually achieved this desperately sought after fame, it wouldn’t or couldn’t even live up to expectations created in the mind. Ecclesiastes 1:8 says, “All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.” George Sanders was famous. He had 4 incredibly glamorous wives and even won an Oscar. Yet he committed suicide and in his note he stated, “I am bored.”  

People want to be seen, to be heard, to know they matter and that their life has a purpose, but fame doesn’t and can’t provide that - GOD DOES.

He sees you: 

Matthew 10:29-31

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

He hears you:

Psalm 18:6

“In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.

He has a plan and a purpose for you:

Jeremiah 29:11

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

With God kicked out of school and so many public places, what can we do to get the Word out? Well naturally, this is something that first starts in the home. Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.”  May your child be a light in a dark place!  

But there are so many homes where God is not welcome yet, what else can we do?  As tempting as it may seem, we cannot force feed the Word, but we can set such a loving example that it would be impossible to not notice that something is different. Be willing to share without concern of earthly opinion and be a conduit of Jesus.  Stop! Look! Listen to what and who He is asking you to reach out to! Don’t let Jake Phelps trade his spray paint for a weapon!

Compliment a stranger - I see you. Comment on a social media post - I hear you. And perhaps hardest of all, be ready to pause your plans. Don’t be so focused on your to-do pick-list that you ignore the nudge from Jesus to stop and spend a moment with a person so that they will know - Jesus says...You Matter!!