Category Archives: Musings

Peanut Butter Rain

As a father of five children, I frequently draw upon my military experience to make sure everyone behaves properly and is ‘squared away’. It is not uncommon for me to bark out orders to various children, or to quell any dissension ‘in the ranks’ with a raised eyebrow that my Basic Training drill sergeant would be proud of. I love my children dearly, and am often playful and silly with them, but I expect to be obeyed quickly and completely, as long as they are under my authority. This gets tricky as they begin to pass out of my authority, but that is a subject for another day.

As the scripture indicates, a mature believer “… must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.” (1 Timothy 3:4). I don’t think this passage refers only to elders, but for any Dad who desires to be a honored vessel in God’s household. Seeking to pattern myself after that standard, I like to have the things in my life under control, all nailed down and figured out.

Sarah and her bears
Even little Sarah likes to keep all her plastic bears in line, properly color-coded.

Last week I was driving home from church, and I looked in the rear-view mirror of my car. I noticed a lonely, half-bowl of dry Peanut Butter Crunch ™ cereal, neglected by my youngest daughter between the car seats. Breakfasts on Sunday mornings are often taken on-the-fly — Kathy must’ve been driving more quickly than usual, and so Sarah’s breakfast was cut tragically short. I had an idea.

Eureka!
David often has good ideas.

“What luck!” I chortled. “Her loss is my gain,” I exulted. Boxes of Peanut Butter Crunch don’t last long in our household, even when it seems I buy them by the gross. I reached back between the seats and grabbed the bowl with my right hand, carefully maintaining my grip on the steering wheel with my left hand.

Suppose you were riding with me in the car, and you were the kind of annoying person who liked to place bets on everything. “I’ll bet a dollar that you can’t get that cereal without spilling it,” you might sneer. I would have offered ten-to-one, or maybe even fifty-to-one odds that I could successfully grab that bowl of Peanut Butter goodness, and bring it safely to my lap without spilling a single one. After all, I have a pretty steady hand, and am a skilled driver; there is no reason I would lose control over such a simple physical operation. Besides, I’m awfully fond of Peanut Butter Crunch.

Daniel reads
David and Sarah are awfully fond of a good story.

As I brought the bowl over the passenger seat, the right front wheel of the car struck a small bump in the road, and what seemed like a family-sized box of cereal leapt out of the bowl and into the air. Pandemonium ensued, as two competing objectives fought for supremacy in my body:

  • (a) the laudable objective of keeping the car on the road, or
  • (b) the understandable effort to catch every piece of Peanut Butter Crunch before they rolled away into oblivion

Later, after the car was pulled from the ditch, I thought about this life-lesson: I am not in control of my life.

Sweatshirt Kids
Hopefully, Sarah won’t hold a grudge about her lost Crunch cereal.

The car didn’t really end in the ditch, I’m just teasing about that. But it made me think about the many factors in my life that I work so hard to control, and which are really not controlled by me at all. My health, my job, my family, my relationships with people at church, even my relationsip with God — all of these things are outside my complete control. I may be able to influence them, but the sovereignty of God is supreme. I can trust and pray, and do my best to obey my King, but He decides when the bowl moves smoothly to the front seat, and when a crunchstorm fills the car.

I love Peanut Butter Crunch!
Not my actual box of Captain Crunch.

Tim

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A Day in the Life of a Programmer

One of the huge blessings in this life that God has given me is a job that challenges my mind, and pays enough for our family to live comfortably. Because my work involves connecting remotely to servers I will never see, it doesn’t really matter where I do my work; for this reason, I am permitted to work from home quite often.

When I was employed by another company, doing a similar job, I used to work four days a week from home, only going ‘into the city’ once a week. If something prevented me from doing this, it might be a couple of weeks between visits to my office. Over time, this caused me to avoid projects on which I would need to collaborate with other employees, and ultimately that practice reduced my value to the company. In the Fall of 2002, I was laid off, and did not find regular work for another seventeen months.

When it began to be possible to work from home in this job, I was determined to be more careful. I make sure to go in to the office whenever there is any meeting that requires my attendance, and I almost never work more than three days a week from home.

A scary building to be in during an earthquake
Not my actual office ‘in the city’.

I work in a team of four, and we mostly each have our own responsibilities, few of which overlap. Still, the days I’m in the office are often festive – we congregate in the corridor for impromptu team meetings, and there is much banter and wit exchanged. We play jokes on each other, and laugh together about the latest corporate buzz-words and propaganda. Upper-level managers, visiting our corner on days when we’re in full swing, often walk away shaking their heads in bemusement.

Today was a particularly good day, even though it started out quite badly. I woke before my alarm (a fate nearly worse than death) with an allergy attack, and spent the extra time paying bills. I packed my own lunch, and it wasn’t as generous as Kathy usually provides (I often eat all three meals away from home on my commute days). I forgot my allergy meds at home, and rushed back to get them, nearly missing my train.

Sounder Commuters
Not my actual commuter train, but very close.

Arriving at work, I fretted about the size my lunch. “Will it be enough to forestall the mid-afternoon munchies?” I wondered. “I don’t think so,” I answered myself gloomily. I’m not a major source of encouragement in my life.

Several weeks ago, I scraped the last morsels from my secret jar of Nutella (the one that I kept discreetly stashed in my desk drawer) and the last of the Christmas chocolates was long ago devoured. A sad feeling welled up briefly as I sat, contemplating an afternoon barren of chocolate. I pondered the burning question of the ages: “Is life worth living without Nutella?”

Setting my face like Play-doh ™ against such maunderings, I turned to my work. It wasn’t until lunchtime, when I needed some salt for my lunch, that I opened my desk drawer.

There, gleaming in the sickly fluorescent lights, was a brand-new, un-opened jar of Nutella! The rich auburn brown of my favorite hazelnut spread was clearly visible through the translucent jar, all the way to the top. I grabbed for it, afraid it might be a holographic trick, but its solid heft reassured my tight grasp … it was real!

“A jar of Nutella, in my desk drawer,” I exulted, loudly enough to bring my co-workers out of their cubes. “Which of you did this wonderful thing?”

Me and my faithful jar
Not my actual Nutella jar.

Guilty looks abounded, but my benefactor chose to remain anonymous. “Maybe Eric brought it up,” hypothesized one co-worker, innocently. (Eric, when he chooses to reward us, usually brings donuts, and never secretly.)

There was only one thing to do, truly the only thing that can be done with a new jar of Nutella: I broached the foil seal and dove in with a spoon.

Even now, riding home on the train, the unexpected gift brings a smile to my face. It is true that I prefer to work from home on the days that I can, enjoying my family and a very short commute, but working in the city has its charm: my faithful Nutella jar, waiting patiently in that desk drawer.

Tim

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Good to Be in the House

Today I was blessed by a song in our worship service: Jesus, Thank You.

I’ve been a follower of Jesus Christ for 38 years, and in all that time I’ve had ample opportunity to sin against my Holy God. Today it was brought home to me how awesome a gift that it is, that the blood of my Savior has cleansed me, and turns aside God’s wrath completely.

 

‘Nuff said.

Tim

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The Tyranny of the Urgent

One of the unfortunate things about my life is that I’m often too busy living and reacting, and I don’t end up accomplishing the things I set out to do.

For example, I would like to be the kind of husband that cherishes my wife, and doesn’t take her for granted — the kind of husband who continues to court his wife and models this in front of his children. I would also like to be the kind of father who has time to spend with his children, and who is not to busy to give each of his sons and daughters regular, focused attention.

Sadly, my good intentions rarely work out. I mean well, but when the dust of a busy day settles, I find that other urgent things, like work, ministry and sleep (not to mention my own desire for entertainment) leave no time to do the things I consider most important. For this reason, I reluctantly decided to adopt some goals again this year.

Sarah's Special Day
Of course, there was no reluctance in making time to plant some tomatoes with Sarah.

I’m not a person who likes goals. I don’t enjoy the inevitable feeling of guilt when I fail to meet them. I don’t value structure for its own sake, and I hate being told what I have to do, even if I’m doing the telling. I don’t have much respect for the mechanical and repetitive, preferring to be a ‘free spirit’, unfettered by mundane routine.

Kathy’s been listening to a number of Dee Duke sermon series lately, and (when she leaves them running in my car CD player) I’ve been tuning in as well. Duke is an advocate of goals and disciplines, and is often challenged by this sort of question:

“Shouldn’t we be motivated to [insert discipline here -- prayer, reading your Bible, confessing your sins, whatever] out of love for Jesus, not by rote or as an obligation?”

Dee answers: “Sure. The problem is, I only feel like doing these things about once a week. In any case, how do you go about loving Jesus? Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” (John 14:5)

A family game of Zooloretto
“If you love me, you’ll let me win.” (NOT what Jesus said.)

As much as I might prefer to be a ‘free spirit’, I can’t argue with results. In fact, I hardly have any results at all to argue with. So I wrote for myself some goals again this year. Craftily, I associated my goals with my computer-game-playing chip allowance, so that the more goals I complete each week, the more computer game chips I receive. Not surprisingly, I’ve found myself much more willing to pursue my goals than I am when there is no consequence to neglecting them, and I am finding time to do the things that I’ve set out in advance to do.

Here is a partial list of my goals, which I track on a weekly basis:

  • Read at least 12 chapters of my Bible each week
  • Pray with my wife twice a week
  • Read at least one Bible chapter to my children three times a week
  • Take my wife out of the house on a date at least once a month
  • Go on a “special day” outing with at least one of my children each week
  • Pray for each of the 22 families on my prayer cards at least 6 times each week
  • Lose a pound each week until I meet my weight loss goal
  • Write an encouraging card to someone each week
  • Conduct an in-home date (usually take-out food and a movie) at least once a month with my wife
  • Write a blog post each week
  • Play at least 75 board games in 2009

I have to complete each of the weekly goals by Sunday night, which is why I am writing this blog post right now at 8:30 pm on a Sunday. Sure, it’s a bit hurried and lame sometimes, when I try to squeeze it all into one evening, after our Small Group meeting. But I have found that if I don’t set my face like flint (or at least like oatmeal) against the tyranny of the ‘urgent’, I won’t find time to do these things at all.

Joshua and Dee Duke
We forced Joshua to sneak up behind Dee Duke for this ‘photo op’.

I’ll grant you, it is a bit tricky to pray with Kathy while writing an encouraging note and playing a board game, especially if I try to exercise on the elliptical machine and read my Bible at the same time. I’m just not much of a multi-tasker, truth be told.

How about you? Are you the kind of person who revels in goals, making to-do lists for yourself each day? Or do you have another way that you are able to accomplish the things that you set out to do?

Tim

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The Glory of the Lord

Walking out my front door a few days ago, I noticed an overcast sky with heavy fog, which matched my spirits precisely. I’m usually tired and discouraged in the morning, unless I’ve had more than the usual amount of sleep. I viewed the day with cynical disfavor.

“Hmmmph. I wonder what this day will bring,” I said to myself sarcastically.

Driving along toward the highway, I began to wake up. “Good morning, Lord,” I prayed reflexively. Then I thought about how much I didn’t mean the word ‘good’. But for God, every morning is good, and full of His new mercies. Even the worst day in all of history, the day that Jesus was crucified, is called ‘Good Friday’.

I began to thank the Lord for creating this new day, and for loving me and adopting me into His family. I told Him that I was ready and willing to do whatever He wanted me to do on this day, and I wondered how God would answer that prayer.

As I drove, I noticed that a small section of the sky had turned a deep pink, the kind you generally find only in artificial flavorings and radioactive materials. The Cascade Mountains stood as cardboard cutouts, propped up against the sky, lit from behind by the rising sun. Admiring their beauty, I thanked God for his creation, which truly is glorious. Just then, I reached a point in the road where the fields on my right opened up, and Mt. Rainier suddenly loomed into sight, dwarfing the other mountains, wreathed in luminous pink cotton candy.

Mt. Rainier
Not my actual view — I didn’t have my camera with me. But this is the same mountain.

Loving God is like that: just when your heart is full of joy and you think there is nothing He could do that is better than what He has already done, He shows you something that is ten times more glorious.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me to stand in for him in the AWANA program at our church. He had to be at work that evening, and needed a ‘warm body’ to take his place – no particular skills needed. Since my body is nearly always warmer than room temperature, and there are many skills that I lack, I fit the bill perfectly.

I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I’ve been somewhat soured by my lack of success in the year I spent working with the fifth and sixth grade youth program at our church. But I couldn’t really say “No” to my friend, and the need seemed real, so I showed up at the appointed time, with no expectations of experiencing God’s glory at all. My duties were minimal, and mostly involved standing around, observing a smoothly-running program. “This isn’t so bad,” I congratulated myself.

Toward the end of the evening, the kids assembled in larger groups for ‘council time’, where a selected leader taught them a lesson from the Bible. I wandered between two of the groups, listening in and generally looming (in case of behavioral issues).

One of the teachers had prepared a lesson that culminated in a presentation of the Gospel, using the ‘wordless book’ (a book with solid-colored pages, each color symbolizing a key part of the Gospel message). I returned to that classroom just as the teacher was concluding her message, and was startled into full wakefulness when she said:

“If any of you have never prayed to accept God’s gift of Salvation, and would like to, go stand next to Mr. Tim.”

I tried to look worthy of this honor as the first- and second-grade children looked at me dubiously. To my surprise, several stood up and walked over. Then a few more. By the time the teacher collected her things and handed off control to another leader, there were eleven kids standing around me.

We brought the kids into another classroom and their teacher asked them to repeat and explain the gospel message they had just heard. She asked them to articulate the reason for the decision they were making. Then she had them follow her in a prayer, asking Jesus to come into their hearts, to be their Lord and Savior. The kids prayed along dutifully, some cognizant of the momentous decision, others just there for the novelty of the experience.

As for me, I went home very thoughtful, and privileged to have been there when God acted to reveal His glory.

Tim

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