Archive - April, 2010

21 Ways to Upgrade Your Relationships (Part 5)

April 29, 2010 in Relationships with 1 Comment

Want to upgrade your relationships? Consider these suggestions.connecting-people.jpg

(You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.)


14. Be a safe person. Trust is everything in relationships. If you are trustworthy and your friend is trustworthy, your friendship has a chance at being something very special. However, break that trust and it is very, very difficult to restore the same kind of transparency that you might have once had. Safe people do not betray confidences. They do not tell secrets. They do not hurt you where you are vulnerable. Safe people do not threaten to leave you when you have a conflict. Instead, they value the relationship enough to work it out.


15. Practice generosity. I have always been impressed with the group of people in Macedonia who were described as being generous, even to the point of giving out of their poverty (2 Corinthians 8:2). On the other hand, there are some people who never seem to even think about the meaning of generosity.

The Smith family takes the Jones family to dinner at a nice restaurant. The Smith’s, very generously pay for the entire dinner. On their way back to the Jones’ family home, they decide to buy a gallon of ice cream at the grocery store. The plan is enjoy it together at the Jones’ home.

Now, Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith are together in the check-out line.

The checker tells them that the total is $4.80.

Mr. Jones hands the checker $2.40 and then says to Mr. Smith, “I guess your half is $2.40.”

Wow.

The Smiths just took this family out to eat and it was quite expensive. You would have thought that Mr. Jones might have said, “I’ve got this! You treated us to such a nice dinner, the least I can do is buy the ice cream.”


Yet, there are people who don’t ever think in terms of generosity.

To upgrade your relationships, try becoming generous. Be generous with your time, your money, and your help. Are you eating lunch with some others? Offer to get refills for everyone’s drinks. Do anything practical which reflects that you are really looking out for others.


16. Catch people doing what is right. We are conscious of how often we make mistakes and mess up. Right? Yet, maybe you know what it is like to be around a person who seems to always be on the lookout for the mistakes of others. Why not be a person who catches people doing what is right and affirm them. Look for the good that others are doing and mention it.


17. Stay connected with others while giving them space. Friends connect. We communicate. We spend time together. We laugh together. We share our lives together. At the same time, it is important for a friend to give a friend some space. We can smother one another, not recognizing the value of giving space. For example, there may be people who are willing to be your friend but they feel very threatened if you have other friends as well. Such an expectation can destroy relationships.


Question:

What else would you add to this list?

     

What is Your Most Beloved Childhood Memory?

April 27, 2010 in Spiritual Life with 6 Comments

(From thoughtquestion.com)

How would you respond to this wonderful question?

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Ending Marriage’s Bad Rap (Guest Writer)

April 27, 2010 in Family/Marriage with 3 Comments

The other day, I came across a fine post by Sheila Wray Gregoire of Belleville, Ontario, Canada. I thought that many of you might enjoy this as well:
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If an alien were to peruse the magazines at the checkout counter, he or she would likely conclude that humans are all masochists: we’re inexplicably drawn to the institution of marriage even though we know our partners will cheat on us, denigrate us, and complain about our lack of bedroom prowess. Our kids, reading those same headlines, are likely to become disenchanted with the institution, too. Marriage is a pipe dream. The most we can hope for is a few years of happiness before it all falls apart.


After all, even beauty, that most prized possession, can’t keep a spouse in line. Tiger’s wife is beautiful. Sandra Bullock is beautiful. Jennifer Aniston was beautiful. But their husbands all ran around on them. And women aren’t that much better. Angelina Jolie, by some accounts, seems to be copying Brad Pitt’s infidelity in spades.

Disastrous relationships and celebrity seem to go hand in hand, of course, from as far back as Cleopatra. But today it’s not just celebrities whose marriages are failing. Many kids who have witnessed family breakdown firsthand. Those they know and love couldn’t make it work, so why should they expect to find lifelong companionship themselves?

Let me attempt to answer that question. Yes, marriage is hard. Yes, people can have affairs. But despite the epidemic of non-commitment in Hollywood, more than 50% of marriages do survive in the here and now—and the rate is higher for first-time marriages. Sure many marriages fail, but it’s not as if the institution is dead.

Thinking marriage is going to fail, though, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we figure marriage is doomed, we’re far less likely to look for someone that we can see ourselves growing old with, and far more likely to seek someone to be with right now. That can cause immense heartbreak, but also more seriously it can lead to pregnancies that hand us the hardest job in the world—parenthood—without a partner to shoulder the burdens and the joys with. When we don’t believe in long-term relationships, we often get too involved in short-term ones, even if these short-term ones have long-term consequences.

The problems with forsaking life-time commitment don’t just fall on those who have yet to say “I do”, though; they chase those who have already promised it. When people think that they can run if things aren’t going their way, they’re far less likely to work on problems. And if you feel like your commitment isn’t solid, you’re less likely to bring up problems, too. Your marriage can’t grow.

Yet problems don’t have to signal the end of a relationship. In their book, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially, Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher reported on a five-year study of couples who rated their marriages as terrible. Those who divorced in that five-year span were less likely to be personally happy than those who stuck it out. But even more striking, 78% of couples who stayed in their marriages, even during the tough times, five years later rated those marriages as very good. In other words, if your marriage is in the toilet, it’s not necessarily time to flush it.

You have to believe in marriage to see it work: it’s just too hard to keep a relationship together when one person has left the escape hatch open. Yes, people can cheat on you. Yes, they can betray you. Maybe you’ve already been married and you’ve experienced this firsthand. But it doesn’t mean that all potential spouses will forsake you. Most marriages still work. And marriage is worth fighting for, because life is just too lonely without someone to walk through it with us.


(You can read Sheila Wray Gregoire’s blog here. You might also want one of her books including: Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight: Help for women who want to get more in the mood”)


The Apology

April 26, 2010 in Grace, Gratitude, My Story with 15 Comments

I used to drive a UPS (United Parcel Service) truck. dallas.jpg

Really.
This was the job I had when I one day received an apology.
I had been working for UPS during college. I was a student at the University of North Texas I worked at the Dallas location in the evenings, loading and unloading trucks. Each day, I drove from Denton to Dallas and then back again. I usually got home about midnight.

I was a business major with an emphasis in management. As graduation came nearer, I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life. However, I worked hard at my job and received some degree of satisfaction from it. I was offered the opportunity to work full-time with UPS. It was an opportunity to get into management with them but meant that I must first drive a UPS delivery truck. So after graduation, I delivered packages each day to downtown office buildings in Dallas. Most of my days were spent in high rise buildings going in and out of offices. Then in the afternoons, I would return to about a dozen different businesses and pick up packages that were being mailed out that day.
On a given day, I might deliver to a restaurant, a drafting supply company, a uniform company, a jewelry store, a sporting goods store, a convenience store, a large hotel, a library, a movie distribution company, etc.   Each day, I interacted with many, many people.

I learned to respect the people who quietly went about their work. For example, I regularly delivered to two older English ladies who owned a small travel company. They seemed excited when I came into their office. After handing them their packages, they always wanted me to have two lemon drops. These lemon drops were from England and I sensed that they felt like they were sharing a bit of their country with me.
I also came to admire the many receptionists, clerks, and administrative assistants who worked very hard in the many offices to which I delivered. I was impressed with the people who were cheerful to this non-descript UPS guy coming into their office each day.
Then one day, I made a delivery to a small cosmetic jewelry manufacturing company on the 5th floor of a smaller office building. The company was located at 500 S. Ervay, a historic building in Dallas. It was a company that I delivered to occasionally. On that particular day, I got off the elevator with three or four large packages. A clerk had obviously been instructed to get his supervisor when I arrived. The supervisor came out of his office and began yelling. Apparently, he had been waiting for many other packages and they had not arrived. He went on and on about how frustrated he was over not getting the packages that he needed.
I apologized for his inconvenience. (I really had nothing to do with his predicament but I was the physical face of UPS at that moment.) I gave him a direct telephone number and the name of a supervisor. He ignored this.
He kept yelling.
He got louder.
He became animated.
He went ballistic.
People stopped what they were doing and came over to see what was happening. It seemed like more and more people were stopping to watch.
The guy had a complete meltdown.
Finally, people who had been watching this awkward situation began to leave. I apologized again to this guy for his inconvenience and then I left.
The next day, I made another delivery at this company. This time, as soon as I stepped off the elevator, I was met by a man in a suit who said that he and another gentleman would like to visit with me in an office. I followed him down a hallway to an office. He introduced me to the president of this company and then he closed the door.

I looked at both of these men and they seemed very somber. Then the president said, “I want you to know how sorry I am at the way you were treated when you came here yesterday. This is very embarrassing. This is not the kind of company that we want to be. We will deal with Mr. Smith. There is no excuse for his behavior. That kind of behavior will not be tolerated. If you ever have any problem from anyone in my company, I wish you would let me know about it.”   
I never forgot that moment.
I was 22 years old and had little or no direction in my life. But for a moment, these two guys in the office of a small manufacturing company, communicated to me with this apology that I had value. For many years, I have been grateful for that moment.
     
Question:
Can you recall an important lesson that you learned from an earlier job? (Perhaps this is a job you had in high school, college, or beyond.) How has this particular lesson impacted you?

Am I With Anyone?

April 20, 2010 in Relationships with 10 Comments

I was in Lowe’s the other day shopping for a new grill. The grills are located near the front of the store. While looking at a particular grill, I noticed an older couple who had just entered the store. She was limping and also trying to push her shopping basket down the aisle.

Where was her husband?

Well, he was walking in front of her at a fast pace. He was about twenty feet ahead and seemed to be in his own world.

Finally, she said in a loud voice, “Am I with anyone?” He turned around and said gruffly, “I haven’t gone anywhere!”

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So much for tenderness.

She does have a point. Sometimes we become almost oblivious to others with whom we are in relationship. Husbands can be insensitive to the needs of wives. Parents can be blind to the effect of their pace of life on their small children. Christian leaders can be oblivious to some in their congregations who may feel that they have lost their connection with their leaders. There are many people who could echo the words of the woman at Lowe’s.

Am I with anyone?

Husbands and wives can get preoccupied with many things. Work can be very demanding. The evenings might be spent dealing with PTA, picking up the children from practice, and answering e-mail from someone at work. Before bed, a husband and wife might watch television or catch up with others on Facebook. A husband or wife can stay incredibly busy and yet really not connected to one another emotionally.

Am I with anyone?

Children can get preoccupied and cease to connect with the rest of their family and friends. So sisters and brothers ignore one another while each goes his own way. Children can become so absorbed in video games that they have forgotten how to play with others. Several children recently approached their teacher at recess to announce a real problem to their teacher. “We’re bored!” they said. She looked at the large playground in front of her and there must have been fifty children playing. Yet, these two children say they are bored.

Am I with anyone?

Christian leaders can also become preoccupied. Christian leaders can walk way ahead of the church and forget about bringing others along. Disconnected. Removed. Oblivious to others.

I was thinking this afternoon about the relationships I have that are so important to me:

*My wife

*My daughters/son-in-law

*The grandson “in the making”

*Good friends and other family members

*Our congregation


Am I with anyone? Yes. I am with these people. They are a significant part of my life. They are a gift. I want to make sure that I am not so preoccupied with other matters that I neglect the people who are most important to me. I don’t want to walk ahead of my spouse and children, taking them for granted, assuming that they will follow along.


Questions:

When have you tended to neglect your significant relationships? Have you ever realized that you were taking certain relationships for granted?



13 Ways to Really Mess Up Your Children

April 15, 2010 in Family/Marriage, Relationships with 11 Comments

Now here is a recipe for disaster!   Children_Church.jpg

Of course the last thing that most of want to do is to mess up our children. Yet, we can neglect some basic realities while we rationalize other behaviors.
So here it is: “Thirteen Ways to Really Mess Up Your Children.”
1. Break your promises to them regularly.  After a while, they will learn that they cannot depend on you. In fact, such regular promise breaking may even say something about where they fall on your list of priorities.
2. Be unavailable emotionally.  Many, many children grow up in homes where they have no real emotional connection with one or both parents. This seems to happen far too often between boys and their fathers. Fathers can mistakenly believe that boys just need to know how to catch a ball or how to fish. Helpful? Yes, but not enough. Boys and girls need an emotional connection with both parents. Children who do not have that emotional connection often grow up alone (emotionally) which does not prepare them for marriage or parenting.
3. Give your children no moral or ethical guidance.  Some parents do little or no teaching at home in the course of life’s experiences. The failure to teach at home coupled with little or no teaching within a community of believers results in moral/ethical illiteracy. Without such guidance, a child has little or no sense of moral boundaries. One parent came home to find her daughter and her boyfriend in bed. Her concern? Is he wearing a condom? Then there were the parents who allowed their daughter’s boyfriend to spend the night with her every Saturday night in their home. About noon the couple would come out of the bedroom in time to join the family for Sunday lunch. One friend asked, “Isn’t that awkward?” “Oh no, my parents are ok with it.”
4. Always do what you can to keep your children from having to experience the consequences of their behavior.  Pay their traffic tickets. Pay for overdue books. Pay their parking fines. Run interference for them. If their paper is late, insist that a teacher is unfair for picking on your child.
5. Ignore disrespectful behavior toward you or your spouse by your children.  Laugh while a child talks back to his mother. Sit in silence while a child makes fun of her father. Allow them to talk down to him.
6. Confuse your child through your humor.  Laugh at dirty, lewd remarks on television or in a movie. At the ball game, make a suggestive comment to a friend about an attractive woman seated nearby. Then wonder why your daughter will not listen to you as you try to talk with her about how she might conduct herself with a boy she likes.
7. “Go to church” but have no love for God.  Show your children that you will pay any amount to get the tickets you want for the big game. Yet, when a missions opportunity comes along, explain to your children that money is tight right now so we won’t be able to give.
8. Let your children hear you talk about how important God is in your life. Then let them see that being able to purchase the things you want is really what is most important to you.
9. Walk out on your spouse for another man or woman.  Let your child experience emotional abandonment even as they hear you say that you haven’t been happy for quite some time and now you have found someone who makes you happy. Meanwhile, they are left to sort through the wreckage of their family.

10. Quit parenting before your children leave the house.  Let them do what they want.

11. Be more concerned about being a cool parent than being a godly, encouraging, mature parent.  Be more concerned about what they think about you than simply being the parent that you need to be.
12. Never teach them responsibility.  Continue to do for them what they could actually do for themselves. Baby them. They will forever be overly dependent on you and will remain immature far too long.
13. Buy them anything they want.  Why should they have to wait or work? If you’ve got the money and they want it, get it for them! Tell them about the importance of waiting for sex while you also teach them that they don’t have to wait for anything they want to buy.
Question:
What else would you add to this list?



What I Wish I Had Done Differently

April 13, 2010 in Emotional Maturity, Family/Marriage, My Story, Spiritual Formation with 14 Comments

1. I wish I had not wasted energy wanting to become important and instead choosing to focus on my significance in Christ. When I first became a minister, I noticed that some ministers seemed to be more important than others. (Yes, I know they are not. I’m just telling you that is the way it felt.) I would hear certain ministers talk about the larger public gatherings in which they spoke. I noticed that people referred to some ministers and how they had “preached in some of our most influential churches.” So for awhile, I wanted to be important. No, I would have never admitted this nor did I see the conflict between this desire and simply being a “servant.”) Eventually, I realized that such a longing appealed to my flesh more than it did my desire to become Christ-like.


2. I wish I had wasted less time thinking “if only” and more time really being present in the moment. This was true especially during my early adult years. At times, I found it difficult to really enjoy and experience the present, because I was thinking, “If only.”

“If I could just get that Doctor of Ministry degree.”

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“If I could just move to a better church.”

“If I could just teach part-time.”

“If I could just be at a church that had better worship experiences, better elders, better staff, better location, etc.”

Consequently, with this mindset, it was almost impossible for me to enjoy the moment.


3. I wish I had known how little I really knew about life (and ministry) and how much I needed to learn. Rookie preachers are a lot like some rookie husbands/wives and rookie parents. We can be so overconfident and not have a clue as to how much we still have to learn. Some new parents read one book or take a class at church and think they now know how to rear a child. In fact, one mother even said, “I’ve recently read a very helpful book and that is all I need. I won’t be making the same mistakes that others have made.” Her children were all under the age of 8. Hmmm.

Ministers can have this same kind of overconfidence. If I could do it over, I would be more intentional about learning from several different people. I wish I had really opened up my life to a few who were wise, who had good marriages, and who were godly. Now I did have very good teachers and mentors. Yet, I wish that I had known just how helpful it could be to surround myself with a few people who had permission to speak words into my life. At times I needed lots of affirmation. However, there were also times when I needed guidance and even correction.


4. I wish I had wasted less time listening to fearful and anxious people and more time listening to Jesus. Fearful and anxious people often live with the illusion that it is possible to somehow be a church that is pain free. Fearful and anxious people are all for moving ahead with a kingdom agenda, they just don’t want to upset anyone in the process. Consequently, when leaders gather who are fearful and anxious, they spend little or no time talking about the victories of the previous Sunday morning assembly. Instead, they focus on who was pleased or not pleased. When parents are fearful and anxious, the often will do anything to make their children “happy.” When men and women live in a state of fear and anxiety, joy is absent.


5. I wish I had spent less time trying to get my needs met through others and more time valuing the relationships I did have. One of the big issues through much of my early years in particular was wanting to feel valued by those who were in my life. Not a bad desire. Right? Yet, I think this became so important to me that stayed in constant frustration and discontent. I wanted this from my parents. I wanted this from my family. I wanted this from groups of elders who I worked with. In my adolescence, I felt a void in this area of my life. Consequently, as a young husband, father, minister, I was responding to this emptiness.   

As a result, I probably put too much pressure on my immediate family to help me feel valued. I was overly sensitive to certain remarks that I should have ignored. I suspect this accounts for the frustration that I have sometimes felt with the church. I eventually began to realize that I was wanting something that I may never get. Either I could live in constant frustration or I could adjust my expectations to something that were more realistic.


Question:

What about you? What do you wish you had done differently? Can you identify with any of these that I have mentioned?


Building Important Moments Through Family Vacations

April 12, 2010 in Family/Marriage, My Family with 1 Comment

One of my daughters told me the other day that our vacations are some of her happiest memories.smoky-mountains.jpg

Our family vacations are very happy memories for me as well. These were good times that we spent together. These good memories did not happen because we spent a lot of money on our vacations. Nor, did these good memories come about because everything went as planned. Yet, there are some things we did which were very meaningful and helped to build some of these memories.

I recently wrote a short piece entitled, “6 Reflections on Family Vacation” for the Western Hills Church (Temple, Texas) youth website. You can find these reflections here.


Question:

Do you have good memories of family vacations? What made these vacations such good memories for you?

  

Which is Worse?

April 12, 2010 in Spiritual Life, Starting the Day with 4 Comments

(From thoughtquestions.com)

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The Post I Hope Many Others Read

April 9, 2010 in Places I've Been... with 1 Comment

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The Sex Cafe

This is the title of Anne Jackson’s post today. Anne writes regarding her trip to Moldova and what she is learning about sex trafficking.

I read this post about what she heard and witnessed in a local cafe. As the father of two daughters, I found this moving, disturbing, and heart breaking.

What she is writing about is very important.   

Please read this. You can find her post here.

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