I heard it like this:

There was once an old native American and he described his life this way. He said, “I have two dogs living inside of me. There is a white dog that loves what is good and does good things. Then there is a black dog and it hates what is good and does bad things. Those two dogs are always fighting within me.”
Another man asked him, “Well, which dog wins the battle.”
The old man said “Whichever one I feed the most.”

I love that story. I love it because it is so true. I love it because there are dozens of applications.

For me, it reminds me that all of us have voices inside that are fighting. One voice tells us good things from God and the other tells us bad things from the Devil. One voice tells me I am loved and forgiven. The other tells me I am a failure and covered in my own filth. One voice tells me to care for others and another voice tells me to focus on myself. Always these competing messages inside my head.

Everyday I have to ask myself, “Which voice am I going to listen too?”

Whichever voice I listen too is the feed for that dog inside of me.

Lately I have been having evil thoughts. No, not like that, I mean I have been thinking about the devil. The way I understand it, the Bible calls the enemy of God and all things Godly by a couple of names. He is called “Satan” which means “Adversary” since he is against God. He is called the “Devil” which means “slanderer.” Finally he is referred to in other descriptive terms such as “Deceiver” or “Tempter.” There are other names or descriptions but these are the ones that have caught my attention.

You see, I believe one of the biggest reasons we do not offer a second chance to others or the reason we do not accept a second chance is because of the work of the “Evil One.” His job is to work against the plan of God by spreading lies about us. He usually only needs to whisper it in our ear. He slanders the work of God in our lives by saying that we are not good enough for his grace or that we shame him with every new sin. He lies about our relationship with God and tempts us into thinking we are not loved.

Not only does Satan tempt us into doing evil, but he lies to us to keep us wrapped up in its dirty aftermath. Shame, guilt and depression fill our mind instead of the truth of God’s love, grace and mercy. Then once that has taken root we begin to view other people the same way. If I am that dirty and evil then they must be too. The end result is that we withhold grace from ourselves and we taken others captive by withholding grace from them.

As I see it, one of the biggest tasks of a Christian is not to listen to the lies, the deception and the slander that is whispered in our ears by the evil one. To close our minds to evil and open our minds to the truth of God.

Where sin abounds grace abounds all the more. Remember that and don’t let anyone deceive you about it.

The beginning of 2014 has been an unusual weather year for Homer Alaska. It has been warm all the time and at my house all the snow has melted. Currently the weather is in the upper 40 degree range and I have seen it hit 50 once on my thermometer. The forecast is for more warm weather the next week and it may not get below freezing.

The ironic thing about this weather is that while it is warm in Alaska it has been cold in the Midwest. I grew up in a small town in Indiana and the temperature there has been hovering around 0 degrees. The arctic cold has placed itself over the Midwest and the warm spring air is filling Alaska.

As you might imagine, my family and I are loving the warmer weather. Heavy coats are left on the hanger and I am thinking of heading out metal detecting tomorrow afternoon. To me this is a huge blessing.

The funny thing for me is that in the last 3 days I have had two conversations with long-term Alaskans. They are both very unhappy about the warmer weather. They like the cold and the snow. They like snowmobiling and sledding and cold winter activities. Both of these men said the exact same thing without even talking to each other. Both said, “Many more winters like this and I am moving down below.”

Today, after the second conversation, it hit me that what I see as a blessing others see as a curse. One experience but two totally different perspectives. Then I found myself wondering, “What is there is there in my life that I see as a curse that someone else might see as a blessing?” “What if I changed my perspective about the circumstances of my life?” Maybe a curse might turn out to be nice warm spring blessing.

Lately I have been seeing a number of posts on marriage. I thought this one was interesting over at Ron Edmondson about “7 Ways A Wife Injures Her Husband …Without Even Knowing It.”

At the end of the article there is also a list of Related Posts. Those are also worth a look.

Enjoy

Last night my wife and I were talking about a few couples that we know who are going through marriage struggles. We spoke about how we could help and what we could do for them. As the conversation wore on we both reached the same conclusion. It is almost impossible to help a couple if only one person wants to work on fixing it.

Any couple who comes to me for counseling will experience the same first session. It is designed to ask the question, “Do you both want to work on your marriage?” One of the ways I do this is to listen, but I also ask for a follow-up meeting. Then I see how quickly each person works to make it happen. That is one huge indicator. If you want to fix your marriage you will drop everything to make it happen.

The second thing I do is assign homework. It is simple to do, just come back with a list of all the things you love about your spouse. Answer the question of “why you fell in love in the first place”. Then at the second session I look to see who completed the homework. If only one did the assignment then only one person cares about saving the relationship. That is indicator number two.

If one of the people in the marriage is not willing to drop everything and do whatever is necessary to save their marriage then I can rarely do anything with that couple. But if both people are willing to do the work then I know that couple will make it. The difference is not the words I say or the assignments I give. The difference is that one marriage has two people willing to work for it and the other does not. That makes all the difference.

I read this great post about marriage over at Refine Us ministries. It is about two mistakes that couples make in their marriage. You can find it HERE

The past 5 days I have been feeling sick. I had a fever the first day. Then it turned into congestion and finally into a full-blown cough. I have still been able to work a little bit, but I would describe myself as “running in mud.” Whatever I do it seems I move slowly and it takes every ounce of energy I have. Today is the first day I am up and around and running at full strength.

Times like this help me to do a few things:

1. I get the rest I need – I often think that if you do not rest then occasionally God allows you to get sick just so you will be forced to rest. Regular rest is a blessing.

2. It reminds me that I am not God – I know this sounds easy, but I often realize that I try to run the world as if I were God. By that I mean, I feel like I have to handle everything. If I don’t do it then it probably wont get done … or not at the quality I desire. When I have down time, God reminds me that I am not really in charge of anything.

3. I remember to enjoy the little things – Yesterday I was winded just walking up a flight of stairs. My lungs cannot even seem to handle the simplest of things. Then I am reminded how all year-long I take this simple task for granted. All of those things that come so easy to me are once again appreciated when I am sick. God has blessed me in so many ways.

That has me thinking that sometimes God can even use sickness to give us a different outlook on life. So for sickness … I will be thankful.

A pastor friend of mine has had a dramatic fall and winter. His son is in his second year of college and this year met a girl and they began dating. Then late last fall they found out that she was pregnant. The boy confessed this to his parents. Together the boy and girl confessed it to the Church congregation they were attending at college. Then began a process of prayer and discussion. For them, aborting the baby was not an option. Should they get married? Yes. They finally made the decision and were married just as she was starting into her second trimester over the new year break.

The father has been proud of how his child and his girlfriend owned up to their mistakes and prayerfully moved forward with their lives. He is very pleased that gossip and rumors have been squashed as the truth has always been present. But he was most touched by something that happened in the wedding.

Yesterday he was updating a group of pastors and he told us how on their wedding day. They paused and shared their mistakes with everyone present, but how they looked forward to life together as a couple and soon as a family. They thanked everyone for their love and support. Finally they informed everyone that they had come to find out the sex of the baby. They were soon going to be the proud parents of a little girl. Since this little girl was ultimately going to be born because of a mistake they wanted to make sure she knew of the love and support she was going to get and not the condemnation – so they announced they are going to name this new little baby girl “Grace.”

In just a couple of hours a group of ladies will arrive at our Church building and set up everything for a wedding tomorrow morning. I began with clearing the stage of all instruments and most cables. The ladies will arrive with flowers and all kinds of decor. They will spend an enormous amount of time and money putting together a wedding.

Here is the funny thing to me – I see no correlation between how much time, money and energy is put into a wedding and the strength of a marriage. You might think that if the person was putting this much of themselves into a one day celebration that they might put that much into their marriage. It simply isn’t true. There is a vast difference between a wedding and a marriage.

I am a huge believer in marriage and I do not think living together before marriage is a good idea (for many reasons – but that is another post). But you do not honor marriage by making your wedding a bigger and bigger celebration. You honor marriage by making a commitment to one another and then sticking to that commitment for he rest of your life.

So I am happy for this couple. I hope all the money for decorations and dresses and suits and food and music and etc. are enjoyable. But what I really hope for them is a long and happy marriage. May they spend as much energy each year on each other as they do preparing for this one day.

Recently I have had conversations with 2-3 couples who marriages are really struggling. This is nothing new since people often come to Church or want to talk to the Pastor when they are having problems. In fact, one of the main things I have tried to emphasize in my ministry the last 5 years is help for married couples. That has lead us to have a video conference here at Homer Christian Church and this year it has lead us to join with the other local Churches to bring in Gary Chapman for a one day conference in March.

Well, last week I was talking to a Church member and I asked him about his marriage and if he was going to this conference. He responded that everything was going great right now and that he and his wife would not be attending the conference. I was a little surprised and told him it was a great opportunity here in Homer for a little encouragement in his marriage. I asked him to pray about it and let me know if he changed his mind.

Later that afternoon I was driving home and recalling my day when a thought hit me. Maintaining a healthy marriage is like maintaining a functioning vehicle.

With my car, I need to regularly be changing my oil, checking my fluids, listening for squeaks and asking the mechanic to check out something like the brakes when I am getting my tires rotated and balanced. Why do I do that? Simply to keep my car running smooth so that I do not experience a big breakdown later on. A little bit of maintaining here and there will save a huge cost of a major repair.

I think the same is true with marriage. You need to be doing those regular daily things like talking, touching and opening up your heart. But you also need some regular maintenance. Maybe that means attending a conference once every other year about marriage. Maybe it means you read a book about marriage every so often. Maybe it means a regular date night or vacation week. Maybe you need to be a regular visitor to a counselor. I really don’t know what will help your marriage best. I do know your marriage might be fine now, but if you do not do any regular maintenance then there will be a big cost later on. Pay the price now or pay a big price later.