Recently I decided to clean my office. One of the things that required the most attention was my filing cabinets. 

In the early days of my ministry, everything was put into a file and stored for later use. If I had handwritten sermons, they went into a file. If I read a good article in a magazine, I would copy it and put it in another file. If another Church had a brochure that was well done, still another file for that. The result was two filing cabinets crammed full of papers. 

Over time, I found more and better material on the internet. I also discovered my old sermons were not good enough to preach again as I learned and understood more of the Bible. Most of those cabinets’ material was no longer useful for my ministry.  

Still, the pages were hard to throw away. Some represented hours of work. Others were the result of financial investments. A few represented achievements in my ministry career. So I held onto them year after year. That is until August this year when I decided to clean house. 

Each week I have gone through another drawer and filled boxes with old paperwork that went into the trash. As of today, I have emptied one filing cabinet and a few random boxes of the pages they contained. 

With each stop at the dumpster outside of our Church building, I feel a burden lifted as I throw away all these old papers. One less pile of stuff to maintain. One less pile to move. All the good and bad pages of the past 29 years of ministry are being purged from my life.   

This process has me thinking about my mental filing cabinets. There are thousands of pages stored there too. They are not that easy to remove. A quick stop at the dumpster does not eliminate the mental pages given to me over a lifetime. Still, most of us need to purge the mental files we have accumulated over a lifetime. 

Occasionally we need to say, “I am never going back there again.”  When that old memory pops up, we will dismiss it rather than dwell on it. When we are reminded of those past failures, we will not spend a minute of mental energy replaying them.

I am so happy that I started this project. It has been purifying to my soul and liberating to my mind. Whenever we clean the house physically or mentally, we are given a chance to start over with a clean slate.

Today in the United States, we celebrate Labor Day, and many of us do not have to work. 

I invite you to remember that God gave us the first vacation day. The seventh day of creation was set aside for rest. The rest would then be used to refocus on God and honor him.

Please don’t use your non-workdays to dishonor our creator. Instead, take today to thank Him for all the ways He has blessed your life. Remember His work and rest in Hwwwim, knowing His mighty hand will sustain you.

A holiday that gives you an extra day off is an enormous blessing for many people, just don’t forget the ultimate source of all good things.

Honestly, some weeks, people do not get much out of attending worship as a Church. Some weeks the music doesn’t click with our souls, the sermon is not on a topic relevant to us, and we don’t connect with other believers.

I pray these weeks are rare for you, but I understand that they occasionally happen to everyone. 

Does that mean regular attendance is unnecessary? 

One benefit of attending each week is the subconscious reminder of your beliefs. Even if there is little immediate benefit, pausing for one hour still helps you refocus on your faith. It reminds you of your commitment to God and the desire to live in his will. 

Some weeks are supernatural, as God will amazingly touch your soul. Other weeks might feel mundane, but God can use both to further your walk of faith.

And besides, you never know which one will happen this Sunday. 

A small group of people shares these. They had a common experience that brought them closer, and now they laugh about things together while other people do not understand. 

When I was in high school, the proper response was, “I guess you had to be there,” and then try to move on to a new topic. The whole time they talked, you would wonder, “What did I miss? Why was that funny?” And “I really wish I could be a part of the joke.” 

We accept this as part of growing up that comes with high school and college life. Unfortunately, you don’t get to be included in all the fun stuff. 

But it should not happen at Church. Christians need to work to ensure that others are included whenever they get together. They will open their circle up to welcome new people. Whenever a guest is present, they will do everything within their power to try to make sure others do not feel like outsiders. True fellowship happens in a community of faith when everyone feels included, valued, and loved. 

I love a good joke, but make sure everyone is in on it. 

The older I get, the more I believe the government should establish rules on who should give advice. 

Experience is a great teacher, and time will show you that the instructions most people try to provide are silly. 

For example, I think no one with children under 30 should teach about parenting. What seems like the end of the world when a child is ten will often have little importance to adult life. But, on the other hand, things that seem insignificant will mold and shape them in ways you never imagined. 

There is a long list of people I think should not speak until they are older. I feel this way because I have taught about everything in my fifty years of life and ministry, and much of the help I was trying to offer is embarrassing now. People should not speak about marriage, parenting, finances, loss, leadership, spiritual maturity, relationships, or other things until they have reached a certain age or milestone. This might keep us from repeating the mistakes of youth. 

Of course, no government will pass laws on topics like these. They would be impossible to enforce, and no one would listen anyway. So I suggest you develop your own rules about whose advice you will take. Not every voice is trustworthy, some for Biblical reasons, and others because time alone will show its flaws. 

I know many of you will disagree with what I am writing today, but unless you are older and wiser than me, I really don’t care. Sorry, that is one of my personal rules. 🙂

While my wife was driving through the mountains of Colorado, I would reach up and grab the handle above the door. These pieces of vehicles are technically called assist handles, referred to as grab handles, or have a colorful nickname. Their primary purpose is to help people pull themselves up when getting out of an automobile. A second use is by passengers when they are nervous. 

Not only did I grab the handle while she was driving narrow mountain roads along enormous cliffs, but I also took my right foot and kept stomping an imaginary break on the passenger side. If I felt we were a little too close to the side of the road or were going too fast to maneuver an upcoming bend, I would push my foot into the floorboard while holding tightly to the grab handle. 

You need to know that my wife is a great driver. She has never had a significant accident that required us to contact the law or the insurance. On the other hand, I have created numerous mistakes that resulted in us paying thousands of dollars in damages. There is really not a single reason for me to doubt her ability. 

The problem is not my wife’s driving; the issue is me. I am a control freak. I like to feel in charge of every situation. I want success and failure in my hands, even if I am not the most competent in the vehicle. I grab the handle and stomp the floor to gain some form of control in a situation where I feel totally out of control. In reality, my efforts are an illusion.

Often this is exactly like our relationship with God. We have no reason to doubt him. His track record is flawless. Yet, instead of trusting him and going along for a ride. I grab at anything that will give me the illusion of control.

True faith is letting go of the things we think will help us on our journey and completely trusting the driver.    

The number of people who will tell you the completely honest truth is limited. Some will try to soften the truth by telling only part of the story. Other people will avoid saying anything. Still, others will lie to your face.

When someone does finally be totally honest with you, how do you respond?

Will you be thankful? Will you think deeply about their words and remain silent? Will you tell them you appreciate their candor?

Will you be hurt? Will you be offended? Will it upset you and cause you to attack verbally?

How you respond will encourage them to continue telling you the truth or avoid it. Some people will not be frank with you because of their character. But some do not speak honestly because of yours. 

Whenever I watch short videos online, I will inevitably open one with the words written above it, “Watch till the end.” Others will take a little different approach and say, “Wait for it.”

Quite often, in the last few seconds, something unexpected will happen. The ending will be surprising, funny, or shocking. You might have thought you knew what would happen, but you really had no idea. 

A follower of Jesus believes every day of life should start with a statement of “Wait for it.” 

The problem is that we are not 30 seconds from the end. No one truly knows how long this show will go on. But one day, it will end, and the events will definitely be shocking. 

Adam and Eve were placed in the garden and told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They did not listen to God and followed the prompting of the serpent. They took ahold of the fruit and ate, and the passage says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened.” (Genesis 3:7 – NIV 2011)

To what were their eyes opened? What knowledge did they gain? The only answer is that they became aware of evil. Their eyes were opened to shame, sin, and guilt. 

God had given Adam and Eve everything they needed to know. And ALL of it was good. The only thing he kept from them was the knowledge of evil and all the negative emotions that go with it. 

Whenever we step outside of God’s will, we gain knowledge, but it is always of pain, humiliation, regret, anger, and disappointment. There is never anything good to know or learn. 

God instructs us on how to live through his word. There are things we are supposed to do and other actions in which we are not to participate. It is not because he is withholding good things from us. Instead, he is putting up a fence to keep us from knowing bad things.

Some things in life are simply not worth knowing. 

The first is a preemptive prayer. These are prayers offered before anything happens. For example, one might preemptively pray for the day ahead in the morning.

The other is reactive prayer. These are prayers offered when we hear of a situation beyond our control. For example, one might say a prayer for a family that suffered a tragedy. 

I am learning on my spiritual journey that the more I pray preemptively, the less I am required to pray reactively for the events in my life.