My Cackling Metabolism Thingy

I suppose it really started about six months after my forty-ninth birthday. All my life up to that point, I’d been able to eat breads and baked goods with impunity. For years, I’ve “breakfasted” on four slices of wheat toast--two with butter, two with butter and jelly. Sandwiches have always played a big part in my diet. And if I ever grew famished in the middle of the day, I happily stuffed a slice of dry wheat bread down my pie hole. Cookies, sweet rolls, specialty breads from fancy bakeries , and various other baked goodies have also been perennial favorites.

For forty-nine and a half years, I was able to eat all this stuff and keep my weight under control. In fact, I never even thought about my weight.

From age thirty, I stayed at about 159-pounds. Even at that, my doctor would occasionally issue mild warnings about my spare tire. But I suspected that he wasn’t that concerned.

Then it happened. My brain decided to issue orders to my metabolism. The message: Get older; slow the process by which you break down and process all those baked items. My metabolism thingy--the technical term I use to describe it because my knowledge of human physiology is virtually nil--apparently set to work (or, ore accurately, set to slow) with a vengeance. It had a mission and was determined to succeed.

At first, I didn’t notice. You see, at about the same time as this order was issued, my wife came home from work with news. She and her fellow employees and their families had been offered a special deal for membership at a local gym. I was enthusiastic about the idea of joining. We went, checked the gym out, got a membership, and being a cheapskate, I decided not to pay the extra money for a few sessions with a personal trainer. The music videos playing in the gym prevented me from hearing my metabolism-thingy laughing at my ignorance. But I’ve come to recognize its cackle in the months since.

Of course, because I’d never really worked out regularly, I recognized that I needed to ramp up slowly in developing an exercise regimen. I knew that people can get hurt if, at the start of a regular exercise program, they push too hard.

That’s why one month into hitting the gym for an average of four days a week, I was only doing 200 crunches a session. “That’s Britney country!” my doctor’s assistant told me the day I went in for my appointment, complaining of some “mysterious” pain in my groin. I guess it shouldn’t have been so mysterious: I had herniated myself. That’s when I first noticed the cackling.

It was a mild hernia. But the doctor said that I should lay off any lower-body exercises for awhile. That was okay with me. I decided to focus on getting my scrawny upper body buff. But I would learn the lesson of the crunches, I said. I would take it easy.

And so I did. Or I thought that I did. One night, I was using flyweights and felt a kind of crunching in my neck and shoulder. “No big deal,” I thought. “I’ll just finish my workout; probably just some stiffness and the exercise will do me good.” Wrong! Whoever invented the admonition, “Play through the pain” is unfamilar with the truth, “Pain is an indication that something is wrong.”

That crunching I heard was me damaging my neck and rotator cuff. I’ve been in physical therapy ever since. For the first few months of that process, I was not allowed to do any physical exercise.

That’s when the cackling got really loud. Though unable to exercise, another habit I’d developed from my nights at the gym continued. Back then, arriving home sweaty and hungry, I filled up on whatever caught my eye in the kitchen. At the time, I could afford it: I was sweating off calories. Not so now. But the feeding frenzy continued.

Then, one morning, fresh from the shower, I tried to push my way into a favorite pair of blue jeans. I couldn’t do it. Perplexed, I did something I’d rarely done in my life: I weighed myself at home and not at the doctor’s office. I couldn’t believe what I read! I had ballooned to 179 pounds. Literally half of my pants no longer fit and the other half are something of a stretch.

I’m still in physical therapy, gradually recuperating from injurues caused not just by my workouts, but by the amount of time spent writing and working at the computer. I walk a lot and I’m going to the gym about three times a week, just to work on the elliptical walker. And I’m cutting down on the bread. One week into this new regimen, I can report that I’ve lost a whopping two-pounds-and-a-half. I’m down to 176.5 pounds, according to my digital scales.

I figure I owe it to God to get into better shape. The Bible says that our bodies are temples of God, not dumping grounds for cinnamon bread and Ho-Ho’s. I owe it to my family, too; I want them to be able to stand looking at me. And I owe it to my poor pants, straining under the added pressure from my midsection.

Those are good reasons for losing weight. But mostly, I want to stop that incessant cackling from my metabolism thingy.

News stories of interest...

Dealing with the issue of the Bush campaign's desire to get church membership directories for political organizing purposes, check out and this one also.

Could I Have Your Attention Please, Mr. President?

Mr. President:

Let me put my cards on the table.

I am a deeply committed evangelical Christian---that is, a good news Christian. In my sometimes-liberal denomination, I occasionally take heat for that. But my reading of the Bible and my personal experience as a one-time atheist who fell in love with Jesus Christ, tell me that we need the Good News of forgiveness, new life, and hope that only Jesus gives. I believe that while God cares about all people, as a loving God, God grants to all the ability to say Yes or No to Him. As a follower of Jesus, my call is to help people know why it’s so wonderful when you say Yes to Him and the Good News of Jesus. If your campaign biographies are to be believed, you have similar sentiments.

I’m also a Republican: pro-life, pro-entrepreneurship, pro-frugal spending, and in favor of the kind of subtle and appropriate application of military, economic, and political power that have characterized Republican presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and your father in the first Gulf War. I was a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives here in Ohio earlier this year.

But, Mr. President, I have been long concerned over the attempts by both Christian and Republican leaders to make it appear that if you’re a Christian, you must be a Republican. I have objected to this equation of "Christian" and "Republican" for several reasons.

First: It simply isn’t true. While I am aware of polling data showing a propensity for the religiously-affiliated to be conservative and Republican (and that conforms to my personal observations, as well), there are also deeply committed Christians who are liberals and Democrats.

The fact is, the Bible does not proscribe particular political or economic systems.

Christians are completely free to vote or not to vote. They're free to vote for Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, independents, Martians, or anybody else they choose.

It is perfectly possible for Christians to study the Bible and pray about the appropriate exercise of their voting rights and conclude that they’re going to support a Democrat. God won’t send them to hell without an electric fan for that!

Second: The equation of any political ideology with the Gospel of Jesus Christ amounts to idol-worship.

To equate following Jesus to being a good Republican is really an attempt to make Jesus over in a particularly preferred image. That can't and shouldn't be done to the Savior we claim to be God-in-the-flesh!

The Christian should instead be committed to letting Jesus make us over in His image. Our prayer as citizens should never be, “Lord, bless what I believe,” but, “Lord, help me to believe and do what You bless.” That's why when we pray, we tell God, "Your will be done."

The ultimate call of all who seek to follow Jesus is to love God completely and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Republicans, Democrats, and independents may have different answers as to how they want to express that love of God and neighbor in the political realm. Only in heaven will we know who was right or wrong. Or, more accurately, how right or wrong we were.

But some preachers who back you and some Republicans who tout your candidacy for re-election seem to regard it as an article of faith that if people don’t bow down at the altar of conservative politics, your brand of conservative politics, they’re damned.

There is only one God, Mr. President: the God revealed through Jesus Christ. No -ism, philosophy, ideology, or program can contain Him or reflect Him perfectly. Nor can they command our allegiance. No political campaign can claim the endorsement of Jesus Christ or whittle Him down to sizes that suit our purposes!

I wish that you would say that publicly. I wish that you would tell your supporters that it is absolutely appropriate to pray about where they will stand on political issues and to be able to explain the line of reasoning that leads them from their faith in Christ to where they land politically.

But I wish that you would also tell them that you find it personally reprehensible for anybody to claim that they have a personal political pipeline to Jesus or to imply that God and the GOP have the same political agenda.

Third: Many of the attempts to proscribe specific behaviors that are advocated by your administration reflect a functional atheism, a refusal to believe that if we Christians will faithfully pray and share the Good News of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will help people to confess Jesus as Lord.

Christians are never to coerce people into acquiescence to Jesus' Lordship! Persuasion undergirded by God’s Spirit, not any political or economic program, is what we need in order to change people’s hearts and lives in our nation and our world.

It's true that we need government. Theologian Martin Luther said that God rules the world in two ways. First: God rules the hearts of those who have surrendered to Christ. Because Jesus is their Lord, they will tend, in spite of all humanity's shared inborn sin, to voluntarily do what is best for their neighbors and their community. Second: Through governments, God rules those who have not surrendered to Christ, forcing people to do what is best for all through coercion and law. Luther said that were it not for governmental authority, Christians would go through life like lambs amid ravenous wolves. For the good of all, we Christians also ought to submit to the authority of government, when it attempts to act justly.

Luther wrote in a pre-democratic time. As in Bible times, Luther, who lived from 1483 to 1546, lived in a time when nobody but royalty had a say in what governments did. In America, we believe that the people are sovereign and therefore have a “piece of the action” when it comes to governance. But the experiences of those times and places where kings imposed their religion on others---as they do today in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and even, in its way, in China, where the government touts an atheist, economic determinism as its “religion"---should be a lesson to us. Yes, governments should enact legislation that prevents people from being hurt by others and to promote the well-being of all. But no government should impose a specific religion or form of morality on others. It is both un-Christian and un-American to do so. No partisans or adherents of one political philosophy should claim to be more righteous or worthy than opponents who may themselves, worship the same Christ and pray in His Name!

More broadly, no government should act as the agent of a specific religious belief system. Freedom of religion for all--the Christian as well as the non-Christian--is imperiled when people take it into their heads to impose their views on others. A government which imposes specifically Christian views this year may be replaced for example, by a Mormon government, with markedly different views the next year. The coercive imposition of our own particular faith values on others is dangerous, apt to create paybacks that are ultimately destructive of the cause of Christ and which are, in any case, contrary to how Jesus told us to do our mission as Christians.

Attempts to push a so-called "Christian social agenda" in the policies of government reflect a belief that God isn’t big enough, persuasive enough, loving enough, or real enough to use our humble, faithful, loving proclamations of Jesus Christ to really help people live differently.

Much of so-called “Christian political activism” is based on the unspoken fear that God is just too puny to get anything done. That’s why I label this brand of political activity as I do: It's atheism, a failure to trust in God to be God. And neither you or your campaign should be encouraging it or exploiting it, Mr. President. You should especially not be doing it at the same time that you're professing faith in the God Who can use people with faith in Him to do great things (Matthew 19:12), even if their faith is no bigger than a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32).

These “Christian political activists” seem to overlook the fact that Jesus, God in the flesh, never took the reins of political, military, or economic power, never forced anybody to do things His way. The only people Jesus ever blasted were first, the Pharisees: religious folks who wanted to force people into conformity with their particular versions of following God and second, Herod, who made a habit of exploiting faith while not himself trusting God.

Rather than trying to impose their versions of Christian faith on others, Mr. President, some of your religious supporters would do well to read the Bible.

They might heed Peter when he writes: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (First Peter 3:15-16)

They might remember that faith can’t be coerced. Paul says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit.” (First Corinthians 12:5)

It is frustrating to live in a culture that wants to turn its back on God, as is true of America today. But as Christians, we cannot allow our frustration with a disbelieving culture to cause us to give into defeatism. For it is defeatism that makes us fall prey to the un-Christian tactics of governmental coercion and moralism. That is not the way people are won for Christ!

The politician who is a Christian should simply strive to live his or her faith as best they can, praying over every decision and treating their opponents not as villains to be conquered, but as people (fellow sinners) for whom--just like us--Jesus died and rose. That's what every Christian citizen should expect of their political leaders who wear the label, "Christian."

I bring all of this up because of a Reuter’s news story that came out today. (You can click title above to get to the article.) It reports that your campaign is now asking churches for their membership rosters so that Christians can be organized for your campaign. A memo is even being circulated to “help” churches that want to have voter-registration rallies and candidate-education emphases during worship services.

Mr. President. As long as I’m a pastor, there will never be any political rallies intruding on worship of Almighty God of the church I serve!

There will never be any implication that to be a good Christian, you have to vote one way or another.

Your campaign--and no political campaign--will ever receive the membership roster of our congregation.

No candidate will ever be allowed to “say a few words” to the assembled congregation.

Mr. President, even when I ran for office this year, I told a supporter of mine not to stand up during the announcements, asking people to help my candidacy. I knew that good Christians had the right to vote for my opponents. The Church should avoid either the appearance or the reality of endorsing a candidate or political party.

The Church is not a political institution. The Church is not an outlet for George W. Bush or the Republican Party or any other poltiical group. Not only would that be objectionable for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, it’s also probably against federal statutes regulating the political activities of not-for-profit organizations.

So, Mr. President, I ask you to stop your campaign from going into the churches, holding political rallies, soliciting members’ names for political purposes, or doing anything else that obviously violates the sanctity of the Church’s mission and seeks to subordinate the Church to partisan politics. I hope that you will fire the campaign aides who concocted or enacted this strategy. It is reprehensible.

God bless you, Mr. President. I pray for you every day.

The Happiness Project: The People Who Make a Difference

(Shared with the people of Friendship Church, June 27, 2004.)

While we should never worship heroes because God alone is worthy of our worship, I hope that none of us ever gets too old or jaded for having heroes! Heroes are people who, by their examples, demonstrate how ordinary, mortal, two-legged humanoids can be more and do more. They show us the potential that resides in each child of God.

One of my heroes, as you know, is Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War Two and for my money, one of the three best presidents of the twentieth century. Historian Stephen Ambrose said that if you and I live in a free Europe or America today, we can thank Dwight Eisenhower for it. Eisenhower, like the rest of us, was far from perfect. But he did what every person who achieves great things must do: he overcame himself. He defeated his deficiencies in order to become his better self.

As a boy, Eisenhower had a fierce temper, likely to explode at the tiniest provocation. Once, when he was ten years old, Eisenhower’s parents gave permission to his two older brothers to go “trick or treating” in their hometown of Abilene, Kansas. Dwight was told that he was too young for such an adventure. Eisenhower writes about the incident in his wonderful book, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends:

I argued and pleaded [with my parents] until the last minute. Finally, the two boys took off. I have no memory of what happened immediately afterward, but I was completely beside myself. Suddenly my father grabbed my shoulders to shock me back into consciousness. What I had been doing was standing by an old apple tree trunk and pounding it with my bleeding fists, expressing resentment in rage. My father legislated the matter with the usual hickory switch and sent me off to bed.

An hour or so later, Eisenhower says, his mother came to his room. He was still sobbing in his pillow.

Mother sat in the rocking chair by the bed for a long time. Then she began to talk about temper and controlling it. Eventually, as she often did, she drew on the Bible, paraphrasing it, I suppose. This time she said, “He that conquereth his own soul is greater than he who taketh a city.” Hatred is a futile sort of thing, she said...the only person injured [by our anger is ourselves]...This was soothing, although she added that among all her [six] boys, I was the one who had the most to learn.

Ida Eisenhower proceeded to salve and bandage young Dwight’s hands. Writing more than sixty years later, Eisenhower says:

I have always looked back on that conversation as one of the most valuable moments of my life...she got me to acknowledge that I was wrong and I felt enough ease to fall off to sleep. The incident was never mentioned again. But to this day I make it a practice to avoid hating anyone.

That simple incident, remembered vividly by Eisenhower until his dying day, may tell us everything we need to understand him. Why were the leaders and the people of the world willing to repose so much power and responsibility into his hands? In large part, it must have been because as a boy, his soft-spoken Mennonite mother, showed him the simple truth that over the long haul, whether here or in eternity, the best blessings don’t belong to the arrogant, the rude, the pushy, the self-serving, the angry, or the tyrants. She taught him the simple truth of Jesus’ words for us today: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth.”

This is the third portrait of blessedness, or happiness, that Jesus presents in a portion of His teachings recorded in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Taken together, the twelve verses we’re exploring are called The Beatitudes.

Today, Jesus tells us that happy people are meek. To our modern ears, that sounds crazy. Meek people, we think, are milquetoasts who let the world roll over them. But that isn’t the Bible’s or Jesus’ notion of meekness.

In his book, The Be Happy Attitudes, Robert Schuller mentions two people the Bible describes as being meek, possessing the sorts of personalities that will inherit the Earth.

One is Moses in the Old Testament. Moses was fierce, headstrong, prone to violence, and sometimes rebellious against God’s way of doing things. But in the end, Moses militated against his natural inclinations in order to surrender to God. Moses is meek.

Another person the Bible describes as meek is a certain carpenter from Nazareth, Jesus Himself. Jesus was God as well as man. It would have been easy for Him to diverge from the plan for His earthly life. He could have sidestepped the cross and plunged us all into eternal separation from God. Jesus wrestled with that very temptation in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of His arrest. But instead, Jesus took the painful path. He submitted to the Father’s will and went to a cross for us. Jesus was meek.

Meek people control or channel their personalities, bending them to the will of God.

They’re not weak; they’re focused, targeted to do God’s will, surrendered to God.

When meek people are leaders, they don’t lord their authority over others.

When meek people are followers, they don’t bellyache or whine; they do the work and live the life that God sets before them.

God’s meek people are happy because they in know that in turning from sin and following Christ, they will live with God forever.

The meek, it seems to me, exhibit three main characteristics. First, they’re sure of themselves and of their relationship with God. The meek don’t need to get even; but sometimes, they get a good laugh. In that same book I mentioned earlier, Robert Schuller tells a story told to him by a priest. Some nuns attended a baseball game and sat in front of some guys who’d probably had a few too many and didn‘t like Catholics. One of these guys said, “Let’s go to Texas; I hear there aren’t many Catholics there.” His friend said, “Let’s go to Oklahoma; I hear there are even fewer Catholics there.” The first guy, apparently finding himself witty, “Let’s go to Alaska; there are hardly no Catholics there.” At this, one of the nuns turned around and said, “Why don’t you both go to hell; there are no Catholics there?”

She knew that the meek will inherit the Earth!

A second characteristic of meek people is that they’re patient in doing right, even if it doesn’t seem to be paying off in the world’s way of measuring things. This past week, you know, I spent a little time down in Florida. As always seems to happen when I travel, the prime attractions were the people I met from all over the world. As happens any time that people meet, folks asked me what sort of work I did. When I told them the story of Friendship and of how we had worshiped in a school gym for twelve-and-a-half years, some asked how the church stayed together through such a trial. I just told them how incredibly faithful the people of Friendship Church are! I let them know that the folks of Friendship are so faithful to Christ that they stick with you through thin and thin and thin and thick!

People were amazed that there were and still are people in this congregation who waited all that time before getting into a building that we really wanted not just for ourselves, but to share with the community! It is amazing! But the meek, God’s blessed, happy people are patient in doing what they think God wants them to do!

Finally, meek people aren’t bowled over by setbacks. They’re stubborn in the pursuit of loving, godly, life-giving goals.

Mattie Stepanek died this past week. He, like his three older siblings, succumbed to a rare form of muscular dystrophy with which he was born. He was confined to a wheelchair through much of his short life. This extraordinary thirteen year old, who must have been a certifiable genius, began writing reflective poetry when he was three years old. Five of his books of poetry were best sellers, according the New York Times. Starting in 2002, he was a goodwill ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. His personal hero was Jimmy Carter, who became a friend of his and of his mother. Mattie was inspired by the former president’s efforts to promote peace in the world. Perhaps knowing firsthand how fragile life is, he was appalled by war and wanted to stop it.

If any of you ever saw Mattie Stepanek on TV, you know that he was a tiny boy in a wheelchair. His lungs had to be forced to breathe because his brain no longer knew how to orchestrate respiration on its own. Mattie Stepanek was hardly an intimidating brute. He smiled constantly and exuded joy. He showed a tough will to make a difference in life in spite of the raw deal that his genetics had given him. “My life mission,” he said, “is to spread peace to the world.” He never flagged in that pursuit.

The meek aren’t wimps! They’re tough-minded people who keep relying on God to become their best selves---full of love, humility, the resolve to do God’s will, hope, and happiness!

They’re sure of God and because of God, sure of themselves; they’re patient in doing right; they’re not bowled over by setbacks.

Five years ago, at the age of eight, Mattie Stepanek wrote a piece he called, On Being a Champion. When we surrender our lives, our past, our present, and our futures to Jesus Christ, we become champions in the eyes of the only One Whose judgment matters. We become one of God’s meek people.

We may not be counted successes by the world. But we will inherit every good and perfect blessing God gives to those who follow Jesus. We will be meek. And we will be happy.

What If We Asked the Imagineers' Question? (Column Version)

[Below is the version of the third of my Walt Disney World reflections submitted for my column, appearing in the Community Press newspapers in the Cincinnati area.]

When looking for better ways of doing things, what’s the question we can ask that will unlock our creativity?

How about when we’re confronted with a nettlesome problem?

I recently leafed through a book produced by the Walt Disney company’s “imagineers.” The imagineers are that creative band of Disney folks who spawn a seemingly endless array of innovative animation techniques, intriguing theme park attractions, and fetching resort motifs.

One chapter said that the key question imagineers ask is, “What if...?”

As I read that, I reflected that every positive event in history probably started by asking that question.

Galileo must have asked, “What if my observations are true, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around?”

The Wright Brothers probably asked, “What if a wing with the shape of a teardrop will give a flying machine the lift it needs to take flight?”

Martin Luther must have asked, “What if the Church is wrong and the Bible is right, that human beings don’t have to earn or buy an everlasting relationship with God? What if a relationship with God comes to human beings as the Bible says it does, as a gift to us when we turn from sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness and life?”

What if, in our daily lives, we asked that question more often?

What if the married couple stuck in a stalemate of mutual inattentiveness and resentment asked, “What if we wanted to make our marriage what God intended it to be? What would it take?”

What if parents, aware of how little time they spend with their kids and of the need to provide guidance for living to their children began to ask, “What if I wanted to become a “Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Ward and June Cleaver” kind of parent? How would we do that?”

The problem with asking “What if...?” is this: It gets our creative juices going. It impels us to move from dreaming to doing, just as it does Disney’s imagineers. That’s why we rarely ask the question. It’s a fearful thing to set sail against the winds of convention, common practice, and habit.

For the follower of Jesus Christ, it seems to me that failing to ask “What if...?” is a sin. God wants us to use our brains to improve life for ourselves and for others. In Genesis, God tells the human race:

“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of the Earth!” (Genesis 1:26-27, The Message translation)

This isn’t a license to lives spent in comfortable ruts.

It’s a mandate to ask, “What if...” and to see and enact new possibilities. In fact, it’s a mandate to see and enact what others might deem impossible.

Jesus says that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He also says that when we ask in His Name, He can make good things happen (John 14:13). We simply need to ask, “What if...?” and enlist the help of God. To God, impossibilities are mere impediments.

Every human being has a call to be an imagineer of the spirit! What if we all asked God to help us become our best and most positively achieving selves? The possibilities are endless!

What If We Asked the Imagineers' Question? (Another Disney World Reflection)

When looking for a new and better way of doing things, what’s the question we can ask that will unlock our creativity?

How about when we’re confronted with a nettlesome problem?

Last week, while visiting Walt Disney World in Orlando, I spent some time window-shopping at Downtown Disney, a fantastic collection of shops, restaurants, and theaters. One of the shops specializes in selling Disney animation art: painted scenes from movies, numbered posters based on various animated features and characters, and other items. Being a book lover, though, I was naturally drawn to its books about Walt Disney and Disney’s animated art.

I leafed through one book produced by Disney’s “imagineers." The imagineers are that creative band of Disney “cast members” who spawn an array of innovative animation techniques, intriguing theme park attractions, and fetching resort motifs.

One passage in the book really struck me. It said that the most important question the imagineers ask is, “What if...?”

As I read that, I reflected that probably every positive event in history started by asking that question.

Galileo must have asked, “What if my observations are true, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around?”

The Wright Brothers, toiling away with their wind tunnel experiments probably asked, “What if a wing with the shape of a teardrop will give a flying machine the lift it needs to take flight?”

Martin Luther must have asked, “What if the Church is wrong and the Bible is right, that human beings don’t have to earn or buy an everlasting relationship with God? What if a relationship with God comes to human beings as the Bible says it does, as a gift to us when we turn from sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness and life?”

“What if...?” is a powerful question and it rarely gets asked. Unfortunately, most of us are frightened to ask it. We’re stuck in our comfortable ruts. But, what if, in our personal lives, we asked that question more often?

What if the married couple stuck in a stalemate of mutual inattentiveness and resentment asked, “What if we wanted to make our marriage what God intended it to be? What would it take?”

What if parents, aware of how little time they spend with their kids and of the need to provide guidance for living to their children began to ask, “What if I wanted to become a Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Ward and June Cleaver kind of parent? How would we do that?”

What if suburbanites, fed up with the sprawl and lack of community they experience in their lives, asked, “What if we wanted to create a sense of place and togetherness here where we live?”

What if ordinary Americans, concerned about the perception of our country that seems to exist globally, decided to find creative ways to reach out to other nations and show what America is really all about?”

For the follower of Jesus Christ, it may be a sin when we fail to ask, “What if...?” God, after all, wants us to use our brains to improve life for ourselves and for others. In Genesis, God tells the human race:

“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of the Earth!” (Genesis 1:26-27, The Message translation)

This isn’t a license to lives spent in comfortable ruts. It’s a mandate to ask, “What if...” and to see and enact new possibilities.

In fact, it’s a mandate to see and enact what others might call impossible. As Dr. Gerald Mann frequently points out, there isn’t a positive achievement in the history of the world that wasn’t at first thought to be impossible.

Jesus says that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He also says that when we ask in His Name, He can make good things happen (John 14:13). It only takes people willing to ask, “What if...?” and to enlist the help of God. To God, impossibilities are mere impediments.

Every human being has a call to be an imagineer of the spirit! What if we all asked God to help us become our best and most positively achieving selves? The possibilities are endless!

Prayers Still Needed for Maupin Family

Major news outlets are carrying the report that Matt Maupin, the young man from our community, has been executed by an Iraqi militant group. Please pray for Matt's family, asking God to give them strength, encouragement, and comfort. Pray also for an early, peaceful end to this conflict, please.