Of Problems and Solutions

Since my last post, I’ve become a manager at Panera.  It would seem to be impressive, but given how I’m posting more than nine months after the last post, it’s not as big of a deal.  Whatever the case, it’s been really interesting becoming a part of the leadership at a store, especially with all the responsibility to make sure the store runs smoothly by the day, week and month.  At times it can be a bit stressful to be expected to have the solution to something I don’t know much about, and the other managers have likely grown weary of my calls to them asking what should be done in specific instances.  There are, however, times when something has been a problem for a time and, when I only take the initiative to do something, it begins to get solved.  For instance, I am now taking over scheduling at the store – the person who used to do it has in the past had a system that I don’t understand – mostly leaving the previous schedule alone except for special changes requested in advance.  I’ve taken the initiative in this instance and simply made a spreadsheet where everyone can write their updated availability for the week and until when said availability is effective, and as the various employees have been filling it out they have asked in wonder why no one’s done this before.  My automatic response was, “A problem will always stay a problem until someone’s willing to try a solution.”

That was about two days ago by now that I said that, and that phrase has stuck with me so much that it’s become a base for certain thought processes.  For some time now, I’ve been having some problems with getting into the Bible.  One would think that spending two years at a school specifically focusing on it would teach me more about how valuable it is.  Indeed, I have learned much about how valuable it is and how worthy it can be to spend more time in these words from God, apply it, and experience the benefits.  However, despite this  knowledge I have had an incredible difficulty getting myself to have any kind of consistent time spent in the Bible.  I have made several attempts to sit down and start to read through a section of the Bible, either briefly perusing or closely studying, but I always seem to find that, after two or three days of working on it, I miss one or two days and then fall entirely off the truck – this has been my pattern for a significant time now.

I’ve asked for help from a few people in my life, but I’ve found that it’s been difficult to even talk to them because whatever suggestions have been put forward I’ve been hesitant to start attempting, partly due to a fear that this effort will simply fail like the other attempts, and the less I try, the less I’m interested in talking more about what needs to be done to fix it.  I think, however, that what needs to be done if any progress is going to be made needs to simply be starting to do something, getting some solid method of keeping myself accountable and marking the days of success and days of failure so I can measure improvement.  After all, a problem will always stay a problem until someone’s willing to try a solution.

 

P.S.  Has anyone gotten into similar ruts, whether with this or any other situation like homework or working out?  Did you have anything that helped you get out of the rut, and do you therefore have any tips?  Thanks!

Stale Air

It would appear that writing in this blog would be the thing needed for people to look at it, so that is just what I’ll do.  Sorry for not writing in a while, everyone!

Down here in South Carolina, I have concluded one thing: it is hot!  I would estimate that we are, on average, two to three months warmer than my previous home of Wisconsin.  Not further along, for that would imply getting cooler sooner.  No, I was careful in my wording: we are two to three months warmer.  This would be wonderful if not for my fully functional internal heating system.  And still only having one car between my wife and I, I often have to walk through the heat to my bus driving job for several minutes, and then when I open my bus’s back door and jump inside to get it ready, I am almost always met with a blast of hot air as my bus, with all its windows closed, does a fine job resembling an oven.  Even if the wind is blowing outside, not a bit of it is felt within the walls of the bus.

Therefore, my first priority upon entering my bus is opening all the windows, working my way down one side of the aisle and coming back on the other.  And here’s what I always take note of when opening the windows of the bus: it always takes a long time for me to feel any benefits of the work.  You see, I can open a window into the bus, and it might have a trickle of air, but whether it’s on the side receiving the wind or not, there’s nowhere for the air to go once it enters, so it doesn’t even try.  Even as I open all the windows on one side, there’s still not much wind to be felt.  The true breeze – that point at which I long for from even before I enter that bus – is the opening of that first window on the second side of the aisle.  If it’s the windy side, there’s finally a space through which the wind can enter before leaving, and if it’s not the windy side that day, it’s the first window through which the wind can escape.  This phenomenon of having windows open on both sides of the bus is something I’ve come to deeply appreciate down here in South Carolina, for once that wind starts, the temperature changes to normal very quickly.

I think that’s similar to how we are as people, actually, especially in the Church.  I have seen a number of people walk into Sunday services because it’s what they do, not looking to give anything or even truly get anything out of their church … and then they wonder why their Church seems so unwelcoming … and stale.  Then I notice those who always seek to get what they can out of churches, whether music or messages, but never give anything back, and then they wonder why church still feels kind of empty … and stale.   And then there are those who always seek to give to their church, sacrificing time, sleep, family, free time, but never really allow others to be there for them or take the workload away from them, and then they wonder why their church seems so burdensome … and stale.

I’ve had my own share of stale church experiences – in fact, I still do more often than I admit.  Perhaps the answer is to see which windows we’ve been leaving closed.  If we’ve been trying to give and give without allowing ourselves to receive, maybe we need to remember that people have harder times being refreshed by empty cups.  And if we have been receiving and receiving without thinking much about how we can give back, maybe we need to remember that what we’re receiving isn’t much good unless something is actually done with it … and rivers almost always have better water than ponds.

Beast-Slayer

Well, I just finished a nice nine-hour day at the restaurant I work at, and now I should be getting homework done since I’ve got a sizable project and not terribly much longer to finish it, but hey – it’s the second day of this blog, so it’s important, right?  Priorities!

Anyways, I thought I might share a story of the beginning of my journey toward becoming one of God’s Mighty Men, or Holy Gibborim.  As I said, I’ve been reading the Ludy’s book called Wrestling Prayer, and it is indeed quite inspiring.  They talk about the stuff that made these Mighty Men different and challenge us to do likewise in our own lives (however it may manifest itself).  As one of his examples, Eric pointed to David when he was young and before he officially took hold of his office.  He said that, before being given responsibility over a whole country, he was first to show he could be responsible over a flock of sheep.  Well, his time came when his flock was attacked twice, one by a lion and once by a bear.  When they came and took sheep from his flock, he didn’t do as we would have normally done and run away from them – rather, having a swagger that came from the confidence that God was willing to work powerfully in him (and since he was promised to be king on his throne and had not yet seen that promise from God fulfilled), he rose up and took his sheep back from the lion’s and the bear’s mouths, and when they attacked him, he grabbed them and killed them with his bare hands!  Sounds incredible, doesn’t it?

Well, the point was made that he was given responsibility to protect his flock from dangers, and so he did, trusting God to give him the strength to not lose one of them.  Well, I had one of those experiences yesterday.  After finishing several hours of working at the restaurant I walked over to an indoor sports complex to get a bus ready, as my job is to pick up elementary school kids from four different schools and make sure they are safely transported back to the indoor sports place.  Well, when I opened the back door to get in and prepared to start opening up all the windows so there could be some airflow in the hot bus, I saw a sizable bee crawling around on the first window I was going to open!

Now, keep in mind that I have never been stung before in my life.  I’ve never known what it’s been like to be stung by a bee, and I wish to keep it that way.  So I started with the next window, opening all the windows on one side up to the front, then worked my way back on the other side.  Yet when I returned to the first window, though there were now thirty-nine opportunities for the bee to escape unharmed (and unharming), it remained there.  I might have left it, but I knew there was no guarantee that it would have left the bus even while I was driving to the first school, and if I did not remove the threat, the kids might have been in danger.  So I said quietly to myself, “Holy Gibborim,” and smacked it with a book!  … Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to work the first time, so I did it again, and triumphantly saw it fall to the floor, wiped it out of the bus’s back door, and put it out of its misery outside.

Anyways, that’s my first exciting story in learning to walk with the ‘swagger’ of a Mighty One.  Not quite a lion, not quite a bear, not quite a giant … not even really impressive in anyone’s book (even mine), but a story nonetheless.  Don’t worry – I plan on there being many more such tales of great bravery and adventure to come!

Introduction: Holy Gibborim-to-be

Well, I suppose it would be good to start this off by introducing myself.  My name is Adam, and I just moved to South Carolina with my wife, Tamara.  Having been born and raised in Wisconsin, my wonderful Father blessed me with a wonderful internal heating system which I was always very proud of … but which I have been recently reconsidering the benefits of since moving down here.  Not even summer yet, I have already experienced warmer days than I could count as comfortable, and everyone tells me I haven’t begun to experience South Carolina’s warm weather.  That aside, however, coming here has been a wonderful experience – not because it’s been easy, but because it has been so rewarding.  I have already found myself incredibly challenged to draw closer to my Father and closer to my wife in many ways, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for these opportunities.  I can, however, try to tell you something about them, which is why I’ve begun this.

I’d rather not start from the beginning, however – there are numerous things that have already happened that I can recount, and when I’ve lost inspiration for stories of the present (or when they come to mind strongly) I can tell about them again, but for now I’d like to tell you about something I’ve been thinking about recently.  I’m currently in the middle of a book by Eric and Lesie Ludy – Wrestling Prayer: A Passionate Communion with God.  The couple has looked through the Bible quite thoroughly, and they seem to have been struck by the many stories of men and women who have done incredible things, things seeming to have almost been inspired by (or having inspired) such works as Lord of the Rings.  There are men who call down fire from heaven and men who split seas into two, men who tear lions apart with bare hands and men who slay men by the hundreds, men who raise others from the dead and men who are taken up to heaven in chariots of fire rather than dying a natural way.  It seems too improbable, too big, too incredible to be true.  And yet the Bible presents it as simple fact, and then tells us that these were men just like us except for this: they were sold out for their King and willing to do anything to see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Eric and Leslie had a term they used to describe these people: the Holy Gibborim, or Set-Apart Mighty Men.  The term was used of the followers of one David who stayed by his side unwaveringly even when he was made king of Israel by God’s declaration but not yet in practical reality, even when the man sitting on Israel’s throne at the time was hunting David down with the nation’s own army.

Why is this important to me?  Because of a striking parallel I hadn’t thought much about before.  David was a renegade king as soon as Samuel declared him to be such – with the right to the throne but facing opposition by a government and nation that was not yet willing to accept him.  What made the men who were with him so valuable was not just that they said they would follow David, but that they bound their lives to him and devoted their everything to making his will a reality.  In the same way, are we not following a renegade King?  Sure, Jesus came, but last time He came it was in weakness, admitting He was King and calling for followers but not yet claiming the throne in a way no one could deny.  Especially since He came so long ago, no one would find it difficult to say the world has not accepted the rule of Jesus Christ.   Many oppose Him as ruler though He may have the right, and if we are to truly stand by Him, we will find ourselves facing those enemies – giants that seem undefeatable.  Yet now is the time to step up even more so because of it.  As Eric says,

“If there was ever a time to rise up and join our King, it’s not when He has entered into the fullness of His glory and all knees are bowed unto His person.  Rather, it’s now, in the season of persecution.  This is when the true motives of the King’s followers are proven.  This is the season of loyalty and love.  It’s now – in the hardest, most pressing time.”

I don’t have to search my heart very hard to know that I’ve been lax in my relationship with Christ.  I haven’t looked hard at what the world should be like, nor at what it would be like if He were in charge.  I haven’t tried very hard to even make my own life look like it should – like the King had been given rule over it.  I get mad when I could be patient, complain when I could take opportunities to work harder, and watch a computer or tv screen’s made-up stories when I could be living more of a real life that could change people around me.  I can tell you that I have not been one of the Holy Gibborim, one of God’s Mighty Men, chasing after the things He wants to see done with all I have and walking with the swagger of one who knows I’m fighting on the side of the God who never loses … but I can tell you one more thing: I want to be.