The Lord's Prayer - Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done

Intro..

For the last year or two, I've been trying to pattern my morning prayers after the Lord's Prayer.  I find that the structure allows me to be more consistent (if sometimes somewhat repetitive at times) in the discipline of prayer.  I've realized that there's nothing wrong with being consistent and somewhat repetitive.  Jesus related in his parable about the persistent widow who kept asking for the same thing over and over until she got it.  Here's a link to other posts about this: 

Part 1 - Our Father...  

Part 2 - Your kingdom come, Your will be done... 

Part 3 - On earth as it is in heaven. 

Part 4 - Give us this day...

Part 5 - Forgive us our sins...

Part 6 - Lead us not... But deliver us...

Your Kingdom Come..

There's a lot of meaning in the prayer 'Your kingdom come...'  If I'm praying that and sincere, I'm asking God to come and rule and 'reign' in my life.  Taking a step back and thinking about this, one uses reigns to control and steer a horse.  Similarly, I'm surrendering control to my King in asking Him to come guide, steer, and direct my life.

What does God's kingdom look like in my life?  There's a fun reggae song based on a verse in Romans 14:17 that I often remember in thinking about this.  It goes:  "Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost.  Righteousness, Peace, Joy in the Holy Ghost, that's the Kingdom of God!"    I sometimes reflect and consider: Is my life reflecting those attributes during my day?  If not, it might be time for me to give those reigns back to God.

Finally, consider the potential of the Kingdom of God in our lives.  Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed, which even though its very small, when planted it can grow into a large tree that birds can hang out in.  When I was reflecting on this word picture in my mind, another one popped up.  The influence of a small domino knocking over progressively larger dominos.  Apparently, you can increase the size of the next domino successfully 1.7 times with every new domino.  If you start with one 10 millimetres high, and increase 1.7 times with each domino, 244 dominos later the last one is the size of the Empire State Building.  That's the potential influence of the Kingdom of God, and I find it encouraging. 

Your Will Be Done....

This might sound a bit silly, but I struggled and was in a way frustrated for years to know and understand what the 'will of God' was for my life.  It made praying this prayer challenging.  I was stuck in a rut of defining 'God's will for my life' as a big plan, and I could never seem to hear or grasp.  Consequently, I'd often add a phrase of my own while praying this...  'Your will be done, God, if I can figure out what that is.'

Suddenly one day (in church, perhaps?) someone read 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and I was a bit shocked.  God's will didn't need to be a big, architected plan for my life.  It could be a simple everyday choice in small things.  That verse goes like this:  "Be thankful in all things, for this is God's will in Christ Jesus for you."

At first glance, the thought is 'oh, actually doing God's will isn't that hard.'  Its easy to skim over the phrase '...in all things...'  That clarifier is a challenge to live up to!  I've realized its not nearly as easy as I thought to be thankful in all things in any reasonable fashion or consistency without God's help.

As I let those truths marinate in my live for a good bit of time (several years - not days or months), I realized that there were some other similar verses similar to this that I had not considered.  Micah 6:8 is one:  "He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what God requires of you.  But to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Luke 4:18,19 was the most recent one that stuck out to me in this context.  Its also the most challenging as it talks about specific actions and results...

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

The First Time God Spoke to Me

God speaks to children!  

"The boy Samuel was serving God under Eli’s direction.....
...God called again, “Samuel!”—the third time! Yet again Samuel got up and went to Eli, “Yes? I heard you call me. Here I am.”  That’s when it dawned on Eli that God was calling the boy. So Eli directed Samuel, “Go back and lie down. If the voice calls again, say, ‘Speak, God. I’m your servant, ready to listen.’” Samuel returned to his bed."  1 Samuel 3:8-9

My Experience

Similar to Samuel, I don't think I realized God would speak to me at that age, or how He would do it.  To be honest, when He did speak to me I did not realize it was Him until many years later.  

Let me set the scene...

I was around 8 or 9 years old, just a normal kid, playing marbles and hockey.  Not a pastor's child or anything like that.   When my brother and I were that age, my Mom always got us 'cool' pyjamas - with some kind of designs on them.  Thinking about this now, getting dressed in 'cool' pyjamas is a good motivator for two rambunctious, young boys to get ready for bed - wise on the part of my Mom, but I wasn't thinking about that then.  We lived in a mobile home then, and with its thin walls and small living space, I was dimly aware of the financial challenges my parents were dealing with at the time.

Having gotten ready for bed one evening (sort of similar to Samuel's story), I was lying in bed dressed in my 'cool' pyjamas and the light on, either reading or waiting for my Mom to tuck me in.  I guess I started day-dreaming and looking at my pyjamas and I was struck with thoughts that had never crossed my mind before...

"These are really nice pyjamas, and I really like them.  Mom and Dad must really love us, to work as hard as they do, and care about us enough to get us special pyjamas like these for us.  Isn't it so nice of them to want us to look 'cool' and feel special in these night clothes?"  

 I remember feeling really loved and emotionally moved, almost to the point of tears.  It was definitely a different experience for me, one I hadn't had before, and I haven't forgotten.

My thoughts have returned to this experience several times over the decades since for different reasons:

• seeing family pictures of my brother and I around that time in our pyjamas (see below)
• seeing the clothes my wife bought our kids when they were young

As I've reminisced about this, I've come to realize that God was speaking to me in my room in that mobile home about what love is, how parents love, and ultimately about His love for me as my heavenly Father.  He was not speaking audibly to me.  It was more thoughts and impressions in a special moment.  There are some scripture verses that, in the years since, have helped me realize that this had been a God moment and He was speaking to me:

• The story of Samuel, referenced above
• "Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle."
  James 1:17
• Jacob making and giving Joseph his coat of many colours
• "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"  1 John 3:1

Me with a new Bible for my Birthday
in a pair of 'cool' pyjamas around the time mentioned above

My and my brother, also around the time mentioned
above, in different 'cool' pyjamas.

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life

The Lord's Prayer - Our Father...

The Pre-Amble

For the last year or two, I've been trying to pattern my morning prayers after the Lord's Prayer.  I find that the structure allows me to be more consistent (if sometimes somewhat repetitive at times) in the discipline of prayer.  I've realized that there's nothing wrong with being consistent and somewhat repetitive.  Jesus related in his parable about the persistent widow who kept asking for the same thing over and over until she got it.  So here's the beginning of what I hope will be a series of blog posts about my meditations based on the Lord's Prayer.  Here's links to the other posts: 

Part 1 - Our Father...  

Part 2 - Your kingdom come, Your will be done... 

Part 3 - On earth as it is in heaven. 

Part 4 - Give us this day...

Part 5 - Forgive us our sins...

Part 6 - Lead us not... But deliver us...

Our Father who Art in Heaven...

I believe I'm a something of a softy at heart.  I enjoy watching YouTube videos of people with cochlear implants getting them turned on for the first time, children with really bad vision getting corrective glasses for the first time, soldiers surprising their families after being away deployed for a long time, AND most importantly with point I'm trying to make here, foster children getting adopted by their foster families.  A number of people in very close relationship to me had messed up families growing up (including my Dad who was a ward of the government for most of his childhood years).  The joy these children have when they realized they've been adopted is quite an experience and hits me deep.

John says in 1John 3:1 "Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we might be called children of God."  God is always growing His family, and He's inviting everyone to join!  God wants to be in a father/child relationship with each of us.  And He is a perfect father who gives good gifts to His children.  Listen to Jesus here in Matthew 7:11...  "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

...Hallowed be Your Name

The Bible actually focuses a lot on God's names.  Often there are phrases like 'bless the name of the Lord', 'for your namesake' and, like above 'hallowed be Your Name.'  Names carry an enormous significance in the Bible.  Many of the different names of God in the Bible came from different people's experiences with God and actual 'revelations' they had of who God is.  Essentially they're saying 'I experienced the living God in this way...'  

As I consider the kaleidoscope of all the different names of God from the Bible, I find God is ready and more than able to meet my needs for living, anywhere, anytime.  God the Seer, God of ages, God the healer, God my peace, God with me, God of all comfort, God the provider, God my hope and protector, etc.

So what are some of the names of God that I remember and I'm specifically thankful for?

• El Roi
• Jehovah Shalom
• Elohim Shomri
• Jehovah Jireh
• Emmanuel 
• Jehovah Rapha

Anxiety and Ambition

Ambition

I turned 40 in 2011.  I felt it was a significant age in my life and you can read from this blog post and this journal entry:

Feb 14, 2011

'...Another area where I've been immature in that way is with my ambition and expecting God to 'show me the way and the direction for my life' during an auspicious time of my life (turning 40 for example) I just need to be patient and let god prepare me fir what he has for us. It's not an instant pancake mix.'

I had struggled with determining God's plan and purpose in my life for many years.  At that time I thought that the next 10 years of my life were essentially 'my peak' and I needed to do something with it.  My ambition switched into high gear.  Over the next 10 years I doubled down on work, volunteering, and writing on the side, trying to accomplish something significant.  

Anxiety - Panic Attacks

After several years of this, putting pressure on myself, I started to get panic attacks.  I'd get them in the middle of night, on the bus on the way to work.  I started to get concerned about this, which of course, didn't help, but rather exacerbated the issue.  This carried on for over a year.  Another journal entry:

July 23, 2013

On the bus home yesterday (first day of work after holidays) I started thinking about work and side work and things and started getting very anxious....

I'd even have these anxiety attacks at work!  In fact, one day I actually left work and went to the downtown hospital and asked them to give me an EKG because it felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.  Apparently everything looked fine, other than a high heart rate, so they sent me back to work.  At this point I realized that I was probably putting too much pressure on myself and decided to back-off a bit.

What was God Saying?

My interest in God's plan and purpose in my life, along with this 'hiccup' with ambition and anxiety made me 'pay attention' to sermons and verses I was hearing along the same lines.  Verses that stood out to me over the past 18 months or so are:

1 Thessalonians 4:11 "..and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you.."

Micah 6:8  "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

1 Chronicles 4:10  "Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request."

Isaiah 30:15  "In returning to Me and rest you shall be saved, In quietness and confident trust is your strength..."

Phillipians 4:6-7  "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

God's message to me?  Stop trying to make things happen on my own.  What I focus on gets larger.  I must trust that God is more than capable to align the people and events in my life with my motivation and experience to accomplish His purpose and plan - whatever that may be - through me.  I need to be obedient, humble, pray, and keep on moving forward, one step at a time.

Working Towards God's Rest (Summer 2024 Journal Entry)

Working Hard

Have you ever worked really hard for a long time without a break or a vacation?  There was a period when our kids were very young that we couldn't afford to go on a vacation for around 5 years.  It was a trying time, and I was overdue for a vacation, a rest.

At work right now I'm in the middle of a rather intense year.  There are a lot of eyes (senior management, c-suite executives, and customers) closely watching our project and we've been given very aggressive deadlines to meet whilst training new people on our platform.  Work happens almost 24/7 because our teams are in timezones around the world - I've got 6 different timezones with 18 hrs of difference just with the members of my team. Lots of extra hours, fervour, concentration, zest, positive tension and passion makes it difficult to disengage from work after I've left my desk.

I've been thinking about Moses and the Israelites coming out of Egypt.  They had been literally slaving away for 400 years without vacations.  God wanted to give them a rest in the Promised Land.  But when God led them away from their work and placed the offer of rest in front of them, they balked.  Rather stuck in a rut, they couldn't get past their fear, didn't believe in the offer or that God would help them obtain it, and consequently wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.    

Sometimes its difficult to get out of an old mindset:

- From unbelief to believing.  

- From doing to being.

- From the treadmill of 'slavery' and works (doing things to 'achieve' God's approval, to God's rest)

God's Offer of Rest

The writer of Hebrews makes it abundantly clear in chapters 3 and 4 that we've been offered that same rest as Moses and the children of Israel.  I believe that offer of rest is a multi-faceted promise:

• Rest in the here-and-now because of God's promises for us today that say things like 'Be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known to God, and the God of peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus'
• And rest in the here-after in heaven.

That offer still stands for us now! Listen to the beginning of Hebrews 4:

"For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God’s goal for us, we need to be careful that we’re not disqualified. We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn’t do them a bit of good because they didn’t receive the promises with faith. If we believe, though, we’ll experience that state of resting. But not if we don’t have faith."

Joyce Meyer suggests that the rest of God is not a rest from work—it’s a rest in work. It’s partnering with God to do what He is calling me to do by His grace.  Listen to this (talking emphatically to myself): Trusting that since God's called you into this work, He'll align the people and events with the experience and training you've got to 'work together to accomplish His good purpose.'

An Analogy

The Bible often draws metaphors between God's followers and sheep.  Consider sheep: They don't really 'do' anything to provide value to the shepherd or owner.  They just eat, grow, grow wool, reproduce...  What they 'need to do' to be successful, is trust their shepherd.  If they can't do that, there's problems. They'll be anxious, go hunger or thirsty, and potentially get into trouble or wander off.  Trust and rest walk hand in hand.  You can't really be trusting if you're worried, anxious, or fearful.  All of those emotions make it difficult to rest.  

Sheep resting
Photo by Ambitious Studio* | Rick Barrett on Unsplash

Jesus asks and calls after us in Matthew 11, 'Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.'

Another Offer of Rest - Sept 2024 Update

This fall continues to be busy for me at work.  I've additionally been struggling with some incongruity between the responsibilities I've been given and my official position/title.  Several times 'what is fair?' has threatened to overwhelm my thoughts and I've been tempted to communicate something rash.  This issue came front and centre last Monday after mid-year employee 'Success Reviews.'  I needed to hear from God what to do, as I felt justified to push back hard.  I prayed that God would speak to me, and He did, quite directly given the situation and my meditations in this blog post, through a verse in Isaiah:

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
Isaiah 30:15

Follow-up Thoughts

In Genesis, Jacob (son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham) did things on his own.  He worked 14 years for his wives, grew his flock, moved rocks, etc.  He perhaps found it easy to trust in his own strength.  Then God performs an intervention in his life with wrestling match, and essentially forces Jacob into a period of rest by permanently throwing his leg out of joint.  After that, Jacob had to trust God for everything.  Its an interesting foreshadowing of what happens with the Israelites in Egypt...

A microscopic subset of the people who left Egypt actually entered into the promised land - Joshua and Caleb - out of everybody!  Is this a foreshadowing of the ratio of the remanent of the church?  That's a sobering thought!

Prayer and Love - Even Better? Journal Entry July 2024

 I'm travelling for work this week to Vilnius, Lithuania.  On the flight from Amsterdam to Vilnius yesterday, a mother and her son (who was about 6-7 years old) were sitting next to me.  Apparently, she had bought him a little Pokemon Go ball about the size of a quarter.  That was his 'go to' toy for the trip.  He fell asleep on her lying on her lap not too long into the 2 hour flight and slept most of the way.  He dropped that ball once and his mom picked it up and he wanted it back in his hand before he fell back to sleep again.  She held his hand, and stroked his fingers and fixed his hair while he slept.  When he woke up after we landed, he was proudly showing everyone his ball as we waited to disembark from the plane...

Later this morning, trying to sleep around my jet lag, I was thinking/praying about the verse '...the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases...' (see why I do that here) and was reminded of this picture of that mother and her son on the plane.  This other verse from the book Matthew (Jesus talking about prayer) came to mind:

"If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust?  If he asks for a fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?  As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing.  You're at least decent to your own children.  So don't you think God who conceived you in love will be even better?"

I found a lot of comfort, encouragement, and love in this message, along with that picture of a mother's love for her son and his ball on the plane.

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

A Real Escape - Journal Early 2020's

The Escape

The Horse and His Boy from C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia was one of my favourite books to read as a child.  With a book and my imagination I could lose my life and find a different one for a while.  What an escape!  I'd finish the book and feel sad and wistful.  Back to reality, schoolwork, chores and music practice at home.  I wanted a life like Shasta, the protagonist in The Horse and His Boy - non-stop adventure, travel, heroism, a girlfriend...

A couple years later I went to see Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back as a double feature.  I had never been to a movie theater before.  I was blown away.  As we drove the 90 minutes back home, the stars in the sky seemed to beckon me,  but I couldn't fly away.  A melancholy ache washed over me as I compared my life with Luke Skywalker... 

Over the years, more books and movies temporarily offered escape followed up by a subsequent rude awaking to real life.  Then came Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and SnapChat.  I could get an escape in minutes instead of hours.  Unfortunately, that escape almost always came with a comparison - my life versus the main character.  My life always seemed to come up short.

A Snapshot Vs. The Truth

Stories and tales are one thing.  True stories and biographies are next level.  Even then, I need to be careful what I absorb, and what I embrace as truth. Is what I see in a moment, a snapshot, a SnapChat, a YouTube video, a movie, a book, the whole truth about someone’s life or the way a life is lived? Can a 30 second video, or a 2 minute movie, a chapter in the Bible, or a book really speak to the entire existence of a life?  

I must realize that all of these mediums only show me snapshots  If I don't remember that, I can fall into a terrible trap.  Comparison is nasty. It turns out one of two ways, and they are both wrong - it’s either I’m better, or I don’t measure up.  More often than not, I don't measure up - whether its someone else's vacation, their car, their fish story, their job, or their adventure.  Its a recipe for depression.

Photo by Mason Kimbarovsky on Unsplash

Escape from 'The Escape'

Jesus offers me an escape from all of this.  He says:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly."  Matthew 11:28-30

I need to put down my phone, my iPad, walk away from my computer desk, and seek first God's kingdom and His will.

When I start reading about the amazing things other people have done, or watching clips or movies of inspirational stories, my ambition gets fired up.  I think I need to DO something impactful!  The Apostle Paul reminds me to: "...make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands".  1 Thessalonians 4:11

A final reminder from the prophet Micah as paraphrased by Eugene Peterson in The Message:

"It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour,
    be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
    take God seriously."   Micah 6:8

Healing Love and Coffee - A Parable of Marriage

Start with Beans - A Cord of Three Strands

The Bible says in Galatians: 'A man reaps what he sows'.   Making good coffee is no different.  A man needs to start with good beans and a good roast.  Similar with marriage.  Begin rooted in God, and always turn to Him for help.

When Ewa and I got married, we chose a popular 'marriage verse' from proverbs as our promise from God, that He would help us in our union:  "A cord of three strands is not easily broken." Eccl. 12:3.  The meaning we took from this verse was Ewa and I each were a strand, God being the third strand.  As long as we remained close to God, He would help us stay together.

Photo by The Ian on Unsplash

The Grind - Life isn't Easy

You've got to grind those beans so the flavour comes out.  That's not really a peaceful, relaxing process.

The first five years of marriage for me were no cake-walk.  Ewa and I got married when I was 23 and she was 29 - so there was an age difference to content with.  Additionally, we grew up in different countries on different continents and had different mother tongues.  Ensuring our communication is effective and we genuinely understand each other in conversations is an ongoing challenge.  Vocal inflections, the use of imperative verbs, and how we tell stories can stimulate static in our relationship.

And then of course, life happens.  We lived in Poland together for a year after we got married, and then felt God telling us to move to Alberta (more details about that here).  We were geographically separated for 9 months while I worked in Canada and sponsored Ewa's immigration.  Our 'honeymoon vacation' didn't happen until she became a landed immigrant in Canada, nearly 2 years after we got married.  Soon afterwards we had to navigate employment issues and a career change, all the while trying to walk with God and believing he was with us.  I'd say the career change definitely 'nicked' that cord of three stands, even though we believed God was leading us that direction.

The Brew - Learn How to Truly Love

The 'love' that is espoused by this generation's media is like a coffee beverage made fast with syrup (I'm thinking of a Tim Horton's iced capp for you Canadians).  A good coffee brew however, takes time and hot water.  I think true love in a marriage grows over time and with trials, persistence, and patience.  

Around 2016-2018 I think both Ewa and myself found ourselves letting the busyness, worries, comparisons, anxieties, and frustrations of this life cause us to 'fall out of love' with each other.  While its easy to 'look for options', or escapes, or even use threatening ultimatums in those trying times, those aren't healthy paths to consider.

Getting to the 'end of my rope' (sorry, I know I'm mixing metaphors in the post - I hope you can follow along), I asked God for help with our marriage.  I needed:

1. A new perspective of who Ewa was - God's perspective.  
2. To learn how to truly love her again.

God answered the my first request by helping me see Ewa as a little girl - something I had never seen or experienced, because I met Ewa when she was 29.  But she was still His little girl, so He knew how to make that happen. How did God help me see/experience that?

• He told me to watch her when she slept/napped.  People let down their guard - all pretences fall away - when they sleep!  Its actually not hard to 'rewind time' and visualize a younger person when they are asleep.
• He suggested I listen closer to her stories when she was a child and then helped me draw parallels to some of her current behaviours.  That helped my understand why she was afraid of some things, why her shopping habits were totally different than mine, and even why her personal communication and story-telling followed different patterns than I would expect (BTW, I still struggle with waiting for her to 'get to the point')

With the second request, I felt God was prompting me to 'do' something, to somehow show Ewa that I loved her in a meaningful and persistent way.  This came with two ideas:

• Making her coffee every morning.  I don't drink coffee myself, but I am up earlier than Ewa for work every day.  So I learned how she makes her coffee and I made that my morning 'labour of love'. 
  The results of this actually surprised me.  I don't know what I was expecting, but clearly Ewa appreciates her morning coffee being brewed for her a lot more than I realized.  It went miles further than I expected it would in helping her feel I was loving and caring for her.  I still make her morning coffee to this day.
• Calling her by her Polish diminutive name and other loving nicknames instead of her 'plain, legal' name.  She much prefers I call her 'Ewunia' or 'Baby-doll' or some other fun nick-names.  I honestly don't know how I missed this in our first 15-20 years of marriage, because it also made a huge difference for us.

This is THE coffee machine mentioned above.

Savour the Flavour

For all these steps and suggestions above to work, I had to persist in them, and I had to be patient to wait for the result.  I'd also say that I'm definitely not perfect, and there are times where Ewa has extended grace, mercy, and forgiveness to me when I was not so lovable.  It takes three cords to make that strong rope, and this post mostly focuses on two of those cords.  I'm sure Ewa has her own perspective on this marriage journey of ours and her own bean 'blend' and 'flavour' she savours.

I'm thankful to say that now the majority of our time together we can be silly, have fun with each other, and enjoy each other's company.  My wife and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary this year!  

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life

A Benediction

When I started writing this post, I made some notes on generic things that I thought helped put our relationship back together.  Those quick notes looked like this below:

• Persist in:
• an intentional relationship with God
• being real and honest with God
• loving mercy and walking in forgiveness
• hope and faith in God - that He is a good Father and your safety is found in Him

What I thought was cool later when I reviewed them is they actually align with parts of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (the love chapter):

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.

Vacations and Volvos

God Cares

God cares about the little things.  More than once on a family vacation, He gave me a mini-parable of His tender mercy in providing safe, comfortable transportation for us to use.  This is important to me as a Dad and husband, and really means a lot to me.  As often as we rent cars on vacation (not very often), I couldn't help but notice that we ended up with a Volvo SUV on more than one occasion.  Volvos are a brand I never thought I'd drive because I considered them a luxury vehicle.  Here's those stories.

Volvo 1 

Up until 2012, I had never rented a vehicle.  That year we decided to do a 2 week trip to California and 'splurge' a bit on vacation.  We got a vacation rental in a nice coastal town and rented a Ford Explorer with all the bells and whistles, including a moon roof.  

We flew into L.A., and when we got the car rental agency, they said the Ford Explorer wasn't available.  I don't recall exactly why, but it was because of something out of their control.  I was quite disappointed, as I really wanted to experience (and have the kids experience) a moon roof.  Fortunately, before I got my knickers in knot about this, the agency offered to upgrade us to a Volvo XC90.  I wasn't expecting an upgrade, and it was a great surprise.  It felt like God was saying, 'Its ok, Perry - I got this.'  I definitely enjoyed driving that vehicle around southern California for the next two weeks.

Our Volvo XC90 in a hotel parking lot by Disneyland.

Volvo 2

Seven years later, we did another significant family trip - this time to see family in Poland.  We decided to rent a vehicle for the 2nd half of the trip as we'd be driving around southern Poland a fair bit, taking the kids to see where my wife grew up, doing some exploring into the Czech Republic, and visiting relatives.  When we booked this vehicle online, we didn't know exactly what make and model we'd get.  It was just a 'mid-size 5 seat SUV'

Lo and behold, when we got the rental agency at the airport, the only SUV they had left was a Volvo XC 40.  What a great vehicle for 'zipping around' on a European vacation - small enough to park anywhere easily and manoeuvre on some those skinny European roads, and it had all the features we needed, including GPS which was super helpful on the unfamiliar drives.

Again, it felt like God was saying 'Let me help you enjoy your family vacation.  Don't worry about the SUV, I've got that covered.'  

The XC40 parked in Ewa's brother's driveway in Poland

"And the very hairs on your head are all numbered.
So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows."
Luke 12:7

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life

Remembering The Kindness Of God in Raising Our Kids

Remembering God's Kindness

I regularly read devotions from the ministry 'Our Daily Bread.'  Recently this particular one hit home with me.  It references a couple verses in Isaiah that immediately made me think of a situation with each of our kids growing up, and how God's kindness to them (and to us as parents) really helped.  The verses go like this:

'I'll make a list of God's gracious dealings,

all the things God has done that need praising,

All the generous bounties of God,

His great goodness to the family of Israel - 

Compassion lavished, love extravagant'

.....

In all their troubles, he was troubled too.

He didn't send someone else to help them.

He did it himself, in person.

Out of His own love and pity he redeemed them.

He rescued them and carried them along for a long, long time.'

Isaiah 63:7, 9

Our Daughter and Anxiety

When our daughter was going into grade 7, our whole family agreed together that both kids would switch schools to a local Christian school.  It was really important that we engaged them in that decision because that first year in the new school for Kornelia wasn't easy.  She had a hard time making friends, and had an intense struggle with anxiety.  Sometime she found it hard to sit in class because of this, and large assemblies with the whole school were agony for her.

Her teacher, and particularly the assistant teacher for her class began to pressure us to get some professional help for her.  We weren't keen on jumping into this right away, and did a lot of praying and talking with Kornelia about it.  We were going to a small group at the time, and one of the ladies there was a counsellor.  When we informally ran our concerns about Kornelia by her, she agreed with us that trying to work with Kornelia personally and patiently was the best plan forward.  Gradually, over the course of the next couple of years, as Kornelia became more comfortable with the school, the teachers, and her classmates, God took the anxiety away.  

God's kindness in this entire experience was evident when, at graduation, Kornelia played her guitar and sang solo alone on stage in front of the entire assembly of graduates and their families.  Following the ceremony, her grade 7 teacher signed Kornelia's grad picture frame with 'God is good!  Look at how far you've come since grade 7, Kornelia!'  

The fam at Kornelia's Grad Ceremony

Our Son and Community

The same school move had an impact on our son Erik as well.  He also had a difficult time finding friends, and was bullied during that first year after the move (yes, in a Christian school).  He's a sensitive guy and this troubled him for some time.  He would have a close friend for a while, but then that friend would find another interest (or friend), or move away, and Erik would feel alone again.  

This feeling was magnified for Erik when as a junior he was asked to play drums with the senior worship team.  He made good friends there, but they weren't in his grade and he lamented that fact on numerous occasions.  I don't think I understood just how important friends and community were for Erik at the time.  I'm not sure he knew how to articulate it, or if I missed a queue somewhere.  Its quite possible he did communicate his heart in this area to his Mom and I underestimated its importance.

Erik got older and this particular school had a tradition of taking its grade 11 classes on a missions/field trip to an orphanage in Guatemala.  It was a big deal for every student in grade 11, and the class prepared all year for the trip with fundraisers, training, and planning skits and work teams.  All the parents, including us, prayed that the trip would have a life changing impact on our kids.  In Erik's case it had a significant, lasting affect.

I don't know all the details of what happened, but apparently in one of the evening debriefs with the class, the lead chaperone pleaded to not leave what happened there behind.  This left an impact on Erik and he felt that God was prompting him to do something about it.  He made a promise to not remain passive anymore but to be active in building community.  And when they got home, he took the initiative to make that happen.

Since that time, continuing all the way to current day (6 years later!) he and a number of his friends from that class have been meeting as a small group - of their own accord - on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  Its not always a spiritual discussion, and that's fine.  They keep each other accountable and look out for each other.  Its really been special to see how God has answered the cry of Erik's heart for friendship and community from when he was young.

A candid snapshot of Erik from the Guatemala trip

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life

A Prayer - For Friends and Family Who Don't Know God

 Dear God,

Thank You, that its Your kindness that leads us to repentance. 
Thank You, that You are the Good Shepherd who leaves the flock to save the one missing sheep.
Thank You, that You are willing that none should perish, but all should come to eternal life with You.

A Prayer for Family and Friends who don't Know God

God, I pray for my close family who don't know You,
For my extended family that doesn't know You,
For the people that I work with that don't know You,
And for the people I happen to bump into today that don't know You...

Help them all to:

• Have open eyes to look and see Your kindness in their lives, past and present.  To see Your grace and love are greater than any bad thing that they have done, or will do.  
• Have open ears to listen and hear Your works of kindness encouraging, calling, beckoning, and guiding them.
• Have open hearts and understanding to grasp and embrace Your kindness, Your heart for them, how big You are, and everything You've done for them, past and present.  May they acknowledge in their life here that every good thing they've received and have is from You and Your kindness.  

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

God, please bring people across their path who know You, who are filled with Your grace and love.  May those people point my family and friends to You and Your kindness in their lives.  Help me to also be someone like that.