Month: September 2015

I was recently working with a little boy with autism. One of his teachers shared with me that when an adult asks him in a normal voice to do some task like writing his name on his paper, or to stop doing some task, he perceives it as yelling. It was an amazing revelation for me. I’ve worked in that school long enough to know for a fact, that no adult has yelled at this little boy.

But, the bottom line is that he perceives regular commands as yelling. His perception changes everything. The next time I worked with him, I approached his desk, squatted down and got eyeball to eyeball with him and lowered my voice a few decibels, when I had a request for him. My approach changed everything.

He was much more cooperative when he believed that I wasn’t yelling at him. Sure, it was a little more effort on my part, but I had a lot of empathy for the little guy. He can’t help how he perceives the world around him. A slight change for me, made a big difference for him.

My experience with that little boy really made me think about what a huge impact our perception of events, has on our lives. How we perceive the actions and attitudes of others and how others perceive ours, affects all of our relationships, from those within our families, to those with friends, to those with coworkers and bosses.

On an even larger scale, how the world perceives us as Christians, can influence people to seek Jesus for themselves or to have nothing to do with him. It’s a big responsibility that all Christians have, but one that we often give very little thought.

Think about it a minute. When we run into the grocery store after church service, wearing our church clothes, we come across many people who obviously didn’t attend a worship service, but they can tell we did by how we are dressed. How are we treating our children? Are we yelling? Are we snapping at our spouse? Do we smile at strangers in the produce section? Are we rude to the cashier?

It all seems so simple and kind of silly; yet the world watches our actions. How do they look to a non-believer?

Do we drive around with a Christian fish on our car and cut someone off in traffic or blare the horn at the red light? Sure, we might just be having a bad day, but the perception of the driver behind us can make all the difference.

God cared so much about human perception of His love for us, that He sent us His son. He gave humanity laws to follow, to keep us safe and in communion with Him. We failed miserably at following them, time and time again. We somehow perceived Him as distant. He didn’t understand what it was like to be human.

He loves us deeply, so He became human. Jesus was born a human, just like the rest of us. So, when we pray and reach out to Jesus in pain, fear, loneliness and frustration. He gets it. He was one of us. He also gets the good stuff like love, joy, peace and happiness. He was willing to die for us so we could walk with him forever.

If God cares that much about perception, perhaps as followers, we should too. Just a thought.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. I can remember exactly where I was and exactly what I was doing that morning. I’ll bet you can too. I can hardly believe that it’s been that long.

Nineteen Islamic men hijacked four commercial air planes and killed 2,977 people. That day is a picture of true hatred. Personally, I think that’s the first time I ever witnessed true hatred.

We us the term hate, an awful lot these days. The teenagers love to say, “haters gonna hate,” about every little thing from their favorite song that someone criticizes, to referring to someone who has said something negative about them.

Of course, they don’t remember 9/11. The oldest teenager would have only been five when the attacks occurred.

I’m not quite sure how fourteen years later, every time someone disagrees with someone else, it gets called hate. We have become a nation of people who get offended by just about everything and when we are offended, we want to say the offending party hates us.

But, offending someone is not hate. 9/11 is hate. Beheading Christians in the Middle East for being Christians, is hate. A man attending a church prayer group in Charleston and then killing the same church members who welcomed him; that’s hate.

Refusing to bake a wedding cake for someone is not. Voting Democrat instead of Republican or vice versa, is not. Disagreeing with someone politically is not hate.

Right after 9/11, Americans were amazingly united. As a country, we turned back to God. Our churches were full for a time. We weren’t black or white, or Asian American, or Mexican American. We weren’t Republicans or Democrats. We weren’t rich or poor.We weren’t straight or gay. We were Americans.

We joined together in numbers probably not seen since World War II. We were united. We were angry and we were strong. We were dangerous to any evil doer who crossed our paths. There was an attempt in December of 2001 to take another American plane with a shoe bomb, but the passengers attacked the 6′ 4″, 200 pound guy, tied him up and gave him a tranquilizer. Americans were once again a force to be reckoned with.

But, fourteen years later, we seem to have forgotten many of the lessons of 9/11, like we all have a lot more in common than we think, and we all still have a common enemy who would like destroy us.

And lately, we seem intent on destroying ourselves. The Congress and the President can’t agree on anything. The American public is fed up with our entire political system. We will turn on each other over the slightest perceived barb. We have become terribly thin-skinned in a country that has always thrived on debate and differences of opinion.

Here’s a news flash: ALL LIVES MATTER, not just black ones, or white ones or anyone in any particular line of work. We are Americans. We believe all life is precious and that everyone is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We even have a document that says as much.

Please join me this day in a prayer for peace, peace for the world, peace for America, but also for peace within America. May we all be reminded this day, how strong we are when we join together. May we be reminded how strong we are when we return to God.

“Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.” James 4:10

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about God working around us. We talked about how Americans are obsessed with the supernatural, everything from vampires, to zombies, to witches and wizards, yet we so easily and casually discount God.

She went on to say that a man in her Sunday school class commented on how supernatural events happen in other parts of the world, but not here. Thankfully, some of the people in her class disagreed.

He was right in a sense. There are countless stories of the supernatural in the Middle East at the moment, as well as in other places. I read an account on the Baptist Press website, of a Syrian woman who had fled to Beirut, and had encountered Jesus. She was a widow with kids, but since she was in a required 40 day period of mourning, none of the Islamic aid groups had offered to help her. A group of Christian aid workers knocked on her door. They were simply going to leave some food; for she had nothing to eat. But, she removed her veil and invited them in.

She told them that the night before, there was a knock at her door. She went to the window and no one was there. Then she heard a second knock. She fell asleep and a man put his hand on her shoulder and told her he knew she had been through pain and that he had too. He told her he would send her some people to tell her about him. The next day, the aid workers showed up.

She learned about the Gospel and took a Bible. She became a Christian.

There are countless other stories like hers. Just Google it.

I was having a conversation with the associate pastor of my church about God intervening in her life. She was in New York, far away from the Peach State, planning on attending a women’s seminar in Brooklyn. She got on a subway and was kind of lost. She approached a stranger, told her about the seminar, and asked her if she knew where the church was that she was looking for.

The woman smiled and told her yes, she was attending the same seminar and they could go together.

Now, here in the West, we would likely say that was a coincidence. However, what are the true chances of an out of towner not only encountering a friendly New Yorker, but one going to the same church seminar? There are over eight million people who live there.

The problem with us is not that God is not at work among us in big and small ways. Nope, the problem is that we don’t take the time to recognize it. When we don’t take quiet time and pray, we miss it. When we don’t look up from our phones, we miss it. In our busyness, we miss it.

Many of us have been so very blessed with abundance that we fail to see God working in the everyday. It’s not until we have had some sort of disaster that we finally notice Him. Make no mistake; He is at work.

But, if we really want to see His work, we have to slow down, pray, get quiet and be still. We might also need to prepare to be stunned. His work is often breathtaking.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

When I was growing up, my parents used to take our family to the beach for a week, every single summer. My brother and sister and I, always looked forward to it. It was a week every year where Daddy didn’t go to work. It was a week that included eating dinner out, putt-putt golf and lots of beach time. It was always so much fun.

We always went to Panama City Beach. These were the days before MTV, so it was still fairly tame. Being on the Gulf of Mexico, we could float on a raft, just about all day. The waves were typically very calm.

One day, Daddy and I were out on a couple of rafts. We were out for a long time. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but we were having a ball. It was kind of rare for him to be totally relaxed and he was.

Then, out of the blue, he told me to start paddling on my float. Whenever a large wave came, he would tell me to paddle hard. He made a game out of it and it was fun. We finally ended up close enough to put our feet down and walk out.

It wasn’t until much later, I think after we got home, that he admitted the truth to me. We had drifted much further from the shore than he had ever intended. We were in deep water and he was concerned for our safety. He was a Navy man. He never let on that he thought we might be in any danger. He kept his cool and guided us safely back to shore.

When I think about that day, I am reminded of how easy it us to drift much further away from God than we ever intended. We can sometimes stop paying attention and let seemingly little things slip. We are busy on the weekends, so we start missing church, or we are too tired to make Sunday school, so we just skip it and go to worship. We are too busy or tired to make time for reading the Bible today. Maybe we can read it tomorrow. We didn’t find any time at all for quiet time for prayer this week. We’ll do better next week.

None of those examples are earth shattering. It’s not like we murdered someone or committed  adultery. They are simply examples of us giving into our humanity. Doing any of those things every now and then, isn’t that big of a deal.

But, here’s the thing; the little things are a slow drift from the safety of God’s shore. We rarely wake up one day and turn our backs on our faith. But, we are much more likely to slowly drift away if we aren’t vigilant. Then a big wave comes and we are shocked that we are so far away. How could that happen? Weren’t we just taking a little break or having a little fun?

Luckily, we can have Jesus on the float beside us, like my Daddy was all those years ago. He can guide us safely back in, but we have to ask.

When we are firmly back on the shore, we take a deep breath and are reminded to be careful of the undertow. We are reminded to be careful of drifting. It really can sneak up on us. Perhaps you needed reminding today.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂