problems

The Boy On His Bike

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Today I called an audible. For you nonfootball people (like me) that’s the moment when the quarterback makes a conscious decision to change the play just moments before its set to begin.

This morning I called the dad version of an audible—a dadible. It’s a technical term I promise. But you can’t look it up. You’ll just have to trust me. Also, you owe me $3 every time you use it.

My oldest son Ethan had been dreading an event at school all week. All week we had been trying to encourage him to embrace it and have fun. The event involves kids riding their bicycles at school. Something he hasn’t really worked on a lot. So he was nervous about it. And in his nervousness he wanted to avoid it.

I know you get that. We all sometimes long to avoid the things we dread. But we can’t. We can fight the internal dread. We can run from it. Or we can nod our head with honest recognition, offer to shake hands with it, and sit down to sort it out.

I’ve not always been the face-my-problems kind of guy. Mostly because I didn’t know how—and to a lesser extent I was intimidated by why. But God-willing my kids will be. And Ethan is the oldest so he gets to go first.

Step one: identify the source. I needed to figure out what was causing the problem. In Ethan’s case it was nervousness about his bike.

Step two: identify the catalyst. Source means starting point, but even a starting point has a cause. Ethan was nervous about his bike because of a lack of skill riding it. The catalyst was the size of the bike. It wasn’t too big. It was too small.

We got our son a junior style chainless learning bike two years ago. In growing boy time it might as well have been 6 years ago. He has grown like a weed since then! And his old bike is TINY. So he felt bad about it. He was intimidated by this tiny thing because it held him back.

We do that sometimes too don’t we? We let a tiny thing become a big thing on our way to doing a potentially cool thing. So instead we do nothing. Or we do something worse than nothing. We don’t have to. And once I identified the catalyst of my son’s disdain for the fun event I didn’t do nothing. I called the dadible.

Step three: don’t do nothing. Unless nothing is the thing you’re supposed to do to make it better. But that’s rare.

I bought Ethan a new bike. That’s right. I went to Walmart, found a shiny new Spider-Man bicycle, and took it to him at the school event. It wasn’t in the budget for this month. I’m sorry Dave. But I did it anyways.

Ethan had a blast. And you know what? He did well. He took right to it. He rode that bike. He forgot all about the possible pain he had feared all week. He was too excited about the new and the opportunity.

Don’t fear what’s not there yet. Don’t make a hotrod out of a hot wheel. And don’t avoid the small stuff that feels like big stuff, or the big stuff that is actually big stuff.

Face your problems like a boy on his bike. Just keep peddling. You got this.

June 3 - Laughing at Jesus

Read: Luke 8:40-56

And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. (Luke 8:53 ESV)

Jesus had just healed the woman with an issue of blood while on his way to Jairus's house. Arriving at the house he found a crowd of pessimistic and skeptical mourners. They had actually tried to dismiss him from coming at all as they believed her to be dead. When Jesus informed them that the situation was not beyond hope they laughed at him.

I enjoy a good joke. I like to laugh, and try to find humor in things that are sometimes difficult. A dead little girl is not a laughing matter. Neither was Jesus' commitment to minister to the family in the situation.

Why did they laugh at Jesus? Because he spoke with authority and confidence that the girl was going to be ok. Jesus was telling people that a dead girl was going to be fine, that they needed to merely believe and all would be fine. That seemed impossible. It was ridiculous. After all curing someone of something while they were still alive was one thing, but who has the power to make life return to a body that has ceased to function? God does.

Jesus did the inexplicable for Jairus's family. Some of us need him to reach down from heaven and do the inexplicable for us. He can. I believe that he wants to. But if he told us the enormity of the magnitude for what he had planned would we believe him? If Jesus looked at the impossibility of our situation and declared authoritatively that he was about to undo the impossible would we believe? Or we would join the crowd of skeptics and laugh at Jesus?

It's not enough to merely believe in Jesus. We need to move beyond the point of simply believing in his existence and begin to believe in his words. We need to believe in his power. We need to believe that he has our best interest at heart, and in hand. That's no joke.

June 2 - Issues

Read: Mark 5:21-43

For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." (Mark 5:28 ESV)

We all have our issues. I don't know what your issue is. It may be something horrible that has plagued you for years. Or, maybe it is something recent that has came up in your life and is horribly troubling. Regardless of the duration, severity, or seeming hopelessness of the situation you can take your issue to Jesus.

The poor woman with an issue of blood was an outcast for years. She was ceremonially unclean from her ordeal. She was broken financially, socially, physically, and spiritually. Jesus helped her. But she went to Jesus.

There is no magic formula to receiving comfort and aide from Christ. For some people he inexplicably interrupts their situation with a supernatural kind of sovereign mercy. For others it does not happen that way.

The bottom line is that we are not in control and that is a big part of the big idea. God is in control. Just as the woman took her issue to Jesus we can take it to him today. We can go fearfully, reverently, and boldly into his presence and present ourselves. He is in control. No issue is beyond God.