Strategizing Against the Revolutionary War Between Man and Sin

Strategizing against sin became a whole lot easier when Jesus died on the cross.

Like all childhood friends, a bond is formed by common hobbies, and with Jake Forsythe, the common ground was flowing with hobbies, like ants on an anthill during harvest season.

Collecting die-cast cars, watching movies on VHS, playing Call of Duty on the Xbox, going on bike rides through the subdivision, reading Calvin and Hobbes comics, and playing Air Soft in our backyards to name several.

One of Jake’s defining character traits is his unwavering devotion to something he puts his mind to. So, when it came to one-on-one airsoft battles with our pistols, he treated it like he was James Bond’s sidekick – that, or he was the next Bond, Jake Bond. He was so good at airsoft, my clearest memory is of him hiding behind the pool shed while I am getting my rear end kicked by 10 pellets at a time because he was playing the proper way while I was a sitting duck looking for him. When I would finally feel confident enough that I caught him off guard behind the shed, to my surprise, he was gone. Five pellet bruises later, he was behind the trees shooting where he used to be and hitting me while I was, once again, a sitting duck.

Eventually, our game of airsoft would end because I was so frustrated that I could never find him. Ten years later, I attended a private university while he went into the Marines – shocker.

While I will forever respect Jake for bringing Black Hawk Down to the countryside backyard of my home, the strategy he employed was not only for self-preservation, but also to outwit, outplay, and outlast me like it was a game of Survivor. What Jake did differently than me was treat each airsoft pellet like it was his last shot, and to preserve his own life, even if the harm he did to me was hit me with a dozen bee stings. The additional benefit of his strategy was it promised him a one-sided massacre that made me out to be the laughingstock of the operation. A target bag filled with corn from five feet away would have been a more difficult target to hit.

Approximately 250 years ago, during the Revolutionary War, while I would guess the tactic wasn’t born, it proved to be decisive in helping the Patriots overcome extreme disadvantages in skill, organization, and experience to send the British Loyalists back to Boston where they camped for the night to regroup from the ambush.

What ambush? Well, the first battle of the Revolutionary War, known as The Battle of Lexington and Concord, the British Loyalists’ goal was not to wipe out the Continental Army, but to scare them into a quick surrender of their weapons. Just hand over your weapons and no blood would be shed. Of course, it also meant complete control for King George and Great Britain. By the time the King George troops came over to complete their mission, the Continental Army had enough time to strategize against them. While the British were confident they would convince the Patriots to surrender their arms without firing a single shot, they were horribly mistaken.

What I love about the first battle is that its victory over King George’s British Loyalists led to the Declaration of Independence being written and signed, which is why we call 2026 the 250 year anniversary of America. However, the war was far from over, but it did supply the underdog Patriot army plenty of confidence as well as bulked up their resume that would eventually convince the French to aid them in their desire to become a free nation.

Just like any historic event that caused a seismic shift in the rest of our lives on planet Earth, any victory that led to major future changes of this magnitude has its challenges. And with challenges comes plenty of sacrifice.

And also creativity.

Think about it, eventually after getting shot by enough plastic pellets, you would think I would eventually hide behind a fence post and come up with a new gameplan on how to defeat Jake, who was probably slathering himself with mud and tree leaves as camouflage while I was stumbling around looking for a place of refuge.

Even though I would love to say I did put my creativity to use by switching things up on my adversary, using the outcome of the Revolutionary War as motivation, I did not. But it would have come in handy if I hoped to turn the tables on him and pull out a surprising victory that would shock even myself.

In 1775, when the British army successfully stormed through Lexington after the “Shot Heard Round The World” was fired, the moved towards the only bridge that led to Concord, the North Bridge. In the town of Concord was where a lot of ammunition and various weapons were stored, but instead of handing them over to the British without a fight, they hid them.

Hide-and-seek was not the only thing that made this battle an interesting one, though. When the British set fire to the small – and I mean small – amount of weapons they did find, a group of Patriots saw smoke billowing below Punkatasset Hill, where they were stationed and laying in wait for the right opportunity to strike the Loyalists. Well, this plume of smoke was the right opportunity because they mistook it for the village of Concord being set ablaze. As the rushed down the hill, it pushed the British army back where they first arrived.

Remember when I mentioned only one way in to Concord? That means there was one way out, so when the British were surprised by this brave attack from atop Punkatasset Hill, they needed to get back to Boston to regroup. To do that, they were forced to go back a predictable route, which leads to the entire point of this story.

Shoot-and-Scoot.

During my skirmishes with Jake, it didn’t just annoy me to the point of possibly ending my friendship with him because of his very particular set of skills at embarrassing me in my own backyard, it probably annoyed the British too, because they were also victims of this strategy. Of course, they didn’t have a friendship on the line, but their own lives, which I am eternally grateful that Jake wasn’t shooting me with a musket – I would have been long gone if my life were on the line.

Historians say what made this march back to Boston particularly difficult for those fighting on the king’s side is not only did they have no where else to go, but the land they marched through was not the layout they were used to fighting in. First, it was an Atlantic Ocean from home and they were used to open fields, not complex terrain full of buildings, boulders, and homes to hide in and behind. However, the Continental Army was on home field, so they knew the land unlike the British Loyalists, even if they didn’t know how to fire their musket the way the British army did.

This distinction paid dividends for the Patriots, because this is how the Shoot-and-Scoot strategy came into play. Shoot, hide behind a cluster of trees or under the window of a two-story apartment, and it leaves the British soldiers looking around like sitting ducks, if not dead from the shot. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It did for me, because that’s exactly how Jake made me feel: like a sitting duck. It’s like trying to catch a bucket of water to prevent yourself from getting wet, or trying to catch a ghost and contain it.

Imagine standing in the middle of a dirt road, dehydrated, disappointed by defeat, and stumbling drunk from the heat and exhaustion, and now add a handful of Patriots shooting and hiding behind all of the physical obstacles that only the opponent knew about. Any difficult day prior to this would be a cake walk.

When I read this part of the text to my fifth graders, it makes it sound so easy for the Patriots. Let’s not forget: the Patriots were farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, merchants, tailors, and other occupations that didn’t require munitions before they joined the war. None of these positions required them to handle a gun. If they had a gun, it was for hunting unarmed animals for food, not to kill other humans who could fire back.

Also worth noting: the Patriots were just British people who fled the homeland to have freedom from King George III, so they were firing against their own neighbors, British vs. British. This is why it was the British Patriots (or Continental Army) vs. the British Loyalists. However, historians also refer to the Patriot army as the American army because they occupied American land at the time.

The bottom line is the British army was supposed to be infinitely better and more prepared than the Patriots. They made a living training to be a soldier. It should have been like an 8^th grade middle school basketball team playing against the Golden State Warriors NBA professional basketball team. The level of disparity is astronomical! Why would you put your life on the line knowing full well there’s a 99% chance you’ll be obliterated, even if you are at home and the Loyalists are considered “the away team.”

Yet, damage was done and the British left Lexington and Concord feeling extremely disappointed and shocked that the Continental Army successfully pulled off a stunt like that. It was a miracle! Shoot-and-Scoot caused the British to flee back to Boston with little to show for their mission. It was a failure, and there was no respawning in this situation like the video games allow.

Often, I feel the same about sin. I get down on myself and feel like there’s no way out. No strategy that will cause the sin to flee – or me to flee the sin. A friend of mine once corrected me and said, “You always have enough time to refuse to submit to temptation.” Unfortunately, it can be easy to fall into the victim mentality and think sin is too strong for you to overcome.

In my career, when I feel tempted to mistreat someone at work because I feel mistreated, it can be easy to think I have already lost the battle when I feel temptation to react poorly.

Can you imagine if the 80 or so militiamen (Patriots) decided to give up before the trained British soldiers came? Can you imagine if they said, “They are too experienced and I’m just a carpenter! I make IKEA furniture and they kill for a living! I couldn’t overcome them! Let’s just surrender.”

Instead, they strategized. They weren’t even promised victory for trying! They couldn’t tell the future, so their attempts to gain freedom from the British control could have easily fallen short from the start. The point is, they had good reason to quit; we don’t. In fact, the Bible tells us so:

“No temptation has overtaken except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NIV)

This verse is why we Shoot-And-Scoot against sin. Yes, Satan is strong. Yes, Satan has been doing this since the beginning of time – he is well-versed in tempting us away from God. But, if we believe Scripture wholeheartedly, then we do have a way out. Victory is moments away. Unfortunately, too often we don’t strategize with God through our sin so it no longer has control over us. We withdraw from the fight before the last part of verse 13! I am not suggesting it is not hard, but I am promising God has a solution to your struggle. 

In fact, he is the solution! We shouldn’t wait until after we lose the battle to pick ourselves back up – let’s flip the script and strategize while the enemy is tempting!

The fight is not over. The Patriots knew that; and when they had difficulty believing it, along came strong leaders like George Washington who helped them believe it. But, belief must take us to a place of strategizing in alignment with that belief. You might also call strategizing taking action, and in this case, the two are synonymous.

The Patriots didn’t just sit in customs houses and taverns discussing ways to boycott, get back at King George, and refuse to pay his taxes. They sure did discuss, but they also acted on it and eventually, they had to take further action once war was declared. You must take action. Sin will continue crouching at your door until you do something drastic – until you strategize in a creative way that turns the tables in favor of victory for you.

Jake didn’t just talk about his love for the military, their tactics, and materiel, he lived it out in our Airsoft battles, and I can bet you every dollar I have he won every 1-v-1 match we ever had. I didn’t win one of them. Thank the good Lord we didn’t keep track of who won and who lost, but I don’t think we needed to because it always ended the same. I was lucky to get one shot off, typically. Why? Simple. He played the part by strategizing and taking action.

When we are faced with temptation, distress, discouragement, or lured into making poor choices, we have time to strategize a way out and glorify God in the process. We are given the gift of self-control, even in the face of danger. We may not have control over the surrounding forces that put pressure on us, but we can determine how prepared we are to face that pressure. To prepare, strategizing is a prerequisite to action and even works together. The Patriots strategizing and acting on that strategy to defeat the British in the Battle of Lexington and Concord is a perfect example of this.

The result was an independent America was born, which makes this part of history monumental, if you  ask me. The same result can be said of us overcoming temptation with God’s help. Just like the Continental Army’s ultimate victory over the King George III led to freedom, overcoming temptation can lead to freedom if we’re willing to strategize with God’s help.

The beautiful difference between the Revolutionary War and our fight against sin is that Jesus already fought and defeated sin – he already enlisted in the war against sin that we were supposed to fight and died so we could be set free from its clutches. When we fall into temptation, we are behaving like Jesus never did that. See, we can strategize with Jesus because he helped us win before we were even conceived into the world. This is why God “will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” No temptation is capable of forcing you into sin because God already sent Jesus to take that burden.

That is much better news that going up against Jake in Airsoft, I can tell you that. At least you have time to find freedom. Me, during those Airsoft days, never.

That is why I signed my own Treaty of Paris* with Jake in June 2002.

*For those of you who are not American History nerds, the Treaty of Paris is the official agreement signed in 1783 by the US and Great Britain to end the Revolutionary War and allowed the Thirteen Colonies to be a free, sovereign groups of independent states that would form the United States of America.

My Dreams vs. Reality

 They say dreams are small pieces of your subconscious finding the spotlight where your conscious currently resides.

I’m not sure who they are and I’m not sure if anyone’s ever said that because I’ve never heard that before.

 

…but, c’mon, it sounds scientific and exactly what dreams do.

If you rewind the tape, you would notice I wasn’t your average college kid who couldn’t wait until those four dreadful years were over and I could live out the ambitions I went into college debt for. To me, graduation was the equivalent of being thrown into a world of unpredictable twists and turns, not an opportunity to turn your future aspirations into now. After all, not everyone gets to be what they want after the first try, and that scared me sleepless.

A majority of college graduates have to go through the painful years of discovering themselves before they wind up getting the career they went to college for – if their mind doesn’t change by the time the actual opportunity rolls around. So, their 20s are filled with either one, constantly competing against hundreds, if not thousands, of other applicants who are likely better qualified due to experience or bias. Two, they give up on what gets them giddy and resort to less pleasant experiences coming out of college in hopes it is merely a short-term rung of the ladder to the career of your choice. Or three, they step into something entirely different than what they were anticipating for the long-term and find out quickly enough that they are inspired to call an audible on their initial dreams.

For someone who already questioned whether they wanted to spend their money learning how to teach children, entering the field trying to prove myself to employers added to the pressure to be a booming success out of the gate. I was option one, but I wasn’t thrilled about it for many other reasons other than having to compete with other ambitious educators. Needless to say, I put more on my plate mentally than I should have – most of the pressure was unnecessary considering where I am at now.

I allowed this mindset to eat at me and cause me to randomly burst into tears throughout the final two years before my student teaching semester began. I was stricken by immense anxiety and stunned with indescribable doubt because I didn’t know what the future would have in store for me. So many times I prayed and asked God for a crystal ball to ease my mind. Instead of welcoming the mystery and anticipating the thrill that comes with the rollercoaster the real-world would put me on, I was apprehensive and shell-shocked that the rest of my life was within reach. You could argue I was allowing worry and anxiety to derail me from putting my future in God’s hands.

My two remaining years of college were when the subconscious in my mind was making its way to the surface like a buoy refusing to go underwater. I didn’t want to feel this terrible about the rest of my life after my college education concluded, but like stuffing a million marbles behind a flimsy closet door, the subconscious fear and crippling despair were bursting out of the forefront of my mind – so much for the that part of my mind preventing me from living my life peacefully and with eager anticipation to start the next chapter of my life.

 

After college in Michigan, I moved down to Tempe, Arizona with a college friend. The year my best friend and I moved south, I had a tremendously difficult rookie year teaching 6^th grade (not just because it was my first). Put it this way: Most of my conversations with God sounded like, “I told you this would happen,” as if I planned against God’s wishes to have emotional and mental meltdowns in college just to have my feelings validated a year later. No matter how I write about this season of my life, it sounds bizarre to consider my logic at the time, or lack thereof. Turns out, the nightmare year I experienced was necessary for the rest of my teaching career to take shape. I needed to experience the pain in the forest to see the clearing on the other side.

 

Without retelling the following decade and a half (known as the clearing after the forest of pain and suffering) after college in too much detail, the following school years teaching 5^th grade in Gilbert, Arizona were not only filled with some incredibly blessed professional years, but also full of memories where God proved to me that he can use anyone he chooses to do his will, even if it’s not always easy or rewarding.

 

However, the panic and unending barrage of discouragement I felt in my remaining two years of college never disappeared; they just slowly crawled back into the darkness of my subconscious where dreams and nightmares are created when my head hits the pillow and my eyes drift off to sleep.

 

For example, I once dreamt I was back in Michigan. I was scheduled to substitute for a Junior High class, but the dream started with me walking into the school with my pajamas on. From the jump, I was unprepared to sub. As is typical in my teaching dreams, I couldn’t find the room I was subbing for, so when I finally did find it, I was already 15 minutes late. It was for 8^th grade science, and the kids started laughing the moment they laid their judgmental eyes on me. I looked around the room and realized I was in a classroom surrounded by glass windows twice the size of the regular rooms, and surrounding the classroom were the hallways of the school like a moat surrounding Alcatraz. When I finally meandered to the teacher desk, there were no sub plans to be seen. Only the teacher’s science textbook teacher’s manual was visible, and it was flipped open to a random chapter. As I scanned the room, it was obvious I was flustered and unsure of how to help the kids for that hour, let alone the entire 7 hours. This embarrassment, though not my fault, became fuel for the fire as their laughter and apathy became louder. The worst part was feeling like I was to blame for this mistake.

 

It was no dream. It was a nightmare. Unprepared, unworthy, underachieving, and a waste of time: my worst fear in a realistic dream. That is what my subconscious told me in those two years before graduation, and that is what every dream about teaching has been about. This example is just one of many.

 

The many that tell me...

 

I’m not good enough.

They’ll never accept me.

I’m too stupid.

They’ll laugh at me.

I’ll humiliate myself.

I will ruin my one shot at this.

I’ll never make them proud.

I might as well give up while I’m ahead.

I’m a waste of time

No one should have taken a chance on me

I’m a failure and that’s all I’ll ever be.

 

But, for every nightmare I occasionally have about a school experience that isn’t even real, I am reminded 25 times a day that God’s grace is often revealed when reality doesn’t match the fictional horror stories we make up in our minds.

 

God’s grace, when we choose faith in the midst of fear, proves it is sufficient for you and me because God often reminds us that those lies will remain lies as long as we walk with God to follow through on his plan for us.

 

It sounds like a mouthful, so let me paint you a clearer picture:

- Never have I ever subbed for a classroom where there were no lesson plans.

- Never have I ever had a classroom full of students laugh at my expense because I did something embarrassing.

- Never have I ever been humiliated because I wasn’t prepared to teach.

- Never have I ever gotten lost in a school because I couldn’t find where I was teaching for the day.

- Never have I ever been fired or in trouble because I wasn’t good enough to work at a school

Yet all of my teaching dreams have one or more of these elements in them, which proves to me what God does through you is powerful enough to transcend the lies we believe about ourselves.

Which makes these nightmares, as realistic as they are at times, as silly as the unrealistic dreams where I turn into a marshmallow in the middle of a blizzard. Those nightmares don’t align with who I really am and what I’m really about.

For me, what my junior and senior year of college brought to the surface was the lie I believed that I won’t amount to anything because I won’t be good enough and no one will recognize me as worthy of their time, thus rendering me useless and unserviceable.

That I will be a failure.

And, if God shows me through my career that those are boldface lies, the dreams will remind me that, at any moment, you could lose it all because all of the success you have had is smoke-and-mirrors for what is true: you are not a true teacher because you are a failure.

Again, a lie, just like those nightmares.

Starting to sound like a never-ending abyss of bad news, isn’t it? Well, this is where the good news comes in like that Gandalf scene in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Indeed, Gimli, the sun is rising: Rising with good news.

Growing up, my dad called Satan a lion without teeth. He can roar all he wants to scare the courage out of you, but he can’t eat you unless you let him have his teeth. These dreams? They don’t have teeth when I am steeped in the truth of who God says I am. The anxiety I felt about the future in those remaining two years of college also didn’t have teeth.

The more I grounded myself in God’s Truth and let His beautiful words fill my brain, the less the lies had a hold on me. It’s like when you introduce a pan of burnt cookies to Dawn dish soap: the longer the lies are marinating with God’s truth, the weaker of a hold those lies have on you. When the lies are covered in Truth, you don’t even need to scrape the burnt cookie crumbs off because gravity will do the job.

When you’re head is foggy and filled with doubt like mine was – when your nightmares are reality and feel so much like the Truth, it’s hard to see God’s intervention through it – don’t give up. Remind yourself and even memorize these Scriptures, because they are the Truth and no nightmare you’re living can change them to fiction:

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” – Matthew 6:26

“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful…for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:8-9

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to In God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:6-7

In my remaining years of college before graduation, these were my main Bible verses that played leading roles in my life at the time, and they helped me graduate higher than a 3.6 GPA, move down to Arizona from Michigan, and start my teaching career teaching elementary age kids. Over 15 years later, I am still teaching in Arizona because of God’s goodness, faithfulness, and his peace guiding me through every up and down I experience. These verses were the swords I used to fight against the lion without teeth. The Word of the Lord gave me the prosperity I needed, and his peace and provision reminded me of my worth in Him.

Praise God for his unfailing love and plan for me.

The Race Set Before You

 

When you let someone or something cut in on your spiritual race, you run into a dead end - no prize will meet you at a dead end

Ask my parents to summarize my Chelsea High School Cross Country experience, and they will probably use words like “Shin Splints,” “Stairmaster,” and “Bath Invitational.” You might be asking, “What does Bath Invitational have to do with your experience in high school?” Bath Invitational was a Saturday tournament 58 minutes from my high school home, and I wouldn’t know how long it took to get there from the high school because I slept in that morning and missed the bus. See, the way it was supposed to go was my parents were going to drop me off at the high school so the bus would take me and my team to the event, but when your mind has already been made up about how much you hate running, your body follows suit in agreeing that sleeping in was the far better choice.

 

My parents would likely tease when they use those words because my attitude was always less than pleasant when it came to running. Shin splints was my number one excuse, and I would strategically bring it up to my coach after finding out we were running 8 miles in the humid weather, on dirt roads, nose deep in cow manure smells, and at an impossible pace that messed with your mind when you ran. I swear any sign I am crazy came from running cross country for two years and my coach yelling out his “Pain Is My Friend” mantra to motivate us.

 

Well, I was never motivated in high school.

 

So, I acted like my shin splints were worse than they really were, became closely acquainted with the Stairmaster to get out of running, and slept in through the ungodly early weekend tournaments against superior high schools.

 

Fast forward more than 20 years later, and it’s 2023. I just wrapped up my first 10k with a pace of around 9 minutes and 30 seconds, and I suddenly wish I didn’t use shin splints as an excuse. I also wish I didn’t quit Cross Country after 2 years.

 

This is what happens when you don’t allow yourself to see the good that God is producing through the pain. A lot like my experiences with Cross Country, Paul did the same in Scripture – he used running as a metaphor in our spiritual journey.

 

In Galatia, the church was being pulled in the wrong direction by false teaching – Galatians 1:7 says, “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ.”

 

When it came to the church, they were letting false doctrine cut them off from “running a good race,” according to Paul. This race is the closest metaphor for walking in step with the Truth of the Gospel and not letting shin splints and sleeping in deter you from walking boldly in the direction of the Gospel of Truth.

 

Currently, I am training for the next 10k, and whenever I make the bold decision to not let the next excuse distract me from doing what I set out to do, my mind inevitably drifts to wishing I stuck with cross country and even running after high school concluded. In my late 30s, I discovered I have “Runner’s Knee,” the unscientific way of saying I have arthritic knees. Training now means I have to use arthritis cream for both knees to reduce inflammation. Without slathering Voltaren on each knee before my runs, I can’t make it past ¾ of a mile before Runner’s Knee shows up and I feel the intense pain that makes me have to stop. I don’t regret needing the cream to train, but it does make me sad that I didn’t spend more time entering races and training for them when I didn’t have to use CopperFit compression sleeves, an inhaler for asthma, and the Runner’s Knee ointment.

 

Spiritually, I also find myself drifting to spiritual laziness from time to time, and when I want to start back up, I feel like it sometimes takes more work to get back into it. Don’t underestimate the power of spiritual momentum, because often the words God gives you in yesterday’s devotionals will apply to tomorrow, as often is the case with running and exercising. The times I train by running 4 miles will eventually help me run 6 miles races more smoothly.

 

Don’t let shin splints take you out of the race. We live in a world that is cloaked with distractions that feel better in the moment than running the race. Is it fun to wake up at 6am to prepare for a 3-mile run on the weekend? No, and I don’t think Paul and Jesus said that it would be.

 

They also did not say that’s why we do the running. We don’t run because it is always fun, but we run the race “so that we may obtain [the prize]” (1 Corinthians 9:24). The eternal prize is a life devoted to Christ, a life lived with purpose.

 

With running comes purpose, and when that purpose is directed to Christ, it is a life that follows his will. When the shin splints of life try to steer us away from running with Jesus – staying on the couch instead of getting out there – we let the world prevent us from running towards the eternal prize. We quit running before we even start.

 

The voices you hear that tell you to stop running, postpone it, or question why you do it are not of God. They are designed to derail your devotion to God’s will and direction in your life. Continue running, even when it is hard and the comfort of your couch feels better.

Put Me In God: The Coffee Shop Sign and Being Chosen

The Fix, sitting on the southwest corner of McKellips and Higley in Mesa, Arizona, is a simple shop – more closely resembling a stand because it has no indoor seating. There’s more locations than this one, but the McKellips and Higley one is my spot. There’s not much of a difference between The Fix and the other local joints, but one major difference is it’s farewell sign staring at you on the way out with your recently concocted Cold Brew, Americano, Latte, or Red Bull infused energy drink:

We know you had a choice

Thank you for choosing us.

When my eyes first connected with this catching slogan like a freshman boy spots his high school senior crush at his high school dance, I immediately time-traveled back to the years God placed a recurring thought in my brain that I spent multiple decades finding the words to explain.

 

Growing up, I liked to call myself an observer of others, staring intently at them as they lived their lives. I am too stubborn and protective of my reputation to admit that part of me is strange and creepy, but it likely was. Like a 10-month-old baby, I would stare probably too long as if I was just learning to be human. Anytime I had a moment or two to myself, this profound thought would enter into my mind like the sunset paints the entire sky purple and shades of red and orange – it was an unavoidable, yet beautiful thought. I began to wonder what it would be like for God to decide someone else would fill my body, which meant my personality, hobbies, habits, downtime, and choice of friends, religion, attitude towards school, and daily decision making would belong to someone other than myself. Additionally, I would sit on the sidelines waiting for God to choose me as bodies began getting filled by other identities I had no control over.

 

If this explanation is too depressing, let’s focus on it from another angle:

 

The internet says approximately 250 human babies are born around the globe per minute. This means from the mere standpoint of how long the Earth has been around and will be around compared to the amount of babies being produced by eager and often surprised parents, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be in charge of one of those bodies in life if 4.3 babies are born per second, and there’s evidence I beat the extraordinarily low odds of me being born. However, the more you learn what God is capable of and can do, especially in a short window of time, the more humbled you become that you were not permanently put in the batter’s box or dugout watching others receive a body to live in on Earth. You were chosen to play in the game.

 

While God had every right to create me to be controlled by someone else (meaning, somebody else makes my friends, someone else makes my decisions and chooses how I spend it, someone chooses my hobbies and how I spend my money, etc.), he didn’t. He chose me to fill my body. The alternate Josh, if he were born, might like hitting the greens with his golf bag, watch Tik Tok videos with a 20 oz cup of Tapioca Boba Tea, while skiing on the water – all things this Josh – the one who beat out all of the other sperm and all of the other possibilities – does not like.

 

Even if God did have other possible Josh’s ready to exist in my physical body, God only followed through with the Josh sitting on the master bedroom bed writing this very paragraph. Better yet, God doesn’t bench me because my batting average is low or I don’t hit well against left-handed pitchers. He keeps me in the game of life as long as He wants to, and I am grateful he chose me.

It's not an accident God chose YOU to be born for this time, for this moment, and for the daily situations you live through. At any moment, God could have decided he didn't need to share his creation with you, and pre-selected you to be on Life's team. But he wanted you. He wanted to draft you into this world, and nothing stopped him. He wants you to live it with purpose because he purposefully chose you!

This is why we worship Him! He chose us when he gave us parents or guardians to raise you, he chose us when he sent his only son to die for our sins, and he is choosing us now to be involved in what he continues to do through you and those around you.

What a blessing!

*See Genesis 1 & Psalm 139:14

Eduard, His Glasses, and God's Perspective

I See, I See, a children’s book I never knew existed until I walked into my 7-month-old’s (at the time) bedroom to read a book to him and there on the nightstand sat this book. I have never heard of this book like Go Dog Go, Frog & Toad, Tikki Tikki Tembo, and Love You Forever. In the top right corner of the book’s cover was a sticker from Bargain Books.

 

“$5.00” it read.

 

The book is about a boy who struggles to accept the fact that he has to get glasses because of his poor vision. When he walks into the store, the saleswoman notices his reluctant attitude towards the specs he needs and whispers in his ear to tell him something that transforms his perspective. From then on, he witnesses that what she said about the glasses was true! He embraces his additional accessory in large part because of what this saleswoman said to him. Every page after the eventful afternoon in the glasses store is another anecdote that there is something beautiful about wearing glasses.

 

This is what the saleswoman says before he puts the glasses on:

“With glasses you will see things that other people don’t. Special things. Just wait and see.”

As the boy’s hesitation turns into trust that these glasses can help people see what others don’t, his optimism also grows little by little. His faith in believing what the woman said paid dividends, and he began to look for opportunities to see the things other don’t.

 

I often feel that way with God. Each day, especially in the classroom, I deal with numerous challenges, setbacks, interruptions, expectations unmet, disgruntled parents, misbehaving students - the list goes on. When I manage to put on the Jesus glasses at any point in the day, it helps me see things I wouldn’t see if I never put them on in the first place.

 

I think God enjoys walking with us in that daily journey. When I submit to wearing the glasses God gives me in the form of faith and trust in him when I see the world his way, it becomes an adventure to see how God will show up through me and reveal his thoughts about a situation like how the previously unseen things revealed themselves to the main character in I See, I See.

 

For example, I have a 5^th grade student, and we will call him Bradley. One particular Thursday, a regular Thursday in the middle of November, Bradley was upset that another student was picking on him about his handwriting. He became so irritated, he belligerently expressed the injustice he felt for being called out the way he was. Important note: Bradley has a history of overreacting to situations by fixating on them and reeling over the fact that he is being unfairly treated – when he is unfairly treated, it makes sense to be frustrated, but from an emotional maturity standpoint, it is a struggle for Bradley to cooperate as a 10-year-old when he is emotionally unsettled. He simply becomes unglued, like a 4-year-old in a 5^th grader’s body. To make matters worse, him and his assigned group were completing a project that was overdo because things came up when we were supposed to finish, so any disruptions in the flow of the group project was reason to become frustrated as a teacher.

 

In other words, the kindergarten level behavior exhibited by 5^th graders was not something I was prepared to confront nor was it anywhere close to what I wanted to deal with at the end of a long day.

 

Without glasses, I would have reacted emotionally and would have drawn incorrect conclusions long before approaching the bickering students to do some fact-checking. In fact, I probably would have done know fact-checking. Bradley would have been wrongly accused because he was the one drawing the most attention to himself and looking at fault by becoming ubhinged about the issue.

 

With glasses on, God helped me take the high road of patience and love. I responded with wisdom – some of it tough love – empathy, and patience. I needed God’s help. There is no way it would have ended well without his guidance on how to discern the situation before bulldozing my way through it.

 

I am grateful because the student in the wrong – or at least what created the snowball of arguments – was not who and what I thought it was. Seeing through the perspective of how God sees things gave me what I needed in time of need: patience, wisdom, and gentleness- the fruits of the Spirit - among others.

 

The point is, it is easy to overreact in the field of education. Expectations are never met by 100% of the students, so the most important tool in the classroom, I would argue, is the glasses God gives me each day. The glasses, when I choose to wear them, gives me the fruits of the Spirit I need to be the image of Jesus the students so desperately need.

 

And “desperately” is a understatement.

 

I wouldn’t make it in the field as long as I have if I ignored those glasses. As Brandon Heath once sang, “Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missin'
Give me Your love for humanity
Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see”

 

Without the glasses, it is impossible to see what others don’t. It's impossible to see what God wants us to see in others. With them, I can see people the way God does, and isn’t that what we hope to do daily?

 

Give those glasses a try at your workplace, home, or wherever life takes you. They are not just designed for my classroom. It’s free, and God will take you incredible places with them if you make a daily decision to use them. He desires to partner with you, speak through you, and use you to do things you couldn’t do on your own. Look no further than what he did through Noah, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Esther, Joseph, the disciples, Paul, and so many more.   

 

And at the end of the day, I guess $5.00 is quite the bargain in the picture book world.

Mocking Jesus

One of the lessons I teach my 5^th grade students is how words have negative and positive connotations. Typically, as an example, I use my physical appearance:

“Some people would say I am skin and bones. Others would say I am lean.” I would say. “Which one has a negative connotation?”

“Skin and bones,” students usually blurt.

Now imagine you and your best friend get into a fight over the last donut. You both want the delectable, cream-filled work of art, but instead of sacrificing your taste buds’ desire to consume the donut to preserve the bond you have formed with your best friend, you fight over it with catfighting, sarcasm, name calling, and eventually, mocking. Mocking.

Why is mocking associated with arguments and mostly unnecessary fighting. Meaning, why does mocking have a negative connotation? Mocking seems to introduce itself the moment nothing else works; like an offensive strategy that presumably gives those who use it an edge on the argument. As if we somehow got to the point of believing mocking can blow through the defenses of its opponent. But, it’s not just humans that do this to one another. Birds do this too. Please welcome, the Northern Mockingbird:

*Note: I am the owner of these photos and took them.

Is this bird a bad boy because it has the word mocking? I’ll let you be the judge:

According to a 5^th grade comprehension passage about the Mockingbird on I-Ready.com, “These birds can imitate just about any sound they hear. These sounds include those of other birds, animals, or objects. Mockingbirds can sound like a washing machine, a doorbell, or even squeaky door hinges.”

If you don’t think that’s annoying, you haven’t heard it all.

“And unlike other birds, mockingbirds LOVE to sing at night, especially when people are trying to sleep.”

Unless it’s “Graves Into Gardens,” by Elevation Worship or “Innocence” by Kenny G, I’m pretty sure imitating a song in the middle of the night at the expense of one’s peaceful sleep is a negative thing.

But if mocking is similar to imitating, like the mockingbird does, we should be like the mockingbird when it comes to being like Jesus. Ephesians 5:1-2 says it best:

“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ…” (NLT)

So while the Northern Mockingbird is out there annoyingly following the example of your Maytag washing machine from Home Depot, you are called to follow Christ’s example – in a positive connotation sort of way.

At the end of the day, it seems mocking could be about semantics and what the context is. When you hear the word "mock" and "Jesus" in the same sentence, it is probably not a pleasant experience. You, similar to me, are likely thinking about when the Chief Priests mocked Jesus as he was being tortured and crucified on the cross for our sins and theirs (see Matthew 27:41). I am not saying the mocking Jesus in that sort of way is a good thing.

But if we’re thinking of mocking the way the bird does it by “imitation” of other things it is around, we may be onto something here.

After all, when it comes to imitating other birds, it’s not just one voice they mimic: “A mockingbird may combine the songs of 32 different bird species plus other sounds in a 10-minute song.”

Though it would be interesting to know the reasons they do this, the point being made in connection to Jesus is that we are called to imitate his voice in our daily lives. As Christians, the role we play should be to sound like Jesus in a world where it is very tempting to “Do you.”

Our world is filled with excuses to be individualistic – all around are billboards, advertisements, and commercials promoting you in an effort to convince you to buy their product. Recently, I saw an advertisement on TV during an NBA game break and its slogan is “Worship Yourself.” Speaking of the NBA, athletes are more frequently “doing what’s best for them” when it comes to making a decision to opt out of their contract and sign elsewhere. The star athlete and his agent believe they have been loyal enough or that their chapter in life has come to an end and it's on to something new. In some case, it is justified, but too often, it doesn’t have to happen.

Documented and instructed all throughout Scripture, God commands us to be imitators of Christ – to copy the way Jesus lived life and to study his ways carefully:

-         “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” – James 1:22-25

-        “Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.” – 3^rd John 1:11

-        “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” – Matthew 7:24

These are just a few examples, and what they all have in common are the words “doing” and “practice.” If we do what the Word tells us, believing it and practicing what it commands us to do, we are imitating the Christian standard set for men and woman who follow Christ.

We are mockingbirds, mimicking and imitating the sounds of whatever we worship and desire. If it is fashion, self, or the shiniest gadgets; if it is saving money, bitcoin, or investing in the stock market; if it is video games, fatty foods, and late nights binge-watching Neflix, we will imitate that sort of life in what we fill our minds with, how we fill our day, and why we behave the way we do. If I am to live my life wisely and go through it imitating anything, it should be Scripture, the way Jesus treated others, and God's call in my life. 

Therefore, if “mocking” is associated with the word imitating, than I would be happy to mock Jesus.