Matthew 6:1-4 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

² “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ³ But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴ so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

The Senior Pastor, who happens to be my husband, and I have a weekly breakfast meeting. This morning we were at our usual place, Eddie’s Famous Cafe. We were just finishing our breakfast when a man in a shirt and tie walked in with a homeless man. Nothing to see normally but he came in videotaping with his phone. The homeless man kicked the bathroom door startling all of the patrons and it was relatively packed. When  he couldn’t open the men’s room, perhaps occupied, he went to the ladies room. My husband quickly gave me his hand and walked me to the cash register so that we could pay and leave.

The premise? Apparently the guy videos picking up homeless people and taking them to restaurants and asking the owners to feed homeless on video to post on YouTube. Let me be clear. I don’t have an issue with that per se. What I have an issue with is that it’s all on public video.

The homeless man comes out of the bathroom, orders his food, mind you no one has volunteered to pay, and yes, I’m watching as my husband pays, the homeless man proceeds to pick up the silverware set on the table and begins dropping it on the table, causing it to make loud clanking noises. Other patrons are now looking uncomfortable. The man in the shirt and tie, comes to us and loudly proclaims, “Did you hear about what I am doing? I am bringing attention to the homeless and I bring them to restaurants and ask the owners to buy them a meal. Will you buy him a meal?” My husband answers, “Yes, I will buy him a meal.” The man in the shirt and tie says, “Great and I need to film this for my YouTube channel. My husband says, “No, thank you.” The man proceeds to attempt to pressure my husband saying this is about posting it on YouTube. My husband declines once more. The man turns to me and proceeds to give me the speech. I decline. He asks if we understand what he is doing. Not being one to wonder I say, “But what exactly are you doing? You go and get homeless people and bring them to restaurants but what exactly are YOU doing for the owners and for the homeless?” He goes on about how many viewers he has. Then he says if we won’t be videoed then can we take a picture with our fist up in the air and declare our help for the homeless. We decline again. My husband thanks him and we went on our way.

At what point does this cross the line? At what point does the whole of the group, the patrons out to eat a meal, the owners deciding when and whom they will help, and this gentleman’s right to video for YouTube, stay within the boundaries of acceptable community? My heart went out to the homeless man. To me, the better approach would be asking politely without a scene. It would seem more sensible.

And yes! I totally get that this post does the exact thing I am complaining about. So what is social etiquette in today’s world? What is our responsibility, I’m not talking about to the homeless man, obviously you feed someone who is hungry, I mean our responsibility to the community?

Just something to think about.

My husband’s middle name is I-Just-Want-To-Stay-Home. I am married to Paul Douglas I-Just-Want-To-Stay-Home Young. Try saying that three times fast. I am the complete opposite. If I have a day off I want to do something with it that isn’t domestic. However we have a pretty cool house and lately we’ve been staying home and swimming and reading. On the eve of my day off I went to bed with laundry on my mind and boredom in my heart.

This morning I woke up and was reading quietly when he woke up. He stretched out and smiled, yes believe it or not, there are people who smile in the morning, I know!  Shocking to me too! I never knew that people like this existed.

He said, “is there anything at the movies? NOT HERE.”
Me: Where? Monterey?
He: What the high there today?
Me: 62
He: Too Cool. Fresno or Turlock.
Me: (reads movies)
He: So do they even make movies for people like us who don’t have kids? I have no interest in any of those.  I don’t want to stay home today. Let’s go!
I was getting dressed ASAP. I don’t care where we go. We just get to go somewhere. I know, I know, I sound  the way I hear Lulu The Wonder Dog’s voice in my head.

Paul Douglas I-Just-Want-To-Stay-Home Young knows how to hold my heart with care and he knows how to make me smile! It’s not always his favorite thing to do but he cherishes me and he spent the entire day making me happy. He took me on an adventure to see beautiful things and reminded me why I still say yes to us.

When you’re team focused and not self-focused you do things you wouldn’t necessarily do for yourself. What have you done for someone else lately?

Now to tackle the laundry tomorrow and iron his shirts. Yes, doing things for one another isn’t always glamorous but it keeps us grounded and together.

 

We’ve heard the term, we point fingers at those who live this lifestyle but are we checking ourselves to see if this is where we are failing as well? I recently found myself with too many projects once again and realized I had stepped out of a winner focused mentality back to a loser spray mindset. So I stopped booking myself so far in advance.

With six weeks left to go before my first grandchild is born, I have to clear my plate of a few things. I need to focus on getting things together so that I can make the time I will need in this coming season. It’s the usual places where failure finds me. The same things I put off again and again, they are patterns that manifest out of undisciplined pursuits.

So what happens to get me off track? Well, I have a goal and a purpose and then someone asks me to help with their goal and purpose and if it’s worthwhile I help and pretty soon I am so busy that I have lost sight of the path I was heading on.

SQUIRREL!

Even though I know better, I still fall into traps that if I had just lifted my eyes for a minute I would have seen. It’s my fault, for forgetting who I am. Again. It happens. It happened to Paul, it happened Moses, it happened to Elijah. I am no better or worse. I just AM.

So what is it that you are in pursuit of and why do you sometimes find yourself off track? Or rather why do I? There are so many things that pull at my time. Staying focused on the things we are in pursuit of is essential. In the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown, he asks the question:

“What do I want to go big on?” 

That is the question that keeps us focused on the right thing. Often we have a few things we want to go big on. We want to go big on another home, we want to go big on a Walmart shopping spree, we want to go big on another project, and we want to to go big on that promotion, we want our kids to go big, we want our spouses to go big. Well truth is we can’t focus on all of that and stay true to ourselves so what is the ONE THING that we want to go big on? I get stuck there sometimes. Multitasking is often a waste of my time. There I said it.

This week, focus on determining what that ONE THING is. Then write down how to make it happen. Let me help you. It isn’t always QUITTING your job. It isn’t always RUNNING to the next distraction. The job may be the source to allow the pursuit. The place may be the open door to the pursuit once distractions leave. Even in opposition there are lessons to be learned. Ask yourself why you walked away or why you want to? Generally, there are selfish reasons that have nothing that can be gained, although this sometimes is hard to swallow once you’ve convinced yourself. The problem may be the distractions themselves that have you in and out of pursuit. It’s easier to blame the distraction rather than ourselves.

My husband and I have a weekly ministry meetings. We either order food in or go out for lunch and we sit and strategize together about our ministry ONE THING. We are intentional about it. If we don’t meet for a week or two our focus becomes one-sided and we have to come back to focus.

It leaves that quickly.

What have you let go of that has caused you to doubt where you are? For you, it might be a weekly focus calendar, or your team meeting, or your family meeting. Here is what IT IS NOT because in these places the ONE THING becomes the OUR THING and these aren’t places to hash out differences, although I fail here too if I’m honest :

• It’s not your date night.
• It’s not your family time.
• It’s not your sabbath rest.

Distractions don’t allow time for the stillness that is required for my/your focus. I opted to take back my peace and not allow the boisterous voices to question my identity no matter how loud and negatively persistent they may be. Just because they are loud and persistent doesn’t mean they are true. The enemy roars like a lion but the roar, if heeded, only causes the prey, us, to run in the wrong direction.

Stop running friends! Stop running towards that wrong thing and stand in the place the Lord has put you in, not looking around in criticism but with eyes of an eagle that can make it better than it is. The Lord is ready to help you. Let’s get focused on the ONE THING.

 

 

It’s been a hectic six months. Reconciling the death of my father has been tougher than I thought. Things that I thought I had let go years ago came back up to be dealt with.

Merging three churches together was a lot of work with the promise of a lighter load that hasn’t happened yet but instead has increased.

My first grandson arrived on the scene and he is so amazing to me. I want to do better with him than I did with my own children. By that I mean, I want to slow down and not be so busy because I know my role is different than his parents. I realized I was putting undo pressure on myself which is my typical mode of operation. Go back to the first paragraph of reconciling issues.

My stepdad who has always been healthy and invincible wakes up one day with chest pain and ends up having a triple bypass. This brought new challenges as I realized things for my parents are changing and this was quite a bit of stress for my mom. My strong mom who has always been our leader suddenly looked at us with fear in her eyes. Somehow it affected me in way that I am still processing. It was unsettling and I realized I am stepping up in places that I hadn’t considered stepping up in.

As this parental crisis was happening, my Uncle Fred passed away and although he had been ill, I just happen to think our patriarchs are going to pull through. We’re a stubborn breed.

My Godmother turned 90, sharp as a tack mentally, with a body that is failing her and there isn’t much we seem to be able to do to stop this process.

Lulu the Wonder Dog develops a tumor and off to the vet we go on the same day I’m heading out to a conference. This seemed to be the straw that left me feeling, I don’t even know how to describe it other than profoundly tired.

I left the vet’s office and cried. I cried for a whole bunch of reasons but sometimes the strong one, the one everyone expects to be unflappable needs to just be vulnerable for a minute. Life can be tricky sometimes and as weird as this reads, I was catching a glimpse of a whole lot of things I had to deal with personally within myself.

As great as God is, he speaks strength to my soul as I ask him for direction.

He spoke in a podcast: If you’re a leader whose not willing to do the tiring thing what in the world are you doing? Leadership is tiring. Buck up, it’s the nature of the job. It’s leading people. It’s going first, you’re the first one through the door, you’re the one finding the the problems so that your team can help you find the solution and breaking barriers. So yes that is exhausting because the promise isn’t easy and following the crowd is not creating new ways. If it were easy to follow and nothing needed to change we’d still be leeching people to cure disease. Leadership is a multiplying effect and so yes it’s tiring.

He spoke through the word:“We put our hope in the Lord; he is our protector and our help. We are glad because of him; we trust in his holy name. May your constant love be with us, Lord, as we put our hope in you.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭33:20-22‬ ‭GNT‬‬

He spoke through friends who called and said that the Lord was asking them to pray for me. That’s always great and always appreciated deeply. Isn’t it wonderful when people look up and see you might need some help? As a pastor most people expect you to have it all together, and when you don’t it’s because you’ve committed some grave sin or you don’t have enough faith, only life happens even to us in ministry as well. I step out from time to time to work on myself and so as not in infect others and in those seasons the criticism comes from those who haven’t bothered to ask what is going on, I’m just supposed to be in my place. No excuses they are partly right.

God spoke through the picture I posted above. I want you to know that he brings hope to the hopeless and I am confident  proof of that.

Here is a key to His great love:  I first had to admit I didn’t have it all together, I had to ask for help, and then I had to deal with my stuff.

So if you’re feeling desperate or overwhelmed there is a Heavenly Father who wants to help. All you have to do is get humble enough to ask for help and stay still enough to listen. Listen even when you want to run. Listen even if don’t like what you hear. Just listen. Then get up and move toward the healing, comfort, strength, love, encouragement, and peace that is being offered.  He’s right there for you.  Blessings!

 

http://lifehacker.com/5829523/how-to-throw-a-punch-correctly

A few weeks ago the men’s group was having their weekly meeting. A man peered through the window as if trying to see what was going on. One the church leaders thought he was a new visitor and walked over to the door and said, “Hi, are you…..” He never finished the sentence when the man swung his fist at him. Our leader dodged and ended up getting punched in the shoulder instead of the jaw. Total shock and chaos ensued as men began to chase him, and the police were called.

Sometimes life hands you unexpected blows.

Unannounced attacks in ministry often happen in just this manner. They are extremely painful, because not only does it involve shocking pain, but there is an effect on our body, mind, and spirit. Sometimes it affects our ability to trust others. Sometimes it affects our ability to trust God. Wounds from a ministry leader are often so painful because the betrayal is so heart-wrentching.

Psalm 41:9 Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me.

Oh, how David ached at the fact that he thought he had a loyal friend who was walking along in unity with him and felt they were on the same page working toward the same goals. Betrayal hurts and the wounds are sometimes painfully worse than the physical blow our leader shockingly took that night.

Through a vivid dream I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to compile stories of unexpected blows in ministry and write them in book form.  I need your help. If you are/were on staff at a church and have had an unexpected blow from a leader whom you considered a mentor or friend I’d like to hear your story.

Send me the details. Include your name and phone number so I can speak with you directly if I have any questions. Send your letters to Susan Young, 1005 I St., Los Banos, CA 93635 or you can email me at pastorasusan@gmail.com.

It doesn’t ring true to my ears to say that I look forward to hearing from you because I know the pain of ministry and I know the cost of the betrayal of a friend on my very own soul and the healing process that has to take place. When you trust someone with your well-being it is ever so painful and I get that. So instead I leave you with a prayer that the Lord richly bless you and minister to you and that you be made whole body, mind, and spirit.

3 John 1:2 Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.