Think About It

When I was a youngster, I remember hearing about this thing called the Generation Gap. I was a little bit too young to be active in the social movements of the 1960s, but I do remember listening to the challenges the generations were experiencing way back then. Interestingly, now that I have been on both sides of the aging process, I have to admit that the Gap of the 1960s was nothing new. With the development of each generation comes conflict. The young people don’t feel like the older people understand them and the older folks tend to believe their input is being underappreciated. Too often trust is the casualty when two generations collide. The sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way. When we can capture the innovation and energy of the younger folks and harness the wisdom of those who have been around for a while we can develop a winning combination. No, we won’t always see things eye-to-eye nor will we necessarily speak the same emotional language, but when we app...

If there is someone known for their insight, it might be Yogi Berra. Notice I didn’t say wisdom because, sometimes, Yogi missed the point. Observations such as “Slump? I ain’t in no slump … I just ain’t hitting.” or “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.” aren’t necessarily insightful. However, there were some Yogisms that showed wisdom and on the anniversary of his death in 2015, I thought I’d share one. On one occasion the famous Yankee catcher stated, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” Interesting, this may seem rather simple, but how many of us overlook this principle? It is tempting to think we have things figured out so we stop looking for new observations. Additionally, there are things that we don’t want to see, so we close our eyes to them. There is a lot to life that many of us have not seen, unfortunately, many of us have stopped looking for anything new. We are either content with what we have seen or we are so st...

Throughout most of my life I have been hearing people proclaiming that the end is near. Honestly, truth be told, throughout history there have been people who have been reading the signs stating that the end of times is just around the corner. I am not sure why but people want to pinpoint a day that the Bible tells us, “Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.” (I Thessalonians 5:1-2). Now, while identifying the last days might not be possible, it is important to remember that the end is coming. Whether it is through our own death or with the Second Coming of Jesus, a day of accountability is impending. So, what does this mean to us? I think there are two things that should be on our minds. First, we must make sure that we are in a right relationship with God. I believe in a merciful God, but the indication is that unless w...

It may not sound good, but I find myself being somewhat envious of people who are able to deal with stress. I am not necessarily talking about the stress associated with crisis situations and trauma; rather my challenge is when it comes with the anxiety of worrying about day-to-day things. I think that there are a couple of reasons I struggle with this: first, I don’t want to let people down. It’s not that I worry as much about making mistakes as it is that I just don’t want to disappoint the people around me when I don’t do things the way I think they think I should do them. Second, I don’t like to feel unprepared when I approach a situation. While this can be a positive trait, what happens is that I tend to overthink things. What should I do if this happens? What can I do if that happens? Preparation is one thing; anxiety is something else. As I was pondering this the other day, I got to thinking about some ways I might be able to handle anxiety a bit better. Here is what I...

One of my favorite passages is James 1:19-20, “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”. I like this verse because it speaks of being proactive in our interpersonal relationships. Through the years, I have allowed this to guide the way I deal with people and, for the most part, I believe it has served me well. The other day, though, I became especially thankful that the last section said, “be slow to anger”. For the most part, I am pretty good at this, but that thanksgiving gave way to a warning. What if James would have said, “be slow to irritation”? I don’t know that my emotions rise to the level of anger, but it is easy to find myself getting irritated with people. Again, that is not against this warning, but it could be a step in that direction! Let’s make sure we avoid anger, but let’s also be on the look out for irritation. When we feel people s...

I have watched a lot of baseball in my lifetime, and I have rooted for a lot of bad teams. However, every-once-in-a-while I will find myself in a pennant race – and this year is one of those years. As I invested myself in scoreboard-watching, one of the things I have noticed is that it is much easier to lose ground than to make up ground. If you string together a few wins, it seems like you can make some steady (but slow) progress but if you get into a losing streak, you can find yourself spiraling out of contention quickly. I realize it’s not true, but it seems like you have to win twice as many games to make up half as much ground – but, when the losing starts, the drop is quick and devastating. The reason I bring this up relates to a situation I read about recently. No, it wasn’t in this week’s news, but it could have been. Genesis 4 chronicles the first murder in the history of man but it could have been prevented. When God came upon Cain, he was already in a foul mood, so G...

I am not going to ask you how many U. S. Supreme Court Justices you could name – nor will I ask if you know the name of the Chief Justice; but let’s just say that if the name John Roberts comes to mind, you are probably more well versed than a lot of people. The other day I was reading quotes from some of the justices and I came across one from him that I thought was quite enlightening, "If children do not understand the Constitution, they cannot understand how our government functions, or what their rights and responsibilities are as citizens of the United States." There probably weren’t a lot of us who got excited about our civics classes, but in retrospect we might have been better off with an extra civics section and one less elective. As I read Justice Roberts comments I got to thinking about another educational opportunity too many of us overlook. The wise man of Proverbs encouraged the society of his day, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is ...