"Lift with the knees boys!"

“Hey man can you help me move?” It’s the one sentence that sends shivers down everyone’s spine. No one likes to life heavy boxes, pack delicate dishes, and walk backwards down the steps holding a 1000 pound entertainment center. The reason I am thinking about this is I helped a good buddies parents move yesterday. “Parents, it wasn’t even your friend” you say. Nope I have never met these people before in my life and odds are I won’t ever see them again. What I did know that this friend had some folks that were in a bind and needed some big strong men [obviously why I was personally requested…wait that didn’t happen]. Me and three other men volunteered our Tuesday night to help out a buddy out and as lifting is fairly mindless work I began to think [warning]. The reason we volunteered to help this friend out is he is a brother. He goes to our church and he is the type of man that would be there to help you if you needed anything and we all knew that. When his mother was thanking us for helping her and her husband out we all did the normal “Not a problem I don’t do much” , “Ill do anything for a sloppy Joe”, and “I love a good work out”. Though these statements work in the situation though reality is that we all love this friend and we love Christ and it is that love propels us to help him. It comes back to Christ [most situations always do]. This is a practical was of living out the gospel. Instead of grumbling and griping about helping move, helping with a smile and for the simple fact that you want to love another human in an extremely practice way. To me this is why I follow Christ. Because a friend can put out a request and people actually respond. He did no arm twisting just simply asked. I am a guy who likes to think about big theological issues. I love getting in 3 hour conversations where there is no way to find out the answer we are wrestling over. But on nights like yesterday it reminds me that sometimes following Christ is as simple as picking up a box and doing it with a smile.

Merry Christmas folks remember this is a time that we celebrate the fact that “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood” so to speak.

John 8:7

Love you neighbor as yourself. It is an interesting command that Jesus gives us and is probably one of the more difficult ones. Tiger Woods has been all over the news and we all know the story by now. It is as though the media is all of a sudden shocked that people LIE and celebrities sleep around. The thing is to cover our own asses we will lie boldly and often. I will be the first to admit that I have lied many times, let be real who hasn’t? In fact being married and attempting to be completely honest and open with Becca has been a fairly revolutionary change to make but more fun and freeing then I imagined. What would it be like if we took responsibility for ourselves? Typically you call someone out on something and it is excuse after excuse. In a bible study I used to attend with the BG men we used to talk about changing our life style to “QUIT JUSTIFYING”. What would it be like if people realized that mistakes are not the end of the world? An honest confession of wrong doing can go a long way I have found. We are not perfect and sometimes it is really hard to admit that not only to our selves but others. The challenge is to really stop justifying and accept the mistake or issue and then correct it. Tiger has made a mistake. We all have. Would you like it if your worst mistake was covered 24-7 on cable “NEWS” networks? If I see Nancy Grace asking one more lawyer If Tigers wife can sue him if she gets and STD because he had unprotected sex with other women I may vomit. Get a grip people Tiger has admitted his wrong doing and is moving on. Can’t we? Did you really look up to a pro athlete as a role model in your life? Tell you what, if it makes you feel better just don’t buy Gatorade or Nike for a while. Other than that can we all realize were all far from perfect, and move on! There are bigger things in life.