Tadd Mencer

Archive for the ‘Spiritual’ Category

You make a lemon pie, right? Or lemonade or perhaps a nice turkey dinner.

The point I think of the old saying is when things are looking grim, when your playing cards are crap, do what you can in order to turn the situation on it’s head. Make the best of it.

See, being jobless gives me way too much time to think and contemplate (and often severely depress myself). I was thinking last night about my current situation and of course my mind is prodded with thoughts about worthlessness and such.

This verse came to mind from the Bible:

“for the worker is worth his keep.”
Matthew 10:10b (NIV)

I can’t help think … if I’m not really working, am I not really worth my keep? Am I not really doing anything worthwhile for God? The world? My family?

It was a fast declining road of self pity. Whoa is me. Poor Tadd. Poor worthless, pointless and purposeless Tadd.

Another verse then came to mind, reminding me of something important:

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”
Romans 8:28 (KJV)

As I thought about these verses it reminded me that all situations are really under God’s control. And as Romans 8:28 says “everything to work together for the good of those who love God”. That’s pretty reassuring.

Things may look low and sad. I may not be making money hand-over-fist or doing Scrooge McDuck dives into vats of gold coins but God has taken care of my family and me. We have food. Clothing. Electricity. I have a few side jobs. So far, everything is going according to HIS plan. My morals and faith will be tested, again and again, as I’m lead down different paths and avenues.

But if I remember that everything works together for the good of those who love God I’ll be ok. It will be fine.

I finish with one other passage:

^“6Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. ⁷Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
Luke 12:6, 7 (NIV)

This is a serious question not something in jest. Did you know that there has been a movement, not new, that says that using make believe is actual a sin? It also says that fiction is a way to distract His people from focusing on His Word and on real things. I was once told that "reading that fantasy book is a waste of God’s time and therefor a sin".

So, I seriously would like to know what people’s take is? Can you use your imagination to dream and concoct stories? Should you do this? Can it be an effective tool to not only entertain but also uplift and edify people?

From a Biblical perspective there really is no verse that says not to. Even Jesus uses made up parables (stories) to illustrate things. So why is it any less if people like Frank Peretti or Ted Dekker or Stephen Lawhead use fiction to illustrate principles or even directly point to God?

I honestly have even been encouraged by stories that are of fantasy nature. I’ve read the ‘This Present Darkness’ and ‘Piercing the Darkness’ books and felt very uplifted. I also read a book that WASN’T Christian and felt encouraged to follow God.

So, your thoughts.

I was thinking and wondering today on my drive to work: Can people have faith and not have hope?

Faith, as defined "Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing."1 So you have confidence, trust, in something. But to what end?

Hope is defined, as a verb, "to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence." So, there is the confidence again.

So, staying away from religious meaning, can you have faith that your new car will get 30mpg and not hope that it will?

Hope is also defined "to place trust; rely".

In my mind you can’t really have faith in something without holding a hope that your faith is well placed. After all, you have faith that chair will hold you and hope you’re right. Correct?

Thoughts anyone?

… you throw them right back in life’s face and say "I wanted effin apples!"

Ok, no you don’t do that because ‘life’ really means ‘God’ and it’s probably better not to be a jerk to God. However, this is the very problem in society, even in the church. We have this idea that we need things to go our way.

Don’t hand me a lemon and expect me to be happy. I hate lemons!

I’ve had this attitude so many times in life – even recently. Things don’t go how I want and I get all depressed and frustrated. I want to write – but have had a hard time getting time together. I’ve wanted to relax, read, watch shows with the wife … but time is something we have so little of.

So I get mad and frustrated and shut down when my time is "robbed" by things not going as planned. The baby not sleeping, the boy waking up crying, the cat breaking things, dishes needing done, etc etc.

I think the hardest part is to remember that my life is not my own. I’ve been bought by the blood of Christ. I’m God’s now and what I do I should do for His glory. When things don’t happen how I want them, I need to remember to proceed with the new structure knowing that it’s how God wants it – regardless of what that means. If that means not working on Deadland – fine. If that means not working on music or design – fine.

This is the verse for today

James 4:10 “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

Very fitting I think.

My wife and I have been tested the last few days on the basis of ‘Do you trust God?’. Meaning, things happen that are beyond our control and we need to make a choice: Curse Him or trust Him.

Yesterday was, for me, a big test. Monday mornings are horrible to me anyway, but this day was worse than most.

Aidan and I had breakfast, then cleaned the cat litter. We had purchased this ‘flushable’ litter before and the new stuff we bought I assumed would be flushable since it was similar.

We (Aidan and I) went upstairs to help Carolyn get Ethan and all his gear and ended up being there for twenty minutes or so. Carolyn noted the heater sounded funny, which I fluffed off with a ‘eh, don’t worry I’m sure it’s fine’.

We as a family went down stairs to a kitchen flooded from a clogged and continually running toilet that overflowed from the ‘flushable’ litter that I put down there. It flooded the kitchen, bathroom and basement. It soaked the furnace which wouldn’t turn on.

I was beside myself. This was a huge deal. I couldn’t unclog the toilet so I called a plumber, then proceeded to look for a reliable Heating and Furnace place.

In the mean time we had friends call or email saying “if it gets too cold there [remember, furnace no work] you can come to our place”. We also had friends doing some leg work trying to find a “Mr. Fixit” for the furnace.

We prayed, I stewed and stomped and cleaned up as much water as I could. It was nasty and cold. My feet still ache (yes, I was walking barefoot in the water for a while). Then we talked to a lady from my wife’s work who’s husband promptly showed up with a Shop-Vac and helped clean up the basement and de-waterlog the furnace. He got the furnace running and then took me to HomeDepot for a auger thing for the toilet. Got that fixed.

Now the house is basically back to normal. The basement is still kind of nasty with dirt and some mud, but otherwise fine. We had NO damage to anything.

Why is this a test?

First, the plumber was going to be at least $200. I had money set aside for a special project I’m working on (Deadland) and was excited about it – and this would have cut that budget right out.
Then a furnace repair is at least this much or more, and many people I talked to said it would probably require replacing a lot of parts … hundreds of dollars.

So, in the end we had to spend $9. That’s it. Add many hours of manual labor (finished mopping the floors at around 8pm) and that’s that.Toilet works. Furnace works. House no longer smells like crap (literal).

So you see. My wife held to her faith that God would make a way.
I held on to my faith that God will make a way.
Aidan cried because when he saw the water he thought the cat knocked over his water cup.
Ethan slept, ate, pooed and whined about eating and sleeping.

Carolyn and I held to our faith that God would make a way, even though I was pretty depressed about things I prayed and hoped and held faith that God would work it out.

And He did.

God is good my friends. God is good.