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By Andy, June 13, 2009 12:03 am

For as long as I can remember, I was a San Francisco Giants fan. More so than any other Bay Area sports team, including the 49ers, the black and orange of the Giants has taken root deep in my soul.  From the bright orange road jerseys of the 1978 team with manager Joe Altobelli, to the 1981 and 1982 Frank Robinson teams (especially the 1982 team that gave the NL West to the Braves), the 1985 team that lost 100 games, the resurgence in the late 80s with Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell and Jeffrey “One Flap Down” Leonard, the near-move to Tampa in 1992, the signing of Barry Bonds in 1993, and the ill-fated 2002 World Series, the black and orange have been a large part of my life from childhood to adulthood. The Giants have been the team by which I choose to enjoy the game of baseball.

If baseball is a house complete with a large hallway with many rooms, I found myself in the hallway knocking on the door that led to the Giants.  Some of you found doors that led to the Cardinals, or the Athletics, or the Pirates, or the Cubs.  And others of you who I would deem to be a bit misguided knocked on the doors of the Yankees or (gasp) the Dodgers.

Each door, however, leads to a variation on the same theme…baseball.  We’ve merely chosen to enjoy the game from a slightly different perspective - with different “laundry” as Jerry Seinfeld would say.

Our Christian lives are no different.

It  (mere Christianity) is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meal. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at.  I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait.  When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise….

…When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall.  If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them.  That is one of the rules common to the whole house.

C.S. Lewis, from the Preface to Mere Christianity

Hmmm.

I guess Dodger fans need my prayers all the more.  ;-)

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By Andy, June 11, 2009 11:05 pm

It’s one of those words that in my prior church experience was perhaps not taken seriously enough.  What does it really mean to be “authentic” in the Christian context?

According to Merriam-Webster to be authentic is to be “not false or imitation : real, actual“.

Until recent years, I hadn’t really understood what that meant or how to do it.

And then I read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. I read Mark Driscoll’s Confessions of a Reformission Rev. G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. And suddenly, I started to understand - I saw how each grappled with their faith, with Jesus, with their church, with how they perceived themselves and how they were perceived by others in the Christian community and I could relate to their issues.

However I still didn’t know how to do it myself. It was not something that I grew up learning how to do (nor, in retrospect, was that encouraged, but that would be the subject of a much lengthier post), and to be honest, I’m not sure that I knew that I needed to be able to do it in the first place.

Until…I came face-to-face with men in my local community who encouraged me to be real with them.  Perhaps encourage is the wrong word.  These men demanded it of me, and I demanded it of them.  More to the point - our faith demanded (and still demands) it.  If I am to grow in my walk in Jesus, I need to confront my own weaknesses and be held accountable by Him - and He does that through other folks.  With me, He has certainly done that in the company of the brothers I now keep.

In recent weeks I have seen many of my brothers be very real about their lives, the way I have been with them.   In each circumstance…

…we listened.

…we encouraged.

…we prayed.

It was real.

It was authentic.

It was Jesus meeting each of us at his moment of pain.

And it was very good.

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By Andy, June 9, 2009 5:40 am

…fasting is the secret key that unlocks heaven’s door and slams shut the gates of hell.

- Jentezen Franklin, “Fasting”

I have never refrained from anything for 40 days before.

I’ve never given up anything during the 40 days of Lent.

Never.

Have I fasted?

Yes…partial fasts, having gone vegetarian for a week, or the occasional workday fast wherein I’ve chosen not to eat during the working day.  I’ve also fasted from blogging as well - typically for a week at a time, and usually as part of a church-wide week of prayer and fasting.

But this time, I sensed the need to go longer…to fast from online social media like blogging, Facebook, and Twitter.  I saw the hold that this technology held on me when I began this fast, and I didn’t like what I saw about myself.  I also found myself drifting a bit in faith, and knew that by giving up online social media I would have more time to focus on my faith and my family.

I have to admit, it was a bit of a struggle the first week not blogging, not reading Facebook, not updating my Twitter feed.  I battled the need to always be in the know, or the need to come up with some really clever tweet or status update.  I did, however, find myself reading assorted resources about social media from both sides of the divide:  from those who believe that online social media is not real community to those who believe that it is a new form of community (I’ll discuss this in a future post).  I spent more time in the Bible and in prayer, tried to be more intentional about the time spent with my wife and kids, in addition to time spent with friends locally, and reading quite a bit more than I had.

So what did I discover?

1)  I was able to hear God’s voice in my life with greater clarity.  That doesn’t mean that I heard this booming voice from above, but rather I could sense an impression on my heart, confirmed typically by others unsuspecting of the answers to prayer that I had been seeking.

2)  One of the “impressions” I got was to spend more time with Hank.  While I have been spending time with him coaching baseball, I hadn’t spent a lot of one-on-one time with him.  I purchased and read “Raising a Modern Day Knight” at the suggestion of a fellow brother, and as a result, I now spend time with him each evening reading a chapter of the Bible (we’re reading Exodus together), discussing each chapter, discipling him in faith on his journey to manhood.

3)  I have spent the better part of the past 40 days reading, re-reading, and praying through Ephesians 5:21-33.  How can I love my wife sacrificially, the way Jesus loves His church?  Too often men stop reading after verse 22 - but the fact is that there are three times as many instructions for husbands (9 verses for husbands, 3 verses for wives) than there are for wives in that passage - so who’s got more work to do in their marriages?  I know I don’t always get this right, but I know that if I am to be the husband that God has called me to, this is how I am to love my wife.  And I want my son to one day love his wife sacrificially.

4)  For several weeks I had been meeting with 2 other men in my church for accountability early on Thursday mornings.  We shared our struggles and challenges, but as we talked, we got the sense that more men needed this kind of relationship.  So what began with 3 of us has now doubled in size (and may continue to grow in number) as men from our church come together every Thursday morning at a local coffeeshop to discuss the prior week’s sermon message and challenge each other to apply those principles in our lives.  The first time that newer faces came to our group, we saw instant transparency - clearly a confirmation that more men needed to be in these kind of relationships to become the men that Jesus has called us to be.

Those are but a few of the things that occurred while I was away - more to share in coming days and weeks.  In the meantime, one final and very cool thing to share - Hank’s baseball team, the team I coach - has advanced in the playoffs.  Big game tonight - winner moves on, losing team goes home!

It’s good to be back.  Thanks for your prayers.

Comments (6)

By Andy, September 4, 2007 12:01 am

I was only 16 years old when I started my freshman quarter in college - I had skipped second grade as a child - turning 17 only a month into my first quarter. While my roommates and dorm buddies had been driving for at least 2 years, I had barely been legally driving for a year. Being a November birthday didn’t help either - I was that much younger than all my friends.

So in addition to being the youngest by a year and a half in most instances, I still had to adjust to living away from home for the first time, with 5 other guys in a 3 bedroom suite, with 2 bathrooms, and a living room (no kitchen, since we had to head to the dining commons for all our meals). And this being the 80’s, the pre-cellphone/internet/text message/email era (the “Dark Ages”, I’m certain to all current college students), we were responsible for setting up our own telephone lines (Note: our dorm, while operated by the university, was actually situated off-campus and was not plugged into the central university phone system at the time).

Already acting with a sense of responsibility, I volunteered to take the lead to have the phone installed. Calling from a pay phone two blocks away, I phoned Pacific Bell. A couple of days later a technician came in to turn on the phone, and immediately the phones were used nearly constantly - in particular, by two roommates with girlfriends located a couple of area codes away.

It should not have been a surprise to us when the first bill totaled over $300…$200 for one individual alone. And we considered ourselves lucky, since the girls next door tallied a $900 bill since 4 of them had boyfriends more than a few area codes away.

We did not act responsibly with the phone, not understanding the cost associated with the use of the phone lines, learning a very expensive lesson on responsibility and control. The phone was merely one of many items in our young college lives that taught us to take responsibility for our lives. Talking on the phone for hours at a time, whether during the day with the most expensive per minute rates, or in the evening, was not a good decision - it cost real dollars, and it prevented us from spending time socializing with friends…or dare I say…to even study.

We also had to learn to make other choices - choices related to classes, studying, social organizations - and choices related to when we expected to graduate based on our successes in class and course of study. I saw one too many friends or acquaintances who were unable to make the right choices, faltering in school, eventually failing to graduate.

That could have happened to me as a freshman, since I was a mechanical engineering major who failed calculus my first quarter. But I took responsibility for my failure, retaking the class to get a passing grade (a “C”), and then making a difficult decision to change majors that ultimately led me to my career in finance/accounting in the architecture/engineering/construction industry.

What was it in me that led me to take control of my life even then? Yes my living arrangements between the ages of 16 and 21 were that of the stereotypical college male, yet I managed to pass my courses and get a job in the middle of the early 90s recession.

Donald Miller writes in To Own A Dragon:

The thing about being irresponsible is it’s only cute till you are about twenty-two or so, then it becomes a liability. One day you wake up under a pizza box, the television blaring in your bedroom, the laundry piled up over what might be a bedside table, and you ask yourself, How did my life get like this? Why don’t people like me? Didn’t I have a cat and what is that smell?

I lived that life during that time, but not long after I turned 21, I got engaged, and barely 15 months later was married (and still am married to the same woman).

Looking back, I do think about what it was in me that gave me that drive to be a responsible man, particularly at that age. Certainly I would not be honest if I didn’t admit to some fear of failure in the eyes of my parents - that was a factor, subconscious or otherwise. Jesus was barely a distant thought in my life, an acquaintance I merely visited on His birthday and the day of His resurrection. “Happy birthday, J-dawg. Thanks for the Eddie Bauer jacket. You’re not dead now? Cool.”

Yet even though I didn’t see Him in my life, He was never that far away. Because I had Him in my life growing up, He didn’t go away. He just watched me from afar and suggested corrections along the way to make sure I was on the path He wanted me to take. He helped me make some pretty good decisions. And when I made some bad ones, He was still there.

Miller writes…

…that everybody loses ground sometimes and it doesn’t mean anything. It’s the way life works. This is hard to understand in the moment. You get to thinking about the girl who rejected you, the job you got fired from, the test you failed, and you lose sight of the big picture - the fact that life has a beautiful way of remaking itself every few weeks. The things that matter right now aren’t going to matter a month from now, a year from now.

Learning this wasn’t easy for me, and I’ll admit that it isn’t easy even now - but it is easier than it used to be. To do what God calls us to do requires us to take responsibility for our lives and to make good decisions…decisions that are aligned with His plan for us. Miller offers some very practical advice:

I think that if you read Proverbs, or the Bible in general, your percentage chance of success goes through the roof. Two thousand years of tested wisdom can’t steer you wrong. If you really want to learn to make better decisions, the book of Proverbs is a good place to start.

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By Andy, September 3, 2007 12:44 am

To all the guys out there who read “The Beach”…admit it.You watched those re-runs of “The Dating Game”. Or perhaps you’ve watched “Blind Date” or “Date My Mom” (troubling). American television is full of various dating shows. I am still scarred by seeing a former co-worker’s appearance on “Blind Date” in Los Angeles a few years ago, as the thought bubbles that appear on screen only served to enhance his ineptitude in his vain attempts to woo this young lady who was dressed as a wanna-be actress in Hollywood (of course, isn’t that what most of them do down there?)

More recently, my wife and I watched an episode of “Confessions of a Matchmaker” on A&E - about the adventures (dare I say misadventures?) of a woman in Buffalo, NY who runs her own matchmaking service. In this particular episode, one of the men she sets up on a date is this 38 year old single guy who is proud of the fact that he knows all the bouncers at the hippest clubs in the city, so he doesn’t have to wait to get in to pick up 23 year old co-eds. When questioned by the matchmaker, he claims to want to find the right woman and settle down, but is clearly lying just to get a date - which he promptly blows by ditching his date for his posse when he discovers she will not spend the night with him, and is actually trying to find a man who is ready for a real relationship.

It was sad seeing this 38 year old guy behaving as if he were still in college. At an age when many men have families, he was still living in a state of suspended adolescence. Granted, I know a couple of men at similar ages who are still single, but they also don’t know the local bouncers, nor are they attempting to hook up with college co-eds, searching for age-appropriate matchups - rather each have asserted leadership in other aspects of their lives, whether at work or through their volunteer activities.

In To Own A Dragon Donald Miller discusses this. He writes:

…whatever it is God puts in a man has been in all of us since we were young, and how the wealth of our country has caused something called “suspended adolescence,” so that some of us haven’t stepped into the truth that we are men - instead we are still living like children.

Miller urges all of us, no matter the age, to step up and claim our manhood. He writes this through the lens of one who grew up without a father, and his view on manhood was askew without having a male figure in his life as a youth. What he has learned in his journey is “that it (manhood) lives within the male from a very early age, and sometimes it gets awakened, and sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter how old you are - a man is a man is a man.” Don’t we know men who appear to be unable to “grow up”, like the 38 year old wanna-be college party animal? Don’t we know men, single or married, who are unable to assert leadership, choosing rather to behave as if they were in their late teens or early 20s?

When I look at my 6 year old son, I see a boy who strongly identifies with his maleness. From baseball to soccer to football to biking, he embraces his manhood. Daily he reads the sports page to check the baseball box score (for the Giants). He makes sure that the buttons on his shirts button from the right side (not the left as it is with womens clothing). When I joke sarcastically with my wife, he takes offense on her behalf, because A) he can’t tell the nuance of sarcasm yet and B) he already identifies with the notion of defending females. His manhood is already awakened, and will continue to be awakened as he grows older. I want to be there to guide him through this process, how he can assert leadership in all the spheres of his life, as a son, as a husband, as a father, at home, at work, at school, at church.

Miller tells a group of teenage boys that:

You are men. Some of you have never heard this before, but I want to tell you, you are men. You are not boys, you are not children, you are not women, you are men. God has spoken, and when God speaks, the majority has spoken. You are a man.

It is my prayer that each of us will claim this as well, and continue on the journey that God has called us to as men in His Kingdom. As Miller says:

If God has spoken, then I have within me whatever it takes to do the things a man needs to do, to become a good man for a woman, for some kids, for an office, for whatever it is God wants me to do.

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By Andy, September 2, 2007 8:26 am

8 “But now, for a brief moment, the LORD our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place in his sanctuary, and so our God gives light to our eyes and a little relief in our bondage. 9 Though we are slaves, our God has not deserted us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia: He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.
Ezra 9:8-9 (NIV)

I feel like I’ve been given “new life” to rebuild this blog. In moving over the archives to 2 years worth of material from Blogger to Wordpress these past couple of days, I’ve been amazed at how the community that has hung around “The Beach” evolved, and I am extremely grateful to each of you who check in on the ramblings on faith of this husband and dad in a coastal suburb of San Francisco.

I admit that blogging has been a difficult exercise for me for a couple of months now. My writing hasn’t been as prolific as it had been before. My writing has been a “ruin” of sorts, in disrepair, needing assistance to get back on track.

Discovering the Wordpress platform, for me, appears to have given me some new life. I’ve read blogs on Wordpress many-a-time, yet this was the first time that I truly explored the possibility of moving the blog…and here I am. I have stripped down the margins, and feel unencumbered by distractions, other than gateways to the blogs I read, and seeing where YOU all come from.

Many times over the past couple of years I was too focused on what kind of traffic I was receiving. I was focused on who subscribed to my RSS feed. I was focused on who linked back to me.

Doing so trapped me.

No more.

I blog because I like to write, but most importantly because I want to share with you my own Christian walk. I want to expose my successes and failings with you in the hope and prayer that I can hear God’s Voice speak into my life through YOU.

Well…that and to bemoan the lost baseball season for my San Francisco Giants. :-)

Moving to this platform has allowed me to shed the bells and whistles for the meat of the messsage that The Big Guy Upstairs would have me share about my life. It is freeing.

I look forward to more interesting conversations with each of you. Thank you all for your friendship…but most of all…your prayers.

God bless, and see you ’round here at the new “Beach”.

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By Andy, August 31, 2007 7:33 am

For part one, start with Will’s post over here.

When I first read Will’s post, I obviously felt a great deal of sadness for him and his situation at his church. It is the church where I grew up with him, where I sang in the children’s choir and rang handbells and participated in youth group…it is the church that for many years was “home”. I reached out to Will offline, offering my own thoughts and prayers privately.

But tonight, I felt frustration as I reflected upon that post - not frustration at Will’s situation, but at my own. Frustrated that I am in a small church. Frustrated that I am one of the 20% doing 80% of the work. Frustrated that when I’ve talked about prayer, like I did a couple of days ago, it is about the positive and not about the difficulties in discerning God’s voice. Frustrated that when things go awry at work, or in volunteer work, or in church, that I find myself looking within at my own faults and wondering why others aren’t doing the same. Frustrated that I can’t seem to hear God’s voice right now.

A few days ago, coming off my vacation, I was brimming with confidence, rested, ready to tackle the assignments that God has for me. Tonight I feel beat down, questioning what I’ve been through this past year in particular. While it has been a period of significant spiritual growth for me, it has been a period of difficult pruning and refining - to the point that I’m really starting to get annoyed at anyone who tells me I’m being refined (and annoyed at myself when I tell someone else the same!)

I know the catchphrases. I know God puts us in situations that make us uncomfortable to prune and refine so that we will grow - it is ALL OVER Scripture from Genesis to Revelations, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it! I’m having a very difficult time being patient right now - I want to see the fruit of my labor NOW!

The fact is, God was very clear to me about where I am to be, and what I am to do. Of that, I have no doubt.

And to be fair, I certainly don’t feel “abused” the way Will has - no one has been upset with me, or yelled at me, or anything of the sort. But I share the frustration, because I feel like we only focus on the negative, that we only focus on our fears when in fact we need to make that leap of faith and trust that God will guide us.

I, too, am having difficulty making that leap of faith. But will someone else please step up and admit that too?

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By Andy, August 28, 2007 3:28 am

Cindy, in the comment to this post, invited me to join a synchroblog regarding prayer. And who am I to turn down an invitation to discuss this topic, which I know I’ve discussed over the past couple of years here at the Beach (particularly here)? But in re-reading what I wrote nearly two years ago, I also realize that my approach to prayer and the struggles I have had with it have changed as I’ve grown in my own spiritual journey.

One of the things that I have learned in the past year is how to be silent in my approach to prayer. That is, I have learned to clear my mind, to “take a bath” as my pastor says, prior to entering a concentrated period of prayer. That silence washes away any thoughts that might distract, and allows me to enter a frame of mind in which my focus is purely on God. I have found that in a group prayer setting, this “bathtime” has been cleansing and I find myself remembering more of the things that I want to discuss with God, and hearing the things others are discussing with Him, as well as praying with them as they vocalize their thoughts to Him.

On my own, however, it is a different story. My approach is more conversational, more casual. I find myself driving to the local train station just talking out loud, as if I were talking to an imaginary friend (to use Donald Miller’s words - or, if you prefer, looking like a guy talking out loud with a Bluetooth earpiece on his cell phone, sans earpiece). I often end it with asking Him to “show me what You want me to learn today” - in reference to my Scripture reading as I sit on the train ride to work.

And there have been those moments recently in which He specifically answers prayer, almost immediately. In this post, I talked about how Jeremiah 42:10-12 was a specific answer to a question I asked Him mere moments prior - a “random” flipping of the pages took me to that passage…the first one I read when I stopped turning pages.

Yesterday, as I thought about some concerns I had about recent events at church, one of our members handed me an envelope which on the outside said “Read 1 Kings 17 - 19 before reading the contents of this letter”. In reading the passage and the subsequent letter, what spoke to me were the doubts that Elijah experienced in chapter 19 - and God had given Him rest before sending him on yet another mission. Relating that to my own life, God had given me rest this past week on vacation, and was readying me for another mission, and reminded me not to worry, because He is in control. I didn’t realize that I had been “praying” as I thought about my concerns, but God stepped forward and comforted me through that letter.

So…how do I pray? I am finding that the “how” isn’t what matters. Whether I pray silently, by myself, in a group, or out loud, God is always listening. I am finding I need to listen carefully, because He uses a variety of methods in which to answer - and often, the same answer comes from a variety of different sources, whether a friend, my wife, my kids, and/or Scripture. I am often blown away when I get that answer - not by the answer itself, but by how clear His response is to me.

Listen. Listen carefully. The answer is there.

::

There are many others out there participating in this synchroblog on prayer. For a complete list of participants, check out Cindy’s post here with all the folks contributing their thoughts on prayer. Definitely check it out…there’s some good stuff there.

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By Andy, August 16, 2007 5:30 am

About a month ago my friend Ariel posted a book giveaway on his blog, since he’s connected with some mucky muck at a particular Christian publishing house (Note: tongue firmly planted in cheek). Yours truly was one of the fortunate “winners” of said book giveaway, receiving, a couple of weeks ago, a free copy of Bill Hybels’ latest book, Holy Discontent, Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision.

As with many things in my life lately, receiving and reading this book was no accident. From the moment I read its inside cover to the day I finished it, it was clear to me Who wanted me to read this book, for the topic came at a point in my life in which I have been thinking and praying about my life in His Church.

Hybels’ main theme is to ask the following question: What is it that motivates people to work where they work, volunteer their time to the groups they serve, and donate money to the causes they support?

Upon reading this question, I asked it of myself, and honestly, at that moment, I didn’t know the answer to it in my own life, or perhaps even more honestly, I had never really asked that question of myself, either. I stumbled into my profession as an accountant in the AEC (architecture, engineering & construction) industry mainly because it was a construction firm that hired me out of college, I volunteer where I do (outside of work and church) because I simply have in interest in those organizations and it keeps me involved in my kids’ lives, and I donate money to those organizations because I think they do some good work in our community. I hadn’t thought about the “Why”.

Hybels expands on the question and uses several examples, discussing Mother Teresa as one who was a simple school teacher one day, who walked by those who were sick and downtrodden each day, and finally was sufficiently fed up with seeing it (her holy discontent) that she chose a different path, ultimately founding the Missionaries of Charity (who happen to have an AIDS hospice here in Pacifica that my family has supported, coincidentally). He also mentions Bono and Martin Luther King, each of whom were discontent with the status quo of poverty (Bono) and racism (King), and proceeded to alter the course of their lives to focus as agents of change.

Of course, reading those examples my immediate thought was, “Yeah, but I can’t compare myself to King or Bono or Mother Teresa.” And Hybels’ argument isn’t that we should compare ourselves to them - rather, we need to ask the question, “What can’t I stand?” and use that to spur us to do something about it. Rather than complain and watch that which we can’t stand from afar, we should face it head on and use it to effect positive change.

In all fairness, the answer to the question for you and me might not necessarily spur us to an action of the magnitude of a Mother Teresa or a Dr. King, but it will be for a purpose that God intended for our lives and furthers His Work here on Earth. Maybe you see kids in your church who aren’t plugged in, and you choose to start up a youth ministry because you had gained so much from your own 20 years ago. Perhaps you see a glaring need for a men’s ministry in your church, and jump in to restart and give it a fresh approach to reach out to the men in your church. Maybe you couldn’t stand your Little League baseball experience because your coach was a jerk and you want the local kids to experience a positive coaching environment.

Whatever it is, there will be something that will spur you to action. Rather than mope about it, go out and DO something about it. And that’s what Hybels is pointing out in his latest book. As he writes:

…we must proclaim that message of hope to everyone God gives us the opportunity to influence. That’s partly why God entrusts us with the ability to provide energy and courage and creative thought to the people around us who so desperately need it through the activity of pursuing our holy discontent…so that hope won’t die…Figure out what you can’t stand. Channel your holy discontent energy into helping to fix what’s broken in this life.

Fuel your fire.

Comments (2)

By Andy, August 12, 2007 10:31 pm

24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may^[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:24-31 (NIV)

Yesterday morning I went to Sears with the kids since we needed to buy a new clothes dryer - our old one had just gone out on us on Friday, and given its age, it wasn’t worth fixing. We were at the store about 20 minutes after it had opened, and we walked right up to a salesman, knowing exactly the model I was going to buy, having researched it over at Consumer Reports.
Ten minutes later the deal was done, and a delivery scheduled for today - time to be determined later that evening when I would receive a confirmation on time and location.

Right at 6 pm I received the call, a two hour window between 10:15 and 12:15 pm.

My church meets at 11 am.

I couldn’t obtain another time without changing the day, and frankly, I wasn’t going to take a couple of hours of vacation time to wait for the delivery of a dryer. I figured I would likely miss church.

This morning, the dryer was delivered at 10:15 am.

I made it to church (although sans family, as my wife was sleeping from a night shift last night and the kids are out of town with their grandparents). Walking up the front entryway, I saw Jim, whom I had called last night to say I wasn’t going to make it, and I said, “God must have a message for me to hear today.”

The title of the message was “Turning Question Marks into Exclamation Marks”. The message was delivered by a guest speaker, Dr. Jim Higgs, since our pastor is away on vacation. The base scripture was John 20:24-31 ( quoted above).

Using Thomas’ story in the passage above, he spoke of the doubts in our faith - how we are like Thomas, questioning the truth and unable to make the leap of faith without seeing. He listed the doubts of others in Scripture, like Abram when told he would be the father of many nations…at his advanced age and without offspring at the time he was told…or the first two chapters of Habakkuk, a litany of doubts…or Psalm 73…

Dr. Higgs went on to discuss 3 things that we can do to move from doubt to faith.

We must first identify the source of our doubts. He listed four sources…

1) The Enemy, Satan - he deceives us like he does in Genesis 3.

2) Finding ourselves in unfavorable circumstances, like Gideon in Judges 6.

3) Having unconfessed sin - 1 John 1:9.

4) Having pride.

He encouraged us to “doubt your doubts”.

Second, he said that we need to check how we’re wired. What kind of person are you? Are you an optimist? A pessimist, like Thomas in John 14:5-6?

“Negative thinkers neutralize faith.”

Finally, he encouraged us to “aspire for noble faith.” In John 20:29, Jesus says, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The Apostle Peter reiterates this in 1 Peter 1:8 - Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

Dr. Higgs closed out by saying that this message came out as a response to his concern for a friend of his who is experiencing doubts about faith - but he couldn’t help but feel that there were folks in our congregation experiencing those very same doubts.

I would be liar if I said that I didn’t undergo doubts from time to time, doubts about what God is doing in my life, or the role He wants me to have at church.

The other evening I watched Mark Batterson’s message at Granger Community Church, in which he said that the Enemy’s two primary tactics are Guilt and Fear.

With guilt, Batterson says, “If we are focused on what we did wrong in the past, there will be no emotional or spiritual energy left to think about where God is taking us in the future.”

With fear, he says, “The Enemy backs us down, so that instead of stepping out in faith, we are defined by the things that scare us.”

“The Enemy wants to remind us of our failures.”

We need to step out in faith. And doubt our doubts.