And He said:  “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  Matthew 18: 3-4 (NIV)

The best that I can recall how their Daddy related the story to me, was that my two Granddaughters, Hannah and Ellie Kate, were playing with their American Girl dolls at their home one recent afternoon.  Their Mimi had ordered some new clothing for the dolls which had just arrived and they—as they often did—were trying it on their “children.”

In that time together they were switching outfits between their dolls, fixing the dolls’ hair, remaking the doll sleeping locations in the corners of their rooms, and generally playing make believe—or was it real? 

In the context of that setting, they started talking about jobs, and asked each other “What would be your dream job?”

Hannah reflected on the question for a moment, and then, to no one’s surprise who heard later what she said, offered:

“Veterinarian!”

Ellie Kate smiled—she loves animals too—and without skipping a beat said:

“Good.  Or, an Angel!”

What is it we do to our little children to dampen such fertile imagination, fervent wonder, and unbridled enthusiasm for anything and everything in—and that which should be in—life?  What do we adults do to make that go away?  No, seriously, if we hear such coming from an adult we would call them crazy or irresponsible.

Maybe we’re too serious around God’s little children and don’t smile enough.  Or worse, maybe we take ourselves too seriously thinking we’re being wise and mature—when all we’re really being is dull. 

We should make a rule that no adult (or person of any age who reminds us of an adult) whose smile looks like it was formed from the action of sucking on a dill pickle can get within any “happiness zone” that children create.  And such a rule would apply whether they are parents or not—at least until they gain a bit of the Christ-like maturity depicted in the scripture above.

It’s no wonder my heart jumps for joy when I know that our two precious Granddaughters are coming around to the house.  It’s no wonder Mimi gets the cookie-making stuff out, the paints and easel comes out in “our” upstairs office, and even our Basset hound Lily senses the pending excitement.  Those precious little girls return us to where God wants us to be every day—to His land of wonder, joy and excitement which He specifically created for all of us!  Listen to it again—

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

May I suggest that in this season of reflection and preparation as we approach afresh and anew the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday, that we think about that statement with all the seriousness it implies and stop wasting the days He has given us—to boring maturity and joylessness.

“Good.  Or, an Angel!”

And why not!  Count me in, please.

                                                                        In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

“In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all.”

                                                            Isaiah 11:6 (NLT)

Another cold morning has set in even as the sun rises to begin to warm a bit of the rest of the day.  All indications are that we can look forward to a few more freezing stretches throughout our area during the month of March.  I would imagine the rest of the nation can expect a bit worse as the coldest winter in awhile lingers on. 

The morning is not nearly as cold, I would expect, as the one which will begin a few hours from now as the sun lights up the skies over Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  A morning where folks there will awaken to the first day in many where the twenty-first Winter Olympics are not front and center on their radar—or television—screens.  Like most all things of a temporal nature, the Winter Olympics are now simply a part of our collective memories.

Yet as Lynda and I watched the closing ceremonies to the 2010 Winter Olympics last night,  we realized that there were things we saw and things we will remember from the past sixteen days that are far from temporal and fleeting.  The competition was fierce, the national patriotism expectedly on display and admirable, the events were, for the most part, compelling even though at times you had to look a bit deeper to get there.

But it was the spirit of the games—displayed time-and-time again by the athletes and others—which will linger beyond the games.  And for our sakes we need it to linger long-after. 

They would be the last to run the course.  The American four-man bobsled team would make its final of four runs to try to capture the gold medal for the first time in sixty-two years. The German team had just finished and waited anxiously at the bottom of the course—they currently stood in gold medal position should the American team slip at all.  They didn’t—running the course in a four-run time of 3 minutes, 24.46 seconds, just 38/100’s of a second faster than the German team’s cumulative four-run time—and would settle for second-place and the silver medal.

The next television shot the cameras captured after that of the American four-man bobsled team finishing its winning run and jubilantly jumping out of their sled at the end of the course, was of the German team clapping and cheering their winning effort.  It exemplified a spirit that permeated the games.  A spirit that rose above winning and losing—to paint a picture of the very best that they and we can be. 

An enlightening, uplifting and hope-filled spirit that need not end with the closing ceremony—despite no longer being in the center of our collective international attention.  A spirit that reminded us that we don’t always win or get it right—and that not even the big guys get it right—as a skit from last night’s closing ceremony pointed us back to the glitch in the opening ceremonies where an arm of the Olympic torch refused to rise.  It’s a spirit we need to have linger for awhile in our lives.

Perhaps it’s because too much of the world around us seems to be at war.  Perhaps it’s because in too many lives around us hope is not a reality.  Perhaps it’s because there is such a lack of clear, selfless and other-centered voices of calm, peace and hope calling us to the top of the mountain for a view of all we were meant to be—and also—all we were meant to be—together.

Perhaps the spirit of these Olympics will linger just a bit longer.  Perhaps in the uncertainty of each of our days, in a world marked by uncertainty it will point us toward a better place—and a better place to begin each day. 

A place where together we begin to see and believe that hope for our lives, the lives of our children and grandchildren and others is real, and we begin to reach across our differences to raise each other up to the top of the mountain. 

Hope that leads us to a place we find where we begin to believe that we truly can become more that we ever thought we could be—for ourselves and for others.

Hope!  Believe it!  

In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”   

Proverbs 3: 5.6 (NIV)

            Here’s the picture. 

It could only be described as a Winnie the Pooh kind of day, blustery and uncertain.  Pulling your cap tight against the ever increasing and penetrating wind, you remember a quick peek at the thermometer earlier that morning revealed a numbing 39 degrees.  You’re standing in the fairway, 180 yards away from a narrow elevated green sloping from back to front and guarded on the front and left by water and on the back and right by yawning revetted bunkers. 

A slightly errant tee-shot came to rest on the far left side of the fairway—the right side was the intended outcome—now requiring an approach shot which must be navigated around a majestic oak tree standing invitingly, with open arms, in your direct line of flight.  Too much navigation will bring the water on the left and front into play; too little, the sand-filled canyons on the right.  Although still in the freshly manicured fairway, the ball has come to rest in a sand-filled divot.  The goal, the cup, is precariously cut in the front left corner of the green, which you now notice is holding a flagstick displaying a flag seemingly starched straight by the steady gale blowing from left-to-right.

            Years ago I would have surveyed that scene with only one acceptable outcome in mind—with the ball landing softly on the green and rolling slowly and directly into the cup or at least as close as possible.  Only one outcome would have been acceptable.  Today, my intention is the same, my desire is as intense, my goal is as clear, my planning and preparation as complete, and yours too I would guess. 

But before making that shot may I suggest you invoke what a good friend describes as the NATO principle.  That is, you are “not attached to outcome.”  The result—you will find joy in the journey.  A journey of endless possibilities and paths to the same or similar outcomes.  Or a journey perhaps of a different outcome than that for which you had planned altogether.  A journey in which you begin to notice all the blessings around you, as you plan the shot and walk the 180 yards to the green, and as you live each moment of each day He has laid before you.         

            I’ll bet you’ve already planned your “shots” for the week.  Schedule set.  People to see.  Calls to make.  Meetings to attend.  Goals in place.  Outcomes assured, right?  Uncertainty has now been made certain?  You feel pretty secure? No worry, trepidation, gnawing anxiety, increased pulse-rate or muscle freezing fear remains, all because of your painstaking planning.  Right? 

I wonder how far back in your memory you have to go to find that moment when all of your best laid plans didn’t work out as you had envisioned.  How far back do you have to go to remember the water hazards, “pot” bunkers, blowing winds and frigid temperatures you hadn’t planned for when you woke up that morning.  Perhaps you confronted a lingering illness, a friend in distress, a job that took an unexpected turn, a child that just couldn’t seem to find their way in life, or a relationship stretched to the breaking point.  If you’re experience is as most of us—you don’t have to look to far to find that day when all you had perfectly planned out—didn’t quite happen as planned.

Planning for tomorrow by using the gifts and abilities He has given each of us is required, necessary and important.  But the outcomes of tomorrow, which we plan for today, are as certain as any of us holing out that shot described earlier.  The only thing certain about tomorrow is that He will be there to journey with us.   

And that’s where our security for living comes from—not in knowing the outcome, not in storing up material wealth, not in planning for every possibility—but in going on the journey with Him.  Security in knowing that no matter the unexpected twists and turns, we will be fine because we face them with a God Who wants the best for us.  We face them with a God Who’s plan for us is to become all He created us to be, leaning on His infinite wisdom not our own.  And the outcomes of tomorrow, although uncertain, with Him, become limitless possibilities with boundless opportunities for living a life which is exciting, energizing, stretching, and abundant, and full of unimaginable blessings only He can plan for us.

            May I suggest a crisply struck six (6) iron imparting a gentle draw on the ball into the holding left-to-right wind around the sentinel oak and gently landing on the front edge of the green?   It rolled off the front slope and into the water?  Not the outcome I intended.  My mistake.  Probably should have hit a five (5) iron.  

But did you notice the mother duck and her five babies paddling their way through the now rippling pond? 

They’re a part of the journey with Him.  It’s all about the journey.

Thank you Lord.                   

                                                                                    In His Name–Scott 

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”  Jeremiah 1:5 (NIV)

Our younger Granddaughter, Ellie Kate, had spent Saturday night with us and most of Sunday.  A leisurely Sunday morning awakening was woven with pancakes and bacon, lots of table talk, watching her pastor on the computer, and then lot’s of play, swinging on the swing set, and finally an afternoon fire in the fireplace while watching the winter Olympics from Vancouver. 

All with our littlest girl—wonderful!

Late in the afternoon we switched from the Olympics for a while to watch a DVD of animated Bible stories, and in particular one where God called Joshua to lead the Israelites across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land.  As the Ark of Covenant (the “Holy Box” full of God-stuff) was carried into the Jordan River, God parted the waters so Joshua and all of God’s children could pass safely through. 

As that scene unfolded before us on the television screen, I was moved to remark that “God is really something, isn’t He.”  To which Ellie Kate quietly and matter-of-factly added “Gran, God is so nice.”

Remind me to call her Daddy or to write him a note and thank him for the example of a Father—him—that she can draw from and extrapolate into a Heavenly Father (she has never met) whom she feels and believes is “so nice.”  Ellie Kate’s older sister, Hannah, feels the same way—another note of “thanks” to write to her Daddy.  I’m hoping that my relationship with them also affirms that loving, nurturing relationship they have with their Daddy that paints a picture for them of how much their Heavenly Father loves them.

Sadly, that’s not always the case in many children’s lives within our communities, nation and world.  As a matter of fact it’s probably a fifty-fifty toss-up what kind of example children anywhere will have to draw from for an image of their Heavenly Father.  And they’ll get older, and much needed support and love may become more distant, and they’ll have little to turn to and to rely on to get them through the days, months and years of their life.

            What was the message you got when you were a child? 

If it seemed to come from a Father and Mother who gave you an image of a Heavenly God like the one Ellie Kate’s and Hannah’s have given them—of a God who is “so nice”—a Heavenly Father who loved and created you—then good, you have a good foundation to work from.  Yet too many of us walk around still wounded from the example of a father who was much less than what he should have been, or a mother who forgot—if she ever knew at all—how precious that child was she carried for nine months.  Too many of us remember only expectations rather than encouragement, demands rather than mutual accomplishments.  Too many of us remember no one being there at all—physically or emotionally.  Too many of us never really remember a sense of sacrificial caring or concern for us.

If that was the case for you—if childhood was something less than what God planned for it to be, less than you deserved in the eyes of the One Who created you—well, I’m sorry, but what are you going to do?  Not a lot today, unfortunately.  Can’t undo it, can’t start again. 

But stop for a moment and look around.  There’s still so much of you and your life ahead of you.  There are so many others who count on you and who are looking for you to be the parent, mentor, and encourager you never had.  So why not make their lives better.  Because unless you recognize, admit, break, get-over, forgive and move past the destructive cycle from childhood that seldom painted the image of a Heavenly Father who loved and cared for you—it will be repeated in the lives of those around you—especially those who are most vulnerable around you. 

Over and over by our words, our demeanor, our response to adversity, our choices between time with them or someone else, through our frowns or our smiles—we convey to our children and others around us our perception of their value, and how much or little they mean to us.  And in those moments we give those around us a sense—they will hold onto for good or not—of what their Heavenly Father might be like.

Like it or not—they will become what you are, what you showed them, told them, and demonstrated to them by the allocation of your time to them, the tenor of your tone when talking with them, the softness and encouragement of your expression when looking at them, and the protective tenderness of your touch when securing their innocence and hope for the future.  And through you Dad, and through you Mom—they will catch a glimpse of what their Heavenly Father is like. 

Will it be the correct image?

“Gran, God is so nice.”

Yes He is sweetie, and I need to write your Daddy, and Mommy, a thank you note.

                                                                        In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

I realize as the sun begins to break through what will be a glorious cold day, that the space shuttle made one of its few remaining launches earlier this morning into a cold dark February sky.   It’s destined to be a great day. 

And it’s a day sandwiched between two other great days—yesterday’s exciting Super Bowl XLIV (44), and tomorrow’s 41^st birthday celebration of one of the most memorable days of my life—the birth of our son Nathan.  Those occasions both offer an opportunity to pause to consider how we want the journey of the rest of our lives to play out.  And I can’t address that any better than Nathan did in an “eZine” (electronic magazine) article he wrote this past week. 

Nathan writes an article every week or so for a wonderful ministry by the name of Six Seeds.  Six Seeds sees as one of its main purposes to encourage and develop family-based outreach to those in need by many means—financial contributions, hands-on involvement, education and networking with others who are trying to help.  The website of this ministry—where you can find tools, suggestions and opportunities to educate and involve the whole family in serving others—is www.sixseeds.org  

You can link to Nathan’s article and others through the link on the home page entitled—SixSeeds.tv.  For now, I have included Nathan’s article below. 

Listen to what Nathan had to share from a few days ago:

“We’ve heard of the focus on “the Ring.”  Don Shula, the winningest coach in NFL history, pointed out to me once that for the two weeks prior to the Super Bowl, both teams are the focus of intense media attention, but that after the game, the media really only heads to one locker room – the winner’s.  He learned that the hard way after Super Bowl III, when his Baltimore Colts were heavy favorites but were upset by Joe Namath in his famous “guarantee” game.  Three years after that, in 1972, he told his 16-0 Miami Dolphins on the eve of their Super Bowl appearance that no one would remember what they did if they lost.  His Dolphins won, but as the 18-1 New England Patriots can attest, he was right.

Both the Saints and the Colts need to remember that this week:  to the winner go the rings.

Which was precisely the point Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis’ coach, tried to make this season.  As you recall, with two weeks to go in the regular season, the Colts were 14-0 and had nothing to play for beyond simply adding to their win total.  That is, they had already qualified for the playoffs.  Had already won their division.  Had already clinched a bye.  Had already clinched home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

And as Jim said, the team goal was to win the Super Bowl and win the ring.  Therefore, he sat his starters for much of the following two games – both Colts’ losses – ending any chance the Colts had for an undefeated season.  Much ink has been spilled over the irritation of the media and fans that Payton Manning and others watched those losses from the bench…but that was Jim’s concern.  If Manning was injured in a meaningless game, the Colts couldn’t win, as they showed.  Twice.
            So here they are this Sunday, with (mostly) healthy starters, and a chance at their second ring in four years.

It’s a good time for both teams to pause and appreciate what they’ve done, to enjoy this momentous event without straining so hard for “the next big thing.”

It’s a real tendency.

In 2003, I was a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization that won the Super Bowl.  It was a magical run through the playoffs, as we fell behind in every postseason game, only to come storming back and win going away.  We all wandered through the hotel for hours afterward with our families who were with us in San Diego, and headed back to Tampa the next morning having gotten about 90 minutes of sleep.  We didn’t sleep on the five hour flight home, either, as we were passing the Lombardi trophy around the plane and reminiscing.

 I turned to hand it to a member of the owner’s family, who said brightly, “Now we just have to win it again.”  Maybe it was the fatigue, but I clearly remember thinking, you have got to be kidding me.  Can’t we at least revel in the win for a day?

This same sentiment was echoed when Tom Brady, the Patriots quarterback, told a story about his equipment manager at Michigan:

“He’s got so many Big-Ten rings, he doesn’t have enough fingers. He said, ‘You know, Tom, you know what my favorite ring is?’ I said, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘The next one. The next one. That’s my favorite.’ “

This anecdote shows that no victory will fill gaps in your life that already existed.  As Coach Dungy has told his players repeatedly, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul?”

At some point, we all need to pause and appreciate the blessings that we’ve been given and accomplishments that we’ve attained, and allow our children to do the same.  If they see the relentless drive to always pursue more, when will they ever learn balance and perspective?  When will they realize the intrinsic value they have, a value that can’t be increased by any external awards.

Even a ring.”

We know that the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV yesterday.  We don’t know if they will do anything with the platform it provides them?  I wonder if they will see that the “ring” they will receive for their victory will not define their value to the God who created them, and should not define their value to others.

Nathan’s 41^st birthday is tomorrow—February 9.  Suffice it to say—God made him; and God made him for a purpose.  Even though he has a Super Bowl ring—it doesn’t define him.  Things don’t define him.  God does.  Faith, love, hope and helping others defines him.  A sacred gift to his Mom and me, his bride and two daughters and so many others—family and friends.  His life is a reminder to pause and embrace the real blessings of our lives that may just have nothing to do with—even a ring.

            Happy Birthday dear and precious son!  Happy Birthday!

                                                                                    In His Name—Dad & Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

”Children are who they are.  It doesn’t take long before we have convinced them that they are what they wear, or what they do, or what they have, or what they look like.  But, if our children are lucky, we convince them early on to resist caricature or illusion.” 

                                                            Dangerous Wonder, Micheal Yaconelli

There’s a cold wind blowing through the area this morning that even our Basset Hound Lily was anxious to escape after her first quick trip outside for the day.  Those cold winds blow through in more ways than we notice—and too often the ones from years ago are still blowing through. 

You could feel this one beginning to creep into the air the other night as my son and his five-year-old daughter left for their Girl Scout Daddy-Daughter Dance.  And so with a delicate corsage gracing her dainty wrist to highlight a beautiful dress, her Daddy also draped her in a matching overcoat to protect her precious, tiny person from the approach of the penetrating colder temperatures.

The digital pictures taken did their best to capture the moments of their time together.  But even the pictures couldn’t capture the gleam in her Daddy’s eye as he painted the picture of Ellie Kate making her way through the crowd at the dance to receive what she described afterwards as the award she and her Daddy won dancing together.  It was a door prize—but you can tell her that at your own peril.  To her—she and her Daddy won the prize while dancing together.

Isn’t there a powder we can sprinkle on the heads of our children and grandchildren to keep them from growing up?  Isn’t there a shelter we can house them in to protect them from the cold winds which blow through their lives?    

Oh how I wish it were like that Daddy-Daughter Dance for all children! Where children felt they were the object of love from someone they look to for that love.  Where children catch a glimpse of God’s love for them through those entrusted with their care.  Where the voices they hear from those close connect them to the quiet voice of a God who is always after them. 

Maybe it’s we who need a powder someone can sprinkle over us.  Some of us would just need a dash and some of us would need to be covered from head to toe. 

A powder to keep all of us as well-meaning caregivers from trying to mold our children into something they’re not.  Parents, grandparents and others, who perhaps see through their child a way to be the athlete, successful businessman or woman, politician, whatever, which they never became.  Parents who teach their children by their actions and words that they would rather be with others, than with them.  Parents who unwittingly or stubbornly subject their child to the same system of “earned love” which they experienced as children—rather than modeling the example of the unmerited love of God.

Sprinkle… 

Parents now, who as children way back when, never felt that unqualified, unmerited grace and love from their parents.  Parents now, who as children then, had cold winds of inattention, criticism, disdain, intimidation or abandonment—emotional, physical, psychological—blowing through their lives too early and too often.  Children who were never allowed, encouraged or loved by those responsible for them—to be what God had created them to be—to allow them to grow—not necessarily up—but instead into all He had created them to be.

Sprinkle…

Parents now, who as children then—were never allowed to be the children God intended for them to be.  And so now they model for their children—refusing or unable to change—the same cold winds which blew through their lives.  And to admit what is happening, or to change, would require an acknowledgement of what they missed—a recognition often too painful to face.

Sprinkle…sprinkle… 

And so our children grow up like too many of us—impersonating someone we’re not.  Someone we were not created to be.  And no matter how many church services, Sunday school classes or functions we attend, they have trouble hearing any longer the voice of God whispering and calling to them.  And so they seek the approval from our voices, and from others’ voices less caring of them.  They seek approval through what they do, what they wear, what they have and what they look like—until the still small voice of God becomes silent in their lives.

Sprinkle…sprinkle…sprinkle…

Maybe there’s a powder.

Maybe our children will be lucky enough to have us encourage them to be who God made them, so that they will begin to hear again that still small voice of God in their lives.

Maybe there’s a powder.

Or maybe there’s a Daddy-Daughter dance.

Maybe there’s just you and me.

Sprinkle…

                                                                        In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

“Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted…Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it.” 

1 Peter 4: 7, 8 (The Message)

As the morning sun begins to peak through the night, I can’t get it out of my mind.  A family I know whose lives and world as they knew it has been turned upside down. And so I have chosen this morning to share from the archive of “Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…” one from a number of years ago.

********************

I need you to pray for me.

My latest visit to the doctor of a few weeks ago gave no indication of any problem or concern.  The blood tests were on the good side of the normal range.  My doctor—a great guy I have known for years—couldn’t put his professionally trained finger on any particular problem, but as I sat there talking with him I realized again—that I was dying.  It was unnerving to say the least.

I may have six months to live, or less.  I may have a year, or many more.  But whatever time is left, I now know it’s not forever.  My Bride, Lynda, and I don’t talk about it, but I know we have both thought about it at times.  I suspect some of you—if you’re really honest—have been in the same place with your own thoughts and lives. 

So here’s how I would like for you to pray for me today.  In the words of a song by country and western singer, Tim McGraw, pray that in the time I have left on this earth, I would—“Live Like I am Dying.”  Words he sang that he hoped his Dad would have wanted to have said to him.  A Dad—baseball great pitcher Tug McGraw—whom he never got to know until very late in life when they discovered that his Dad had less than a year to live.  Listen:

“I was in my early forties, with a lot of life before me,

            and a moment came that stopped me on a dime”…

And I asked him…‘When it sank in that this might really be the real end,

man what did you do?’

He said…‘I was finally the husband that most of the time I wasn’t, and…

I became a friend a friend would like to have…

I finally read the Good Book, and took a good, long, hard look

At what I’d do if I could do it all again, and then…

I went sky diving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing,

I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu,

And I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter,

And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying.

And he said…

‘Someday I hope you get the chance, to live like you are dying.’”

            It was a sobering moment at the doctor’s office a few weeks ago.  But the truth is that I am dying.  We all are.  We have no assurances as to when we will take that last breath.  As for me there is nothing pointing to anything that is specifically wrong.  Six months, or less; perhaps a year, or many, many more.  I just don’t know. 

You don’t know either—for you.

But what we do know is that we’re not getting any younger.  We know we don’t have forever in this life, and moments which we let pass us by, often won’t circle around for a second chance.  Despite our good intentions, efforts, and accomplishments to this point, there are still things we’ve always wanted to do, and many, many more we should have done long ago—which are still waiting to be done. 

People I should have forgiven, remain unforgiven.  People from whom I should seek forgiveness, still waiting.  Lives I should love and touch, still unloved and untouched.  Adventures to begin, mountains to climb, bulls to ride, books to read, careers to strike out on, family and friends to cherish with words sweeter and love deeper—still not done and looming before me in the days I have left before I step into eternity.

            I suspect there are some of you reading this who would say you wouldn’t do anything differently if you knew a time certain was remaining in your life. 

I wonder. 

Because I suspect, even you would notice in those last days—that food tasted sweeter, breezes seemed softer, the woman you love seems more beautiful and precious, your husband is much better that you ever gave him credit for, the children you raised and those you’ve adopted as in-laws don’t disappoint or mess up decisions as much as you used to think they did, your grandchildren really do have halos around their precious heads (this, though, has always been obvious), and real friends remain friends in spite of us.

So today, please pray for me that I will—

“Live the rest of my life…like I am dying.” 

And I’ll pray for you as you sky dive, get ready to ride that bull named “Fu Manchu” or begin for once to do all those other things you need to do—as if your life depended on it.

Have a great time—in the rest of your life.

                                                                             In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

            “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” 

                                                                        Martin Luther King, Jr.

As the morning sun breaks through a long and silent night of darkness into my upstairs windows—as it always does—it’s happening once more.  You can feel it. 

The morning sunshine has a way of doing that for all of us.  Aside from casting a light on all that’s good and not-so-good around us and providing life to all it touches, its simple action of rising again and then again—breaking through the dark silence of the night—has the remarkable effect of reminding us that no matter what yesterday was like—today is a bright new day full of brand new opportunities.  And tomorrow will be another bright new day.  Day after day.  Sunrise after sunrise.  Pretty simple really.

Remembering that, no matter what we have been through, the sun will still shine over and into our lives.  And that no matter what we are facing, we can draw hope—simply from the sun rising every morning as our Creator intended when He cast it in the sky—that today is a new day, and it’s a day which can be better than yesterday. 

With that assurance, the question becomes—what will we do with it?  A brand new day—what will we do with the opportunities that this brand new day presents?  And the answer depends, as it always has and always will, on us.

“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation…It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.”   

And we’re reminded of that on days like today, where we as a nation pause to  recognize the life of one person who always believed a better tomorrow for others depended on what he did with his life and with the opportunities with which he was presented each day.  He recognized that in the gift of each brand new day were new opportunities for contribution that his one life could make in the darkness of someone else’s night.

“Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children.  Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”

Today as a nation we pause to celebrate and remember the life of a great American—Martin Luther King, Jr.  A man who was born and raised in relative stability and security—but lived during times far from secure and stable, and refused to stand silent in the face of prejudice, injustice and wrong while striving for purposes seemingly unattainable, but strived anyway believing that tomorrow could be a better day for others and for us as a nation.   

His life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet and he died on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.  The autopsy revealed that he had the heart of a sixty-year-old.  He was thirty-nine.  That may happen when every day you decide that your life will make a contribution in the life of someone else.  And by acting on the opportunities of each brand new day he was given, Martin Luther King, Jr. began to change the face and heart of a nation.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…that one day…little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.”

Each brand new day—and the opportunities it presents—may not require that we hold a mirror before the world to show it a face of prejudice, injustice, discrimination and unspeakable hatred.  But as with each day which unfolded in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.—the days in our lives will require action.  Without our action, the day may be like just every other day, the opportunities presented to make a difference for our life and the lives of others around us may be lost forever, or at best delayed by one day.  A delay which could be a lifetime for someone else living in darkness, longing to be free, who needs to feel the hope of the sunshine of a brand new day—the hope that God intended for their lives.

“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children…will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”

The morning sun has once again broken through a long and silent night of darkness presenting us with a bright new day full of brand new opportunities.  It has happened our whole life long.  It will happen again tomorrow.

The question for today, tomorrow and the rest of our lives is this:  What will we do with it?

Your answers will be memorialized in the legacy of your life.

                                                                        In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved. 

Quotes in text from:  Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, August 28, 1963

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Romans 8: 35-39 (NKJV)

“What’s next?”  It seems like an obvious question as we move into the New Year.

The words seemed to carry an sense of expectancy as the frozen frost-filled blades of grass glistened with the golden rays of the morning sun filtering across our back yard and through the blinds of my upstairs windows.  There is a loftiness and fearlessness to the words—“What’s next?”  A dare almost, ready to fly beyond a week of sub-zero temperatures, the past year’s disappointments, old anxieties, lingering fears and ever-present doubt into a new day with its promise of new opportunities, new friendships, new challenges, and also, uncertainty.

“What’s next?”   With blinding clarity the words stop you in your tracks.

It’s a question I have too often turned away from.  Perhaps you know the feeling.  Or if we don’t turn away from it, we ask it quietly, under our breath, with a spirit of timidity, hoping no one will hear, especially ourselves. 

“What’s next?” 

Too much suspense is wrapped in whatever answer comes tumbling over the wall of whatever is around the bend.  There is a part of us that wants to retreat to where we are—better to be safe than sorry—a childhood verse from somewhere in the past reminds us. 

“What’s next?”

We remember when we asked it before, and we still remember some of the results.  The disappointment and heartache of past results are still raw, too painful and too soon, to chance another foray into a world where failure seems to be the majority rule.  But there were some good results also, and, well, here we stand ready to ask it again.

For you see “what’s next” is the only path from yesterday—through whatever is going on today—and into tomorrow.  It’s the only path from who we were—through who we are—and to who we are meant to be. 

And as we march on into a brand new year, maybe we should pause to remember that for a moment, exactly who were we meant to be?  Very simply and for all eternity—a victorious child of God. 

He had been beaten, shipwrecked and jailed and yet the Apostle Paul had the audacity to ask “What’s next?”  Or as Paul put it facing whatever was next: 

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So where do we find the courage to stand in the sunrise of each new day and boldly ask the question…“ What’s next?”  We find it in the assurance that as children of God, Christ has our future—all the way to and through eternity—in His hands.

 Think of it this way.  We are about a month away from another Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  I don’t know how many of you watched the Winter Olympics four years ago from Turin, Italy, but a story developed in those games which I have shared before.

Early on in the games, I was watching the snowboarding “half-pipe” competition one evening.  An American snowboarder, Shaun White, known as the “Flying Tomato” because of his long flowing red hair, had to fight back from a disastrous first run to make it into the finals.  He made it.  In the finals, each competitor has two runs and the best score of the two is the only one that counts to determine the Gold Medal winner.  The other score is thrown out.

Shaun’s first run of the finals was magnificent. And as he stood ready for his second run after the other competitors had already made their second runs, he was told that based upon his first score—he had won the Gold.  No matter what he did on the second run, he was the Gold Medal winner.  He didn’t even need to make the run if he chose not to.

How do you think he approached his second run with that victorious news in hand?  With timidity?  Frightened, tense, nervous?  Cautiously?  Not on your life, and neither would you.

 Instead he let it all go, with calm confidence, courage and assurance.  He knew the Gold Medal was his—no matter what he did on that run.  The result was already determined.  The victory was his. 

And his second run was a thing of beauty.  The rest of his Olympic competition, in that second run, was a thing of beauty. 

What if we approached the rest of our lives that way—beginning with this brand new day of this brand new year—knowing that the victory is ours.  I wonder what the rest of our lives would look like.  I suspect they would be a thing of beauty like Shaun White’s second run down the slopes of those Olympics.

“What’s next?” 

And then, knowing the victory is yours—no matter what happens—let it all go.  The rest of your life will be a thing of beauty—in His hands.

                                                                                    In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)

The signs said:  “Beware of Snow Cats.”  And after a ride up the mountain, a measure of courage was added to my life that day.

At approximately five feet high and eight feet wide—you couldn’t miss them.  Large warning signs strategically placed every now-and-then on the sides of the ski trails of Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colorado.  After three days of skiing—our then ten-year-old son, Nathan—pointed to one of the signs as we were riding the ski-lift to the top of the mountain, and asked, “Daddy, have you seen one yet?”

“Seen what, Nathan?”

“A Snow Cat!”  Further discussions with my young son as we rode the lift, heading to the top of Buttermilk Mountain, revealed that the “snow cats” he believed the signs were referring to were of the mountain lion, snow leopard or comparable other dangerous animal variety.  I stifled the chuckle that began to rise from within, and instead explained through a gentle smile that what the signs were referring to were the snow-plow-like machines that drove up and down the slopes packing down the snow; machines otherwise referred to as “snow cats.”

“Oh,” he breathed through a deep sigh of apparent relief.

But here’s the key for you and me to remember—despite believing that at any given moment a mountain lion or leopard could leap out of the trees and bushes while he skied down the slopes—Nathan never stopped skiing.  His courage in the face of “real danger” taught me a lot that day about the strength and courage that is within us to deal with whatever we might face in life.

If your journey was anything like mine in 2009, you faced your share of “snow cats”—real or imagined.  Whether the loss of a loved one or a much-needed job, or facing an illness that reared its ugly head again.  Perhaps you are still trying to figure out how to help your child find their way in the world, or wondering just what your real purpose in life was meant to be.

Yet here we stand, having made it through all we faced in this past year—2009, to find ourselves once again on the threshold of the beginning of a brand new year.  A year—2010—that is full of uncertainty, yet also a year jam-packed with unlimited possibility.  

A year in which you will have the chance to finally change that one habit you should have changed a long time ago.  A year where you mend a fence, build a bridge, and lift a life that needs lifting—and maybe in the process find that yours is lifted also.  A brand new year where you realize that there is no reason why you can’t do this or do that—whatever it is that you have always dreamed of doing.

A year in which you realize that you may not always get where you set out to go, you may fall short too often to keep count, or you may have to keep your eye on too many warning signs at times—but a year with unlimited potential and possibility.  And all it may take to realize things you never have realized before, to accomplish things you’ve only dreamed of up to now—is a bit of courage that allows you to just keep on skiing past all the problems, obstacles, uncertainties you and I will face.

And maybe in the process we will even come to a place where we realize, as the Apostle Paul did when he penned that verse above, that all the courage we will ever need is available in and through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

I don’t know what mountains or valleys, obstacles or uncertainties you will face in 2010.  I do know, though, that the God Who created you did so for a purpose and will be with you in whatever you face.  I don’t know what problems, disappointments or set-backs you will experience in 2010, but I do know that the God Who set the stars in the heavens has all the strength sufficient for you to overcome whatever it is.

I don’t know what scary “snow cat” moments you will face in 2010, but my suggestion; no actually, God’s suggestion to you is—to just keep on skiing, with Him.

“Beware of Snow Cats!”  Sure.  And then keep on skiing!

Happy New Year!   

                                                                                    In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2010.  Scott L. Whitaker.  All rights reserved.