As a pastor in a college town, over the last 15 years I’ve officiated at well over a hundred weddings.  I’ve had brides come down the aisle to the Buddy Holly song, “Peggy Sue” — her name.  I’ve had groomsmen empty out pockets full of stuff before they finally found the ring.  I’ve had unity candles that simply wouldn’t light, bridesmaids and groomsmen faint — one guy fainted twice.  I’ve done outdoor weddings and a wedding in a barn.  There was a Turkish wedding and a Chinese wedding.  There have been simply weddings with just family and a elaborate weddings that cost somebody their retirement.

But every wedding, at which I’ve been privileged to play a part — has had generous amounts of laughter and celebration.  Because a wedding is a celebration and a healthy marriage requires laughter.  So when a friend of mine – thanks Sean – passed this video on.  I couldn’t resist passing it on to you.  I smiled.  I hope you do as well.  After you smile — if  you are married — go out and do something fun with your spouse.  (By the way, Sarah and Katy — as a father with no moves, I understand why the bride danced alone. :)

My first church was in Grove City, MN.  For about five and a half years Grove City was my home.  Two towns over in Darwin resides The World’s Largest Ball of Twine. This amazing string thing stands 11 feet tall, measures 40  feet around and weighs 8.7 tons.  Francis Johnson spent 29 years winding twine into a ball that like the Energizer Bunny, just kept on growing and growing…  Johnson, a bachelor, (go figure) with a lot of time (and twine) on his hands, started his project in 1950 and didn’t quit till 1979.  “He was 74 years old,” says nephew Harlan and “he just couldn’t handle it anymore.”

In 1958 when it appeared on the TV show “I’ve Got a Secret, it was a mere 6000 pounds with an estimated 930 miles of string.  21 years, 10,000 pounds and 2000 miles later…it was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest string ball in the world.  I can’t help but wonder…

At what point in his life did Francis realize he had a dream…a purpose…at what point did he aim his sights for the largest ball of twine in the world?

At least he aimed at something — that’s a step ahead of some of us.  I am a big believer in setting goals; one of the lessons I’ve learned in life is that if we aim for nothing.. we’ll get it.  I’ll never forget one morning, when I was about 13.  It was the opening morning of duck season, and I was alone in a slew patiently waiting for the ducks to start flying in.  I shouldn’t say I was patiently waiting, actually I was quite impatient.  So I began playing with my gun; a single shot with a hammer.  Yep I was playing with the hammer, pulling it back, releasing it, pulling it back. One time I forget to release it, and left it cocked; forgot it was cocked and pulled the trigger.  The gun roared, and scared the..whatever out of me as the gun went flying through the air to land about 20 feet behind me.  My heart quit beating.  Dad was too far away to see what had happened, he just heard the shot.  But I have a sneaking suspicion he knew what had happened as he hollered out in his deep voice, “Did you get Dan, Did you get it?”  There was no it to get, but I guess you could say I got what I was aiming at, nothing.

So what are you aiming for — in life?  The Living Bible paraphrase of I Corinthians 14:1 reads, “Make Love Your Greatest Aim.”   What would that look like in  your life if you made love your aim?

James 3:13-18 gives a decent picture of that target.  Make love your aim.  We could certainly do worse.

I’ve been watching the Tour De France lately.  Don’t know why.  The last bike I rode, I rode one-way, then called Lynn and asked her to come pick me up.  I’m not a huge Lance Armstrong fan, though I have to admit, it tickles me a little bit to see the French worry that he might win again.  But I’ve been learning some life-lessons through the Tour.

For example, you could get beat every stage and still win the tour, as long as it’s not the same person beating you every time!  On the other hand, you will never win if you never distance yourself from the crowd (the pelaton).  Everyone in the pelaton scores the same.  Some people are good in the mountains, some in the sprints, even in the Tour, the team matters.

But here is the main life-lesson the tour is illustrating for me.  The tour is won on the uphill climb.  It’s very difficult to gain time going downhill.  On the downhill everyone gets to enjoy gravity’s pull and the upper limit of speed is limited to some extent by safety and the conditions of the road.  But going uphill strength, condition and the perseverance of will determine the speed.  Sooner or later, the race is won going uphill.

Few of us live for the uphill climbs of life.  We would rather enjoy the downhill moments where all the conditions are right for low-effort speed, but the greater gains come in the uphill seasons — as long as we have good strength of mind, condition of heart, and perseverance of will (don’t give up).  So when James (the brother of Jesus) wrote “Consider it pure joy when you fall into seasons of difficulty,” what he meant was, “the race is won going uphill.”

Are you in the uphill portion of your tour?  Don’t give up.  Now’s your chance.

Do you have favorite things?  Most of us do — favorite foods, favorite moments, favorite people, favorite stories.  We — the Nolds — just got a box in the mail today from “The Online Candy Shop.”  It contained one of our favorite foods — Duncan Hines Bakery-Style Blueberry Streusel Muffins with crumb topping. Don’t laugh if you haven’t tried them.  We can’t find them in the store anymore so we googled and ordered.  We have another 18 boxes coming.  Breakfast delight.

What are your favorite things?  I love watching the sun set over the pond at Harvest Fields.  Lately a favorite thing is dinner on the back patio with my family.  Jeep drives with my wife…and my new gps (that’s a post for another time.)

One of my other favorite things is watching people get it when it comes to servanthood.

I have one guy who won’t quit sending me e-mails until we get him a nursing home where he can serve the elderly.  I spent time yesterday talking to a young woman who has given her life to serve as a teacher and church leader in Kurdish Iraq.  Meanwhile I responded on facebook to a dentist who is taking vacation to do dental work in the Dominican Republic and I keep getting updates from a team of people serving in Rwanda.  Last Saturday a team of people from Calvary showed up to help a family move — seemed like there were about a hundred!

I loved watching my kids get it when we wen to Myanmar to serve at the orphanage.  My wife has “had it” for a long time, I just love watching her in action.  This week both of my sons are joining 90-100 teens and leaders from seven different congregations from Centre County, to spend the week serving the community.  (Check out the CDT story HERE).  We call it SOS — summer of service.  For many of them, this will be their summer camp experience.  They do some Bible stuff in the morning and then go serve the rest of the day — and I’m confident that if they don’t get it on day 1, by the end of the week, they will.  And when they do — it’s one of my favorite things.

So don’t forget to take some time this summer to “get it.”  Find a place, or find a person to serve.  You may find that it becomes one of  your favorite things.

A couple of Thanksgivings ago, my mom and dad hosted a home burning.  The house I grew up in was old before I was born and after seeing five kids go from the terrible twos to the rambunctious eight’s all the way through the mind-blowing teens — it was ancient.  When my grandfather died, they inherited his house (he built on their property) so they no longer needed their old home.  So they hosted a home burning.  They let the grandkids spend a day wrecking the house — a kid’s dream — then they started a fire.

I have to tell you it was a somewhat unreal experience standing around watching the home you grew up in burn down.  But it was also a fascinating experience to watch the fire.  It almost seemed to be alive, they way it moved, rolled, snaked around beams and enveloped walls.  And then it was done, the house was gone.  It didn’t take days, it didn’t even take hours — and it was gone.

I have those pictures in my mind this week as I read James 3:5-6.

In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself. (NLT)

The destructive ability of words should cause us to be slow to speak and quick to listen and slow to get angry.  The destructive ability of words should lead us to compliment more frequently, say thank you more often, and speak kind words every chance we get.  The destructive ability of words should cause us to think twice before we speak once — and never use e-mail to solve a conflict.  I have watched words burn marriages.  I have watched words scar kids.  I have watched words destroy friendships.  I have watched words corrupt someone’s image of Jesus.

I still remember words that hurt.  The burn can make a mark that lasts a long time.  The only thing that can heal this fire from hell is the cool water of grace.  The way you let that cool water flow is through forgiveness. Let it flow.

We are making our way through the book of James at Calvary.  James is one of those guys that I want to hang out with in heaven.  First I want to ask him what it was like to be the brother of Jesus.  But then I just want to listen to him talk about life, I’m pretty sure that even though it would be heaven — I would learn a lot and grow even more.  He tells it like it is and does so with a heart that wants us to grow.

If you read through James, you will find that one of the passions of his heart is community — living in community.  In fact I think James would say, “No community — no growth.”  There are all sorts of reasons… why we need community if we want to grow… for example it’s very easy for me to sit alone and convince myself that I’m a pretty humble guy.  But when I get in a group and hear someone else receiving the praise — I hear this little voice inside me that struggles with humility.

All alone, I can convince myself of all the goodness in my heart, but when I commit to community… sooner or later in community, we get to the sin issues.

Can I tell you another reason why authentic community leads to growth?  Because one of God’s greatest tools for growth is pain and suffering, right?  The phrase, “No Pain, No Gain” is true in spiritual growth as well as physical.  In Romans 5, Paul lays out the process of growth, tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance produces character.

You’re thinking… What does pain and suffering have to do with community?  Oh come on… one of God’s greatest tools for pain and suffering is…people!  The people in your life are going to help you grow by making you suffer, or at least by making you a little uncomfortable.

Some of you are nodding as you read.  In everyone’s life there is somebody who is just a little off.  They are heavenly sandpaper.  Rick Warren calls them EGR’s.. extra-grace-required.  Somebody (an egr) is probably coming to your mind at this moment — and if nobody is coming to your mind, you might be coming to someone else’s!  :)

But the real truth is…when we get deep into community, we find that we are all egr’s.  And that’s okay because it’s part of God’s plan for us to grow. Authentic Community leads to growth and God’s Plan A for growth is people.  Can’t do it on your own.  Can’t walk the path God has laid out for us on our own.   We have to do it together. I grew up thinking that when it came to heart change, when it came to becoming more like Jesus, the ideal way for that to happen was for God to supernaturally zap me.   “Okay God, I’m ready…here I am…zap my heart…change me…all at once…supernaturally…”  I grew up thinking that was God’s Plan A.  But the longer I live and the more I study the Bible, the more I realize that God’s Plan A is to use people…You won’t grow on your own…and when God uses people in your life to help you grow it’s not because he doesn’t have time for you, it’s because that’s the best way.

As Henry Cloud writes in his book How People Grow,

I was waiting for God to give me his grace through supernatural zapping; he was giving it to me through his people.  I was waiting for him to speak to me directly; he was speaking through his people.  I was waiting for him to give me direction in life; he was the strength behind the direction people were giving me.

Who are God’s Plan A people for you?

Jessie and Eric died this week — a couple of seniors, involved in the Navigators campus ministry at PSU, came to Calvary a few times, but actively involved at New Hope Community Church.  Jessie was an architectural student who helped make a model of Harvest Fields and our future facility.  My daughter Sarah was in a Bible study with her.

Eric and Jessie were on their way to a wedding and there was a car accident.  Not the way it’s supposed to happen is it?  Somebody goes off to war, we understand the risks.  We hear the word cancer and we know we may be facing the condition of dying.  But two young people enjoying time together on the way to the celebration of life that we call a wedding?  They are not supposed to start the day living the last moments of life.

I won’t pretend to understand the “why” and I’m convinced that even if there was a “why” and someone could understand it — it wouldn’t make a single friend or family member feel better.  My faith and the Bible do not always specialize in the “why” but they do offer much in the “how.”  How do we make it through junk like this?

I think of two things that might help me make it through junk like this…

1) Live in the moment.  I cannot choose how I will die, but I can choose how I will live.  I do not know how many moments I have left in my life, but I can choose what I do with the moments I have.  It’s a cheesy question — until you are faced with the reality of death — but what would you do with today, if today was your last?  What actions?  What conversations?  What experiences?  What are you doing with your time?

2) Live for the moments to come.  What I mean is that my destination affects my journey.  Believing that “the best is yet to come” shapes the meaning of my moments in the here and now.  My faith in the resurrection of Jesus gives me hope for a future that extends beyond death.  That hope in what is to come, empowers my life now.  Jess and Eric believed that the best was yet to come and now they know it is true.  Where are you placing your faith?

About 10 days ago, (July 2) in another post I wrote these words,

I don’t feel compelled to understand the full depths of the mystery of why crap happens – why bad things happen to good people.. or for that matter why good things happen to bad people. But I will say that life is a gift and every day that we are given should be lived with the sense of God’s calling us into life – his will. And for the Christian, death is a defeated enemy that seeks to steal joy but in the end is nothing more than a doorway to more life.

As a parent, I can’t imagine what Eric and Jessie’s family are going through at this moment… words are not adequate.  My prayers are with them.  But for the little that I knew them and from what I have heard from others who knew them better, I say thank you to those parents for the part they played in raising two young people who lived in the moment and lived for the moments to come.

In heaven we will dance with whole hearts, until then we are all just dancing cripples…

Ran into a couple of blogs recently that you might enjoy — both are by current or former Calvary attenders.  Steve Lutz is involved in campus ministry at Penn State, a great thinker, passionate about God.  His blog is called The Sentinel. Sarah Hoover is the other blogger.  She is a “self-professed home engineer who loves her motorcycling husband.”  Her blog is directed at women who desire to grow in their relationship with Jesus.  The blog is called Like a Warm Cup of Coffee.

Just click the title and check them out when you get a chance.

So Lynn and I went jogging today — 3.4 miles.  I didn’t really like it.  I mean I enjoyed being with her, but jogging stinks.  A friend introduced me to a place called the Fitness Circuit, in fact he paid for me to go for a few months.  (Somewhat off the topic, but good advice — Husbands never buy your wife a membership to any kind of fitness thing, unless she asks.  Even then argue with her for awhile about the fact that she really doesn’t need it.)  So anyway I go to the Fitness Circuit a few times a week.

These guys get paid to make me do things I would never do on my own, because the morning after the only muscles I can feel — hurt.  I even go to the Y.  Which sometimes in my mind should be spelled “whY?”  At the whY — I have gone as far as 6.4 miles on the treadmill — yes all in one evening.  But here’s the deal about a treadmill, you run all that time and you end up in exactly the same spot as you started.

And of course I weigh myself daily — sometimes if Lynn will let me — multiple times a day.  Someone once said that when you’re trying to get in shape, the scale is not your friend.  Which is good because I’ve thought some really bad thoughts about my scale.  One day it tells me I lost 1 pound, the next day I gained 2.  It toys with me.  Anyway, I’m doing all this because I’m trying to “get in shape.”  I’ve lost almost 20 pounds.  Well actually I’ve lost about 35, but one of those pounds I think I’ve lost and found about 35 times.

But I have to be honest, I have at times prayed, “God couldn’t  you just zap me?  You know some kind of miraculous lipo-suction?”  I mean I believe that God can heal diseases and my fat is a disease.  But so far he hasn’t done that.  I think he’s going to make me get in shape little by little, even though I wish he would do it lots by lots.  I guess he feels that there is something I need to learn in the process, that when it comes to getting in shape, the journey is somehow just as important as the destination.

So why is it that we think it’s any different with our hearts?  With our character?  Why is it that we keep asking God to do a miraculous sin-po-suction that will give our hearts the shape of Jesus — right now?  Do you suppose that little by little, learning in the process, persevering in the disappointments, 1 pound better, then 2 pounds worse, is his best way of getting our hearts in shape?

I won’t give up — shaping my body — or my heart?

How’s the shape of your heart?

Looks can be deceiving.  My grandfather John Nold got polio when he was young…it left him somewhat crippled.  Every memory I have of him includes a cane and a shoe with a steel leg brace.  He didn’t get around too fast or too well…but he knew how to use that cane.  More than once I thought I was getting away with something only to be caught by the hook at the end of his cane.  But even more than using a cane, my grandfather knew how to tell a story.  I remember going out to his trailer before school.  I would sit with him and watch for the bus.  I was probably 7 or 8.  He would give me coffee and tell me a story.

All sorts of stories he would tell, the ones I enjoyed most were his road-adventure stories; following the harvest, riding the rail, meals with hobos.  As a young boy there wasn’t much better than Grandpa’s stories.  Through them my Grandpa left me a bit of wanderlust.  As I grew up I found that my favorite stories had to do with the adventure of the journey, the freedom of the road.  I dreamed for about Huck Fin and his river raft.  I even tried to build one — couldn’t get it to float.  My favorite show was and still is Star Trek and it’s “on going mission” to seek out adventure and knowledge at the edge of the universe.  (Loved the new movie by the way.)  This wanderlust hasn’t always confined itself to the safer activities of the mind.  In college I hitchhiked home once.  200 miles in a light rain on the back of a Harley Davidson with a guy who stopped about every 20 miles for a Budweiser.  I learned to pray on the back of that Harley with an urgency that I had not known in a prayer meeting.

Anyway as a kid I idolized Grandpa’s life on the road.  It seemed like such a life of freedom and adventure.   As I grew older and a little more perceptive, I came to realize that his life was not quite so glamorous.  His life on the road was really the journey of an alcoholic abandoning his family, leaving home for long periods of time.

His adventures were tales of a crippled man desperately running while being hopelessly imprisoned. Like he was always desperately seeking something just out of reach.

A number of years ago when I read this quote by Gilbert Bilzekian, I thought… “You know I think that was at the heart of my grandpa’s journey.  Bilzekian wrote,

“The silent churning at the core of our being is the tormenting need to know and be known, to understand & be understood,…to belong unconditionally and forever without fear of loss, betrayal or rejection.”

See what my grandfather was seeking…what we all are seeking is a love that soars.  Guys, we are looking for a Band of brothers who will watch my back and press me forward for a greater goal.  Ladies, aren’t you looking for a friend who is closer than a sister.  We want to know that we are not outside the boundaries of love.  When we get married we are hoping that we have found someone out there can love me as I am.  Our kids are looking for parents with whom they can be real and not fear rejection or ridicule.  We’re looking for a love so great that it will change us…make us better than we are…or could ever be alone.  But the problem is…sometimes we feel like that love is beyond us — we’re searching but not finding, trying but not becoming — like something is holding us back from soaring — keeping us locked up.

That’s why James words in James 2 really grab me.  You will have to read the whole context or listen to my whole sermon (just click —

) but here is the statement that made me stop and think.  James writes,  “So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free.” ( James 2:12)  Whoa.  Now how many of us would typically imagine a scenario that would call for the words “judged,” “law,” and “free” to be in the same sentence?   We would tend to imagine judged-law-prison combos.

What James is saying here is that none of us measure up to this kind of love and none of us can love without messing up.   When it comes to the higher calling — when it comes to a love that soars — all of us get grounded — all of us get messed up.  So what do we do?  James says — there is a law that will set us free.

If we want to soar with a higher calling of love…we must embrace the law that sets us free.  We must embrace the law of mercy.  James 2:13 “So speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been
merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!”  James 2:12-13

We must let those words roll around in our hearts.  Let them saturate your world and change the way you look at life.  This is not a unity vs. truth law…this is a practical love law.  Mercy triumphs over judgment.  Mercy beats judgment.  If life is a game of poker, a hand of mercy beats a hand of judgment every time.  If life is a journey mercy is the gps and judgment is the wrong direction.  Mercy is the air that gives flight to our dreams and judgment is the ballast that keeps us from soaring.

Mercy — what is mercy?  Mercy is forgiveness.   Mercy is showing compassion.  Mercy is helping those who are in need.  In the Old Testament of the Bible, it is often translated as “lovingkindness.”

What would it look like in your life, if you embraced the law of mercy?  Where do you need mercy extended in your life?  To whom in your life do you need to extend mercy?

Like crippled people desperately running, we embrace the law of mercy and become dancing cripples.