It's Friday...tomorrow is going to be a good day...

In recent years I have really tried to live in the now instead of in the past or the future. I am a planner and I try to have things figured out before I get there...but I found myself always looking forward and not enjoying what I was doing right now as much as I could have. 

I said that to make you understand why putting the title on this post as, "It's Friday...tomorrow is going to be a good day..." was difficult for me! I know that tomorrow is going to be a good day, I am going on my first event as a Singles Pastor. We're going to Magic Springs where we will ride roller coasters and go down water slides all day. Then at night we are going to see Relient K in concert at the park! It will be a good day so my title is not a lie but what about today?

I am of the opinion that almost any day can be a good day and it takes something really out of the ordinary to "make" a day a bad day. Lots of things can happen on any given day. People can be rude, you can get cut off in traffic, people can prove once again that they are not capable of doing their job, it can be too hot, rain too much...the list can go on and on...but I say that these things don't control whether your day is good or bad. I say that you can choose to have a good day despite all the little things that come up to annoy your or bring you down. 

Above my desk when I worked in a mail room as the production manager (not a glamorous place to work or an exciting job) I had above my desk a quote. The quote was:

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it”. Charles R. Swindol

Now I was faced EVERY day with chances to have a bad attitude or let things bring me down. I was working full time while I went to school. This meant that I started work at 6am and worked until 8am, I showered and changed clothes then went to school for three hours and came back to work after a quick lunch. I would then work for 6 more hours before I went home. I did this for 9 months. Some people may say that this doesn't sound so bad. Well the crew that I had at that time in the mail room was less than stellar! Several times I went to my boss and asked him to just let everyone go and I would do all of their job until he hired more people. I was constantly having to write people up for childish behavior or for simply not doing their job. This was NOT the perfect working environment and yet I consider it to be one of my happiest years ever! I built friendships that are still strong and I learned valuable lessons not the least of which was patience.

Today I am in a very different place. I am in Arkansas for one thing, that is different enough! Then I went from a "mega-church/ministry" to a community driven church. The structure is different, the procedures are different and sometimes I sit back and say to myself, "Is that REALLY how we do this here?" The difference in administration is huge and the people are all doing things the way they were doing things before I got here. I am supposed to fit into their way of doing things and if you know me then you know that this is a bit of a challenge. All of these factors and many more make this place and this job something that could cause me to have a good day or a bad day depending on how everything plays out for each day.

So far I have been here for a month and a couple days and I have had 30 minutes where I let myself get upset and frustrated. I was over it as quick as it showed up. It was me and not the situation that turned my morning into a "bad morning" so quickly. Once I saw it, I changed it. When I was working retail we had a big push in one of the companies to "Choose your attitude." That day I didn't choose my attitude when I walked in the door but I got it straight and things are going smooth now.

Now you might be asking yourself why I am telling you all this. There are two main reasons:

1. It helps me to keep my perspective when I write things down.

2. Maybe you had a rough day and you need to be reminded to choose your attitude.

I don't want someone to pat me on the back and say, "Nice job Michael, you really have this attitude thing down!" That is NOT the goal, I am a work in progress as I know you are too. I just want to remind you that it is possible to change how you react to situations.  Smile at someone today when you don't feel like smiling. If you do that enough you will actually start to "feel" like smiling.

This made me think...

"Christians should definitely not read fiction. They risk opening their minds to vain imaginations and puffing themselves up with knowledge. Who knows what they might be emboldened to do? Engage their atheistic neighbors in conversation? Take a stand against social injustice? Travel to heathen countries and mingle with uncivilized people groups? The world is a broken place, and we can’t risk the possibility of story painting pictures that open the eyes of Christians to its pain. Think what might happen if we do!"

A quote from Memoirist Jeanne Damoff via the article Why Should Christ-Followers Read Fiction? - Prison Fellowship (Mary DeMuth)
I read mostly non-fiction. Not because I am against fiction, simply because I have found some great books that have helped me get closer to being the man I want to be when this is all over. I have read a good amount of fiction in my life and I don't remember when I switched from reading for fun to reading for information. Either way, that isn't what this quote made me think about.
This quote stopped me and made me take a look at the article it was pulled from (there is a hyper-link so you can read the article too) because I have heard Christians in the past several years come down on other Christians for spending time reading fiction...especially fiction that wasn't a "Christian" novel like The Shack. I have heard it referred to as a waste of time and carnal on more than one occasion. 
One thing I try no never do is judge someone. We all know that there are right and wrong things to do and we also know that love should rule our actions, especially when it comes to dealing with other Christians. It seems to me somewhere that non-Christians are supposed to know us by our love for one another. Sometimes I wonder where that love has gone and then I remember the times I have fallen short.

* I had several pages written and I decided to delete it. This subject doesn't deserve the time I have already put into it. Just remember that if you let love rule what you say and what you do and we will all be better off.

I've been in Arkansas for almost a month...

Actually last month today was my last day at my old job.  It was a bittersweet day. I really enjoyed my old job at KHM and I had a lot of good friends (and my Dad) that I was leaving behind when I moved to Arkansas. 

One thing that wasn't bittersweet was that I was going to be a full time minister. For the first time in my life I don't have to have another job in order to be on staff at a church. This has been a goal of mine since I was young...well younger...depending on how you look at my age now.  :)  

I started telling people I wanted to be a minister when I was 4 or 5 years old. At that time no one in my family was in the ministry or even talking about it. It was something that was not expected and as I grew up it wasn't something that a lot of people understood. I am a regular guy and that makes people think that I shouldn't or couldn't be serious about being a minister. I have had more than one friend say that they couldn't see me as a minister and recently I had someone tell me that they couldn't see me as a pastor because I wasn't like any pastor that they ever knew.

So far all of the people who felt that this couldn't be my calling in life haven't had any real experience with any actual pastors. They may have gone to church a few times but none of them were very close to their "pastors".

I am not sure what exactly people expect me to act like in order to be a pastor.  I am real with people and I try to walk in love. I don't know what else I need to do. I have had times in my life when I did things that I don't think are right and if you had asked me while I was doing those things I would have told you they weren't right. I'm human, I have made mistakes, I still make mistakes and bad decisions...but I am doing my best not to keep making mistakes or bad decisions.

No one is perfect and I know I am far from it. All I can do is do my very best to build relationships with the people I come in contact with and show God's love through my life every time I get that chance. I may not do all the things that you think a pastor should do but I am always going to do my very best to live a life that is worthy of the high honor that has been given to me. I have the opportunity to speak into peoples lives, to come visit them when they are hurting, to lead by example, to challenge them to grow when they feel like they are "good enough", to mend the broken and restore them to where they once were, to assist people in becoming who they want to be. I have not taken this calling lightly in the past and I don't take it lightly now.  

Some of you who will read this know me, some of you used to know me and some of you don't know me at all.  No matter what category you fall into remember this one thing: if there is ever anything that I can do for you I will do it.  Know that I am here for you in any way that I can be.

I know this isn't my typical post but I am in a time of transition and I wanted to let you know where I was and what I was thinking.