Kiss the Wave

Well good morning friends, this is Dick Fault again and I'm in the house and I'm saying good morning, I don't know where you are at what time of the day this is, but it is morning here and it's a brisk morning and that's the reason I'm in the house and not on the road. It's four degrees as I speak here in Northern Colorado and it's going to be minus eight tonight so if it's all the same to you I'm hunkered down by the fire but I don't have a cup of hot chocolate yet but who knows before the day is out. I was thinking the other day about circumstances like winter in and of itself is a circumstance that I think can be restrictive. I mean unless you're a skier or ice fisherman or snow sure or something like that and here we are the week of February the second it's not that date as I speak but in a couple of days it will be and winter is so restrictive apparently that we sort of get down with watching or even celebrating a rodent yes they call them groundhogs they're part of the rodent slash squirrel family understand and so we have this day called groundhog day on February the second the groundhog has a lot of names it can be a chuck or a wood shock or a ground pig whistle pig whistler about thick wood badger marmot monax I love this one weenusk red monk and finally a land beaver there is a place in the United States of America that celebrates groundhog day big time many of you have heard of it it's called punksutani Pennsylvania about 6000 residents in the town and it's situated 85 miles northeast of Pittsburgh every February second since 1887 punksutani fill local groundhog in Pennsylvania has made his weather prediction now we need to understand that there have must have been scores and scores and scores of punksutani fills because these little critters I think have a three to six year lifespan on average so anyway every February seconds since 1887 punksutani fill emerges from his temporary home on gobblers knob located in a rural area about two miles southeast of the town folks have gathered it's a big deal it's a celebrated moment in an otherwise restrictive time if it's sunny and fill ceases shadow it said he'll we'll see six more weeks of winter if it's cloudy and he doesn't see a shadow it said to mean in early spring I've read that fills North America's most famous weather predictor but this idea goes way back beyond that hundreds of years the thing I like about February second I have two reasons actually for why I like February second one is that it's halfway through winter and that's good that makes it feel less restrictive but the big one is that Erica our eldest child was born on that day she's now the mother of four and the grandmother of four let's not dwell on that because I start feeling old so back to punksutani fill what's the big deal with punksutani fill well he comes out to apparently assess his circumstances I have a lot of experience with assessing circumstances sometimes if circumstances aren't great if I'm not careful I let them win I love that little exchange where somebody said to another person how are you doing John he said pretty good under the circumstances and I retort or what are you doing under there well what is a circumstance Merriam Webster definition is a circumstances a factor event that must be considered along with another factor event or a detail in a chain of events or conditions at a certain time and place like goblers not Pennsylvania all of us have circumstances don't so the question is since all of us face circumstances are surrounded by circumstances how do we understand them deal with them work through them or adjust to them or conquer them my days are certainly touched affected shaped by my circumstances my dream is not to be defeated by my circumstances I love this verse that were Paul 2000 years ago the Apostle Paul wrote to a congregation in northern Greece Macedonia I think specifically is where it was it's called Thessaloniki today and he writes to these folks who have gone through challenging circumstances and find themselves in challenging circumstances there under the thumb of the Roman government of foreign power their tax their all kinds of things go on this is what he says to them about circumstances rejoice always pray without ceasing give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you wow let me read that one again listen those verbs rejoice always pray without ceasing give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you boy sometimes that's hard I mean stuff comes out of left field doesn't there are tragedies there are moments in time that are totally unexpected and we have no way really of predicting what's coming around the next bend so get ready for circumstances that were not planned okay how about grief that comes from a loss any kind of loss I mean it could be the loss of employment or money or family it can be the death of a person it can be the death of a dream and it can happen to anybody any place it can happen to the most gifted people the most wealthy people the highest profile people or the less of all of those back in a moment my dear friend Mark Patterson lives in Washington DC with his wife Laura Mark is an author among other things he's written I think it's 18 books maybe a bit more than that since he was 35 he's now in his early 50s he wrote a book a couple of years back that I really gravitate to it's called win the day seven daily habits to help you stress less and accomplish more I just want to read a little bit of it to you just just a few thoughts from it these are all the thoughts on the page but it's both distillation if you will he has a chapter a section in there called kiss the wave and he talks about a friend who had migraines for five years and his his relief moments were just few and far between and just debilitating gone to lots of specialists and Mark said I asked him how he's managed the pain and the emotions the go with it he said I've learned to kiss the wave I must have given him a quizzical look so my friend explained he was quoting Charles Spurgeon and will come to him in a moment I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me back against the rock of ages I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages kissing the wave doesn't mean we don't experience storms or get seasick during them what it means is that when circumstances come up that we can't handle or navigate or get around easily we need to accept them you can't move past the pain if you ignore it or hide it or deny it it goes on to talk about things that he and his wife Laura have experienced and I was there years ago when he went through a near death experience with that required great surgery and things like that and then more recently Laura his wife experienced breast cancer and went through a whole series of protocols for a long time and she's doing well now and we're grateful for that but kissing the wave is confessing what's wrong in this case cancer he says but it's also professing what's right God's healing power for Laura the healing process began with a brave question she stumbled across while reading a poem about illness what have you come speaking to God what have you come to teach me when we find or the circumstance maybe she's speaking to the circumstances when we find ourselves in difficult situations we get so focused on getting out of them that we failed to get anything out of them and it puts us in the space of repeating that thing so if you want to win the day batterson says you've got to kiss the wave the mid 1800s were the grand days if we could say it that way of the british empire that phrase the son never sets on the british empire because of all of its tentacles and colonies and all of that on october 19th 1856 Charles Spurgeon young man was preaching to 10,000 people in London surrogarden's musical when someone yelled fire it was pure panemonium those trained to get into the building block those trying to get out in a balcony collapse beneath the stampede and by the time the commotion was quelled seven people had died and 28 were seriously injured he came to a place Charles Spurgeon where he could hardly preach following that and for quite some time the story goes on the very sight of a bible caused Charles Spurgeon to cry when he finally stepped back into the pulpit where he had last preached painful emotions flooded his soul and they never went away 25 years after the Surrey Hall disaster Spurgeon was speaking to a gathering of the Baptist union when something about the setting trigger to flashback that left him speechless for many minutes fascinating thing about this is that at the time of the fire Charles Spurgeon was only 22 years old he was the newly installed pastor of what would become the largest church in the world metropolitan tabernacle plus he was 10 months married with twin boys who were days old now few people have advanced the kingdom of god quite like Charles Spurgeon along with pastoring the largest church in the world he wrote 150 books started a college and led 66 charities mark sort of on the backstroke says makes me wonder what he did during all his spare time but despite all his successes Spurgeon was marked by melancholy he would have severe bouts of depression my spirits were sunken solo that I could weep by the hour like a child he says and yet I knew not what I went for grief is depression and proportion to circumstance say dr Andrew Solomon it's a good thing it's a god thing god is the one who created us with tear ducts but emotions like grief can be inflated or deflated just like our memories so go ahead in this moment of time if you're grieving do that it's one way we kiss the wave if you try to shortcut it it will shortcut your soul I like the last line in this paragraph that my friend Mark writes the good news we don't grieve as those who have no hope winter physical winter tends to be a set of circumstances that I don't like but just around the corner there's new life there's spring out of death is a resurrection out of those brown leaves that hang down or are skitter across the streets there's life coming let me say it again with Paul who had gone through tons of circumstances wrote rejoice always pray without ceasing give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of god in Christ Jesus for you that last phrase is interesting what's in the will of god in Christ Jesus for you I submit it's that we're not to rejoice and pray and give thanks for all circumstances I think the emphasis is on the verbs how do we kiss the waves we rejoice always pray without ceasing give thanks in all circumstances for those three things rejoicing praying thanking is the will of god for me don't stop rejoicing don't stop praying give thanks in that's it for now dig forth on the way out this nippy day we pray you have a grand week and we'll see you next time God bless