We're helpers

We’re helpers

(you may cry reading this I did relaying part of it to my wife.)

A few years ago I watched this G.I. Joe cartoon and there is a conversation that takes place on one episode and it goes like this.  “Some of em never learn.”  “Nope, some of em never do.  It’s the ones we can help that get us out of bed in the morning.”  That last part is something that personally fuels me.  If you have ever read a Spider-Man comic or watched the movies you know that his motto is “With great power comes great responsibility.”  We as Christians are called to help and love others.  I want to tell you a little about my Tuesday night at work.  See you learn quickly on doing any form of customer service you can’t help everyone.  I had this lady call needing to tow her car.  This is the text I sent Marion.  

“ I can’t help everyone but I got one lady help.  She was going to be stranded in her car overnight and didn’t want to tow the vehicle till she had a way home and was going to have to sleep in her car in 13 degree weather.  I contacted the non emergency police to send a deputy to help her while another agent set up her tow.”

Later on in the night I dealt with a lady who had an autistic son with her she was just needing a tow.  We were limited on the ability to help since she could only be towed to a dealership otherwise she would have to pay.  She had no card to pay and just wanted to get her and her son home.  This lady was crying multiple times during the call.  Now what most of you don’t know is I have a nephew who is autistic.  She said her son wasn’t verbal and he was scared.  She was scared.  She tells me this whole story about how the company she got the car from had basically been rude and verbally abusive to her. They told her because she was on social security and a single mother that she was a nobody.  That angered both me and my supervisor. This call was an emotional roller coaster for me. I did as much as I could to help I was going to walk away till she said she was going to newspapers and social media to complain about this car company.  I went and told my supervisor.  So she came and helped and we found a way to help her.  I set up the tow and called the tow truck company personally and explained the situation.  Things nearly took a turn for the worse because the dealership we were taking the car to was permanently closed as in the facility no longer existed. So I’m getting this info from the dispatcher and we find another location in another city.  He tells me what they’re going to do is tow the vehicle but first they’re going to take the lady and her son to Denny’s near her house and get her an Uber ride so she can get home before they drop off the car.  I get off the phone with him and she called back and another agent transfers her back to me because I’ve become the one who knows everything on the case and she only wants to talk to me.  So I explain to her the plan we have in place and she asks for my name and tells me “You’re the only person at (can’t say the car company name) who has ever been nice to me.”  

You and I we all interact with different people in different ways.  God has given us gifts to use and we may be the only person to have ever been nice to someone else.  We’re on a rescue mission to bring others to Christ.  

Galatians 6:9-10

“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.  So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.  

Proverbs 24:11

“Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back.”  

2 Peter 3:9

“The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness but is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

God has you and I connecting in different ways to people so we can point them to him.  We need to act according to the fruit of the Spirit.  

Galatians 5:22-23

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control; against such things there is no law.”

Exhale by Plumb

Real Thing by 4 Him 

Live to tell by Geoff Moore and the Distance 

Dare to be different by DeGarmo and Key

Hope is a person named Jesus Christ

Hope is a person named Jesus Christ

There’s a supervisor at my job who goes around yelling, “Make sure to use your power words.”  Me being born in 19 diggety two I mean 1976 my sense of humor takes it a different direction.  I think of Chuck Norris and By the Power of Greyskull.  But I want to show you the power and hope in Christ Jesus.  There’s an old song called They Could Not that Sandi Patty sings and I want you to look at these lyrics. I may actually involve a few songs in this blog.  

“So finally upon a rugged cross they killed the man who would not suffer loss and when at last they took from Him what willingly he gave He died, but could they keep him in the grave they could not, they could not!  Praise God they could not!”  

1 Corinthians 1:18

“For the Word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

We couldn’t save ourselves from our sins.  None of us ever will be able to the debt could only be paid by the sacrifice of God’s only son.  

2 Corinthians 5:21 says this 

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

We can’t make it through life on our own we depend of God and we have to seek Him for help.  

2 Corinthians 12:9

“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’  Most gladly therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

John 16:33

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

“So be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might

Put on all his armor and fight the good fight

In all of our weakness He becomes so strong 

When he gives us the power and the strength to carry on.”

I heard it once said that “Hope can sometimes be a four letter word.”  But if your hope is in Jesus it is in the right place because not even death could keep Him down.  Where are you placing your hope?   If it’s in people, pleasure, money anything other than God they will let you down.  

Psalm 27:1-3

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread?  When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.  Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war rise against me, in spite of all this I shall be confident.”  

“Because He lives I can face tomorrow 

Because He lives, all fear is gone

Because I know He holds the future 

And life is worth the living just because I know He lives.”

Psalm 62:1-2

“My soul waits in silence for God only; From Him is my salvation.  He only is my rock and salvation.  My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken.”

Highest Hope by RlF 

Because He Lives by David Crowder

More Power to Ya by Petra 

They Could not by Sandi Patty 

The Day he wore my Crown by Sandi Patty 

Strong Tower by Newsboys 

My Savior lives by Desperation Band

For all the world by Sandi Patty

Rise again by Dallas Holm

We need help!

We need help!

People have made the assumption about me over the years that I don’t want to help people because I have been known to get frustrated taking calls at a call center.  I have worked in restaurants, call centers and as a security guard.  I do a blog about hope.  I read comics about people getting help.  I have a hero’s compulsion.  Me not wanting to help people couldn’t be further from the truth.  The last two days I’ve had some extremely stressful days at work.  I want to help people but to do so I have to ask questions and do certain things that require their attention and involvement.  You can’t just call and say you need roadside assistance and poof it happens.  My coworkers and I need to know where you are and what the problem is.  God created us to depend on Him.  Like a customer though we throw calf slobbering fits we don’t pay attention we let our pride get in the way.  The Bible is God’s love letter to us and we don’t make time for it.  If you read the commission of Isaiah God sends him but it’s with a warning.  

Isaiah 6:8-10

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,’Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’  Then I said’Here am I, send me!’  He said, ‘Go and tell this people: Keep on listening, but do not perceive: Keep on looking, but do not understand.’  Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their hearts full, and their eyes dim.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their minds.’”  

God sends him but warns him they aren’t going to understand.  Moses is told you go to Pharaoh and told that his heart is going to be hardened.  Through the Old Testament over and over God sends prophet after prophet trying to get the people of Israel to turn back to him.  Roadside assistance dispatchers and people doing customer service are trained to keep conversations focused on the issue at hand and actively listen to what is said so we can help.  You don’t enter that type of job without wanting to help.  I still want to help people contrary to popular belief.  God has proven over and over through scripture no matter how stupid and arrogant we as humans act he still loves us and wants to help us.  We’ve got to get our heads out of our own stupidity and seek him.  

Psalm 103:8 

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.”  

God even loved us when we were his enemies.  

Romans 5:8

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”  

We need help and we need to seek God!  Not just one person but all of us.  I pray often lately asking God to keep me from hating my customers because he doesn’t hate me and he created me and them.  It’s easy to become negative about what you do because it’s so repetitive and draining but God gave his own son’s life to redeem us.  It doesn’t make sense to be loved with such extravagant love but he calls us to be broken and come to him with our messes.  

“I’m falling apart 

I’m barely breathing 

With a broken heart 

That’s still beating 

In the pain

There is healing 

In your name

I find meaning 

So I’m holding on.  I’m holding on I’m holding on

I’m barely holding on to you.”  

God longs for us to turn to him.  In roadside assistance we have to ask for the disablement location and that is usually the hardest thing to get from people because they have to admit they are disabled and in need of help.  God knows where we’re at but he can’t help us if we don’t turn to him.  

I say often that this song changed completely the way I pray.  You hear people pray in churches with flowery language and stuff that to the hearer doesn’t always makes sense but I want you to see the words from Margaret Becker’s song Honesty.  It’s more like the story of the sinner who went up to the temple to pray.  

“God’s not afraid of you honesty 

He can heal your heart if you speak honestly 

Humble sorrow and an honest cry 

He will not pass by”

Nothing to hide by Geoff Moore and the Distance 

Sing along by Christy Nockels 

Honesty by Margaret Becker 

Broken by Lifehouse 

God is faithful by Sheila Walsh 

Holding on by Twila Paris

Reckless love by Kari Jobe

Without the love of Jesus by Point of Grace

Oh the thoughts I'd be thinking

Oh the thoughts I’d be thinking

We as humans have good and bad thoughts and perhaps when you read that title you went straight to the Wizard of Oz song “If I only had a brain.”  It’s called a hook I wanted to get your attention.  We as humans think a lot and not all of it is good.  But I read something I think we need to think on.  My Bible says that this chapter Psalm 48 is by the sons of Korah the temple assistants.  These people saw sacrifices day in and day out.  It’s easy to attend church so much and see so much there can be a redundancy you feel and you lose connection with why you’re there at all.  I recently was driving on Ocean Drive and you pass a few churches.  I mean big massive buildings and I had the thought of “do these people attending services here really connect with God.”  It’s easy to just show up and not have your heart and thoughts right.  Maybe my thoughts about this weren’t right either.   The sons of Korah though these guys got it right.  

Psalm 48:9-10

“We have thought on your loving kindness, O God, in the midst of your temple.  As is your name, O God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth; your right hand is full of righteousness.”  

Put your thoughts back on God where they belong.  Don’t get lost in the architecture.  Look around outside this week and see God’s creation and thank him for it.  Remember why you go to that building to praise God and learn about Him.  There’s a picture that sometimes floats around on Facebook that says “It’s Sunday time to get my praise on.”  Theologically it’s not a good thing. See it brings me to these questions.  Why do you only praise God on Sunday? Where are your thoughts the rest of the week? There’s enough Christian music out there you can lift praise to your King anytime and anywhere not just in a church building.  If that’s the only time you seek and praise God you might want to take a closer look at the relationship you claim to have with Him because Sunday ain’t enough.  

I see you/ Step by step/ Doxology by Rich Mullins 

52:10 by Rich Mullins 

Sing your praise to the Lord by Amy Grant

Song to the King by Natalie Grant 

There is nothing by Laura Story 

Praise the King by Cindy Morgan 

Empty my hands by Tenth Avenue North