kenlassblog

I call it “dead time”. It’s time spent waiting for something, and you are captive. For example, when you are stuck in traffic, or waiting in a doctor’s office, or waiting for a slow computer to boot up. Minutes, maybe hours, of your life pass by, and you have to fill them with something. Some folks stare at their phones, some strike up perfunctory conversations with those around them, still others just sit and ponder random thoughts.

There can be better ways to use dead time. Prayer is certainly a good one. Planning some sort of service to others could be productive. Keeping your mind busy by bringing along a crossword puzzle or a word search would be beneficial (although not while driving!). Text a sweet message to someone who could use a little attention.

Make your dead time come alive. You only get so much of it.

Dieting just isn’t fair. You work so hard to lose a few pounds, yet they come back so easily. You go through weeks walking around hungry, but if you finally sit down and reward yourself with a big meal, all of your hard effort seems to go down the drain. It gets even harder as you grow older. I guess that’s why so many folks these days resort to short cuts, taking drugs or shots to suppress their appetite.

The best and safest way to lose weight is still the old fashioned way. Eat less, exercise more. Burn more calories than you consume. The hope is that smaller, healthier portions and daily workouts will become habits and change your lifestyle. Godly living works the same way. Forcing yourself to make good decisions about your behavior, relationships and finances will hopefully become habit.

I’m working on both. People tell me I’ll get used to eating less. I’m still waiting.

Recently Sharon and I went on a riverboat lunch cruise down the Cumberland River in Nashville. The cruise was great, but for lunch we were seated at a large round table with eight other guests. Next to us was a young people that appeared to be on a date. Neither was wearing a ring so that was my assumption.

Anyway, the young man spent the entire lunch talking to his female companion. I’m not exaggerating when I say he never took a breath. He yakked non-stop about everything in his life he had ever done. Clearly he was trying to impress her. We felt sorry for the girl, who never got a word in, and could only smile and nod her head politely. He was so overbearing that I was tempted myself to butt in and say “For heaven’s sake man, ask her a question. Let her speak!”

The incident reminded me that, while we can do a lot of ministry by talking and encouraging and consoling, sometimes the best ministry is to just listen and ask the other person how they feel. That may be the best way to get a second date. I’m pretty sure this guy did not.

Well, we are heading home on our cross country car trip. Along the way we had a wonderful visit with family, and one of the highlights was getting to see friends we hadn’t seen for twenty years. How can you tell if someone is a true friend? I believe one of the ways is you pick up right where you left off with them, even if its been decades since you last saw them.

Technology makes it easier to stay in touch these days, but there’s still nothing quite like giving your loved ones a big hug and sitting across a table laughing and joking and sharing old stories with them. Gives you a warm feeling inside. Feels like the world can’t be all that bad if these special people are still around, and still value your relationship.

I’m thankful for rich friendships and the path that led us to so many incredible folks. I’m also thankful for home sweet home. Traveling is fun and adventurous, but, to quote Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home.

One thing I am sure of as we continue our car trip through the middle part of this vast country. I can assure you the trucking industry is alive and well in America. They dominate the interstates and control the flow of traffic. Especially when they decide to get out in the passing lanes. Nobody’s going anywhere fast when a big rig is passing another big rig. It can be frustrating until you realize the highways were built for them, not you. America’s infrastructure was motivated by commerce, not tourism.

So many of these huge vehicles have signs revealing they are hiring drivers. I can see why. So much isolation and monotony. You have to be a special type of person to drive these rigs across country and back again. So much power and size to control, and so many smaller vehicles constantly buzzing around you.

Lord, watch over and protect these truck drivers. Give them wisdom, alertness and skill. So many lives on the road depend on their driving.

One thing I have noticed as we drive through the heartland of America is that small cities adopt their colleges and universities as their public persona and identity. It’s the first thing they put on their welcome road signs. Paducah’s sign boasts “Home of Murray State University”. Clarksville wants you to know Austin Peay is located there. The city of Normal proudly displays the colors of Illinois State. The marquee as you drive through Rockford, Illinois reveals “Rock Valley College, Home of Champions”. I’m not sure what they’ve won, because I had never heard of Rock Valley, but apparently they’ve won something.

These schools are the life blood of these relatively small communities. It makes me thankful we live in a nation where we can choose where we go to school and what we want to study. I suspect young adults in places like North Korea and Iran don’t have those choices.

Thank you Lord for freedom, including the freedom to learn and achieve.

I get the strangest feeling when we travel through the endless, sprawling farmland of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. It’s almost eerie. You drive through miles of cropland, and everywhere you look there are these futuristic looking, thin, white propeller structures towering over you. They look like something aliens from another planet might have come and installed as weapons to facilitate taking over the earth.

In reality, I am told they are wind turbines. Somehow, the slowly turning, long white blades generate power for these remote rural areas. Since wind is a free, sustainable energy source, it saves cash-strapped farmers many thousands of dollars in power bills. Some farmers also lease their turbines to power companies for extra income. In these days of challenging economy for agriculture, the turbines enable many farms to survive. Funny how nature (read God) provides where help is most desperately needed.

Whew! That’s a relief. For a moment there, I thought I was in the middle of a bad sci-fi movie.

My blogs this week will be written during our cross country car trip. We are driving from near the Gulf coast to nearly the border of Canada. I hope you will find my observations interesting and relatable.

One of my first impressions is I wish I had bought stock in the company that makes those orange and white striped barrels used to mark off lanes for construction. We have run into so much road work, and the lines of those barrels sometimes stretches for miles and miles. Thousands of them. It’s somebody’s job to put all those barrels out and then eventually gather them all up again. Can’t imagine how long that must take.

Thank you, Lord. for rising up people who do the kind of work most of us don’t want to do. They provide a certain kind of ministry that largely goes unnoticed and unappreciated.

Size does matter in the bird world. I’m certainly not an expert on birds, but I’ve learned quite a bit just by observing the feeders in our backyard. Size is everything for them. The little chickadees and finches eat until the bigger cardinal arrives and chases them off. The cardinal eats until the larger blue jay chases him off. The blue jay eats until the mourning dove comes, and so on. Everybody scatters when the hawk enters the scene. He’s the biggest and baddest. He rules.

Being a person of smaller stature, it makes me glad I serve a God who doesn’t care how tall and strong you are. He loves everyone the same. Those who would seek to overpower and intimidate you have no standing with Him.

If you remain faithful, He will make sure it’s your turn at the feeder every day.

Have you ever heard the expression: “The days are long but the years are short”? It really does ring true. Sometimes it seems like a day, especially if you’re having a bad day, drags on and on and never ends. But then you look up and years have passed so quickly, and it catches you by surprise.

We usually don’t think much about our time having a limit until we approach the end of it. The thing is, we never know when that end will come. No doubt, you know of many whose time ended suddenly and unexpectedly. So the opportunity to get your priorities in order is now. Make sure the people you love know it.

If a day seems long, spend part of it ministering to others. Now that’s time well spent.