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On Second Thought…

So just over three months after we left Florida, Hurricane Irma hit our old town of Naples dead on.

And they say in comedy “timing’s everything”. Add hurricanes to that too, I guess.

I watched on tv this week as my favorite street in downtown Naples got pummeled. Fifth Avenue had been where I’d hang out, drink coffee and talk with people about God. It was the street where my theater had been, with so many happy memories onstage and backstage with dear friends.

As I watched the storm on every news channel I could find, I felt both thankful and guilty I wasn’t there anymore. You see, being a pastor is a lot like being a parent. You feel protective of your flock like a father feels for his kids. You want to help them get through the tough things.

But instead of helping them, I sat by the tv all weekend long, watching my former hometown get flooded while the sun shone cheerily outside my window. I sat, prayed, and generally felt useless.

While my friends were going through a literal hurricane, I was in the midst of an emotional one. Not at all to minimize their suffering, but I was already in the midst of feeling a little lost when the winds starting blowing in my old city.

You see, I was already disoriented from moving across country to St Louis. I’m in a new church with completely different challenges from what I had in Florida. And while I love my new church family, I don’t really know them yet. And that matters. In every family, no matter how good they are, there are some family members you can depend on and some you can’t.

Right now, I don’t know who those people are yet. I don’t know who I can share my heart with, or who will walk away and share my heart with a hundred other people. The fact is no matter how nice people are, you’re essentially alone for at least a while.

You miss family who’re further away from you, and you miss your old friends. They were your support system, and now the distance makes things harder. You worry that distance will eventually weaken those friendships, and that makes you grieve harder.

This is exactly the kind of recipe Satan cooks up to get you to start second guessing yourself. But it doesn’t take a hurricane to make you wonder if you missed God. Just a load of guilt, loneliness and misplaced regret.

And by the way, I’m going to be referring to Satan in a literal sense. Sorry if that throws you off, but I don’t see him at all as just a symbol of the world’s evils. In my life, it is clear someone is pushing just the right buttons in me at exactly the right times to get the worst possible reaction from me.

No, that’s not symbolism. It is strategic, tactical aggression that’s calculated to at least disable me, or ultimately destroy me.

One of Satan’s greatest tools is a completely unfruitful little exercise called regret. He takes scenarios from your past that you can do absolutely nothing about now and dangles them in your face, taunting you.

He tempts you to question decisions you made along the way…

“Should I have left and moved so far away from family and friends?”

“What if I was supposed to stay there? What if I missed what God wanted me to do?

“What if I’ll never be as happy here as I was there?”

Of course, he never points out how miserable the past was at times.

Frankly, I hated Florida. I don’t like the beach, and I despised the retirement mentality that saturated our town like the rains of Irma. Florida would never even be habitable if it weren’t for air conditioning, as my old friends are now learning all too well! T

But the one thing I truly loved were those friends and church family. They were awesome, because those relationships had been nurtured from years and years of shared experiences together. I don’t have that backstory with these folks where I live now.

Then, add to the regret a pinch of guilt.

I got a phone call the other day from a friend who’d just weathered the storm. They’ve endured not only power outages, but also house damage and the death of a beloved pet, all while a parent faces terminal illness out of state. They’re hurting and shell-shocked, and all I can do is talk to them on the phone.

I feel like an absolute jerk for leaving, right before a major crisis when I might have been needed most…

As if there were some magical way I was supposed to see into the future.

And as if God didn’t have that ability to see the future and stop me from leaving if that was truly His will.

In Luke 6, several folks start giving Jesus excuses for not obeying and following Him. But the Lord has little patience for their second thoughts:

“No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” – Luke 9:62

The truth is, most of us who know Jesus are trying our best to listen to Him. Unless we’re in rebellion to Him, we’re living our lives as well as we can. Sure, we’re making mistakes along the way and sometimes massively screwing up, but nothing He didn’t see coming. And unless we’re completely ignoring what God was telling us, we can’t second guess our ability to hear Him properly.

In fact, it’s not about how well we hear Him, but how well He can speak to us. Right?

In the end, I have to trust that God was able to get it across to me what He wanted me to do. I have to trust that, since I was truly seeking His will, He wouldn’t let me screw up something this major by accident.

A good Father like Him would do whatever it took to get His will across to his dim-witted little boy.

On my last trip to Naples about a month ago, I spent time with an old friend whose mom had just passed away recently. I listened as he talked of not only missing her, which was normal, but of nagging regrets.

“I should have called her more.”

“I should have traveled home to see her more frequently.”

“Did she know how much I loved her when she passed?

These are the questions the devil puts in our heads in moments of weakness. Like a perfect bully, he delights in kicking us when we’re already down. So to our grief, he happily adds regret, enumerating the myriad of things we shoulda, coulda, woulda done if we’d only been superhuman and all-knowing.

Tonight I am determined to listen to the same advice I gave my grieving friend whose mom passed away. I think I’m hearing God telling me:

You did your best.

Give yourself the right to be human and not superman.

Trust you are important enough to God He wouldn’t let you innocently destroy something important by accident.

And wait. Because healing will come. New friends will come, not replacing the old but adding to the memories and joy of your life.

Stop listening to the white noise of regret. It accomplishes nothing, and only cripples and delays healing.

Embrace today and trust God for tomorrow. And like the old preacher said, “Stop looking over your shoulder. You’re not going that way.”

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Our dream house was a 120-year old 3-story Victorian home. It was just a few blocks away from one of the loveliest parks in the city and the same distance from the church I pastored. I could literally walk to work, and did so on many mornings. How convenient!

Unlike the other brick houses that lined the streets nearby, this one was painted light yellow and stood apart from the rest. Plaster reliefs of baby angels wrapped around the base of the house. They represented the children of the original owners, making the structure even more unique. It also had a three-car garage at the back of it. Few houses in this older section of town had one as large, and many people resorted to parking on the street. But not us! On just an average salary, we had bought one of the nicest places to live in the area. 

I had always dreamed of owning a Victorian home. I had performed the role of Prof. Henry Higgins from the musical My Fair Lady right before we moved to our new city. So I was primed to live the life of the English gentleman, sipping tea in my beautiful old house. I loved the old wood, the stained glass windows, and our “penthouse suite” for my wife and me on the top floor. We’d be sequestered away from the noise of our little girls playing below us. It all seemed so ideal.

But it turned out to be anything but ideal. Our “Golden House”, as our little girls came to call it, was not so golden. In fact, our dream house almost killed us, quite literally. 

One afternoon I got a call at the church. It was Dawn, my wife, and she was sobbing hysterically. Finally I was able to make out enough of her words to understand what was happening.

“I fell…come home!”

Almost 20 years ago, my wife had been in a bad car accident that crushed her right leg. That ankle couldn’t turn at all. So as I ran the 5 blocks to my home, I knew what had happened.

When I got to the house, I found Dawn in the basement. She was headed to the washer and drier there, and had misjudged a step going down. She hit the concrete floor hard.

After getting her to the hospital, thankfully we learned nothing had been broken. However, that would be just the first of several falls for Dawn down those steps. We eventually moved the washer and drier up to the second floor, which helped a little. But the bottom line was a three-story house with narrow stairways were not meant for a woman who had challenges with mobility.

I also learned having your bedroom on the third-floor is not a good idea for a chubby guy in his mid-50s. There were a few days I wondered if I’d still be alive by the time I reached the top floor. Though I began on the stairway to the bedroom, I might end up on the stairway to heaven…

Then there was the city. Dawn and I always loved culture, restaurants, theater and all the things a great city has to offer. So living there, we felt like kids in a candy store. There was always some new restaurant to explore, always a show playing somewhere, and interesting people living all around us. It seemed ideal.

Except for crime. And taxes. Many cities are big on those, and ours was no exception. We had both in abundance.

One of our regular nightly diversions was watching the notifications on our community’s “Next Door App” alert us to all the recent shootings and hold-ups around us. One of us would hear gunshots, and I’d watch for the posts to pop up. I’d then calculate how close it was to our home. Many were within just a few blocks, some just down the street. 

We would occasionally get notices of some tax we hadn’t paid. Usually, we neglected to pay because the city had neglected to ever send a bill. Then one day, you get a notice you’re being sent to a collections agency, even though you still hadn’t received a bill yourself. 

Once we got a bill for trash pick-up. We were confused because we paid a refuse bill on time every month. But a lady on the phone informed us what we had paid was in fact only the garbage bill. There was completely different bill that was a tax for just having trash pick up available to us in the city. This bill was paying for the “possibility” our trash might be picked up. No kidding.

I’m sure they’re still probably working on a way to collect a tax on our taxes. 

All of this added together was a painful lesson on the difference between perception and reality. After we first moved to that city and were still living in an apartment, I walked down those very streets and fantasized about how wonderful living there would be. When we found the Golden House, we rejoiced and basically cried out, “Here, take our money” to the realtor. 

But the view from the outside of a situation is always much different from the inside. Nothing is ever quite what you expect…with houses, or with life.

The problem with so many of the things we want is it’s too often based on an illusion. We think a thing, a person, or a situation will bring happiness. But happiness is never found in those things outside of us.

Real happiness only happens from the inside out.

There’s an old fashioned Bible word for this foolishness: covetousness. The prohibition against coveting is actually the 10th and final commandment. It’s easily skimmed over in favor of the more R-rated commandments against murder or adultery. Simply wanting your neighbors stuff as opposed to stealing it or killing for it seems like no big deal in comparison.

But coveting is like a powerful drug. The addict never gets enough. Once he gets that one thing he’s obsessed over, he’s disappointed to realize it doesn’t fulfill his needs and he moves on to something more. The new car he’d wanted all his life now sits in the garage most days. She can’t even remember why she bought that purse now. That’s how coveting works: whatever you get, it’s never enough. You’re always left wanting something else, and even more addicted to your desires.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. - Luke 12:15

There was nothing wrong with us wanting a house. But it was very wrong of me to think that it would bring us so much happiness on its own. The ideal life and fulfillment I was expecting from a house was unreasonable. 

That kind of happiness only comes from God’s address, not mine.

Inevitably, we become like kids on the day after Christmas. We’ve opened every package, played with every toy, and we’re already bored with them. The newness wore off in a day, all because we were expecting too much from them to begin with.

Most homes stop being dream houses the minute we walk into them. Reality inevitably sets in, and the “house porn” on the realtor’s website is now just a bunch of plaster and dry wall. 

We finally made it out of our dream house before it killed us. No, we didn't run screaming from it in the middle of the night like in the Shining or the Amityville Horror. When we left, it did take quite a bite out of our finances, and we had to sell for quite a bit less than we'd paid. But the wound was worth it for the lesson we learned.

We’re in a new place now, in a much smaller city. We’re renting a little one-story house we’re hoping to buy soon. We're in a little neighborhood where we hardly ever lock our front door. It's pretty boring compared to city life, but that’s just fine with me.

I’ve discovered what really makes a “dream house”. The dream is not the house, it’s the people you put in it. Regardless of the size or location, those people are what makes life worthwhile. 

Everything else is just a dream. And all that glitters is not a golden house.

Our dream house was a 120-year old 3-story Victorian home. It was just a few blocks away from one of the loveliest parks in the city and the same distance from the church I pastored. I could literally walk to work, and did so on many mornings. How convenient!

Unlike the other brick houses that lined the streets nearby, this one was painted light yellow and stood apart from the rest. Plaster reliefs of baby angels wrapped around the base of the house. They represented the children of the original owners, making the structure even more unique. It also had a three-car garage at the back of it. Few houses in this older section of town had one as large, and many people resorted to parking on the street. But not us! On just an average salary, we had bought one of the nicest places to live in the area. 

I had always dreamed of owning a Victorian home. I had performed the role of Prof. Henry Higgins from the musical My Fair Lady right before we moved to our new city. So I was primed to live the life of the English gentleman, sipping tea in my beautiful old house. I loved the old wood, the stained glass windows, and our “penthouse suite” for my wife and me on the top floor. We’d be sequestered away from the noise of our little girls playing below us. It all seemed so ideal.

But it turned out to be anything but ideal. Our “Golden House”, as our little girls came to call it, was not so golden. In fact, our dream house almost killed us, quite literally. 

One afternoon I got a call at the church. It was Dawn, my wife, and she was sobbing hysterically. Finally I was able to make out enough of her words to understand what was happening.

“I fell…come home!”

Almost 20 years ago, my wife had been in a bad car accident that crushed her right leg. That ankle couldn’t turn at all. So as I ran the 5 blocks to my home, I knew what had happened.

When I got to the house, I found Dawn in the basement. She was headed to the washer and drier there, and had misjudged a step going down. She hit the concrete floor hard.

After getting her to the hospital, thankfully we learned nothing had been broken. However, that would be just the first of several falls for Dawn down those steps. We eventually moved the washer and drier up to the second floor, which helped a little. But the bottom line was a three-story house with narrow stairways were not meant for a woman who had challenges with mobility.

I also learned having your bedroom on the third-floor is not a good idea for a chubby guy in his mid-50s. There were a few days I wondered if I’d still be alive by the time I reached the top floor. Though I began on the stairway to the bedroom, I might end up on the stairway to heaven…

Then there was the city. Dawn and I always loved culture, restaurants, theater and all the things a great city has to offer. So living there, we felt like kids in a candy store. There was always some new restaurant to explore, always a show playing somewhere, and interesting people living all around us. It seemed ideal.

Except for crime. And taxes. Many cities are big on those, and ours was no exception. We had both in abundance.

One of our regular nightly diversions was watching the notifications on our community’s “Next Door App” alert us to all the recent shootings and hold-ups around us. One of us would hear gunshots, and I’d watch for the posts to pop up. I’d then calculate how close it was to our home. Many were within just a few blocks, some just down the street. 

We would occasionally get notices of some tax we hadn’t paid. Usually, we neglected to pay because the city had neglected to ever send a bill. Then one day, you get a notice you’re being sent to a collections agency, even though you still hadn’t received a bill yourself. 

Once we got a bill for trash pick-up. We were confused because we paid a refuse bill on time every month. But a lady on the phone informed us what we had paid was in fact only the garbage bill. There was completely different bill that was a tax for just having trash pick up available to us in the city. This bill was paying for the “possibility” our trash might be picked up. No kidding.

I’m sure they’re still probably working on a way to collect a tax on our taxes. 

All of this added together was a painful lesson on the difference between perception and reality. After we first moved to that city and were still living in an apartment, I walked down those very streets and fantasized about how wonderful living there would be. When we found the Golden House, we rejoiced and basically cried out, “Here, take our money” to the realtor. 

But the view from the outside of a situation is always much different from the inside. Nothing is ever quite what you expect…with houses, or with life.

The problem with so many of the things we want is it’s too often based on an illusion. We think a thing, a person, or a situation will bring happiness. But happiness is never found in those things outside of us.

Real happiness only happens from the inside out.

There’s an old fashioned Bible word for this foolishness: covetousness. The prohibition against coveting is actually the 10th and final commandment. It’s easily skimmed over in favor of the more R-rated commandments against murder or adultery. Simply wanting your neighbors stuff as opposed to stealing it or killing for it seems like no big deal in comparison.

But coveting is like a powerful drug. The addict never gets enough. Once he gets that one thing he’s obsessed over, he’s disappointed to realize it doesn’t fulfill his needs and he moves on to something more. The new car he’d wanted all his life now sits in the garage most days. She can’t even remember why she bought that purse now. That’s how coveting works: whatever you get, it’s never enough. You’re always left wanting something else, and even more addicted to your desires.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. - Luke 12:15

There was nothing wrong with us wanting a house. But it was very wrong of me to think that it would bring us so much happiness on its own. The ideal life and fulfillment I was expecting from a house was unreasonable. 

That kind of happiness only comes from God’s address, not mine.

Inevitably, we become like kids on the day after Christmas. We’ve opened every package, played with every toy, and we’re already bored with them. The newness wore off in a day, all because we were expecting too much from them to begin with.

Most homes stop being dream houses the minute we walk into them. Reality inevitably sets in, and the “house porn” on the realtor’s website is now just a bunch of plaster and dry wall. 

We finally made it out of our dream house before it killed us. No, we didn't run screaming from it in the middle of the night like in the Shining or the Amityville Horror. When we left, it did take quite a bite out of our finances, and we had to sell for quite a bit less than we'd paid. But the wound was worth it for the lesson we learned.

We’re in a new place now, in a much smaller city. We’re renting a little one-story house we’re hoping to buy soon. We're in a little neighborhood where we hardly ever lock our front door. It's pretty boring compared to city life, but that’s just fine with me.

I’ve discovered what really makes a “dream house”. The dream is not the house, it’s the people you put in it. Regardless of the size or location, those people are what makes life worthwhile. 

Everything else is just a dream. And all that glitters is not a golden house.