Thinking Out Loud, Volume DIX

Believe it or not, I used to be a comedian. Is it even conceivable to you that people would actually pay ME to try to make them laugh? One thing I learned was that timing is extremely important in comedy, and if something that's supposed to happen at a specific time is just a few seconds late, it ruins the whole joke. The majority of my gigs were at churches, and I had to depend on each church's sound man to play music or certain sounds at just the right second on the CD I provided. There are two instances in particular I want to tell you about. One was done perfectly and the other was the polar opposite of perfect. Trust me, one of the worst feelings in the world is when you're trying to be funny and someone is ruining all your jokes. The first one of these incidents was near Fort Worth, Texas. I met the sound man early before the banquet started, handing him the CD and a list of instructions. He glanced at it and and said, "No problem." I then proceeded to explain each one of the instructions, and he said, "Man, you don't have to go through all this. I've got it!" Well, he didn't have it. He messed up every single one of them. The other place was in Oklahoma, and just like I did in Fort Worth, I met the sound man with the CD and list of instructions. I then began to explain each one to him, and he asked questions and made notes on every one. His performance during the show was flawless! What was the difference between the two? The man in Oklahoma was teachable and the man in Fort Worth was not. Which guy will be the most likable and have the most friends? The answer is obvious. Proverbs 12:15 says, "Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others." It's like an oxymoron when the "know it all" is the foolish one, while the wise man realizes just how much he doesn't know and says, "Teach me; I'm listening." The fool says "I'm the best," and the wise man says, "I can be better." The fool is arrogant and the wise man is humble. The foolish man sits in the audience and never ceases talking to his neighbor while the speaker is speaking, as if what he has to say is more important than the speaker's words, while the wise man is silent, absorbing every word the speaker has to say. (Incidentally, the wise man does not enjoy sitting next to the foolish man in those situations.) The foolish man dominates the conversation, while the wise man spends more time listening. The wise man admits when has messed up, while the fool always blames someone else. The foolish man invests his time and effort on things temporal, while the wise man places his focus on things eternal. If I picked up a bottle and a genie appeared, granting me one wish, how would I use that wish? Would I be like the man on the television commercial who wished for a million bucks, and suddenly he saw a million male deer grazing on his lawn? I firmly believe, if such an opportunity came to us, the majority of us would ask for riches. Solomon had such a chance, and he asked for wisdom rather than wealth. His prayer for wisdom was granted, yet he became the most wealthy man alive. Imagine that!! With all of that said, it's time for me to take a long, hard look in the mirror and make a determination into which category I fall. Let me be the first to admit I've made some dumb decisions, so I have to ask if wise men and women ever do anything foolish. Well, let's take another look at Solomon. Considering the fact that he had seven hundred wives in addition to his three hundred girlfriends, I have to conclude that none of us are perfect and we're all subject to making stupid mistakes. (That had to be the epitome of a dysfunctional family.) A few months ago in one of these blogs I quoted a good friend of mine who said, "With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone." If I ever reach the stage of life where I feel that I have it all together and I've acquired all the wisdom I need, I will have to conclude that I have become a fool. No matter how old I become, I must never cease to be teachable, with a never ending thirst for more knowledge. The search for wisdom must be a never ending quest. Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DVIII

I grew up on the banks of Hemps Creek in central Louisiana, and naturally I had my favorite spots on that creek. One weekend after I was a married man with a couple of small children, we had gone home to spend the weekend with my parents, and I decided I would take my six year old daughter to show her one of those favorite spots. It had been raining, but the rain had moved on out of the area, so we straddled our bikes and started our mile long journey down the dirt road toward our destination. She was not long past graduating from her training wheels, so this was quite an experience for her, and it also ended up being one I'll always remember, as it taught me an important lesson on encouraging others. When we had reached about half way, we came to a low spot in the road and for about twenty feet, the road was completely under water. I told her to just wait there and I rode on through the water to make sure it was not too deep and didn't have any slippery drop offs. I was assured that it was completely safe for a six year old, so I gave her the go ahead to proceed on through the water, but she was terrified, especially since she couldn't see the bottom. Finally, with my persuasion and the unwavering trust she had in her dad, she relented. As soon as her wheels hit the water, however, panic set in and she started screaming, "I can't! I can't!" All the while, I was standing on the other side, yelling, "Yes you can! Don't stop! Don't stop! Keep pedaling!! Keep pedaling!!" I kept thinking she was gonna give up any second, so I didn't let up with my "Keep pedaling!! Keep pedaling!!" There is no doubt in my mind that if I hadn't kept yelling those words to her, she would've stopped, and both of us would have been in trouble when we got home. Can you think of any times in your life when you were going through a very trying experience and someone who loved and cared for you talked you through it and refused to let you give up? Are you also able to look back and conclude that it was those words of encouragement that pulled you through? More than likely, you and I can recall times when we've been the encourager and other times when we've been the encouragee. I can even remember instances when I've offered words of encouragement to a friend, and then later when I was going through a trying time, that friend reminded me of my own words to them. The primary point I want to emphasize today, however, is that your friends will remember what you told them when they were about to give up. You see, that day when my little girl and I rode our bikes down to the creek, we also had to go back home, which means we had to ride through that same water on the way back. Yes, I did remind her to keep pedaling, but I have to tell you, she approached that water with a completely different attitude that second time. I guess what I'm trying to say is when we give encouraging words to a friend, those words will live on in their minds, and they will remember them the next time they face a similar problem. Many years after the "Keep Pedaling" incident, Rodney Atkins recorded one of my favorite country songs with the same basic message: "If you're going through hell, keep on going. Don't slow down. If you're scared don't show it. You might get out before the devil even knows you're there. If you're going through hell, keep on moving. Face that fire. Walk right through it. You might get out before the devil even knows you're there." Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DVII

There's not much I can remember about being five. In fact, maybe I was four...or six. It was definitely one of those years, but what I recall so clearly is what my dad wore to church that Sunday morning. It was a white shirt and dark gray pants. Between those two garments, it's the pants that are pictured so clearly in my mind, because after all, when the top of my head only reached the level of his pockets, his pants were all I could see without purposely looking up. When church was over and everyone was standing around talking, I focused on those gray pants to make sure I stayed near my dad. Finally, the gray pants headed for the door, and I followed. I knew where we had parked, because we always parked there, but the gray pants went a different direction, and walked to another car. That's when I looked up and realized I had followed Milton Paul to HIS car. He was a good man and a close friend to my family, yet he wasn't my dad, and I wasn't supposed to go home with him, but he and my dad had worn the same colors that day! A feeling of panic swept over me and I literally ran back inside and found the right gray pants and white shirt. One more incident: This one didn't involve me, but I heard the adults talking about it and they smiled as they spoke about the innocent faith of a child. We had been without rain for weeks, and the situation was getting desperate, with most of the conversation among the adults centered around that topic. In the home of a family who were some of our best friends, it was even discussed between the mother and her little boy, who was a couple years younger than me. He suggested they pray for rain. His mother told him that was a good idea, and so they prayed. What he did next was the same thing I would've done, which was the same thing most any small child would do: He went to the window and started watching the sky. The problem with growing up is that somewhere between those preschool and high school years, that innocent faith too often begins to evaporate and is replaced with doubt and skepticism. We can tell the six year old about Noah and the ark, and he believes it, while adults will question the practicality of such a story. I have a good friend who showed me a note she had found that was written by her seven year old daughter that said, "Daddy, Jesus loves you and he understands you. He wants you to be nice all the time. Jesus forgives you." (Incidentally, her daddy IS nice all the time.) I was so struck by that note that I had to say, "Way to go Mom and Dad! You're doing it right!" What can her parents do to make sure that beautiful little girl's faith stays with her into adulthood? Just keep doing what they've been doing and don't let up. Be consistent. When it comes to "training up a child in the way he should go...," we can't take breaks; the stakes are too high. Children have no say as to which home they're born into, or who their parents are. Shame on me if I don't thank God every day for parents who taught me the importance of prayer; for parents who not only knew the Word, but taught it to me as well; for parents who taught me by example the importance of regularly attending and getting involved in church; and for parents who never grew lax in any of the above principles. Now, I have to ask myself, "Will my kids be able to thank God for me consistently teaching them the same thing?" I've come a long way since the Sunday morning I followed the wrong pair of dark gray pants out to the wrong car, but there are some aspects of my childhood I pray I never lose. May I always hold on to the sincere, unwavering faith of my childhood, and may I pass it on down to the next generation. May I never forget the lesson I learned at the age of five: If I discover I've been following the wrong pair of gray pants, all I have to do is remember the words of my little seven year old friend, "Jesus loves you and he understands you..," and I can always turn around and run back inside and find the right ones. Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DVI

I love the way Angie says hello when I call her on the phone. Of course, she knows it's me who's calling, and she answers like I'm someone she wants to talk to. There's almost a song in her hello. This is the season when I'm really busy working trade shows, and when I'm in my booth, I'm working in close proximity with the people in neighboring booths, and sometimes it's impossible NOT to hear their phone conversations. Let me compare two different conversations I recently heard while sitting in my booth. Naturally all I could hear was one side of each one, but judging by what I did hear, I think I can imagine what it sounded like on the other end. The first one I'll tell you about is the most recent from a lady next to me at the Biloxi Gift Show. The tone was almost like "Why are bothering me?" There was no smile, and here's what I heard: "Hello. What. I don't know. Well, you ask her, I don't have time. Okay, whatever. Bye." The other call I heard was was the previous week in Dallas. It was a woman in her late forties working with her grown daughter. When the phone rang, I heard her tell her daughter, "It's your dad." Then, with a smile on her face and in her voice, she didn't say hello, but started with, "Well, did you finally get your job completed?" During the rest of the conversation there was a lot of laughter, and it was evident those two people were enjoying their conversation. When she had hung up, I heard her tell her daughter, "He is so funny." In no way am I suggesting that the lady I told you about first didn't love her husband, but any joy she had in talking to him was kept well concealed. Angie is a strong, independent woman, and the things she is passionate about are not always the same as my passions, but one thing we do share is a passion for each other, with a fire that has been burning strongly for more than forty-three years. Too many times, however, I hear people use the phrase, "The fire has gone out," and we have to ask how and when did it happen. Well, there are a couple things I've learned about fires: We have to stoke them and continue fueling them to keep them burning, and if we put water on them, they will go out. One source of fuel is nice, pleasant conversation, while cold, harsh conversation is like putting water on the fire. I call home every night when I'm traveling, and I have no doubt that if I started using a less friendly tone of voice, she would reciprocate in kind, but what I really want is for her to look forward to me coming home. It reminds me of the country song by Mark Chesnutt that says, "It's too hot to fish, too hot for golf, and too cold at home." We can all handle low temperatures, but none of us want to go home to an icy atmosphere where the conversation is cold and terse. How does it get that way? How do we ever get to the point to where we talk to the ones we love in a less cordial tone than we would talk to a stranger? In my opinion, if my conversation with my kids is more friendly than it is with my wife, I'm starting down the wrong track. If I love my wife, I need to make sure it's evident in my tone of voice. At the time I'm writing this, I'm working out of town, but I'll be calling home tonight. I can't wait! Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DV

Some of you have lost your marbles. All of them. In fact, I'm getting pretty close myself. If you're under the age of forty, this will likely not impact you the way it will us from the older generation. Please allow me to explain what I'm talking about. As always, I had to be in Dallas the weekend when it was Vision Sunday at our church, so I was watching on line as our pastor was delivering the Vision Sunday sermon. The part that stopped me in my tracks and jolted some reality into my brain was when he referred to Psalms 90:10 that says: "Seventy years are given to us. Some even live to eighty....." He then used the illustration that if we had been given a jar with seventy marbles when we were born, and we take a marble out each year, how many marbles do we have left in our jar? I would have six. SIX!?!?! Yep, I've about lost my marbles too. Even if I'm one of those who by "reason of strength" can make it to eighty, then there's still only sixteen marbles left in my jar. I'm a pretty average guy, so with this in mind, let's take a look at the averages. The average life span in the U.S. for a man is seventy-six years and for a woman it's eighty-one, which would leave me with twelve marbles. Twelve years!! How many do you have? What are we gonna do with the marbles we have left? First of all, it's entirely possible I could leave while I still have some marbles in my jar, so my most important duty is to make sure I've made the proper preparations to have "my house in order" for when that day comes. Just be ready for that day whenever it is. Once I've done that, I have two choices as to how to spend those years. I can spend these next twelve years dreading when that inevitable day arrives, or I can put a smile on my face and choose to make the days I have left happy ones. I can deprive myself of the joys of life or I can make the best of what I have left. I choose the latter, but what does "making the best" mean? Keeping in mind that going crazy and failing to use wisdom in my choices will not bring me a happy life, I will refuse to live a life of deprivation or denying myself the things I love. I will enjoy an occasional bowl of ice cream. In fact, I might even eat a donut from time to time. If I see something I want, and can afford it, I will buy it. I will love my wife, my kids, and their kids with more fervency than ever before. I will accept the fact that not everyone will like me or say nice things about me, wiping those negative thoughts out of my mind, focusing only on the good. I will cherish the friends I do have, and do my best to make them happy and proud to be called my friends. I will park myself in my recliner only when my health forces me to do so. I will keep running as long as possible, then walk when the running days are over. I will be more charitable to the less fortunate. I will be more tolerant as the fads and trends of the day change with the younger generation, remembering how they did the same when I was young. I will not hate those whose political views are different from mine. In short, I hope to use up the remainder of my years in such a way that the only difficulty the preacher who delivers my eulogy will face is his sadness at seeing me go, while finding good things to say about me will be the easiest job he's ever had. The marbles I have left are extremely valuable, and I will treat them as such! Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DIV

He was sick, but no one could figure out what was wrong, so the old man just learned to deal with it, as the problem was getting worse. He was living near Natchitoches, Louisiana in the late 1800s, and he would occasionally black out for several minutes at a time. As days turned into months and months into years, his spells would occur more and more frequently, lasting progressively longer each time, until that final time which proved to be his undoing. He had no family, and it was the general rule of that era that the poor were buried without being embalmed, so his neighbors built him a pine box and planted him on his own property with a wooden marker with his name painted on it. As the decades came and went, the marker eventually decayed, leaving no sign of the grave. Years later, around 1940, some workers were digging in that area, and their shovels struck his coffin. They exhumed the box and opened it, where the saw his skeletal remains lying FACE DOWN, and there was evidence he had been trying to get out! He had been buried alive!! We could obviously find ample reason to be highly critical of his neighbors for being a little hasty in their efforts to get the job of burying him behind them, but I can't criticize since I'm guilty of the same thing. What about you? I'm not suggesting that you nor I have literally placed someone in a box and put them in the ground before they were dead, but we HAVE been guilty of writing someone off and putting them out of our lives when there was still hope for salvaging the relationship. We've burned bridges that should've been left intact. In fits of rage, we've spewed hurtful words toward others, which permanently severed our relationship with that person. And of course, we've also burned bridges when the hurtful words were directed toward us, and we just didn't give the other party time to "cool down" before writing them off. How many times have we given up on friends when they've made foolish decisions that sent their lives into a downward spiral? After all, it's them with the problem, not us. What are we most likely to do.....permanently write them off or pray for their restoration? Technically, when we've stayed the same while they've made the decisions to move toward a life that will eventually lead to a crash, it was them who walked away, but it's up to us to leave the door open for when that crash finally occurs. I'm thinking of a young friend right now who has made some decisions that can't have a happy ending. It frustrates me, but the day is coming when her world is gonna crash in around her, and she will need friends like me. Even though it doesn't look good now, there's still a flicker of hope that she will be back. If I'm too eager to write her off, she may lose her only hope. I understand that people die and must be buried. I realize that some broken relationships are beyond repair. The old man in this story was beyond the point of ever having his life the way it used to be, and as a result, any relationship with him would never be normal again, but he didn't need to be buried alive. I've had people destroy my trust in them, but that doesn't mean I can't maintain a more guarded relationship with that person. As long as there's life, there's hope. Let's just make sure we're not in too much of a hurry to start digging a grave. Preston

Thinking Out Loud, VolumeDIII

Several times a day, five days a week, my daughter puts patients to sleep for surgery; then when the operation is completed, she wakes them up. It's a job she's had for a few years now, and as a result, she has become quite skilled in her chosen profession. However, I'll never forget the morning when she was in Anesthesia School, she called me and the conversation went like this: Me: Hello. Valerie: I need you to pray for me today, Dad. I'll be putting someone to sleep for the first time. Me: Are you gonna tell them it's your first time? Valerie: No. (laughing) They'll never know. That's when I offered her some words of real encouragement: Well, I hope you can wake them up when it's over. My pastor tells the story of his first sermon. His wife and mother in law were in the audience, and his mother in law whispered to her daughter as he was speaking, "Honey, you might want to go back to school and get your degree." She did just that, but I have to say I can't think of any preacher I'd rather hear today than him. My mind often goes back to 2010 when my five week old granddaughter had open heart surgery, a procedure that lasted seven hours. The skilled surgeon took her tiny heart out of her chest and and went inside it, making the life saving repairs to some almost microscopic canals within her heart. We stood in awe as he explained the procedure to us afterward, yet to him, it was practically routine. The thought then occurred to me that although he had performed that procedure many times, there was one day when he did it for the first time to someone's child. One more: While working in Northern Mississippi one evening, I walked into a Chinese restaurant, and I just happened to be their first customer of the day. My waitress was on her first day on the job. Her family had come in just behind me, wanting to be her first customers. Too late! I got there first. I ordered egg foo young, and as is customary with that dish, they bring an empty plate just before they bring the food. I was in a joking mood that evening, so I picked up the plate, turned over sideways, held it up and shook it while looking down at the table. I then told her, "There's no food in this plate!" I could tell she was a little flustered, while her family was laughing hysterically. I was back in that town a few months later, and that same girl was my waitress again. By then, she was an old pro, and was completely at ease with her job. Unless your employment requires crying and pooping, you weren't born knowing how to perform the duties of your job. None of us want to be our barber's first haircut, our mechanic's first repair job, our counselor's first case, and we sure don't want to be the surgeon's first operation, or the pilot's first passenger, but someone has to be. I can actually recall a few times when I was a kid, and I would hear a young minister deliver his first sermon, but I usually liked it because their sermons would only last about 12 minutes. I still recall the first time I sang before a crowd, and I must say, thank God for patient, understanding people, because I was terrified and it showed. I should explain that I let the waitress in Mississippi know I was just teasing her, and I tipped her well. I guess it all goes back to the Golden Rule...."Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I've needed kindness, tolerance and encouragement for all my firsts. Hopefully, I can offer the same courtesy. You and I both will one day have to face death for the first time, and as for me, I'll be a little nervous. Hopefully I'll receive that same kindness, tolerance, and understanding that day as well. Preston