The Urgent Need For Parents To Limit Screen Time

In today’s world, we see an alarming trend: parents handing over unlimited screen time to their children without a second thought. It’s not a mystery—research overwhelmingly shows that too much screen time is detrimental to young minds, impacting cognitive development, mental health, and emotional resilience. So why, in an age of such accessible information, do so many parents lack the conviction to say “no” and set boundaries for their kids?

Setting screen limits isn’t about being the “strict parent” or avoiding discomfort. It’s about prioritizing the long-term health, happiness, and success of our children. Parents, if we truly love our children, we have to be willing to endure some temporary disagreements or pushback from them. Our role isn’t to be a constant source of easy approval but to guide them toward habits and mindsets that will serve them well into adulthood.

Studies illustrate the dangers of unchecked screen use. Research conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has found that excessive screen time is linked to structural changes in children’s brains, notably in areas related to language processing and self-regulation. Another extensive study by Twenge and Campbell found a direct correlation between increased social media use and spikes in depression and suicidal thoughts among adolescents. The need for meaningful, real-life human interaction is a core part of healthy development, and screens—especially gaming and social media—are increasingly taking the place of this fundamental social experience.

Additionally, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) warns that unrestricted screen time can interfere with sleep, delay cognitive and language development in young children, and reduce the quality of family interactions. Even the most well-intentioned parent might assume that digital engagement is harmless, or even educational. But evidence paints a clear picture: without limits, screen time is harming our children in ways we’re only just beginning to understand fully.

At the heart of this issue is our responsibility to protect our kids from the dangers they might not yet recognize. Children are especially susceptible to the allure of screens, as these devices are designed to keep them engaged, often at the expense of their social, emotional, and intellectual growth. Limiting screen time might not be the easiest choice, but it is undoubtedly the right one. Real parenting sometimes means saying “no” and sticking to it—demonstrating that our love goes beyond temporary comforts and aims for their lifelong well-being.

The question remains: will we rise to this challenge? Will we choose to be the parents who have those tough conversations, who don’t shy away from setting boundaries, and who hold fast to the idea that true love often requires discipline? Now, more than ever, it’s time to make that choice.

Reconciliation in Canada

I am currently struggling with the movement towards reconciliation in Canada. Because I said that I will now be labelled a racist, a bigot, intolerant, an abusive husband and father, a drug addict, homophobic, a dangerous driver, an illegal immigrant, and all sorts of other racial slurs and negative terms.

Sidestepping the main point of my post for a second – this type of response is why people are scared to voice their opinions. I get that all the time in my position on Town Council too. People will message me privately to support something Council is doing or my stance on an issue, but they won’t engage publicly, because the public conversation is a diatribe against anything implemented by those idiots in government who haven’t got a clue what the regular people think about anything. Support those idiots and you will be raked over the coals along with them.

So back to reconciliation. After a lengthy conversation with friends last night on this subject I was prompted to look up the definition of reconciliation. It means the restoration of friendly relations. I think this definition is fantastic and I would love to see it applied to the reconciliation process in Canada. One of the individuals involved in the discussion last night brought up the point that in order for reconciliation to happen there needs to be an identification of the hurt and then forgiveness. That means that at some point we need to move past the hurt. We don’t stay there indefinitely. At what point does that hurt become acknowledged and the forgiveness can come?

I tend to get a little irritated when I am asked to feel guilty for the hurt that has been caused. I have not been involved in causing this particular hurt. My ancestors escaped to Canada from bitter persecution in Ukraine in 1925. Wait, what? My ancestors were hurt too? I am not responsible for this particular hurt. I do acknowledge that the First Nations people were dealt with unfairly when Canada was being settled by European immigrants. There are lasting effects of this that are still being felt today. All of this is true. I do not want to minimize that the government of the time tore families apart with their residential schools and their harsh policies. I can acknowledge this hurt and I would like to move past that into forgiveness please (forgiveness not towards me since I wasn’t involved in causing this hurt, but forgiveness to the perpetrators of the hurt).

One of the ideas that has been floating around in my head for the past couple years is that drawing dividing lines between groups of people is only going to serve to divide those groups of people. I know, this is incredibly inspired thinking. If we want to reconcile and live together in harmony, stop implementing policy that is going to pit one group of people against the other. Stop enacting legislation that gives one group of people an advantage at the expense of the other group. Stop funding the lifestyle of one group with mandatory taxation of the other group. Aha! There it is – I said it. I truly believe that we will never be able to move past the rift between First Nations and non-First Nations until we remove that particular financial dividing line. That is the biggest one. That is the one that hurts Federal taxpayers the most – in their wallets. We can try and try and try all sorts of different strategies, but as long as the financial dividing line exists nothing will work. It just feels inherently unfair to those being taxed. Yes, the First Nations people were treated unfairly also when Canada was being settled. Does this mean we need to be unfair to others today to somehow even the score for past wrongs? The past wrongs weren't perpetrated by this generation!

I have a different idea of reconciliation. Why don’t we live together in freedom to practice whatever culture we want? I would love it if a First Nations family would move into the house right beside me. I would have them over for a BBQ and a lazy afternoon in my backyard while our children played together. Let’s level the playing field to foster a mindset that we are all in it together. Remove all the dividing lines mandated by government. If you want to engage in the type of lifestyle I choose, come on over and let’s live together in harmony. If you want to engage in a different type of lifestyle that’s good too, just don’t force it on me because that’s not what I choose for myself. We can choose what we want and then move in that direction.

Back to my second paragraph…  What have I just done to myself now that I have voiced an opinion and asked some questions that are not in line with mainstream views for reconciliation? What will be the backlash for me? What names will I be called?

Pride

I am fairly certain God has placed me into my current workplace to teach me humility. I am learning this on two levels:

Firstly, I can see how far I am from where I used to be I am often forced to tell myself that I will be ok. I often feel like I have fallen so far. I have been forced to determine my worth outside of my occupation. It is not about status. Those who think it is are going to have a rude awakening (Matthew 20:16). This is such an easy rut to get snared in.

Secondly, I am reminded on almost a weekly basis what humility does not look like. I work in an environment where the professionals around me are young, they don’t have much experience, but they have come to own the company and they are extremely arrogant about this. I believe life is going to teach these individuals much yet.

It also has much to teach me yet as I peel back layers of myself to find new depths of human weakness. We are here to serve each other – not to be served. We are here to love each other and have compassion as Christ demonstrated for us. I do pray for my superiors in this office (which includes almost everyone) that they can see this too before it is too late.

Banks Suck

I had to go into a bank today. I hate banks. I of course left all my rights as a human being at the door when I entered. It left me feeling very vulnerable – like someone was going to take advantage of me somehow. My feelings were justified.

I happen to have an eSavings account. Which means that I get bent over any time I want to do something. I have that type of account because it is the only thing I can get from them without having to pay a monthly fee.

So I went up to the teller to ask for my money and he reminded me it was going to cost me $5 to perform what I had asked. I said, “oh, I thought I had a certain number of free transactions per month”.

“Oh no sir. You have an eSavings account which gives you a higher interest rate but you have to pay for any transactions.”

Yeah, a higher interest rate currently sitting at 0.5%. Wow! Half of one whole entire percent! How do I not see how lucky I am with this ridiculously high interest rate?!

I must have twisted up my face when he said that as I tried to understand the logic. I believe that is when he took pity on me, this poor unenlightened person standing in front of him. You see, there is bank sense and then there is common sense. They do not mix. Bank employees are really to be applauded for their long-suffering patience as they are asked to explain bank sense to us uncivilized heathens.

Bank sense says: “Aww, you poor thing, I’ll try to lower myself to your level and explain it to you. We’re actually doing you a huge favour. You gave us your money and we keep it safe for you. This costs us a lot of money so you have to pay us billions to do this for you. You understand right?”

Billions? That’s right:

• CIBC 2015 Net Revenue: $3.6 Billion
• Royal Bank 2015 Net Revenue: $10.0 Billion
• Bank of Montreal 2015 Net Revenue: $4.7 Billion
• And so on…

Then there is common sense (I’ll let you in on a secret: it is far inferior to bank sense). Common sense says, “You’re renovating your branch again? Didn’t you just do that a couple years ago? Why are you charging me so much money every month and then spending it frivolously like this?” Ah, that is bank sense, us regular people are not to understand those higher concepts.

Banks are crooked. They don’t have to be accountable to their clients. What is your alternative? Keep all your money in a safe in your house? Bury it somewhere? You wouldn’t be able to operate in today’s society if you did that. Banks understand this and they exploit it.

Employment Equity

I just received my first Employment Equity Program questionnaire at work.  Apparently since we are doing work for the Federal Government we MAY be subject to the requirements set out under the Federal Contractors Program.  I can hardly explain how furious this makes me.  It is discrimination!

Am I a woman – Nope

Am I an Aboriginal person – Nope

Do I have a disability – Nope

Am I a visible minority – Nope

So, what this means is that if a decision ever has to be made between me and one of the people who can answer Yes to one of the four questions above (all other things being equal) I don’t get the job/promotion/raise/etc.  And, heaven forbid we are far behind our quota in any of the four categories, because then even if all other things are not equal I still won’t get the job.

Do we want to do work for the Federal Government?  Then we’ve got a quota to fill.

…I am just shaking at work right now this makes me so mad.

Choosing Christ

I sometimes have trouble coming to terms with the fact that I have to choose to follow Christ every day.  Over and over, every day.  Why can’t I just choose once and then it is decided?

Let’s say I go to get a coffee at a restaurant somewhere and the waiter asks me if I want sugar in it.  I answer yes.  30 seconds later he asks me if I want sugar in it….um, yes please.  25 seconds later he asks me again, do you want sugar in it?  Is this a trick question?  I said yes already.  10 seconds later…do you want sugar in your coffee?  Listen dude, do you have a hearing problem?  How many times do I have to say yes before you get the picture?!?

So why do I have to choose Christ over and over, day after day?  I get that we’re beings with free will.  And I get why that is important, I would have chosen to go that route as well if I were God.  (Haha, I’m sure God just breathed a sigh of relief – oh thank goodness, Jon agrees with what I have done, I guess I must be doing things right then….LOL)  But if I choose God today, why do I have to go through the sometimes agonizing decision again tomorrow, and then again the next day?  It is not always easy to make that choice – temptations come in so many different forms that the choice doesn’t even look the same from one time to the next.  In fact, often I don’t even recognize that is the choice I am making.

Some of you will say, you really only have to choose to follow Christ one time and then after that your name is written in the Book of Life and you’re good to go.  Ok, I am not going to go into the eternal security vs. conditional security debate here (but I will mention that if you ever have that debate with me I lean on the conditional security side of that fence).  Maybe I should say I have to choose to live for Christ daily.  Actually multiple times per day would be more accurate.

I get tired of failing.  I get tired of being tempted – often with the same things over and over.  I just want to choose once and be done with it.

I suppose the answer lies somewhere with the fact that time is linear and choices we make do not rule out the possibility that we will encounter similar branches in the path ahead of us…  Whatever.  That is not a very satisfying answer when I am frustrated about this.

On a good note, I was reading the other day and something clicked for me.  We will not be presented with these decisions in heaven.  The temptation to do wrong will be eliminated therefore the choice to follow Christ won’t need to be made.  It will already have been made.  So, in the face of eternity, choosing to follow Christ daily for 70 years isn’t all that long really.  After 50 bazillion years in heaven I will probably look back at those first 70 years and say it was really only one choice after all…

Religion is like a what?!?!

I found this picture on my Facebook news feed the other day and at first I was offended, but after I thought about it for a while I felt really sad.

This is the sort of thing we are dealing with in today’s culture.  It used to be that people were fighting against Christianity and persecuting Christians.  Now they just don’t care.  In the spiritual war we are fighting for every soul around us, how do you fight against this?

People think they are doing fine on their own.  Even though they worship all manner of different things, they believe they have no god, and they are managing just fine.  Why would they need to obey some mythical figure and follow a bunch of rules?

The world around us screams about a Creator.  And it demands an answer.  Yes or no.  Unfortunately, pretending you don’t have to make the choice is actually choosing no.

Hose Clamp Skull Cap

I want to try to paint a picture of what it is like inside my head.  I find it a circle of struggles that I deal with on a regular basis.  I would assume that a lot of guys have these same struggles and I bet many use the same techniques I do to cope.  Anyway, here is the picture…

When my mind goes idle I often cast about trying to find things to think about.  This happens to me when I am driving, falling asleep, mowing the lawn, stuff like that.  I often think of this as the times I am hanging out with myself.  My internal monologue kicks in.  I am daydreaming about stuff.  I come up with arguments about things I am passionate about.  And my mind falls prey to all sorts of selfishness, greed, hurtfulness…..sin.

Ok, so the scene is set.  I just started mowing the lawn 3 minutes ago and I have about an hour and a half of mowing ahead of me.  My mind has shifted into neutral….

I start thinking about cars.  I love automobiles in general but I really love my car.  I have big plans for it like a supercharger at some point in the future (this won’t actually ever happen…), but in the interim, I would like to get a header-back exhaust on it.  That would be sweet and it is sort of inside the realm of possibility even though it would still cost quite a bit.  My thoughts never seem to just be content with the pure love of automobiles.  It always leads to me wishing I could get this for my car or do that to it.  I've got plans.  Always wanting something else.  Never content.  It is frustrating and I don’t think the discontent is biblical.  I think it is sin to always be wanting something more – never to be satisfied with what you have.  Alright fine!  I take a firm grip of my car thoughts and mentally push them over there and I hold them away from me with one of my mental arms.

Next…..

Sex.  That is something that’s pretty interesting to think about.  Problem is, it is such a slippery slope to keep sex thoughts pure and clean.  So that lasts for a lot less time than the car thoughts and I throw a super vice-grip onto those thoughts and mentally push them away.

Alright, now I’m holding those away.  I can do this.  Next…..

I love video games.  I wish I could somehow be a professional video game player (that or a race car driver of some sort).  I would love to make my living that way.  Yeah right…  So I start analyzing my latest session playing Destiny.  “Last time I went into the big room I headed left and tried sniping the guy from there but I wonder if it would work better to head to the right and climb up to the balcony.  There is better cover there and I could duck and hide if need be……”  How much of my life gets poured into video games?  How much of my time and mental energy is spent on this COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS PURSUIT?  You know what, video games in and of themselves are not the problem.  Sure they don’t promote anything good and usually they do promote stuff that is unhealthy, but I see the problem as the time they take from my life.  I think the enemy is very supportive of the video game industry as it pulls me out of basically everything.  Volunteer activities, building meaningful relationships, studying God’s Word, building into my relationship with my wife, praying, and on and on…  Ok, grab that with a firm grip and push it away and hold it there.  (Something you may not know about me is that I have quite a few mental arms – not just two.  I kind of need that many because my mental landscape all slopes toward me.  I can’t just push thoughts away and leave them there because they all roll back to me as soon as I let go of them.  Mental arms people – you can never have enough of them).

You know what it feels like to have all those mental arms holding stuff away? Imagine a hose clamp that fits onto your skull. 

Now tighten it down REALLY tight!  There, that should do it.  Ok (through gritted teeth) the breach is contained; I’m good to go now.  And so I move forward one painful step after another on the path of life.  Guess what happens to me every now and then (in fact quite often) – the hose clamp bursts open.  Everything comes apart and I fail.

Over and over and over and over and over and over………

Every time I fail I beat the stuffing out of myself.  I cry out, “God!  Why is this so hard all the time?!”  I can’t do it on my own.  I already know that – which makes it really hard to even motivate myself to grip those thoughts and push them away in the first place.  What is the point?  I have never succeeded at this in the past.  What makes me think I can do it now?

God stands at the door and knocks.  Give it to me my boy, that is the only way you can make this work.  Crazy thing is I don’t even own these struggles any more.  A story Boyd Hopkins used to explain it to me once goes like this:  Boyd bought a property once in BC.  It was a nice large property with foliage all around.  He went and checked the place out, he liked it, he bought it.  It wasn’t until the next year when he was standing on his back deck and he notices something out back in the bushes that he hadn’t ever seen before.  Sort of looks like a chimney or something out back there.  Turns out there was an old structure back there that was full of the previous owners old junk!  Old bicycles, lawn mowers, rusted patio furniture, broken windows, probably an old clothes dryer – you know the sort of stuff I’m talking about.  So, now what?  Call up the previous owner and get him to come clean this trash up?  Nope, Boyd had purchased it with the property.  Well God purchased our property on the cross.  He owns it!  All of it.  It is His because he bought it.  Haha, what a sucker God is right?!  Nope.  Difference is He knew it was there when he bought the property but He knew we would never be able to clean all that up.

So here’s the key: I have to stop fighting and say, “God, I’m gonna need you to come clean this up because you bought it on the cross and I actually can’t even lift it.”  I need to surrender it to God, not keep fighting.  I need to walk away from the fight.

How hard is that to do?  I haven’t managed to successfully do it yet.  I’m pretty sure it is harder than doing the Crota’s End raid on Hard in Destiny.

Children

I have a couple children. I love them quite a bit. I try to reason with them all the time just because that is what I do. In my world things are supposed to make sense. So I try to explain that to them and I expect them to right away see that daddy knows what he is talking about, what he is asking of me is quite reasonable, I don't see why I didn't see it from his perspective right from the beginning. Yeah right...  I don't suppose I have gotten that reaction from them yet, but they're 4 years old so maybe I am expecting a bit too much from them.

I am often surprised though how many adults can't see reason either. They also respond like children. Tit for tat. You did this to me so I'm not talking to you any more until you say sorry. I'm not saying sorry first - it's your fault, you say sorry first. I'm gonna block you from my Facebook account. You hurt my feelings, now I'm gonna be mad at you.

Children.

I have a situation with my extended family right now where exactly this is happening. There is some sort of a perceived slight and then all of a sudden the bottom lip starts to stick out and it is all about me and my feelings and how could you do this to me, now I'm not talking to you any more. Grow up people! And I have to say, it's kind of funny for me to say this since these people are all my elders LOL.

I had an issue that came up between my cousin and I a couple years back. We definitely saw the issue from opposing sides and we had quite a falling out about it. The issue involved several thousand dollars so it was quite serious for both of us. We don't live near each other and we rarely see each other so that could have spelled the end of that relationship and we could have just written each other off completely. No big loss right? Just some very infrequent awkward moments at family gatherings right? No, not right!

I would then be living with that in my heart. I would have poison in my heart! Yes, poison! How can you be whole when you have a section of your heart that is black with poison? God speaks to this in Matthew 5:23-24. He is not interested in any gift we have for Him if we have got a feud going on with our brother (or sister or parent or child or friend or co-worker or......). How can we think that we can offer up good things to God on the one hand and deal dirty with people around us on the other hand? Nope. There is a crucial disconnect there.

I want to tell you something that I found interesting. Your motivations for forgiving people can be completely selfish. Stop the Presses! What?!?! Alright let's hear this, I think this might be something that could maybe work for all of us. I know I am as selfish as they come. I believe God wants us to forgive each other out of a spirit of love and compassion for each other, however, let's just explore this other side of the coin for a minute. Do you really want to live your life holding on to your precious pain? Wouldn't it be liberating to let it go? Just for a second imagine what your life would be like if you didn't have to nurture that pain in your heart. You don't need to say the other person was right in order to let go of the pain and the anger. Conversly you don't need to convince the other person that you were right in order to forgive them for the pain their actions caused you.  You don't even need the other person to want to forgive you in order for you to forgive them. See where I'm going with this? Forgiveness is your choice and your choice alone. Nobody can take that away from you. You don't require anything at all from the other person in order to forgive them. You don't even require them to be alive.

Here's the rub - if they are alive, you need to tell them that you forgive them. Crap. It would be a lot easier if we could just forgive the jerks and never talk to them again. Right, it would, and that sentence shows why that just won't work. If we've forgiven them then they can no longer be addressed as "the jerks", and we need to resume relationship with them. If we've forgiven them what reason do we now have to not invite them into our home? Jesus does not call us to "forgive and forget". That is a saying that we made up, not something Jesus asks of us. We are unable to forget. What this means is that we are not required to put ourselves back into a position to be hurt from "the jerks" again, but we do have to stop calling them that and we do need to resume relationship with them.

Guess what? This is a happy ending. My cousin and I contacted each other and worked it out. How did we do that? We both decided that we didn't need to live holding on so tightly to our pain. Our pain was not that precious to us. Our relationship was more precious to us than our pain. We both gave the pain to God, because after all, it belongs to Him. He bought it from us on the cross. This does not mean we are best friends. This does not mean that it does not still hurt for us to see each other. It means that we have forgiven each other for whatever wrongs we percieve were committed against us. We still don't see the issue from the same perspective, but that is not important to us anymore. Now I don't have that weight hanging around my neck and neither does he. My respect for him went through the roof after we worked this out. He is a man who is working to be closer to his Saviour just like me.

However, the situation with my extended family continues. It is sad that these people just want to hold on to their pain. I believe it has become part of them. For them to give it up at this point would be to admit defeat. It would show weakness. That kind of thinking is soooooo flawed. True strength of character is shown in forgiveness. It takes immense strength and it is the path to victory, not defeat.

When I was a young boy my Uncle Dave said something to me I will never forget. I had acted out against him for something or other, I can't remember what it was, and that is not the point of this story. I was standing on the stairs in our house on Neil Avenue in Winnipeg, Uncle Dave was standing at the bottom of the stairs.  I had just apologized to him.  He very graciously said, "It takes a big man to say sorry". So true. I have never forgotten that moment.

My Prayer

Heavenly Father, I give you everything I've got:

My house,

My car,

My children,

My pride,

My reputation,

My time,

My comfort

My job,

My body,

My wife,

My health,

My safety,

Even all my failures.

It is all yours now.

Every praise, every word of worship, is to my God. 

Eulogy to the Incandescent Lightbulb

Before I start the eulogy, let me say this:  Government, you suck for doing this to us.  You’re always wanting to step in and control what we can and can’t do.  Why on earth did you pick on lightbulbs?  If you want to take away our choice in matters of energy efficiency then why not ban Hummers?  Or outlaw single pane windows?  Maybe put the kaibosh on hot-tubs and sports cars.  You randomly chose lightbulbs to be your battleground.  You trenched in and decided this was the issue you were going to die over.  This is ridiculous. 

Oh, one more thing before the eulogy, LED lightbulb manufacturers, you also suck.  Don’t try to tell me you’re not raping us all and getting the government to enforce it.  It is like winter tires – thankfully that is not enforced here in Saskatchewan.  I have nothing against winter tires.  I do have something against a government enforcing the use of winter tires.  I have nothing against LED lightbulbs – I think they’re great.  I also think they cost at least double what they should.  And I do have something agaist the government enforcing the use of LED bulbs (lets face it, CCFL’s suck, what other option do we have now?).

Now for the eulogy:

Incandescent lightbulbs, you sucked, but you were cheap and you represented choice.  For those reasons I will miss you.

Phobias

Arachnophobia: the fear of spiders.

Acrophobia: the fear of heights.

Astraphobia: the fear of thunder and lightning.

Trypanophobia: the fear of injections. 

Homophobia: um... the fear of homosexual people?

Why are we using the word homophobia? It is a new catch word that people are throwing about to mean "not accepting of homosexual folks". Doesn't really make much sense to me. I don't approve of their lifestyle choice. I'm not scared of them.

Psalm 119 - In Praise of the Law

Notice the title of this post is not Psalms 119.  It is only the one Psalm.

I am not going to type it all out here as it is much too long for that.  I just wanted to explain two interesting details of this Psalm that I did not know about before yesterday.

First, do you see those weird headings throughout the Psalm?  They are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  א - Aleph, ב - Beth, ג - Gimel, and so on.  There are 22 of them which is why there are 22 sections of 8 verses each in Psalm 119.  Here is the neat part, if you were to read Psalm 119 in Hebrew, each verse starts with the letter indicated.  Obviously this is lost in translation, but you can see that the author was looking to incorporate alliteration in his work.  He is using the entire alphabet to praise the word of God.

Second, every verse (literally, take a look, every single verse has it) points to the word of God.  Various different words are used throughout the Psalm.  Decrees, Precepts, Law, Word, Commands, Statutes, and so on.  I had never noticed this before although it is quite blatant.

Kind of cool to know these two little tidbits right?  Now read Psalm 119.  It becomes more of a poem or song instead of just a long chapter full of words.  It sure would be neat to be able to read the entire book of Psalms in the original languange.

Retirement Planning

Planning for my retirement has been getting more and more important to me the older I get. I've got a few things in place, but one of my primary retirement plans is to keep working as long as I can and not have to dip heavily into any savings until I absolutely have to.

I heard something interesting in Sunday School today. Jesus actually taught about retirement planning.

Luke 12:16-21. The parable of the rich fool:  "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."'  "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

How many of us would respond like this: It is irresponsible to not plan properly for the future - we will just be a burden on others if we don't make sure we take care of ourselves. True. But, God wants us to be taking care of the old, the sick, the orphans and the widows. Maybe he asks this of us because he would rather we all pay more attention to giving our money away now instead of piling it up in our new larger barns for our retirement. But if we don't take care of ourselves we will be just like the birds of the air or the lillies of the field! (Matthew 6:25-34) Yup, that's right.

Makes us kind of scared to think that way right? That's because we're not taking care of the old people in our lives like we should be. Neither are any of our friends or family. That's why we also think we're going to be screwed once we retire unless we save as much as possible for ourselves.

God is likely calling us to do other things with the majority of our money that we are salting away for ourselves.

...But:

We need enough to be able to spend time in our condo in Palm Springs after we retire right?

We need enough to be able to go on our annual winter cruise with our friends right?

We need enough to maintain our standard of living right?

We need enough to...

I mean, we've earned these things!

Paying Too Little

"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little.  When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all.  When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.  The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done.  If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

John Ruskin

Mr & Mrs

Do you remember when you were a kid and you called all the adults by their first names? 

You don’t?  Oh.

Why not?

Because you didn’t?  Hmm, I see.

Well what did you do then?  Ahh, yes, that’s right.  We called them Mr. LastName or Mrs. LastName.

I remember being so furious that my parents made me call all the adults Mr. or Mrs. LastName!  The injustice of it!  I felt so degraded.  What am I here a second class person that I can’t just hang with the adults and call them by their first names?  Outrageous!  I remember swearing an oath that I would NEVER revisit this cruelty on my own kids!

Oh yeah, that’s right.  I didn’t feel that way at all.  It was the normal way of things.  I was expected to respect other adults.  They were not my friends.  They were my parent’s friends.  Their kids were my friends.  I was allowed to call their kids by their first names.  I was not allowed to hang out with the adults when they were visiting, just bouncing around from one to the other, demanding that they swing me around or oooh and ahhh over my lego car.  We CREPT in to the living room and whispered into my Mom’s ear a question of such dire seriousness that we couldn’t in good conscience leave it until the visiting was done.

"Mom, Jeff fell off the roof and now there is blood coming out of his leg.  We tried to fix it up so we wouldn’t have to disturb you guys, but we just don’t know how.  Sorry to bother you, but can you please help us for just a minute?"

Was there something wrong with that?

The way I see it there are two problems here…

First, what is wrong with US that we just can’t abide the thought of being called Mr. or Mrs LastName?  We think we’re still kids?  We don’t want to accept the responsibility of being the adult?  We are so scared to alienate the children that we need to have them climbing all over us all the time?  “Oh, don’t call me Mr. Sawatzky, haha, that’s my father”.  Um, no, you are the father now.  Your kids need to be taught respect for adults.  Your kids will not respect “James” nearly as much as they will “Mr. Sawatzky”.  James is their buddy.  Mr. Sawatzky is their buddy’s dad.  Even Mr. James is not good enough people.

Ask yourself this: Why does it make you feel so uncomfortable for kids to call you Mr. or Mrs. LastName?

Second, we are doing our kids no favours whatsoever by bringing them up to see other adults as the same as their friends.  Our kids need that authority in their lives.  They need to learn that the other adults in the church or wherever, need to be listened to and obeyed.  Look at the kids these days – do they have a healthy respect for authority figures?  Not at all.  Kids just mock authority (the mocking comes more when they are older, but this is a direct result of not being taught to respect authority when they are young).  Our kids need this authority so they can have the security of knowing that it is not just a free-for-all out in the world.  It will help them be healthy well-adjusted people later in life.

We are hurting our kids by letting go of this tradition of respect.  It is our fault that today’s kids won’t respect authority.  I am not some power hungry monster that is looking to dominate all of earth’s children.  What I am calling for is a society of respect, not only for people in positions of authority over you (although yes, this too), but for everyone around you.

 
Even though I want my kids to call other adults Mr. or Mrs. LastName, there are very few of them who will allow it.  They are just not comfortable with it.  Sometimes the best I can do is to convince them to allow my kids to call them Mr. James.  There is nothing I can do about it when the other adult won’t step up.  I mourn the loss of this.  I really do.

My Existence Is Being Used Up!

I find lately that I am uninspired.  Bored with everything.  I am looking for some sort of excitement for my life.

I go to work to earn money for food, bills, mortgage and the occasional purchase.  I come home from work to eat supper with my family.  I try my best to put my work day behind me as quickly as I can because I need to be cheerful and talkative during the short time my kids are still up after I get home (to be honest I don’t only need to do this but I do want to do it, but it takes a superhuman effort most days to do this).  I need to build into them as much as I can during the time I have since I only get about 2 hours a day with them.  If I spend those 2 hours being on my own that is not fair to them; and once again, honestly, I don’t want them to have a family experience like that.

After the kids are in bed I read a book, or I watch some shows, or I play a computer game, or I _______________ (insert some other time wasting activity here).  You see, I have this time before I go to bed that needs to be filled somehow.  Sometimes I actually do something that needs to be done like changing the oil in my car, cleaning up the kitchen or mowing my lawn.  What does it mean?  Not really anything.

The next day – more of the same.

Sometimes I drive around thinking, What am I doing?  My existence is being used up on an errand to Future Shop.  It is not getting me anywhere.  There’s got to be more than this right?  Ok, well I do love driving, so I think, I’m going to enjoy my driving experience.  For me that probably means breaking a bunch of laws driving like a maniac so I don’t do this very often – it’s hard on the vehicle and it’s hard on the pocketbook if you get caught.  What is up with traffic?  Why do people drive so slowly?  Doesn’t anyone else try to enjoy the driving experience?  I guess not…  Soooo, if I can’t enjoy the driving experience what else can I do?  Hmm, well I really like listening to music extremely loud while I drive.  I’ll try that.  Looking through the albums on my phone……..nothing.  Great.  I bought this music, so I obviously like it, but there is usually nothing there that I’m really pumped to listen to.

What is my life?  Just an unending sequence of tasks and errands and stuff that really, in the end, is worthless?

I know the answers to all of these questions.  Intellectually I know that:

• if I were to be listening to God in the car while I drive instead of trying to fill my mind with useless nonsense it would bring me peace
• if I were to spend my time praying in the evenings I would find fulfillment since I would be engaging with the only being who can show me what I want to know
• if I were to spend my efforts looking for what God is doing around me and then engaging with Him in those activities it would be so much more rewarding than earning a Platinum trophy on a PS3 game by defeating an end boss in under 4 minutes
• so much else can go here…

God created me.  It wasn’t a whim.  I do have a purpose.  We all have a purpose and someday we will be called to answer.  My life feels unsatisfying because it is not in line with that purpose.  Of course I’m going to be aimlessly wandering!

I don’t put these solutions into practice in my life.  I really do know these things, but I always put off practicing them.  Paul said, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.  Instead, I do what I hate.” Romans 7:15 (NLT)  He did the same thing as me!  I’ll bet he was riding around on his donkey (aka, driving) thinking the same things I do, “I need some excitement in my life.  I’m gonna gallop my donkey through town!  That will be epic!”  Paul and I have this in common: We were/are human.

This goes into every corner of my life.  Where do I spend my money?  Where do I spend my time?  Where do I direct my thoughts?  I spend it all, I direct it all towards myself.

 

How do I change this?  How do I drum up the energy to engage my desire to change this?  All of the unsaved people around me are relying on me!  And I am letting them down!

I'm Being Manipulated!

I have just clued in to something that my wife has been doing to me over the last few months.  I believe she is manipulating me!  Outrageous!  Let me explain what I’ve found out.

It all started about half a year to maybe a year ago when she did a couple Bible studies based on Ephesians and Proverbs 31.  I wasn’t totally following the content of the studies, but they had something to do with being a godly woman/wife.  Then I started to notice some subtle manipulations.

All of a sudden I noticed that she doesn’t have a short fuse with me anymore (not that I can blame her when she does).  She is trying to take care of things in the house so I don’t have to be busy when I get home from work.  She is looking after the kids so that I don’t get as frustrated with them with the little things.  She is supporting me and building me up.  She is putting my priorities ahead of her own.  She is showing me way too much love…

I have finally put the whole thing together.  I am not going to stand still for being manipulated!  Two can play at this game!  Now I am going to try to be as considerate as possible with her.  I am going to try to be sensitive to what she needs so I can meet those needs.  I don’t want the kids to run her down too much so I will help out wherever I can.  I want to free her up whenever I can so she can go running and do some of the things she wants to do with her friends.  I want to start being less selfish with my time.  I want to finish off a bunch of things that have been sitting undone at home which she has suspiciously been so understanding about.  I’m going to spend more time convincing her that I love her.  I want to find out how God intends me to be a father and husband and then do those things so I can totally get back at her J  Mwaahahahaha!  Let's see how she likes it when the shoe is on the other foot!

Maybe God spoke to her in those Bible studies.  What an example she has been to me in this.

Think He intended marriage partners to manipulate each other with love in this way?

Missed Appointments

I am married to a Registered Massage Therapist who works out of our home.  We have found that this arrangement works very well for us as she is able to dictate her own hours and will be able to be home most of the time once our kids hit school age.  Unfortunately it does absolutely nothing for me…  You’ve heard that a mechanics car is in the worst shape right?  Well, I could be considered that mechanics car…

Periodically we come across a situation that leaves us both feeling incredibly frustrated and upset, and yet completely impotent to do anything about it.  People just don’t show up for their appointments.  And then the response is “Oh, Sorry!” 

Well, yes, I understand you’re sorry.  Obviously you’re going to be sorry.  You probably needed a massage which is why you booked it.  Now you’re sorry you don’t get to have it and you’ll have to book another one.  I also understand that you never meant to forget the appointment.  Oh, wait a minute, let me emphasise something from my previous sentence: YOU forgot the appointment.

I believe that anyone should be able to figure this out with about 20 seconds of thought, but I have observed that almost nobody understands the following principle.  This applies to pretty much all places where you book an appointment and they hold that time for you.  Let me explain it here in terms everyone should be able to understand.

The time slot is reserved for you.  By the time my wife has determined that you are not only late, but you are not showing up it is probably 10 minutes after your scheduled appointment time.  Usually she will scramble to try to fill that spot.  How on earth is she supposed to fill that appointment time now?  Especially if she has someone scheduled to come following your appointment.  I’ll help you figure it out – 99% of the time she can’t fill it.  Now she is out that money.  When you get paid on a salary you just get a cheque once or twice a month.  When you work as a massage therapist you rely on every appointment in order to get paid.

If you would have called ahead to cancel (and here is another hint that is really top secret that not many people can figure out: if nobody answers the phone when you call to cancel, LEAVE A MESSAGE!) then there is some notice and that spot can likely be filled by someone else.  If you call and don't leave a message then you are not off the hook yet - you have not given notice.  When you don’t call, but just don’t show up, that is money that is just lost.  There is really no way to recover it…unless…

You pay for your missed appointment.  Here is another tip: don’t wait for your massage therapist (or whatever appointment you have missed) to ask you to pay for your missed appointment – just come right out and tell him/her that you will pay for it.  It is your responsibility.  “But, I never got a massage!  Why should I have to pay for it?!”  Because you were the one that missed it.  Because your massage therapist reserved that time for you and didn’t book someone else into it (which they very likely could have) based on the fact that you said you were coming.  Had they known you weren’t going to come they could have gotten someone else to fill the spot and not been out the money.  But now that you have missed it, it is too late for them to fill the spot, and they are now out the money.

Because you forgot…they don’t get paid.

Because your schedule changed last minute…they don’t get paid.

Because you got sick…they don’t get paid.

My wife is such a sweetheart that often she doesn’t have the heart to enforce her cancellation policy.  She feels bad for the person that for whatever reason, life got in the way and they missed the appointment.  It is so unfair to make her ask.  Please just offer to pay for the appointment.  You owe it to her.

Insite - certainly not Insight...

What's next?  Safe sites to go murder people.

Listen, we know that murder is wrong, but you just left the Insite clinic where you shot up on WAY too much heroin (because you knew we would save you if you took too much so you took as much as you could all at once) and now you are not thinking clearly and you want to murder a guy.  We know it isn't really you making this decision, it is the drugs in your body that are causing you to murder this guy.  You can't be held accountable for that!  We are sure that if you weren't hopped up on drugs you would probably want to hug him instead of murder him.  But, now that you are stoned, and you are going to murder this guy, why don't you do it here at our Homisite.  We'll make sure you don't knick yourself with the blade while you stab the guy.  We know you can't really help yourself - so that makes it ok.