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A recent feel good story got only modest play in the everyday tsunami of bad news. Gainesville State School is a Texas juvenile correction facility for felony offenders. The school fields a basketball team that gets to make a few visits outside of the facility to play games. One of the givens is that the Gainesville Tornadoes cheering section will be non-existent. That bothered some of the students at Vanguard College Preparatory School in Waco, Texas and they decided to do something about it.

The students organized a cheering section for Gainesville when they traveled to Waco in January. T-Shirts were produced with the Tornadoe’s logo and the words “We Believe” across the bottom. The cheerleading squad was split in half and they wore the black and white for Gainesville instead of their familiar green and white colors. Vanguard fans wore black in support of the visiting team.

The Tornadoe players had no idea what was about to happen when they ran on the court. They ran, awkwardly at first, through a cheering line of students and fans. The look on their faces morphed from surprise to joy as they realized that someone was cheering for and not against them.

Fans in the stands dabbed tears from their eyes as they got caught up in the moment. After the game the players said they would never forget this moment. Head Coach Walt Scott noted that it is not often that his players get encouragement.

These young men had made some very bad decisions to get them to the Gainesville facility. They were suffering the consequences of those bad decisions. But the message they heard that one night was a message of affirmation. That you are important. Redemption is possible. Someone does believe in you. Hopefully that message will be a literal game changer for many of those young men.

Affirmation is a game changer for all of us. Here is a snippet from one of my favorite chapters in Stay about the power of affirmation. No creature does a better job of affirmation that our canine friends.

We should not be surprised that people respond positively when they are told how much they matter. More important, we matter to God. His Word is full of affirmation for those who choose to trust Him.

To all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
(John 1:12, NLT)

You are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.
(1 Peter 2:9-10, The Message)

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
(Ephesians 1:4, NLT)

We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:10, NLT)

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
(John 15:15, ESV)

Jesus calls me His friend. Even when those around you are failing to fill up your affirmation bucket, you can still go to Scripture and find out how God feels about you. Is there a more important affirmation than that? When you believe that your heavenly Father recognizes your worth, it gets easier to find things to affirm in others. How can I suffer from a poor self-image if this is true? Jesus calls me friend, for goodness’ sake!
Don’t miss a chance to affirm others. Be intentional, making it a way of life. Hannah has me enrolled in intensive affirmation training. Every time my canine instructor sees me, she treats me like the most important person in the world. Her exuberance never fails to warm my heart.

Affirmation is a powerful tool of God’s redemptive grace. For many of those young men who traveled to Waco that night it might have been the very first time that they heard a message of grace. Grace says you can still be loved and accepted even after you make terrible decisions and do bad things. That is exactly what happened when God reached out to love me (and you) after our own terrible decisions and bad actions. God delights in redeeming bad people because, as Tullian Tchvidjian so accurately states it, that is all He has to work with.

Affirm someone in your life today. When you see someone who is loved and admired by everyone I suspect you will find this common trait. They are a full time affirmation bucket filler for everyone around them. Are you willing to swap judgement for affirmation? It will be a game changer for you and those you affirm.

Read the first chapter of Stay:Lessons My Dogs Taught Me about Life, Loss, and Grace by clicking this link.

Yesterday the life odometer clicked over another year. No matter how hard we try we cannot roll it back. Part of acquiring higher mileage is getting some hard earned perspective on your life decisions. Some decisions were good. Some benign. Some not so good. Some truly regretful.

That is life.

The encouragement I have discovered is that even the really bad decisions can be redeemed by the grace of God. D.L.Moody was one of the greatest communicators of the Gospel in church history. A great Christian university bears his name. One of my favorite Moody quotes is about the learning curve of Moses. Moses ended up having a fairly decent impact for God.

Hannah was predestined to swim, run, and retrieve. That is the destiny of any retriever. Hannah does not try to be anything else. Even as a puppy, she chased anything we tossed her way and eagerly brought it back. We did not have to spend one minute training her. It was as natural as breathing for Hannah. Retrieving was her purpose and passion.

That was the lesson for today from my four-legged mentor. I have also been created with a purpose. In fact, every person has a God-designed destiny whether they believe it or not. Henri Nouwen wrote about living with that frame of mind.”We seldom realize fully that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. . . . We act as if we were simply dropped down in creation and have to decide how to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do.”

Living out of who you are is liberating. The apostle Paul had some thoughts about such a life when he wrote to the church at Ephesus.

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10, NLT)

Think about that! You were rescued from the death of sin by grace. It was a gift that could not be earned. And you are a new creation, indeed a masterpiece for whom good things were planned from the beginning of time. How can followers of Jesus possibly have self-image issues? When we believe the lies.

Monday, April 6th will be my thirty-third opening day as the television director for Texas Rangers broadcasts. Someone asked me at church if I ever get tired of opening day. The answer is a resounding no! When I do it will be time to move to a rocking chair at the old director’s home. I feel like I am just behind Lou Gehrig as the “luckiest man on the face of the earth” to be able to do this year after year.

In my mind there is no more special day in sports than Opening Day in baseball. The smell of freshly cut emerald green grass delights the senses. The base lines painstakingly and perfectly defined by a grounds crew that is committed to perfection on this day. Red, white, and blue bunting give the ball park a festive World Series look. The players bounce around like little boys. They seem a little extra grateful that they are paid to play a kid’s game.

The hot dogs taste like gourmet food. Humphrey Bogard wisely said that “a hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz”. Souvenirs a young fan begs for become treasures to be kept until adulthood when you try to explain to your wife why a twenty-year old bobble head needs to be in the china cabinet.

Children skip school and parents do not care because memories are being made for both of them. There is no shot that I love more as the Ranger director than the one of a Dad or Mom pointing to the field and explaining this wonderful game to their child.

The atmosphere is truly magic. It is Opening Day and every team has hope. Every team is undefeated. Who will be this year’s Kansas City Royal team that surprises and surpasses all expectations? Each fan has dreams and they are hopefully, or perhaps hopelessly, optimistic. This is a new day and a new season. Old mistakes are forgotten. Past errors are no longer important. Today is the annual renewal of the incredible marathon that is big league baseball. It is a clean slate. The team has a new identity.

I once longed for such a defining moment in my walk with Jesus. It took me a long time to understand that God’s Word tells us that every day is like Opening Day (Dave’s paraphrase). I do have a clean slate because of Christ. There is hope. Yesterday’s sins are forgotten if you have accepted the gift of Jesus on the Cross. Every morning that I awake and see the magic of a new sunrise I know that I am renewed, redeemed and ready to face the day whatever pitches are thrown my way. I don’t have to wait a year to have a chance for renewal. Paul writes that every day holds the spiritual magic of renewal and victory in Christ.

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ.  (I Corinthians 5:17-18, NLT)
I am grateful that in my spiritual journey God that has given me a chance for “Opening Day” renewal every day of my life. I have had some really bad seasons during my career as a follower of Jesus. But I am learning that everyday is a gift. I hope I have many more Opening Days as a director. Then I long for many more as a fan with my precious grandchildren.Dan Patrick once noted. “He is listed as day to day. But then again, aren’t we all?”

The fragile nature of our lives makes the bigger questions so much more important even as I enjoy the hope of Opening Day. Every day with Jesus of my journey with Jesus can be like this special day in baseball. I can be transformed and new. Past losses (sins) can be redeemed and forgiven. There can be freshness in the journey and joy. I can realize that I am a child of God and I can be grateful that I call Him Father. I can believe that hope for the future is real. I can understand that I must be a better teammate to others that I encounter and not expect my team to be perfect. The magic of a fresh start happens once a year in baseball. It can happen every day for a follower of Jesus when we focus on His amazing Grace.

There is much written about Good Friday. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross is incomprehensible to my puny human intellect. There is much written about Easter Sunday. Christians around the world rejoice and proclaim that “He is risen!”. But there is not nearly as much written about one of the saddest and most confusing days in history. The Saturday between the Friday horror of Jesus on the Cross and the Sunday mystery of the resurrection. Some churches do observe Holy Saturday but it was never a tradition in my faith upbringing.

I have been thinking about what that day must have been like for those who dropped everything to follow Jesus. How crushing those events had to be. I imagine the fear they felt that they would also be killed. And for what? On Saturday they feared they had given their careers and their very souls for a false hope.

I think in particular of Peter. I identify so much with him. Like him I throw down bold statements of loyalty to the Lord and then betray them. Like him I draw attention to my own accomplishments instead of recognizing where my accomplishments come from. Like Peter I am a generally sincere but desperately needy follower of Jesus.

You know the story about Peter before the arrest and mock trial of Jesus. Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times before the rooster crows at dawn. For many years I breezed by the setup to that prediction.

“Simon (Peter),  Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”  (Luke 22, NLT)

Jesus had already prayerfully pleaded for Peter to be used in a powerful and redemptive way before the failure, shame and repentance that Jesus knew was about to happen. Our sin does not take Jesus by surprise. Why does His grace and forgiveness surprise us?

Like me, Peter did not hear the tender words of encouragement from the Lord. Nope. He blustered.

“Lord, I am ready to go to prison with you, and even to die with you.”

After the arrest of Jesus a suddenly less bold Peter followed the crowd. He denied to a servant girl that he knew Jesus. He denied his alliance to another bystander. The crushing sorrow and shame of what happened next is hard to fathom.

About an hour later someone else insisted, “This must be one of them, because he is a Galilean, too.”

But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.

At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Suddenly, the Lord’s words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.” And Peter left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.

I imagined what the expression might have been on the face of Jesus when He turned and looked. I suspect it was a look of sadness, compassion and longing to comfort His friend. But what Peter probably saw was only disappointment and failure. Peter’s tears likely flowed until they could no longer flow. I suspect it was hard to even breathe. His heart literally ached within his chest. His mind could not imagine any future hope. I wonder if he thought about running away or even ending it all. I wonder if he could think at all.

That Saturday was one of the worst days in history and Peter may have felt the pain of that awful day more intensely than anyone. He did not know what would happen the next day. Peter did not yet understand what Jesus had been telling him.

When Luke recounts that Jesus appeared to the Disciples the only one mentioned by name is Peter. What gives me hope this Easter season is the tender story of Jesus affirming and reinstating Peter to be a leader who would “feed His sheep”. That is the grace that changes a heart.

I can betray Jesus. Ignore Him. Live selfishly. At some point I once again recognize my desperate need for Jesus to rescue me. For the one millionth time I turn to Him. And what happens? He lifts my shame bowed head and looks deeply into my eyes. He tells me how much He loves me. That is grace. That is real. That is love. Maybe I won’t have a day quite as bad as Peter on that horrible dark Saturday but his story of redemption encourages me this Easter season.

He is risen! He is risen for me! Jesus is pleading for me that my faith will not fail. What a joyous hope for all of us this Easter.

One of the really weird things for me is when people want me to sign my book. I feel like the only time my signature is valuable is on a check written from the good account. I do love signing books at a bookstore because they can’t return them to the publisher. That fits into my narrative that my signature actually makes it worth less!

Nonetheless, I am honored when people find some value in a personal word or signature. I have gotten many inquiries via Facebook and Twitter about getting signed copies. The logistics and expense of that is a bit daunting. However, I am offering a low cost alternative if you would like a personal note in your book or a book for a friend.

Tyndale House Publishing provides autograph plates that adhere to an inside page of the book. Send me a self-addressed and stamped envelope (#6 envelope works great) inside of a regular business envelope. Clearly print the name you want it signed to and a very brief message. Here is an example of the length of message that fits.

I will sign an autograph plate or plates and return them to you.

I am excited and grateful that so many of you are giving Stay as gifts to your dog-loving friends and relatives. Here is what the reviewer said at Kara’s Book Korner.

If you are a dog lover or know one, hand them this book. And if you know a dog lover who is not a Christian, this could be a great outreach tool to introduce them to Scripture and the Creator of all.

Send your self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Thanks for your encouragement and support. I would also be grateful if you would continue to spread the word that a free preview of Stay is available to read by clicking here.

Dear Bad Christian,

Why are you bombarding us with reminders everyday about the release of your new book. I get it.

Love in Jesus,

Speaking the Truth In Love Believer

Dear Speaking the Truth In Love,

Look at your salutation. What else would you expect from a Bad Christian? But the truth is that over 300,000 new books and editions will be printed in the United States this year. Even if you narrow the field to those published by the leading Christian publishing houses the number is around 6,000 titles. It is easy to get lost in the flurry of books that hit the shelves every week. An author like Max Lucado will automatically get prime shelf space when he publishes a book every other day. Oops…Max just published another book while I was writing this blog.

When a book like Stay comes out from a relatively unknown guy like me you have about 60 days to make a mark or be relegated to bargain bins and half-price shelves. I simply do not have a large enough platform (regular followers) to merit a bookstore keeping Stay on the shelves if it is not generating fairly regular sales. The old saying that you only have one chance to make a good first impression is more true in publishing than most endeavors.

So that is why I have asked, cajoled and even begged you to buy a copy of Stay and to spread the word to others. I have shamelessly used cute pictures of my dogs to try and get your attention about the book. Doggone it! Did it again. Sorry.

If a book generates early buzz online sellers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Christian Book Distributors will be more likely to “suggest” the book to shoppers. Brick and mortar stores will make sure to have copies in stock and might display the book more prominently. Publications will take note and publish reviews. The window of opportunity is short so please forgive me if it has been a bit much for you.

I am winding down the frenetic launch phase of the book. I will be getting back to writing my usual blend of sporadic wit and random wisdom. So take heart in the news that you will soon be able to read my posts without being dogged (sorry again) by book promos. Until then, would you please order your copy or gift copies soon? Please? Pretty please? Good boy! Good Girl! 

Blessings and grace,

Dave
Your Resident Bad Christian and Annoying Marketeer

“Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

That old proverb came to mind as I read a study about the link between increased worry and stroke risk. After adjusting for other behaviors they discovered that those participants with the highest level of anxiety factors had a thirty-three percent higher risk of strokes than those in the lowest range of anxiety.

The study was sobering on a personal level. My Dad was a chronic worrier. He died from complications of a stroke. Worry is a thief that steals joy and peace from it’s victims. I saw it with my Dad. I see it all around me.

As I get older I see more and more how practical Scripture is for daily living. In the teaching of my youth the Bible was a book of lofty and seemingly impossible demands to behave in a way that would please God. Now I see that the Bible is a love story where Jesus met those impossible demands on my behalf. I see now that my simple faith and trust pleases God. And I see a practical book that shows me how to find joy during this temporary journey on earth. The Designer knew when we left the factory that worry is destructive. The study above merely confirms what Jesus said a couple of millenia ago.

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?” (Matthew 6:25-27, NLT)

Worries certainly cannot add a moment though it appears they can subtract. Jesus continues in the same message.

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Matthew 6:31-34

He promised that we will get everything we need. Note it is not everything that we want. Learning to be content is understanding the difference between want and need.

Corrie Ten Boom wisely wrote these words. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.” Worry causes you to take your eye off of the source of your strength. Jesus. He is your strength and your hope. Keep you eyes on Jesus and the words of a classic old church hymn will begin to ring true in your heart.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

I hope you will take a moment to read the first chapter of my new book Stay free! Just click here.