Author: kenlassblog.net

You need to rest. I know you are busy. I know you have places to go, people to see, things to do, but you need to rest. You need at least seven hours of sleep each night. If you don’t get that much overnight, then you need to find time for a nap during the day.

Cheating on sleep will catch up with you. Your immune system gets weaker. Your brain functions slow down. You will tend to eat more food, gain more weight, exercise less and lose muscle tone. A chronically tired body will eventually become diseased, and kill you.

If you are too busy to sleep, you are too busy. Do whatever you have to do to take a break from stress and worry, and take time to relax. Everything inside of you will say Thank-you.

The other day I was driving through town and, as I stopped at a red light, I heard a man shouting “Are you saved?” I looked to see a sixty or seventy-something man standing on the street corner, holding signs proclaiming Jesus as savior. He was parading up and down the sidewalk yelling praises at stopped cars.

I found myself with mixed emotions. Part of me felt I should be out there alongside of him. But another part of me wondered if such an undertaking really does any good. Is anybody really brought closer to Jesus? Or do people just laugh at his bold display?

Clearly, it doesn’t matter to him. He’s doing what he feels God is leading him to do. May it be so for all of us.

Most of us are afraid to die. We must be. Why else would we spend so much time going to doctors, having surgeries, and taking so many pills. We’re trying to live as long as we can, with the highest quality of life possible.

But, as they say, nobody gets out of here alive. Physical death is a certainty. It is inevitable. We try to avoid thinking about it. That may be why, when it becomes imminent, it frightens us so. If death is assured, it makes sense to prepare for it, not avoid thinking about it. The best way to do that is to secure your eternal future.

Jesus is your ultimate retirement plan.

Do you place value in the opinions of other people? If your friends rave about a movie they’ve seen, are you inclined to go see it? If they recommend a restaurant they’ve been to, does it influence you to try it? Most of us trust and accept the credibility of our friends and family. If they tell us something is true, we usually believe it.

So it is only logical that if you tell someone you know of the benefits of a relationship with Jesus, the fellowship of a good church, the rewards of a godly lifestyle, they just might be persuaded to try it. You don’t have to be a skilled preacher or an academic theologian. Just tell them what you know.

He will do the rest.

We’re hearing a lot these days about artificial intelligence. Can it be our greatest tool? Or our greatest threat? AI can be used to teach children to read, to diagnose disease, and to drive our cars safely. It can also be used to simulate our voices, and even our images, to scam people out of their life savings.

God give us the wisdom to use it wisely.

I could even feed all of my blogs into an AI application, have it learn my writing style, and instruct it to write my blogs for me. You would never be able to tell if it was really me writing this, or if it was actually written by a machine…..machine…..machine…)*T_(+(*+…..machine….masheen……mucheen…..

It’s hard to break bad habits. Takes a lot of work and determination. And it takes time. Years ago I was determined to switch from sugary drinks to diet soda. At first the taste of the diet colas seemed so flat and bitter. But I wouldn’t give up. It took a while, but today I love diet drinks. The regular Cokes and such seem so repugnantly sweet, I can’t stand them.

Now I am determined to switch from diet drinks to water. Again, the water seems so flat and tasteless, especially when I try to drink it with burgers or pizza (perhaps I need to drop those as well, but that’s a challenge for another day). It will take a while, but I’m going to make myself a water drinker.

What’s your bad habit? Whatever it is, you can change it. And you don’t have to do it alone. Ask God for the power. He’s on your side.

One of the consequences of growing old is losing the ability to do certain things. The other day I was walking at the gym when I saw a basketball lying on the gym floor. On a whim, I picked it up and fired a jump shot at the nearest net. When I landed I felt painful shock waves run through both of my knees. It was then that I realized, I can no longer jump.

This shouldn’t have been a big deal, since I don’t really have occasion to jump anyway these days. But just knowing that I can no longer do this simple thing seemed to get me down. Another concession to my mortality.

God, give us the courage to face the challenges of aging and to look forward to our eventual reward.

I couldn’t sleep the other night, so I got up to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to turn on a light because I didn’t want to wake Sharon. But as I felt my way through the dark, I stubbed my toe on the corner of my dresser. It hurt like crazy! My first inclination was to shout out a curse word at the top of my voice. Somehow, I managed to tone it down to just an unintelligible, quiet grumble as I limped into the bathroom.

Why is it, I wonder, that we are inclined to curse when we experience sudden pain or frustration? Did God cause me to stub my toe? Doubtful. Why do we express anger by taking His name in vain? Maybe it’s because we don’t want to blame ourselves for doing something stupid or foolish. We can’t blame other people because they’ll just get mad at us. So God is an easy target.

Except He is the one thing you surely don’t want to displease. Better to work hard at controlling your tongue. Even when it hurts.

I feel sorry for dentists. Nobody wants to see them. Nobody wants to go to the dentist. Nobody enjoys sitting there helpless while he maneuvers sharp instruments around your teeth, tongue and gums. Something he does is going to hurt. Or at least scare you into thinking you’re hurt.

Yet dental care is critical to the health of your teeth. God only gives you so many of them, and once they’re gone, nothing is quite the same. The dentist knows you don’t want to see him (or her). But he also knows he is performing a service that will spare you much pain and inconvenience in the long run.

The dentist understands that sometimes you have to do the hard, unpleasant thing to accomplish something good in the future. We all need to learn that.

I spent almost ten years volunteering at the information desk of my local hospital. My job was to direct visitors to the right location. At first I found this difficult to do. The hospital campus was so large and there were so many areas to remember. But it became much easier after I walked the campus myself.

I walked to the surgery waiting area, the emergency room, the heart and lung centers, radiology, cancer treatment center, the cafeteria, the restrooms, the elevators, everywhere, taking notes along the way. I could now explain to folks how to get where they wanted to go because I had been through it myself.

Your Christian walk works the same way. It’s so much easier to witness your faith to others when you are modeling it yourself. When you have called upon God to help you through difficult times. When you have experienced His replies.

You never know when you might get an opportunity to work at His information desk.