Donnie Reynolds Blog - I DON'T EDIT THIS

Some callings are easy and we make them difficult. Some callings are difficult and by God's grace they are made easy. Some callings just don't make sense. Ashton Ebert is fighting for his life. He turned 16 with tubes coming out of his body, hair fallen out of his head, and a body wiped out of anything good and now filled with more man made medicines than your local grocers chicken (you might have to be from the Eastern Shore of Md to appreciate that one). Ashton is a the model kid, well he was when I coached him in soccer two years ago. You don't have to push him to work hard, yell at him to motivate him or teach him sportsmanship - you use Ashton to teach everybody else those things. So why am I surprised when God has a special calling of suffering and he gives it to the strongest person and family that can handle it? I've heard it said that suffering is God's way of building strength, and through Ashton Eberts suffering and struggles my strength grows.

Every Sunday afternoon we use to play baseball or football in this big yard near my house. There were six of us. Me and my friend, twins who were 3 years older than us, and 2 guys who were 4 and 5 years older than us. So teams matched up pretty evenly. The oldest guy was a bully, we'll call him Paul Pippin, because that is his name. The second oldest guy was my brother. Paul was a lot bigger than all of us, including my brother and whenever his team was losing (and sometimes I was on Pauls team), Paul would turn into a punk or a bully. He would cheat to win, try to hurt you to win or quit if at the end he knew he couldn't win. I use to get so proud of my brother when he would stand up to Paul (even if I was on Pauls team). Sometimes the baseball would be thrown at my brother when he was hitting or sometimes he would get hit pretty hard if we were playing football. I've noticed that bully's (punks) are still everywhere. They try to intimidate, cheat, or quit when they don't get their way. We have them in churches, corporations, and families (no, I'm not inadvertantly referring to my mother inlaw). So here is what my brother would do to beat Paul, here is how you beat the bully. You don't let them behave that way without doing something about it. In the church we return evil with good. We confront lies with truth. We stand up to the cheap shots and by God's grace we take it. In the end the bully always loses (even if they think they won-even the people on their team know they are losers) or they quit and leave. I'de like to say they always change, but they don't. The important thing when it comes to bullys is you don't become a bully to beat a bully and don't run from bully's because they keep coming and you'll probably just run into another bully.

My daughter is afraid of all the wrong things. We just got back from 3 great days in Orlando and Maddies first trip to Disney. When Maddie gets scared she normally puts me in a headlock, wraps her legs around my chest tighter than Rosie O'donnell in skinny jeans and starts screaming specific instructions on how we escape the current horrifying scenario. Like at the main street parade on Monday it was the monkeys from the Jungle Book. Tuesday it was Miss Piggy from Muppets 3D and yesterday (we should have seen this one coming) it was everything at the Rain Forest Cafe'...for the place where Dreams Really Do Come True there were a lot of nightmares. Then yesterday as we are flying home going 500mph at 30,000 feet in the air, flying through storms of appocolyptic size she is laughing and coloring away and her only concern is that she did not getting enough peanuts  (see even a four year old knows when they are getting ripped off). Meanwhile, the plane is shaking like a cocaine addict and I'm giving the plane its last rites (no, I'm not Catholic, but the Keller Williams real estate agent beside me was so I knew she would appreciate it). I'm scared to death because I know we are nowhere near the Hudson river and the guy flying didn't look anything like Captain Sully and what are the chances of two great survival landings in a 12 months period of time...but Maddie isn't clutching, screaming or panicked at all because there is no mechanical stuffed animal around and life is just fine. It made me think of Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Sometimes God is probably looking down saying, wow, I can't believe you are afraid of this experience you are going through that is meant to bring you fulfillment and enrichment, and this other circumstance you allow in your life should probably be a little concerning but we just kind of sit and color through it.

Guys want respect, at every age and stage of life. Nagging doesn't work, affection, maybe, but if you want to reach the heart of a guy, show him respect. If you want him to do the laundry, compare the strength with which hecarries down the laundry basket to that of legends you've read about from Hercules. If you want him to do the dishes, tell him the swiftness with which he unloads the dishwasher gives you flashbacks to Usain Bolt winning the gold medal.  The other day, Caedon, my two year old was climbing a rail in the bookstore while I was checking out. Once Caedon reached the top bar he began yelling across the store, "Mom, look at me". And so it begins, until the day he dies, Caedon will be looking for other challenges in life (that's how us guys gain respect and maybe why your husband is attempting something you consider very stupid right now in life) so he can shout to the female across the room..."Look at me".

Last week my brother posted a quote on his facebook that said, "anything outside of the gospel is a distraction for the mission of the church". Another friend posted a quote from somebody else that said the main focus of the church is developing leadership. Its funny that when we read about the forty days between the resurrection and ascension, we don't see too many leadership summits taking place. Now I believe that good leadership is essential to building Christian communities, but central focus? not too sure about that. The last words of Jesus I read are a command to his followers to go and share the good news that Jesus Christ is alive and that mankinds guilt and sin is paid for... I watched a little bit of a tv preacher the other day (I wouldn't recommend too much of that, I was snowed in and Saved By the Bell was at a commercial) who was trying to rally the Christian troops to "support Israel and take back the promise land"... now I'm for Israel and the Palestinians getting along, but again, I look at the last words of Jesus and I see him sending his followers, many who were Jews "into all the world" (kind of a command to leave Jerusalem) and share the good news. It seems like there are good causes everywhere we turn, but it makes me wonder sometimes how many good causes I'm part of that are really just distractions from the gospel.