Mike Edmisten Follower of Jesus. Husband of Nicki. Father of Ryan & Brock. Communicator of the Word.

Here We Go Again

Wow, two blogs in one day. Lucky you.

I hadn't planned on blogging about this, but it's really become a sore subject with me. Yesterday, I was so happy that the Bengals beat the Steelers. I was all prepped and ready to rub it in a little bit to my Pittsburgh friends. And then when I got up this morning, I heard the news that is getting all too familiar. Another Bengal has been arrested. This time it was Odell Thurman. He was arrested on a DUI charge last night in Cincinnati. He's already serving a suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy.

Can I ask a question? Do character and integrity matter, or do we just care about a winning football team? I don't expect the players to be perfect. They're human and they make mistakes. I've definitely made more than my fair share. But there comes a point when we have to demand a higher standard.

Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals? In the areas that really matter, the Bengals are beating themselves.

Touchy Subject

Yesterday I taught on a "touchy subject" at church: tithing. Tithing refers to offering 10% of our income to God. The average American believer spends roughly 92% of their monthly income on debts and other obligations and gives 2.1% to the church, missions, and the poor combined. Maybe that's why we're touchy about tithing; most of us don't even come close to a tithe in our normal giving.

After the service, there were several interesting comments at the door. There were the standard "good sermon" comments. (I'm sure that sometimes people just tell me this, not because it actually was a good sermon, but because they feel like they have to say something.) But then there were some more intriguing comments. Things like, "That was brave." "If I were you, I would have been sweating bullets all week thinking about that sermon." "I don't think you'll be fired."

All of these comments were given with a gracious smile or a wink, so I knew where these folks were coming from. Nevertheless, it was very interesting that this topic could elicit these kind of thoughts from our people.

I actually was not worried about my message yesterday. Maybe it's just youthful naivete, not realizing how sensitive this topic really is. Or maybe I'm learning to trust in God more and more and to worry about things less and less. I'd like to think it's the latter. After all, this series that I'm preaching on giving is entitled, "In God We Trust?" I hope I'm answering that question with a resounding "YES!" in my preaching, in my giving, and in my life.

Oh, and if you're interested, you can listen to my "brave" sermon on our website. Go to ameliachurchofchrist.com and scroll down to the message entitled "Trust=Tithe…and then some."

Elmo's World

Nicki and I have a two-year-old son, so Elmo is quite popular in our house. (For the uninitiated, Elmo is the little red monster on Sesame Street.) I've seen so many episodes of Elmo's World that I'm carrying around more Elmo knowledge in my brain than I really want to admit.

I know the Elmo's World theme song by heart. I know the name of the puppeteer who also provides the voice for Elmo. His name is Kevin Clash. I know the name of Elmo's goldfish. Her name is Dorothy. I know that Elmo gets way more email than a normal puppet and he has a TV that can turn itself on.

And one more thing I know about Elmo: at the end of nearly every segment of Elmo's World, Elmo leaves his loyal fan base with the same words…"Elmo loves you."

I wonder how many kids hear these words from a puppet but not from their parents. I wonder how many kids know that Elmo loves them but have no idea that Jesus loves them. I don't know how many children fall into that sad category, but I do know this: My son, Ryan, will never be one of them.

Random Thoughts

There is absolutely no ryhme or reason to the words that follow. These are just some completely random thoughts that are running through my mind today.

• We had a great morning at church yesterday. A big attendance with a ton of new faces. A baptism to end the service. There was a great spirit of excitement among our people. Good stuff.
• Our church website is rolling toward completion. It's taken longer than we anticipated, but it's going to be worth the wait. A big thanks to Josh Young for all his hard work on the site.
• When are they ever going to finish with all the road construction around here? (I warned you that these are completely random thoughts!)
• I don't feel worthy to preach the Word of God. Not even a little bit. I don't understand how God can use somebody like me.
• Recently there was a PETA-type organization that stated that we should no longer refer to our dogs as "dogs." We should, instead, refer to them as "Canine Americans." Have we totally lost our minds?
• God has blessed me with the most incredible family in the world. My wife and my little boy are more important to me than anyone could ever imagine.
• Yesterday, Ryan (my two-year-old) counted to ten in Spanish! Thank you Dora the Explorer.
• I think it is so cool that our church offers opportunities to worship in a highly contemporary setting (APEX) and in a more traditional setting (Chapel Service).
• The Bengals are awesome.
• The Reds stink.
• I wish they would build a Starbucks in Amelia.
• God has not promised that life will be free from difficulties. However, he has promised to never leave us…and that's the best thought of all.

Covered in Dust

I spent some time yesterday on Fox News' website watching their rebroadcast of the news from September 11, 2001. The rebroadcast was carryed in real time so you relived that entire day as it unfolded. It was somewhat surreal watching those events again. It dominated much of my thought and emotion yesterday and those feelings have carried over to this morning. I found the following blog posting by C. McNair Wilson (teawithmcnair.typepad.com) that sums up some of what I'm feeling and thinking today. I've made a few edits for space, but the bulk of the posting remains unchanged. After reading it, I hope you will NOT remain unchanged.

Remembering,

Mike

–
Covered in Dust

[Photo: Edward Keating/New York Times]

Where were you when they raised the price of freedom?
Where were you when our family disappeared?
Are you glad you weren’t there?

Are you as changed today as you felt on that Tuesday or did you change your mind?
We all changed our minds, but did it last?
Are the changes we now live with making our lives safer, better?
Will we need to change more and are we willing to make the toughest changes?

What cost Freedom?
What price Liberty?
We are willing to let others die in far away places that we’ll never see–Fallujah and Tikrit–so why do we whine about having our library records examined?
(Do you know that to date, NONE have been according to a study by Sen. Diane Feinstein, Democrat, California.)
Do you know that the "bad guys" have hated us forever? Did you know they called President Clinton “Satan”?

What have YOU done since 9/11, 2001?
What will you do?
Have you changed?

[Photo: Shannon Stapleton/Rueters]

Watching TV that morning, I saw a man in a suit and tie, carrying his briefcase, come out of the fog that was the dust storm of the fallen Towers and walk right up to a news crew and say, “There’s a reason why my life was spared and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to find that reason.”
Did you hear him?
Do you know the reason he was spared?

Are you aware that the reason for his life has been the same since the day he was born.
So, too, there’s a reason you were born–did you know that?
There’s a contribution your life can make. Are you ready to make that commitment?
Are you ready to be a contribution?
Will it take an attack on your life to get your attention ?
Are you aware that, whatever your circumstances, you are NOT covered in dust?

What, then, will your contribution be?
You can make a small change today and a bit more tomorrow.
Did you know that if you pick one area of your life to expand on, to improve on [each] day, that in [about] 70 days you will be twice as good as you are now?
If you haven't started the change you wanted to make, you can start now. You know it's only too late if you don't start today?

[Photo: Alex Fuchs/AFP]

Did you know it took three months to completely extinguish the fires at Ground Zero?
Did you know they never even discussed not finishing the job?
Can you, today, brush off the dust on your imagination and start making your contribution?

Did you know the rest of us need you–now?

Trust

I originally wrote this article for The Connection (our church's weekly e-newsletter) last week. I thought it would be appropriate to post it on my blog today.

–
Monday marks the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. It will be a day of somber remembrance, as it should be. Most of us will pause and remember the carnage that we witnessed on our TV screens that day. We’ll remember the bravery and heroism of firefighters, police officers, and ordinary citizens. We’ll remember where we were when we first heard the news.

As I reflect back on the events of 2001, I remember how uneasy, even frightened, we were. Initially I thought the first plane to hit the World Trade Center was just a horrible accident. Then the second plane hit and it was obvious that we were under attack. The Pentagon was attacked. A fourth plane went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All of this just added to the fear that we felt.

I was in my office at church that morning, and as the news unfolded, the phone started ringing. It rang almost non-stop throughout the day. “Did you hear what happened?” “What’s going on?” “What’s coming next?” I heard all the questions…unfortunately I didn’t have any answers. But even though I wasn’t a great source of answers, the phone calls kept coming. For some reason, people wanted to connect to their church on this day. Even if that meant a simple phone call to a youth minister who was the only person in the office that day. Somehow, in some way, they wanted to feel their connection to their church as a hellish fury was unleashed on our nation. I guess that’s because when everything else is out of control, we hunger for something that is stable. Something that can be trusted. And as people of faith, we know that God alone is always trustworthy.

This Sunday we’re starting a new series called, “In God We Trust?” As we examine and question what we trust in our lives, let’s remember a day when everything else that we thought was trustworthy and sure was stripped away. Only God remained.

God, may it not take another tragic event to cause us to run back to our trust in you. May we trust you in everything, in every way, in every day throughout our lives. Amen.

In His Love,

Mike

How Do I Explain This?

At this very moment, my dad and my youngest brother are probably floating down the Amazon River. They left yesterday for a two week mission trip to Brazil. They'll be riding a boat down the Amazon and stopping at some of the remote villages along the river. One of their main goals is to build a house for a preacher in one of those villages.

I've been trying to explain to our son, Ryan, where "Pop-Pop" and "Uncle Curt" are right now. It's not exactly easy to explain to a 2-year-old that a couple members of his family have traveled to a different hemisphere. So instead, I've been telling him that they took a trip so that they could serve God. It was so cool to watch him take that in and process it. And it was even better when he was able to repeat it.

Maybe that's the faith of a child that Jesus talked about. Ryan has no idea how far away they have traveled. He has no clue that they are in a nation whose official language is Portuguese. All he knows is that his family has chosen to serve God…and isn't that enough?

Another Comeback

On August 22, I blogged about my trip to Great American Ballpark where I watched the Reds come from behind to beat the Astros. Last night I watched a much greater comeback. I went to the Bengals game with my friends John and Yance. It was just a preseason game, but you would have never known that by the atmosphere. Paul Brown Stadium was sold out, largely because this would be Carson Palmer's first game since his knee injury in the playoffs last year.

Palmer's performance was outstanding. He threw for 140 yards and three touchdowns in just two quarters of play. He scrambled, he took hard hits, he did everything a pro quarterback has to do. It would have been an impressive performance on its own, but when you consider that this was his first game back after major reconstructive knee surgery, it was borderline unbelievable. It really was an amazing comeback.

I keep getting reminded about comebacks. They make for exciting baseball and football games. They make you sit up and say, "Wow, did you see that?" They're reminders of how important it is that we persevere through the tough times.

I was reading through the book of 1 Peter this morning. Peter writes, "For a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:6-7)

Carson Palmer received all kinds of accolades and applause last night because of his determination and perseverance. If we persevere in our faith through hard times, we've got something much better than the applause of people in store for us. We will have "praise, glory, and honor" lavished on us by God! How amazing is it that God will be praising us? That's a great motivator to hang in there.

Potato Chips & Me

August 24 is a special day. Today is the birthday of the potato chip. It is believed that the original potato chip recipe was created by Native American chef George Crum at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, NY, on August 24, 1853. Crum became fed up with a customer who continued to send his fried potatoes back claiming they were too thick and soggy. So the chef decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they couldn't be eaten with a fork. The customer was delighted, and these "Saratoga Chips" became a regular item on the lodge's menu.

Yep, today is a special day because it's the day that the potato chip was born. Oh yeah…it's also the day I was born. I came into this world on August 24, 1977. However, I would much rather celebrate the potato chip's birthday instead of my own. It's ironic that I share the same birthday as the potato chip, because I definitely have a "chip on my shoulder" about my birthday. I realize that I'm not old, but there's no denying the fact that I'm older.

My family has become quite annoyed with my lack of enthusiasm about my birthday. Everybody wants to celebrate except me. I admit that I am quite the "stick in the mud" when it comes to my birthday. I guess in my mind, it's just a reminder that my life is passing by at warp speed. Sometimes I allow myself to get so busy that life passes by without my noticing…until something like a birthday comes around. A day like this makes me notice how much I haven't stopped to notice. I do think that I'm making strides in this area, but I'm definitely not there yet.

Maybe this will be the year when I always remember to slow down enough to see and appreciate everything that God is doing in my life. That sounds like a pretty good goal. Now, please pass the chips.

Comebacks

Nicki and I recently went to a Reds game with our friends Dave and Shara. Dave's company has four season tickets and Dave and Shara were kind enough to invite us to tag along. The weather was perfect, the seats were stellar, and my soft pretzel was just the way I like it. This was going to be a great evening.

Then the game started. The Reds were as flat as I've seen them this year. Twice they loaded the bases with less than 2 outs and were unable to push one runner across homeplate. The Astros' 3-0 lead began to look insurmountable. Then came the eighth inning. With two runners aboard, Rich Aurilia came to the plate and smoked the first pitch he saw over the centerfield wall. The game was tied and the stadium, which had been very quiet for most of the game, erupted with cheers. The Reds proceeded to tack on one more run to win the game 4-3.

It was so much fun to watch my team come off the mat and win the game. There is something special about comebacks. It shows a lot of character and heart to keep giving your best effort when it seems like everything is stacked against you.

There are times in life when it seems like you're swimming upstream; times when you don't think you're making any progress at all. In those moments, it's easy to quit trying. As recently as today, I said the words, "I give up" when my wife and I were discussing a particular situation we're dealing with. It's a frustrating situation where I'd rather just quit. I don't understand what God is doing in this particular area of our lives, and quite frankly, I'm losing my patience with him. Instead of waiting on his timing, I'd much rather "give up."

But then I remember the ballgame we attended. Good things happen when, instead of throwing in the towel, you keep on trying. When the best we can do is just grind through another day, we just keep on grinding. It's important to remember that, while we can't see the end result, God can. And there's an old song that reminds us: "I know who holds tomorrow…and I know who holds my hand."

That's good incentive to keep going.