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Why Do Kids Hate Medicine?

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by Brian Sharpe

When Ellice was really young, she didn’t like taking medicine (she still doesn’t like to take it).  She would fight us, even though what we were giving her was going to make her feel better.  She would kick and scream and get herself so worked up that she would be drenched in sweat. And sometimes I’m like this with God.

Throughout my life, I have asked God to change me and make me more like Himself.  This prayer was sincere, but it was prayed with the thought that God was going to press a button up in Heaven and when that button was pressed, I would be fixed.

The older I get, the more I realize that this is not how God works.  He allows us to walk through stuff for us to learn to trust and allow Him to work in ways we didn’t even know we needed.  James 1 says that the testing of our faith leads to perseverance, and perseverance leads to maturity.  It is the perseverance that I don’t like.  I am “okay” with the testing of my faith, as along as it leads to maturity, but I am not okay with it leading to perseverance.  The problem is, maturity doesn’t come without perseverance.

Moses is a great example of this.  In Joshua 1, Moses is talked about as a servant of God.  God was with Moses and used Moses.  Moses had to go through a lot in his life, which led to perseverance and, ultimately, maturity.  The same can be said of Job, Peter, Paul, Elijah, and Elisha, to name a few.

We often forget when reading the stories of the Old Testament that time is passing.  These heroes of the faith aren’t instantly heroes; they go through tough stuff, persevere through it, and come out mature. The saying that “God doesn’t waste pain” is such a true one.  God allows stuff in our life, and we can either grow in maturity or let it debilitate us because of fear.  The book of Joshua talks about how the people in the Promised Land were debilitated by fear because they knew that the God who created the universe was on the nation of Israel’s side.  They feared Him because of the stories they had heard about how God had protected His people.  We need to remember the ways the Lord has protected us throughout our life so that when tough times come, we will remember He is with us.

When the nation of Israel was crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land, God stopped the flow of the river so that they could cross on dry land.  Once everyone was across, God had Joshua pick 12 men to grab 12 stones in order to build a monument of remembrance, so that when their children would see the monument and ask what it was from, they could tell the stories of how God was with them.  We need our 12 stone monuments.  We need to remember that God is with us and wants to protect and grow us into mature followers of Himself.  This happens by the testing of our faith, which leads to perseverance and, ultimately, maturity.  Sometimes the very thing we need is the thing we don’t want, but in the end, it will bring us to the place where we want to be.

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I Don’t See That!

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By Brian Sharpe, Senior Associate Pastor

I have gone to the gym a lot in my adult life. Most of this time has been spent playing basketball. I have seen a lot of guys play basketball and I have played against a lot of different people. I will always remember one guy. He had the right shoes, shorts, and shirt. He wore a sleeve on his arm and a headband like NBA players. He had all the right gear and the confidence that went with someone who could play basketball well. The problem was he was not good at basketball. Not good at all! People would wait out games so that they wouldn’t have to play with him.

I once tried to talk to him and help him be a better team player, but he wanted nothing to do with me. He knew how to play and didn’t want to hear from anyone. I felt so bad for this guy because he was so unaware. He didn’t want help.

I want to be a person who is known for listening to my mentors. I want to be known as someone who is willing to learn from my mistakes. Humility, self-control, and meekness are things that God wants to be part of the outworking of our faith. As He changes our inner being, our interactions with others will change.

We all have blind spots we are unaware of, and if we don’t surround ourselves with people we can hear from, we will never know what these blind spots are. The hard part is giving people the freedom to speak into our blind spots. God calls us to be meek. The word meek carries the idea of a horse that has been broken. The horse is powerful but is under control.

God has called us to be people who are under control. One of the ways we are under control is if we are allowing the Spirit of God through circumstance, spiritual mentors, and friends to point out these blind spots, and we are willing to deal with them.

I find that people want to know about their blind spots, but they aren’t sure what to do with what they now know. Most people are moved to inaction. Change is hard! But we all must change. We all must allow our blind spots to be pointed out. If we don’t, then our growth will be stunted.

Do you have a or Paul or Barnabas in your life, people you allow to point out your blind spots? When they do point out bind spots, are you willing to listen to them? Are you willing to act on them? Trust is shown by one’s ability to act on advice given. I think a lot of us say we trust, but our actions say otherwise.

My prayer for me and you is that we would trust those whom God has placed in our lives, that we would be open to learning about our blind spots and be moved to action instead of complacency.

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Let’s Learn How to Encourage Each Other—TODAY!

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By Brian Sharpe, Senior Associate Pastor

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” – Hebrews 3:13

Why didn’t I have to take a class before becoming a parent—or even a husband? I took classes to be a leader in the Church, but not as many I probably should have. Obviously, I didn’t take a class on being a son or friend—I could probably use schooling on how to be a better friend. As I sit in on trainings, I keep walking away with the thought, “Why didn’t I know this already?”

A lot of times as a leader, parent, friend, and husband, we do what was modeled to us. The problem is that our models all have flaws. My kids have a flawed model whose growth is stunted by my own insecurity, naivety, and pride. At this point, I am okay with the fact that I am a flawed leader, parent, husband, son, and friend. But I do have a desire to be better.

This week I was in Austin, Texas, for a Leadership Pipeline cohort. This was the second of three cohort classes on creating a leadership pipeline within a church. I love this idea. I love the thought of having trained leaders who are accomplishing the ministry God has given us as a church. Yet the thing that stood out to me the most from this class was not the system and tools we were taught, but something the facilitator said.

Let me set the stage. One of the tools we were working on creating was a one-hour training that we could bring back to our churches. The facilitator created a training and had us work on it days before the class. He then modeled what the training looked like, using a couple of our classmates. The training was on “encouraging the soul of a person.”

During the training, the facilitator made a comment that we as parents need to not encourage our kids to perform, but to encourage them in who they are. I am not sure I heard much else after that. It really made me consider how I encourage my kids as a parent. This also can be as a leader, husband, son, and friend. Encouragement needs to be sincere, specific, and strengths-focused. Here are some excerpts from our homework, written by our facilitator, Mac Lake.

Sincerity: Before speaking words of encouragement, check your motives and make sure you’re doing it to lift up the other individual, not to gain something for yourself. In Proverbs 26:28, Solomon warns us, “a flattering mouth works ruin.” The Hebrew word for ruin comes from a root word meaning, “to push, drive away, or cast down.” Encouragement is always best served with a spirit of sincerity.

Specificity: If you want your words of praise to have more punch, then be specific with your encouragement. Notice the specifics of what people do well and consider how what they did impacted you personally. If you look closely enough, you can find little nuances that made something special. We must look for and praise the specific detail of an individual’s work. That kind of specificity takes encouragement to a very deep and meaningful level. So instead of saying, “Hey, you did a good job,” you can say, “When you led the small-group discussion tonight, you really asked insightful questions that challenged my thinking in new ways. You have a real gift for making people think. I appreciate you using that gift to add value to my spiritual walk.” Specific encouragement is meaningful encouragement.

Strengths-focused: God has gifted each of us in very specific ways. Each day, we use and develop those strengths. Over time, as those strengths develop and mature, they become obvious to others. The Apostle Paul had been around young Timothy so much that he became very familiar with his apprentice’s strengths. And then, in a very crucial time in Timothy’s ministry, Paul told him, “Fan into flame the gifts God has given you.” By centering our encouragement on someone’s strengths, we are, in essence, helping them to fan the flame of their strengths. Giving someone sincere, specific encouragement that’s focused on their unique strengths helps them learn something new about themselves and deepens their wisdom and insights for using that particular strength.

Elim’s community group leaders should be shining stars when it comes to encouraging others. This Saturday evening, therefore, we are going to huddle together and go through the same training module that Mac took us through at the Leadership Pipeline meetings in Texas this week. We encourage every community group leader to attend, 7 p.m. at Larry and Darlene Short’s home. You won’t want to miss it!

Let’s all become expert encouragers, learning how to truly exhort one another “while it is still called ‘today.’”

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How did this become the norm?

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By Brian Sharpe, Senior Associate Pastor

My wife and I have norms in our marriage, parenting, and extended-family lives. We all have norms. These norms sometimes collide when we first get married or we take on roommates or even when dating someone.

Tomina and I started one norm early in our marriage because it was needed, but it hinders us now—our sleeping habits. When Tomina and I were first married, I was still in school. She worked full-time; I was a full-time student and worked part-time at a church. Tomina was as a waitress at Applebee’s. She would work from 3 p.m. until closing many nights of the week. I generally had classes in the morning and then worked at the church as needed.

When Tomina and I were first home from our honeymoon, she made the statement, “We will go to bed at the same time!” I didn’t question this statement. In her family, her parents went to bed at different times, and she wanted to change that norm. So, we agreed to go to bed at the same time. This was a great idea. The problem was, she would get home at midnight to 2:00 a.m. every night she worked. This meant that I was staying up until then to wait for her to come home. Then we would catch up on the day and go to bed. I would then get up a couple hours later and go to school. I would take naps, but it started a norm in our marriage. We were both naturally night people, but that was further solidified by our schedule. This is a norm that I have had a hard time breaking, even now that I am 40.

We all have norms. Every relationship has them. Unfortunately, they can be seen as ruts. Over the years, Tomina and I have had hard conversations about the norms in our marriage. We have talked a lot about how to love each other well. It is easy to settle into patterns and then coast on autopilot. The problem with this is that it can turn into complacency, and it can ultimately lead to a lack of intentionality. Now, this isn’t the intention of norms, but it is often the outcome.

This idea of norms affects even our relationship with God. A norm may be that when I am scared or in trouble, I run to God. That isn’t a bad norm, unless that’s the only time you run to God.

A norm could be that I go to church every week. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, as long as we understand why we go to church. We go to church to connect with God and other believers for mutual encouragement and growth. The book of Hebrews says we go to spur one another on to love and good deeds.

A norm may be that we read our Bible when we think about it or when we schedule it. This is a good norm, as long as it makes it on the schedule. A norm that we don’t want to talk about is the norm of not spending time with God in the studying his Word. That’s the downside of norms: we may create a norm in which God is only part of our lives when we are at church or when we are around people of faith, but not in our everyday life. This is a huge problem, because if we love God and are followers of God, we will spend time with God in some fashion or another in our everyday lives. We need to make sure that being with God and cultivating our relationship with Him is a norm in our life.

The other part of this is, if we have kids or are speaking into kids’ lives, we need to help them know the “why” of what we are doing to cultivate our relationship with God. First-generation Christians are excited to get to know God. Second-generation Christians get to hear the stories of what God has done with the first-generation Christian. But for third-generation Christians, being a Christian is normal to them, so they lose sight of why we do things, and in forgetting the reason, the practices become less important.

We need to stop and take inventory of the norms in our life. Our character qualities sometimes become the norm; for example, I am an angry or stubborn person. We need to evaluate these norms and make sure that we are reflecting Jesus in our marriages, parenting, friendships, and work. We need to make sure we are passing down reasoning for our norms for future generations to understand them.

What are the norms in your life? Are they what you want them to be? Are they a reflection of who Christ is calling us to be?

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The Power of Proximity

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By Brian Sharpe, Senior Associate Pastor

I have a couple of friends who, when we get together, it is as if no time has gone by. We can pick up after years of separation, and the connection hasn’t faded. This isn’t the norm — it is unique. I cherish those relationships. Most relationships take time, energy, and, ultimately, proximity.

Proximity is a weird word for me. I was first introduced to it in a video game. In this game, you were given proximity mines that you would place throughout the playing field. When someone’s character walked near it, it exploded. That was the main way I used that word. Then as I got older, I started to think about what helps our relationships with God and one another, and it is proximity.

Proximity — the closer you are to someone or something, the greater the influence that person or thing has over you. I know the word doesn’t make sense at first, but let me explain. When I spend several hours a night with a cast of characters, the way I think and talk starts to look like what we are seeing on the screen. Tomina and I have watched the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice a lot in our marriage. There are so many times when a quote from that movie or a circumstance comes up in conversation. It has become part of my thinking process, and some of the language comes out in me. What we are closest to comes out in us. This is the same with people. That is why it is important to think about whom and what you give influence to in your life by being around.

Now, there a lot of people who feel lonely. They feel uninvited. They may be an introvert or extrovert, but they still feel lonely, because they are not in proximity to anyone. This is hard. The question asked is usually, How do I get close to people? There are many reasons why it is hard to get close to people, but one of the main reasons is that our culture values business over relationships. We don’t have the time to move toward or be in proximity of people. I would argue that, though most of us want to be known, we fear what people may think. I think we need to cross that bridge when we get there. I think most of us need to decide whom we want to be in proximity of or whom we are already moving toward and ask a couple diagnostic questions. Does this person point me to Jesus? If not, am I giving them too much influence in my life? The answers to these questions will tell you if you should move closer to them and not farther away.

The bottom line is this: we all need people. We need Pauls, Timothies, and Barnabases in our lives. We need those relationships. It starts with us taking a conscious step toward others. Quantity time will lead to quality time, and you will be in proximity with others, which will help you be known and know others. It will also help you realize that most of our struggles aren’t too different and most of us have the same fears. Whom will you move toward to point you to Jesus? Whom will you allow to point you to Jesus?

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Emotional Quotient

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By Brian Sharpe, Senior Associate Pastor

Growing up, I remember watching the Bills in the Super Bowl. I know “Bills” stands for “Boy, I Love Losing Super Bowls.” I remember during one of the Super Bowls that I left the party I was at and just walked outside. At that point in my life, I wasn’t sure why I was leaving the party to go outside. I felt something. In my head, I wanted to see if anyone would notice that I left. I wanted to be noticed. Looking back, it was rooted in selfishness. I am sure I had a real low emotional quotient.

An emotional quotient has to do with emotional intelligence. “Emotional intelligence” is defined as “intelligence regarding the emotions, especially in the ability to monitor one’s own or others’ emotions.” I was not aware of my emotions or the emotions of others around me. I feel like I am getting better at this, but dealing with emotions is still tough.

I was introduced to the idea of the emotional quotient (EQ) in a book called The Emotionally Healthy Church, by Peter Scazzero. In that book, we had to take a test to see how we scored in EQ. I was in my late twenties at the time, but the test revealed I had the EQ of a teenager. We took this test as a staff, so it was fun to see how unaware we all were when it came to EQ.

Fast-forward to the present. I see a huge need for all of us to understand our EQ. If we can understand our EQ, it will help us with the teams that we are on at Elim as well as at work. It will help us as we submit to the leaders we are under. It will help us understand how to deal with our kids. EQ is in every part of life, yet it is something that I went most of my life not knowing about.

As I have grown older, I have seen just how I have changed. One of the main ways I have changed is understanding my emotions. I understand that my first emotion for some reason is frustration. I understand that I often say no, without even considering yes. Again, I am not sure why, but I believe it is tied to my EQ.

How well are you at understanding what is going on emotionally inside of you? Do you understand those internal motivations? I think it is important as we move forward as a community of faith that we consider what is going on in the backstage of our life, where the emotions live. As we seek to gain health in our understanding of ourselves, it will lead to health in our relationships and in our church. You may see more coming in the future about EQ. Embrace and lean into it, because it is all about understanding the backstage.  After all, don’t we all want to be known and noticed? I know I do.

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