Douglas Young

The last two months have been immensely intense, terribly frustrating, and yet incredibly enlightening. Uprooting a family from one state to another, selling a house for which we took a horrible hit, having to say “See ya later” (we refused to use the word “goodbye” if at all possible) to people we love tremendously, and struggling to overcome sleep deprivation from an experience I wanted to forget have made transitioning into a new work not the most pleasant experience in the world. But now that we’ve turned the corner on the things listed above, things are considerably better.

Transitions are a fact of life for us all. Some are easier than others to endure. The transition from junior high to high school is significantly less taxing than the transition from high school to college. The transition from high school to college pales in comparison to that of single life to married life. All transitions carry varying degrees of adaptive difficulties.

I think it providential that not long before I would face what has been my toughest transition to date, I’d been given a number of different books to help along the way. One such book was William Bridges’s Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes. How fitting!

All of this has put a number of different things into perspective for me.

• God’s presence no longer seems afar, nor should it (Acts 17:27-28).
• I am definitely attuned to God’s opening of doors for his servants (Revelation 3:8).
• Family must be forged with love, patience, and endurance.
• Friends are indeed precious!

We all, with unveiled faces, are reflecting the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Yes, its true. May 31 was my last Sunday in Frisco. Painfully, we are leaving behind many close friends and this is going to take some time to heal.

We covet your prayers in our time of transition. I have accepted another work and we’ll be moving shortly.

Later this afternoon, Tisha and I will be heading to a couples retreat that we are extremely excited about. It will be a wonderful opportunity for us to get away together, and with other Christian ministers and their wives, hopefully find some serious clarity about our roles as servants of our Savior. I will be back with another letter on Monday.

Many have inquired privately about the Gappas and the story of how they literally became our family. Next week my letter will be to them, but I promise to provide a context to it. They are special people and we would not be the same had we never met them. I’ll explain why on Monday.

Here’s a parting shot to think about for the next couple of days. Of late I’ve been giving considerable thought to Galatians 6:9, particularly, how easy it is to grow weary in service to God. In a results driven world, we yearn for them in areas where they often take time. Sometimes it takes a long time. Nevertheless, Paul conveys the certainty of a harvest at “harvest time.” It might help if we understood when “harvest time” will come, but God, “who gives the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6), is in control of that one! The sooner we accept this point, the better off we will be.

Last night, one of our members, David Owen, afforded us with excellent invitation thoughts about not giving up. That, of course, is part of the Galatians 6:9 equation. We will reap “if we do not give up.” How fitting that David would so ably speak of a subject that I’d been giving so much thought about. And he was right, we cannot afford to give up when things don’t go as we’d like or when the results we long for do not immediately come. A harvest is coming, so let’s be patient and prayerful that God will do his part!

My prayer is that you have a good weekend and that things unfold in your life that speak to the greatness of the God that has redeemed us in his son and has “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).

My man Brad has told me that the technical difficulties with my blog center on the theme template I’m using. I am going to be switching the theme to eliminate the problems, which seem to be centering around the ability to post comments. Bear with me as we get these iron out.

Doug

Some friends sent this to Tisha. Hilarious!

At the Frisco RoughRiders game last night, their starter pitched a really good game. He gave up one run on three hits through seven innings. Going into the 8th, the RoughRiders were up 2-1. A set-up man came into pitch the 8^th. He gave up no runs and allowed only one hit. Then in the 9^th the RoughRiders brought in their closer who threw 95 mph heat! He gave up 5 earned runs on 4 hits. Ouch. The lesson is…one bad outing can mess up 8 innings worth of greatness.

The same rings true for us in life. All it takes in one slip of the tongue, one outburst of fury, or maybe even keeping your mouth closed when something should be said to ruin a situation. In the end, fixing things is 10 times harder and more arduous than messing them up was. While contextually James seems to be addressing an attitude we should have toward the word, maybe, “Know this my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20) can speak to us in a broader sense about why its important to be on guard at all times?

A while back I posted concerning an effort by my friend Trey Morgan to raise money to feed the impoverished of Honduras. You can read several of Trey’s recent posts here and here.

Today he will be coordinating an effort to raise money to help feed the people who look for food at this particular dump. $20 will feed them for a day. If you would like to help, visit Trey’s site today and you can find out how.

Thanks!

Several days ago, I read a review of Kevin Roose’s book The Unlikely Disciple by John Dobbs that so intrigued me that I had to go to Barnes & Noble the next day and get a copy. It’s an amazingly well-written book that captivates the reader in a number of different ways. What’s most intrigued me has been his concessions about stereotypes.

I am not going to go into the nature of Roose’s experiment. You can read John’s review to get the jist of it. Or you can watch the YouTube video below to get an idea about what the book’s about. But I will say that, insofar as I’ve read, Roose reveals an inherent danger in buying into certain traditional stereotypes. Sometimes things aren’t as we might expect, nor as they might seem. That’s the danger in making irrational judgments about people without considering the authenticity of a person. Formulating opinions of people based upon ethnic, gender, socio-economic and religious stereotypes is shallow, lazy and inconsiderate.

Jesus crushed the complex ethnic and religious stereotypes of both Jews and Samaritans by engaging a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (John 4) and telling a parable of a Samaritan who helped man, presumably a Jew, left for dead (Luke 10:25-37). He sought to change conceptions of how Kingdom people looked at others. Stereotyping disrespects others and leaves us in the dark about the reality of people.

If you are a person who gets no further with people than a silly stereotype, think about what you might be missing! You may miss out on the opportunity of affording one the “good news.” You may miss out on your own personal elucidation concerning people about whom you are misguided. Get to know people deeply. Try to understand where they’re coming from. If we do, we’ll be more effective as salt and light to the world (Matthew 5:13-16).

The Unlikely Disciple

Leonard Ravenhilll