Shortcuts aren’t always short…I was hiking with some experienced hikers in the mountains of North Carolina. We were on a trail that led across the top of the ridges. We stopped for a break and I noticed that it would be shorter distance to drop off the side of the trail and cross over through a ravine to where we were going for the day. My friends advised me not to, but I told them I would meet them on the other side. It started out okay, but when I got into the rhododendron thicket ( a large concentrated area of evergreen type bush-trees) it was really tough. At one point, I was crawling on my hands and knees with my backpack getting stuck every few feet.I sat there for a few minutes realizing want a dumb, stupid mistake I had made trying this as a short cut.Trying to think positive, I thought I was probably sitting where no person had ever been before…then I look down and saw an old chewing gum wrapper! Oh well, so much for nice thoughts. I finally reach my destination with my torn backpack and flannel shirt, scratches on my face, and leaves stuck in my hiking boots. My friends greeted me with laughter and asked me how I liked my “short cut”.
Sometimes, we all have days like that. We think we know best and we don’t; but we go ahead inspite of the wisdom of others who warn us. Then, we find ourselves in a mess. We need to learn from our mistakes and realize that we aren’t the center of the universe and more knowledgeable than wikipedia. It keeps us humble and that’s a good thing. I have learned to laugh at myself but also to learn from others and not just assume I know it all. I think God planned it that way, so we would trust in Him and to value other people. We aren’t meant to fly solo through life, we really do need each other. 
Don Williams has said …“The Road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from our journey, not our destinations.” Trust me, I learned a lot from my hiking friends and I thankful that they didn’t leave this bear in the mountains that day. Regardless of what situations you encounter this week, remember the Lord is there to help you. One of my favorite Bible verses is “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I” (Isaiah 61:2 ). Let Him lead you to a higher place. 

 

Bears go more dormant during the winter months because their regular food supply is not readily available during that time of year. They do this to survive. Although my nickname is “Bear”, I too have found it vitally important to take a break in order to survive and thrive. I am often asked the question “How to you deal with all the things and stressful situations in your work?” I am thankful for the opportunity that God has allowed me to “Be there” when people are hurting or in a crisis. My schedule is often unpredictable and can change in a instant. I’m not able to take several months off like a real bear but I would like to share with you some things I have found to be very helpful to keep in mind when you are in the  middle of stressful times.We all need time to rest. Dr. Archibald Hart did an important study and wrote a book on of the role of adrenalin and stress. One of the big findings that became evident is that if you are constantly going, going ,non stop for an extended period of time; that when you stop it will take awhile for your body to physically replenish the adrenalin necessary for good health. That is why, when you eventually stop and take a day off you may feel down, tired and emotionally drained; accompanied with maybe even a headache.

We all need time to renew and restore our mind, body, and soul. Even Jesus told his disciples after a very busy time in their ministry together “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” ( Mark 6:31). I like what Charles Swindoll said about this, “Renewal and restoration are not luxuries, they are essentials. Being alone and resting for a while is not selfish; it is Christ like. It’s not carnal, it’s spiritual.”

We all need time to recalibrate. My good friend, Glenn Metts mentioned this term while we were hiking in the mountains, We were in awe of the majestic mountains with clear skies.We could see something breathtaking everywhere we turned that day. It’s good to get away for a few hours or a day to change your surroundings and to help you put things in proper perspective. Wayne Corderio is right…”Sometimes how we view our problems oftentimes is the problem.” It is amazing how taking a break can allow us to clarify that in our thinking and recalibrate us back in the right direction for our lives.

Take mini-breaks when you can during a busy day. Take a short walk. Change up your routine a little, maybe drive a different route to work or home. Listen to relaxing music. Park your car in the parking lot further away so that you can walk more. Cut out caffeine late in the day. Go to a different restaurant. Just a short break can go a long way to making your busy day less stressful. These are just some things that this old bear has learned that you can do to take a break even when you don’t have a lot of time to hibernate.  

 

I was recruited to help out at a local pie eating contest. Being the competitor I am, I “trained” for several days, trying to get into the best pie eating shape possible that I could in a short period of time. I worked on my technique, and developed a steady eating pace for endurance. I even thought about securing a corporate sponsor like Mrs. Edwards or Marie Calendars but evidently,  they don’t live in Tennessee because I couldn’t find them in the phone book. I had studied the rules and was prepared for this big event. In spite of the cold weather, there was a large crowd there that night. Over the sound system, they started with a countdown and GO! I was focused as a race horse at the Kentucky Derby and kept my eye on the prize…I mean pie. I kept my head low to be closer to the pie in order to shorten the distance between the pie and me so my athletic strokes of moving the spoon to my mouth would be more energy efficient, hopefully giving me a competitive edge. Then all of sudden, spontaneous combustion exploded as the other contestants got into a pie throwing contest at each other…There were pies flying all around me but I stayed low and focused. My good friend Ed,  got “creamed”. They stopped the contest and although I didn’t win, I cleaned my pie plate just like my mom taught me as a child…

Sometimes we can end up in the middle of an unexpected mess of a crisis. How should we respond? Here are some ideas that I have found helpful…

Pray instead of Panic. Psalm 46:1 describes it this way…”God is our refuge and our strength , a very present help in trouble.” That should  always the first response for us, that should be our “default setting” like on a computer.It doesn’t have to be a verbal or a loud prayer, just quietly in our heart and soul would do just fine. Chuck Smith said this …” God wants us to trust in Him completely, even when we cannot see any possible solutions.” 

Stay Calm and look at Options as you Respond. It is important not to overreact. Think through your situation. You may need to seek good advice, if possible talk to someone who has had a similar problem and did okay during their experience. This is particularly helpful if there is adequate time to secure advice. It is important how realize the situation for what it is and look at the best options available to you. This is nothing new, even the ancient Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius said “ The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” 

Choose the Best Option and Proceed with cautious optimism. It isn’t always a clear path or a perfect straight line through a crisis. Things are often messy and not nice and neat and cleaning it up can be a process and take time. Trust me I know, every time I eat some pie, I check to see if everything around me is okay… 

 

    Bobby was a Hometown Hero. He was a veteran who served our country. He also loved and served our community for many years. He was the Pastor of First Methodist Church and then after retirement served as the chaplain of our local hospital. I am thankful to have known and worked beside Bobby Ely. I have served as a volunteer chaplain with him at Sevier Medical Center and then more recently at LeConte Medical Center. His personality transcended any typical stereotype of a minister or a chaplain. He made you feel you like you were just part of his family regardless of your background or where you attended church. His grin, chuckle and his quick sense of humor always put a smile of your face. He had that same effect on hospital staff, volunteers, and patients. 

    In our ever changing and busy world, he was a steady and consistent source of comfort and encouragement to many, always there for us day in and day out. He and his wife Barbara have made our community so much stronger. Their love and commitment to our community is woven deeply into the fabric of our lives.

    Bobby didn’t want praise and admiration from others but he earned by doing whatever he could, the right way, and with a smile. A hero isn’t always someone who does one courageous act, but often times it is someone who gets in the trenches of life and helps pick you back up on your feet. That is why for me and many others, Bobby Ely will always be a hometown hero.

            

Cheeseburgers are not always made in Paradise, at least not for me. In  a moment of over confidence and sheer stupidity…I volunteered to cook dinner for my daughter and her cousins while their grandmother and moms went out shopping for several hours. Three little kids and a bear (that would be me), cooking in the kitchen… a recipe for disaster.I decided to make it fun and entertaining for my young audience. I started flipping burgers up in the air, like someone tossing pizza dough, and spinning around and round like a helicopter. I even did a line dance with the containers of mustard and ketchup then I squeezed the mustard container too hard…the resulting momentum sent the mustard flying up into the air like fireworks on the Fourth of July! I looked up and to my horror saw that I had sprayed mustard all over the ceiling of the kitchen. The kids loved it and gave me a “jumping up and down” standing ovation accompanied by lots of laughter. 

After our “entertaining” meal, I organized the kids into a clean up crew with each one given a little something to do before the ladies night out group returned home. I told the kids to not tell about the mess I made, since we cleaned it up. When the ladies enter the house, my little niece loudly proclaimed: “Guess what Uncle Jerry did!” While pointing to some leftover mustard stains on the ceiling and the other kids jumped into the conversation describing  in their own words about our “entertaining” meal.

I was busted and a little embarrassed about it all. You know, some things just don’t go as planned. Even well intentioned plans can explode like that container of mustard. How do we respond when things go wrong?

LIGHTEN UP and LEARN TO LAUGH at Yourself and don’t take yourself so serious all the time. He who laughs …last. Life is too short to be miserable all the time, a little laughter can go a long way in keeping things together and giving you a release from stress and tension. It’s almost like a pressure relief valve for your mind and attitude. “If you are cheerful, you feel good; if you are sad, you hurt all over.” -Proverbs 17:22 ( CEV)

CHOOSE TO BE FLEXIBLE. Blessed are they who are flexible, for they shall not get bent out of shape…This can happen by keeping episodes like this in perspective. Is it worth getting real upset about something that won’t change the course of human history or really matter next week? It’s better to make the best of the situation.

CLEAN UP THE MESS and go on with your life. We don’t have to have a perfect life in every little situation to be happy. It’s okay to make some mistakes, at least we can learn from them and then move on with our regular responsibilities. You can enjoy your life today, even it isn’t in paradise!

  

Back when I was student there, I was attending a football game at Gardner -Webb College . It was a beautiful fall day for the game. Our team “The Running Bulldogs” entered the stadium, with the cheerleaders and our mascot, a real bulldog leading the way. At that precise moment, they fired a cannon….and a loud ”BOOM” rocked the stadium…and our beloved mascot passed out..He quit running and this started a chain reaction, stopping the parade of cheerleaders and football players and coaches behind him. It was quite a traffic jam on the field. Everyone immediately stopped to see if the bulldog was okay. Even the fans in the stands, stood to see how he was doing, everything got real quiet. In a few moments, the mascot awoke from this trauma and stood up and began to shake it off as if he had just had a bath.We all stood up and cheered for the bulldog! Fortunately, he recovered and stayed for the game, taking his regular spot on the sidelines.Some things can happen to us as well, things that can knock us off our feet. We need to be like that bulldog, recover and stay in the game. The bulldog couldn’t control what happened to him …but he could control his response to the situation. Sometimes we just need to shake it off (sounds like Taylor Swift’s hit song, doesn’t it). He adapted and adjusted to the situation even though he really could not understand it all.

I don’t know what unexpected crisis or disappointment has entered your life, maybe it is a health issue you or someone close to you is facing or some other discouraging situation, but I do know…it is very important how you and I respond to it. It really is unrealistic to think we can control everything around us all the time. Charles Swindoll has said it best…”Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. Refuse to let your situation determine your attitude.”

It might not be easy, and it may take some time and some help from others but we can recover as the Lord guides us and helps us through the shock and the hurt. As I often like to say…Life isn’t always easy and isn’t always fair, but God still loves you and God still cares! That can mean a lot when fear and discouragement surrounds you and I. We aren’t meant to handle everything in our own strength. God really wants to be there for us if we would simply turn to Him and trust Him. ..”You can throw the full weight of your anxieties upon Him, for YOU are HIS personal concern.” -1Peter 5:7 (Phillips Translation) 

 

Back in the day, I enjoyed running and competing in races. I ran in races in Texas, North and South Carolina, but that was before my body decided to join the Triple A Club ( Asthma, Allergies, Arthritis). At one of my very favorite races, I had just ran my best time ever and even got 3rd place in my age group. I was so happy and thankful until after I crossed the finish line. I was greeted by an “Out-Of-Shape-Never-Ran-A-Mile” friend of mine who said to me…”I’d be ashamed if I was was you, letting two people finish ahead of you!”In our “Winner takes All” cultural mindset, it inevitably sets us for disappointments and failure. The “all or nothing attitude” can keep us from experiencing real joy and  peace in our lives. That toxic attitude is unrealistic and can lead us to be pessimistic and negative about ourselves and everybody and everything around us. There is nothing wrong with wanting and striving to be the best, that should be a goal but not a consistent criteria for everything we do. It is impossible to be the best in everything. There needs to be a balance between the ideal we wish for and the reality of our human limitations.

Tommy Emmanuel, who many people consider to be the best guitarist in the world said this: “People ask me how does it feel to live up to the ‘BEST’ this, or the ‘GREATEST’ that…I never think about stuff like that because I don’t want the burden of being the greatest anything. So I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m the best or worse. What anyone thinks of me is none of my business; my business is to turn up and do my best and that…sets me free. When I do that, hopefully you have a good time.” 

REAL Success in life isn’t always “Being the Best” but it is simply “Doing our Best.” Trying to be the best all the time will put unrealistic pressure and expectations on yourself and can actually drain the emotional energy from you and then prevent you from being able to do your best.

By the way, my actual response to that comment after the race that day was I still felt good about what I accomplished there.I even laughed at the comment when it was made, because I knew most of all… that I did my best and that was good enough for me. Don’t be obsessed with being the best in everything you do today, just stay focused on doing your best…one thing at a time.

I have also found it extremely helpful to look to Jesus and not everybody else. May you and I focus on Him today as we run our race today…

“We must be determined to run the race that is ahead of us. We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete.” -Hebrews 12: 1-2 (CEV) 

 

I don’t know why, but some of the craziest things happen to me ( I think of it as a unique gift, that the Lord allows me to experience so I can laugh at myself and bring a smile to others). I have always enjoyed the game of football. I played football in L.A. (not Los Angeles, but Lower Asheville in North Carolina). I was on the very first Hendersonville Jr. High Football Team. We were a work in progress. Our biggest game of that season was at the football Stadium in Asheville. We were driving for a touch down, and I was an lineman, my job was to block. As I went forward, my shoe got stuck in a water drain and I couldn’t move much less block. My friend Charlie had the football and tried to run behind me,the other team however tried to run through me to tackle Charlie. I was stuck in the middle and nowhere to go, but somehow Charlie ran around me and scored the touchdown. After the score the referee tried to get my shoe out of the drain but it wouldn’t move. The referee told me to leave the field and get it later. As I came limping off the field, the people in the stands thought I was injured. Even the cheerleaders starting cheering for me..”Jerry, Jerry, He’s our man, if he can’t do it , nobody can…” Even my coaches were surprised ( although I don’t think that was the only emotion that felt about me at the time) especially when I told them what had actually happened to me. After the game, I went back out of the field and with some help, retrieved my shoe. Many years later while attending a college football game, I took a break to get some chicken wings. After visiting the concession stand, I started back with my basket of chicken into the stadium. At the same time, there were a lot of people rushing toward the field to see an exciting interception and touchdown. In the chaos of the moment, some excited  fan shoved my arm up (I guess to signal touchdown like a referee). Well, you guessed it…My chicken wings went airborne up into the seats above me..never to be seen  again! I went back and got more chicken wings and took them back to share with my friend Morris. Morris asked me what took me so long? I told him that the first order of chicken wings had flown away…

I went to another football game trying to find an extra ticket. At that particular stadium, it was illegal to “scalp” tickets, I saw this  man was trying to sell the tickets for a much higher price. I walked up and told him it was illegal to do so. He ask me what he should do and I told him, he could sale the ticket to me at face value, which he did. As I walked away, another man who had evidently been trying to buy the same ticket unsuccessfully, approached me asked me…”Who are you? You aren’t from  around here are you? Are you a hustler from Atlanta???”… I had a similar experience a few years later at the same stadium but I really can’t repeat what was said afterwards.

I always wanted to attend a Bowl Game. Some friends and I traveled to Atlanta to see the Tennessee Vols play Maryland in the Peach Bowl. We parked on the other side of a park near the stadium. After the game was over, we reentered the park to get to our car. As we got the the other side of the park we discovered the gate was locked, so we decided to save some time and just climb the fence. I was the last one over and got stuck on top of the fence. My friends were laughing so hard that couldn’t help me. I suspect they had never seen a bear or a big man stuck on top of a fence before that night! And all I could do was laugh too… but eventually I flopped on over the fence but my landing didn’t go very gracefully. 

As you can tell, I need extra grace wherever I go…even football games.

  

 

       I was on a tight schedule, running late between appointments and decided to grab a quick lunch. I went through the drive-thru and got a  Bean Burrito and Diet Coke (a gastronomical non-delight.) I sat in the parking lot to enjoy my “unhappy meal.” I was thinking… why on earth did I stop here? I was mad at myself for making such a bad decision, but I have learned through the years, that sometimes God can even turn our disappointments into His appointments…      I noticed a man slowly leaving the restaurant, with a walking cane in one hand and his soft drink in the other hand. When he got to his car, he was having difficulty trying to unlock the car and hold on to the cane and cola cup at the same time. I got out and went over and helped get him and his stuff in the car. It was then, I recognized him. I had seen him around town and knew he recently had a stroke. He recognized me and pointed in the direction of the church and said with slurred speech: “You… church”. I replied: “Yes, I’m Jerry and I work at the church.” He said: “God bless you for helping me.”I replied: “Thank you for blessing me too and getting to see you today.”

     As he drove away, I sat in my car and reflected upon what had just happened. I wept, thanking the Lord for allowing me to just simply help someone today. We live  in such a  “always in a hurry” world. How many opportunities do we miss each day because we are too busy to notice them? As you go through your day, look for those VIP ( Very Important People) in God’s eyes that He sends your way so that you can share a word of encouragement or do something for them. John Bunyan has said, “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you”. We are never more like Jesus than when we care, help, and share with others.  

 

“I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.” – Lewis Carol ( Alice in Wonderland)
“Enjoy Life. Take it all in, the good and the bad. Don’t look back. Just live.” – Tiffany Hodge
There are some days that we start out okay and somewhere along the way our emotional energy fades away. This can be due to a variety things such as unexpected interruptions that throw us off our schedule. By the way…Interruptions aren’t always intruders, they are some times the part of a different plan the Good Lord has for us that day. In the life and ministry of Jesus, He often saw interruptions as opportunities to stop and help and encourage someone. Our “To- Do List” of things should not keep us from being kind to others.

Another destructive attitude is focusing on what we “don’t have” in our lives right now instead of being thankful for what we “do have” at the present time. Don’t spend your day just worrying obsessively about how bad you feel, instead let go of the bitterness by specifically thinking of the blessings you have today. The Bible encourages us to do just that: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) .

Taking mini-breaks, take a short walk, get up from that chair and stretch, go outside to get a breath of fresh air. At home, put down that TV remote, get up and do a little something physical . Instead of justing sitting around overwhelmed at what needs to be done, work on one mini- home project that takes thirty minutes or less to complete. Write that note, email or text to say thank you or to encourage someone. Then after that, do something else that is helpful and recharges your mind.

Remember, This is the day the Lord has made… don’t waste it! Do your part to Rejoice and be Glad in it!