The first was on humility, the second on gratitude, and the third on generosity. All of these are key elements in growing your relationship with God and becoming more like Jesus. I encourage you to go to adabible.org and listen to all three messages, they were all great.

God provided a great opportunity last night as I watched a movie that seem to summarize and visualize what it means to see these three characteristics working in concert together. I watched the hallmark movie The Christmas Shoes (bring tissues if you watch it). It’s an amazing story of both a mans journey from selfish workaholic to self less humility, generosity, and gratitude, and a boys journey to give his mom one last special gift before she goes to meet Jesus.

As these two stories continually cross paths, you are taken through a journey that helps better understand how God is in control and everything happens for a reason. More importantly you see love, forgiveness, and transformation happen. It is one of the better depictions of what Christian character and these three characteristics I have seen in a long time.

Along with the sermons mentioned above, I recommend this movie as well. This is the type of thing we all need to do more of. Love and serve others and serve others in their times of need and trust that God will take care of us.

When you take the Word of God and combined it with the lives of other guys – it’s amazing how God’s Word, yet again, can transform your life.

I would concur with some of the guys comments this morning after finishing a discussion on chapter 31.

For me, The Story was a great way to get the overall story of the Bible from a “50,000″ foot level in most cases and it was the community of guys that really brought it down to a more personal impact level.

I enjoyed exploring the many stories of faith, both highs and lows, and ultimately the hopeful victory in the end – that is, the Bible.

If you’re like me, and you just can’t get through the Bible from cover to cover, I would definitely recommend reading The Story from Zondervan… Two Thumbs Up!!

About two and a half weeks ago, we had a winter storm that was larger than the ones we usually get here. We had somewhere between 16 and 18 inches of snow with drifts up to 3 feet. Normally, my monster 2 stage, 33 hp, snow blower can handle these sorts of things but even that was a bit too much (or so I thought).

After struggling for about an hour with a sluggish snow blower, I finally began to wonder if this was God’s way of teaching me patience. I had to go really slow through the foot and a half of white stuff. It really got bad with the large drifts thanks to the blizzard force winds. Needless to say, I learned that I needed to be patience and not get upset. Finally, I gave up and ended up shoveling… even with the help of 4 other people, it still took 6 hours of straight shoveling and snow blowing to get the whole driveway done.

I thought that was what God wanted me to learn from that situation. It turns out that He was setting me up for the next snowstorm that happen yesterday. This time… knowing the storm was coming – I took some simple maintenance steps to get the snowblower running better. So yesterday when we got 6 inches of snow in 4 hours, I was ready to take on the driveway again.

The snow blower worked like a champ and cut right through the snow like there was nothing there. Granted there was about 10 inches less but it performed so much better that we could have easily taken on another foot and a half with no issues…

The moral of the story for me. When you take time to keep up on the maintenance, things just work better. As I continued to dwell on this point, my thoughts drifted towards relationships. Just like the snow blower, relationships work better when you work at them. This is something I know, but God needed to remind me again. I have been lacking across the board on this one.

From immediate and extended family, to friends both near and far, I have been horribly bad about the “maintenance” side of my relationships. I really need to work at that.

What are some tips or tricks that you use to keep in touch with those in your world?

I also truly admire Grandpa Piersma for the way he lived his life as a pastor and friend to many. He taught from a place of wisdom that few can say they have and yet was humble and caring to everyone, no matter what. I look to his joy filled life and pray that someday I can have the joy, peace, and steadfastness in faith that he displayed right up to the end of his time here on earth.

I won’t soon forget the conversation we had just a few days ago. His joy-filled, peaceful voice sharing wisdom and thankful to God for all that he has experienced. This morning he passed away in his sleep with family by his side.

My life has truly been blessed through knowing Grandpa Piersma and I can honestly say that he has greatly impacted who I am because of who he was, how he lived, and how God has used him over the years.

Grandpa we look forward to the day when we can see you again, in Heaven, and worship again our Glorious Risen Savior but this time in His presence…

We love and miss you already!

Dear God, thank you for the times we have shared with Grandpa Piersma and the hope of more in the future as we gather again in Heaven – Our permanent Home…

But what I am trying to remember is what so many leaders have shared over the years, the difference between success and failure is that the one who succeeds keeps getting up after he falls.

I do want to be the best I can for my kids, I am just concerned that I may have burned too many bridges with some of them and that forgiveness may never come.

A moment of honesty from a parent who really just wants the best for all his kids…