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Ahhh Black Friday....Small Business Saturday...Cyber Monday. Tis the season for SHOPPING! And who doesn't love a great deal?!? To see a price slashed in half makes me feel as the consumer that I AM WINNING! That's right, me, Josh Hoffman- I'm defeating the giant corporations of Target, Kohl's, and Best Buy when I shop only when everything is on SALE!

Well let's be real....all these stores are still open (even Best Buy), so they obviously aren't doing TOO bad! Just b/c I buy a Black Friday DVD door buster for $4 isn't going to put them out of business. In fact, during these sale days- it's pretty clear the only group adding to their debt in our country is US...not the STORES!

But yet every year it's the same...DEALS- SALES- 50% off. Why doesn't it change? Because it MUST still work. Sure, more things than ever are purchased online, but all these companies keep turning profits by getting me out of my turkey coma to go buy toys for my boys.

The other thing about these sales is that it makes SENSE to us. Let me explain! To buy anything, we need money. We know that when stuff is discounted or on sale, we can buy more of it. It's a simple formula but it works for us and the stores. Everyone wins right?

NOT EXACTLY! Here's the problem, in my opinion, whether we like it or not, BLACK FRIDAY, CYBER MONDAY, and whatever other "deal day" they want to come up with can negatively impact our relationship with God.

WHY?

Here's the REAL STORY. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. That forgives us of everything wrong we have done or will do. To receive this amazing gift or grace- we do NOTHING. That's right. Jesus death was the sole cost. We can't save ourselves.

This causes a problem b/c it doesn't agree with our culture. We are a consumer driven culture. To receive something, even the BEST Black Friday deal- we need to go into a store or shop online- AND pay for it. No matter how deep the discount, their still is a cost.

But the cost of God's grace for US? It's nothing. It's a bill that Jesus has completely paid in full. My favorite verse in the Bible from Ephesians 2 states EXACTLY this: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. 

The problem this causes though is we have a hard time comprehending grace. How can we receive the greatest gift ever by doing NOTHING ourselves? By simply having faith. The basic answer is that God loves us THAT much. Romans 5:8- ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The deals we get on Black Friday or Cyber Monday WILL probably give us a great temporary feeling of achievement or accomplishment. But all those deals will only BE temporary. The gift God gives us is eternal! We have a God that loves us NO matter what and died on the cross for us.There is NO cost to us. Please spend some time this week reflecting on God's grace! It's free for you and for me and it's forever. 

Sometimes we just need to LAUGH!

MOUSE....NO it's a squirrel. "No, it's a MOUSE." This yelling and laughing match went back and forth for 5 minutes between Micah and I. Micah may only be 2 years old but he KNOWS how to be funny. We were reading an animal book and he KNEW all the animals. BUT, Micah think it's funny sometimes to intentionally call something the wrong animal. SO he starts calling a squirrel a mouse. And he won't stop! He giggles so hard his whole body moves. He can barely get out the word MOUSE before he breaks into a 30 second giggle.

Micah understands the need to laugh! As only a 2 year old he already gets the importance of a smile and laughter. WHAT A BLESSING THAT IS!

I best learned this lesson during one of my most embarrassing moments. I was in 8th grade (when pretty much everything ends up being embarrassing), and I was in the class play. The play was Beauty and the Beast. The part I was playing was a butler. Now we aren't talking about the candle stick, or the clock, OR any cool role. I was an extra part that was added because more kids wanted to be in the play than they had parts for. My part was completely insignificant. No one would remember my place in Beauty and the Beast history....well that is UNTIL I fell off the stage. That's right....first scene of the play....walking along the back of the stage- OFF I went. There one minute- GONE the next. I was kind of hoping no one would notice; well it turns out when a few hundred people are watching AND they are recording it...people DO see things.

The next day in language class we watched the video of the play. I watched myself fall off the stage in slow-motion about 5 times.

I didn't have an option...there was nothing else to do...nowhere to hide....so I had to laugh.

ALL of us need some laughter. I write this on a MONDAY morning...what a better time to laugh. And do you know that the Bible is funny too? I MEAN like REALLY funny. When you read it, there are so many funny things that happen. First of all, God creates the world....and God makes flamingos and giraffes and a duck-billed platypus- that's funny. Secondly, a crippled man is brought to Jesus. Now that part isn't funny. But, imagine this visual. Jesus is in a STANDING only room teaching people. All of a sudden a small hole starts to form in the roof above. Then it's a big hole in the roof. Then a crippled man is lowered down into this BUSY group of people so Jesus can heal him. Can you imagine what that looked like? (FULL STORY HERE) Jesus of course heals the man and appreciates the faith this man and his friends had.

But maybe my favorite funny story is Jesus first miracle. He's at a wedding, now weddings in this time period were week long celebrations. Weddings were an EVEN bigger deal than weddings are today. Well, a problem arises that they run out of wine. Jesus mother goes to Jesus to fix the problem. And THIS is Jesus first miracle. I read this as hilarious. Jesus mom is telling Him to do something, and Jesus is like, "REALLY mom? It's not even my time yet and you are asking my to perform this miracle."Jesus first miracle isn't healing someone, or casting out a demon, it's turning water into wine for a wedding. (Full Story HERE) 

I think it's SO important that we can laugh at stories in the Bible. These are real true stories with real people that happened. The Bible is a living and breathing book and it's important that we can read it that way!

So this week, make sure to find reasons to laugh. IF you are having trouble, just ask Micah what a squirrel REALLY is?!?

Keep It Simple

Life is complicated. Growing up there is mid-terms, sports practices, chores, more sports practice, tests, snapchat, instagram, twitter, facebook, texting, and MORE! THEN when you reach adulthood there is electric bills, job reviews, work meetings, elections, snack schedules for your child's sports team, and grocery shopping. I'll be honest TOO many times we get overwhelmed and make life WAY more complicated than it needs to be.

In less than 3 months now, my family will be growing by 1. Our little baby girl will be born. We are all SO excited! Not just because we have two boys and NOW we are having a girl BUT because we are having a baby again.

A few nights ago I was reflecting on this very unique time of life. When a new baby comes into the world it really is ALL about them. It's simple, life almost slows down. Are they hungry? Feed them. Are they tired? Rock them to sleep. Do they stink? Change the diaper. All of those other BIG stressful things about life that seemed to take up so much time, don't really matter that much anymore. WHY? Because the reminder of what's important is so small it fits delicately in your arms.

Baby Isaiah....yeah he was PRETTY CUTE...I'm hoping our girl is THIS cute also!

I LOVE babies. Once I figured out how to hold a baby (as a guy, you don't get practice with this- you don't grow up playing with dolls so how are you supposed to know WHAT to DO?, i held them like a football....apparently that's NOT the right way), it was amazing just sitting there with them. Instead of life being about the stress and everything else going on, it became about that little child in my arms.

What I wanted to focus on today is not JUST the amazing blessing that new life in this world is. I wanted to talk about how WE as people sometimes make things much harder than it needs to be on ourselves. What am I talking about? Well let me give you an example. YOU have a big test next Tuesday. Instead of studying, you spend Thursday, Friday, and Saturday worrying about the test and what you don't know. Then Sunday you watch football. Then finally on Monday night at 9:00pm, you start studying. Now this problem is called procrastination, but the real issue is we have SO complicated things that instead of being pushed to action, we have shut down.

This also of course happened to people in the Bible. A great example is Joseph from the new testament. (Read the WHOLE story of Joseph HERE) Joseph is pledged to be married to Mary. But then life gets complicated. Mary is pregnant with baby Jesus. Joseph doesn't know what to do. Him and Mary didn't do ANYTHING to make that baby (if you know what I mean), SO Joseph decides he will divorce her quietly. But then Joseph gets a HUGE dose of reality. An angel appears to him and tells him it's going to be ok. Joseph should take marry as his wife. That baby inside of her is the baby that is going to save the WHOLE world. Joseph simplifies things, marries Mary, and she gives birth to baby Jesus.

Too many times when our life gets complicated, our eyes stop focusing on God. We let our worry or our stress cloud our vision. At the end of the day, life really is as simple as a newborn. We were put on this earth to tell other people about God. We were put here to show love and kindness to one another. Everything else is ultimately background noise.

So this week if you have a test, study for it right away! If you have a meeting, GO to it! Don't create more problems for yourself. The world has plenty of problems on it's own. Keep it simple!

Just like that newborn baby is still learning to focus it's eyes on you, we need to keep on trying to focus our eyes on God.

Show and Tell

Do you have the same memory I HAD of elementary school when show and tell was just about the most exciting thing you did?!? I always looked forward to choosing just the perfect thing from home that I could show my classmates. Yesterday, Isaiah was trying to make his show and tell selection for the week that had to start with the letter T. He took FOREVER to make a decision. He wanted to JUST the right thing to bring.

Show and Tell as a kid is exciting because you are sharing something about yourself to other people. Whether it be a crazy loud toy, or a rock, or a teddy bear (what Isaiah FINALLY decided on); you don't really care so much about what it was, you JUST wanted other people to see something that you thought was REALLY cool.

Unfortunately, I feel that we all grow out of the "show and tell" phase. At some point we stop sharing things about ourselves with other people. Maybe it's because someone told us what we thought was dumb OR we started worrying if we were right or wrong instead of just SHARING something about ourselves. We become hesitant to open ourselves up to other people in fear of getting hurt. We certainly aren't as excited anyone as a kindergartner is to share something about themselves. 

And that's what I really wanted to chat about today- Story telling. I'm not talking about sitting down and reading the Berenstain Bears together, but instead telling stories about ourselves to other people. All of us have some great stories to share with others and by sharing these stories, we can really get to know other people. We can only put ourselves "in other peoples' shoes" when we actually know where their shoes have been!  

One of my favorite stories from the Bible is Jonah and the Big Fish. (Full Story of Jonah HERE) It's one of my favorite because I can relate to it. God tells Jonah to do something. Jonah does exactly the opposite. God STILL shows love of Jonah by not letting him drown, instead Jonah gets swallowed by a BIG fish. After 3 days in the fish, Jonah gets spit out and goes to do what God asked him to do.

This story of Jonah is significant to me because I was like Jonah. I grew up feeling like I was being called to church work.Lots of people told me this and I REALLY felt that calling. BUT, I didn't WANT TO GO! So I instead went to the college to go into sports journalism. I was going to be on ESPN! Well the University of Minnesota turned out to be my GIANT fish. I got swallowed up for a year. It was horrible for me BUT God saved me through that year by helping me realize how much I needed God in my life. SO I finally decided to listen and I got spit up at Concordia St. Paul where I could go into church work.

That's just one of MANY stories I have. And you know what, YOU have interesting stories too! Don't stop sharing your stories and your life with other people. God has put the people around you in your life RIGHT now for a reason-they aren't there by accident.

Challenge yourself this week to share some of your stories while listening to stories from others. Instead of just scrolling through facebook or instagram and looking at pictures and posts- look deeper and find out what is behind them! I bet there is a good story out there just waiting to be told. 

Contacts and Guitar Hero....not so much!

I've worn glasses now for 12 years now. I JUST went in a few weeks ago for my latest check-up and was given new glasses again because one of my eyes was one step worse. I don't think they look TOO bad...

Anyways, I'm an adult, you would think MAYBE I would be a person who would try contacts right? I mean, I play sports; I have two boys who always want to play football or wrestle; so contacts would be natural fit. WELL, as a matter of fact, I did try contacts, ONCE....it just didn't turn out too well.

So about 10 years ago I was back in my hometown visiting my parents for Christmas break. I was FINALLY going to do the contacts thing. All I had to do was be able to take them in and out of my eyes. NO BIG DEAL RIGHT? Well....with the help of the eye doctor, I got them in for the first time. He made the comment, "Wow, you have really tight eye-lids- this might always be hard for you." I thought, TERRIFIC, if this is going to be hard ALL the time, how am I going to do it?

Well the next day it was time to head back to college. I HAD my contacts in, but decided I should take them out so I could just wear my glasses to drive. Well...I couldn't get the contacts out! I FREAKED out. I kept trying to look in the mirror and grab the contact but I kept closing me eyes before I could get them out. I decided to drive back to the eye doctor so they could just take them out. WELL, once we got there, the eye doctor was closed.... for lunch....for the next hour. What was I going to do?!? We had to get back to college and here I am in front of the eye doctor with a contact somewhere in my eye and I can't GET IT OUT! Becca was with me and was quite frustrated with how ridiculous I was being. She said, COME HERE- she held my eye open and pulled the contact out. AND my experiment with contacts was over....

Contacts aren't the ONLY thing I've failed at in life. For 6 months I tried to be a church worker who could play a guitar. Well, music was NEVER natural to me. I played trombone for 8 years and barely learned the notes. So after learning basically one song and my guitar collecting a lot of dust, I gave up.

Here's the deal- ALL of us have things we aren't good at it! That's just the way life is. We are all uniquely created by God. Psalm 139:13 says this: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful I know that full well.

Take a second to think of that image. God knitting us together, making us what we are. The careful time and thought and care that God takes in making us. WOW, I hope that makes you feel as special and unique as it makes me feel. And then there is VERSE and THIS VERSE. 

So I may never wear contacts or serenade Becca with a beautiful guitar solo. And that's OK! I can instead grill just about anything, I can remember obscure sports stats, and I can pretty much always make my family laugh. I'm going to choose to celebrate the random gifts God blessed me with instead of being disappointed that I'll view my life through glasses! 

I hope you can do the same AND realize that God has a plan for YOU also to use those unique gifts.  

Agree to Disagree

Taco Bell is the BEST fast food restaurant. Lambeau Field is the greatest sports stadium. Chevrolet makes the best automobile.

3 opinions that I strongly believe- but do YOU agree?  Maybe you strongly DISAGREE? OR maybe you don't REALLY care about sports or fast food?

Today is election day 2016. After seemingly hours and hours and hours of TV ads and news coverage,and billions of dollars spent; a new president will be elected. AND no matter who is elected, over 40% of our country will be angry about the result. Our country is very much in a time of disagreement. So how do we handle that disagreement and anger?

I couldn't help but think today about the phrase- "Agree to Disagree." I always thought the statement was funny. The visual I got from it is 2 people yelling at each other until they both fall over from exhaustion. They get back up and start yelling again until they can't do it anymore. They finally turn away from each other and slump down pouting because the other person won't agree with them. It would look like this when it was done:

Agree to disagree!

Here is the deal though- agreeing to disagree means there IS an agreement. I believe that when we run into people who might believe differently than us, we have three options. 1. We can argue with them until we are blue in the face trying to change their opinion. 2. We can change our opinion (yeah that NEVER happens easily). OR 3. We can listen to them, they can listen to us, and we can agree to respect each others differences.

The reality of life is we are going to run into people who think differently than us all the time. But this is a GOOD thing and a JOY! I like some of my ideas, but if everyone loved Taco Bell as much as I did, I would have to wait FOREVER in line just to get my quesadilla.

A GREAT Bible verse to bring into discussions with people is from James 1:19-20-¹⁹ My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰ because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Be QUICK to listen- SLOW to speak. 

The key to any disagreement is listening. You might say we have 2 ears and only 1 mouth for a reason...haha. So don't forget that NOT just with political talk but with life. We all have a full life of experiences behind us that have shaped who we are and what we believe. We have a certain stance on life that is completely unique to us. So what a GIANT blessing we have to talk with people and hear about THEIR life experiences and what they are passionate about in life. Let's not let the things we disagree about shape us.

Be Quick to Listen, and Slow to Speak even when you may agree to disagree!

It just doesn't make sense

Why don't they make lucky charms with ONLY marshmallows? Why are regular oreo's made when they have Double Stuf oreos? Why does McDonald's make a small size fry.....I always want more fries! Why do the people at Olive Garden ask me if I want more bread sticks? OF COURSE I do, they are amazing!

Life is filled with things that JUST DON'T MAKE SENSE! Now obviously all mine seem to involve food and MAYBE I have an eating problem BUT that isn't the point of my blog today. Life is filled with many things that just don't make sense.

Many of the things that don't make sense to us are MUCH more serious than food related items. Like- why do some people get cancer while others don't? Why do some people always get injured while others are always healthy?  Why do some people NEVER get in a trouble while you get caught the first time you do something wrong?

Many times when things don't seem to add up, we want to find someone to blame. I think in these big serious moments, a lot of times we blame God. WHY is God having this happen? WHY did God not stop this? Where is GOD?

Here's the deal...in the beginning when God made this world it was PERFECT! Not just olive garden bread sticks perfect but ABSOLUTELY perfect. There was no death, no pain, and no suffering. God gave Adam and Eve a choice. When they took that choice, SIN came into the world. With it came cancer, sickness, death, and things that just don't make sense. (Consequences of Sin)

BUT here's the most important part. God then came to the world in Jesus. And what Jesus did, didn't make ANY kind of sense. Jesus died for people and for their sin when He had done nothing wrong. He loved people who spit in His face. That doesn't make any sense at all. Why would someone die for us when we are the ones who are guilty? Because God loves us THAT much.

In the days ahead- put your focus on the GOOD things that just don't make sense in your lives. Be thankful for the friends that are always there for you even when you aren't always there for them. Appreciate that it's 65 degrees in Minnesota in November. Enjoy a food that is just SO good you can't eat just one. And never forget you have a God who loves you, even if you don't always love God back!