Guest Blog by Shane (Spokes) Pickel

This is for anyone and everyone and me who have moments or seasons of doubt. We often see doubt as failure so we try earnestly to avoid it. Failing to know what doubt is what really needs to be avoided. Below is an excerpt from a talk from Paul Enns.

“Sometimes we think of our faith as a fortress. It’s comfortable and above all safe. But what if God doesn’t want us to be comfortable and safe? What if comfortable and safe keep us from pursuing God? After all – what is safe? God isn’t safe. Not according to scripture, creation or CS Lewis. But He is good.“

Sooner or later God—because He is good—tears your fortress down, and He pushes you out, and puts you on a spiritual journey—which always involves some deep struggle.

Doubt forces us to look at who we think God is. It makes us face whether we really trust HIM, or whether we trust what we have made God to be. Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind. But doubt—real hard deep unnerving uncomfortable scary doubt—helps us to see that, maybe we have made God into our own image. We come to discover, slowly but surely, that the “faith” we are losing is not faith in God. It is actually in the idea of God that we surround ourselves with.”

I’m sitting in my favourite chair at home, being generally good about not moving too far or too fast. A week ago Sunday I did something to my knee that caused me significant pain. Turns out I probably wrecked the meniscus or a ligament on the inside of my left knee. I tore the cartilage on the other knee as a teen. Since I can only “rest” it has given me a little time to pause and reflect. 

• As we age we gain wisdom and experience and knowledge and perspective and maturity. We also discover what we value like family & friends and our faith. Each of these contributes to making us a better person and more capable of helping/leading others. 
• We also fall apart faster. Things like knees, ankles, eye sight & energy have gone down hill for me. I still have my hips & hearing (not counting the selectivity kind of hearing I occasionally get accused of). In case you’re not sure, aging can suck!

Several axioms come to mind. 

• I’m old enough to know better, but young enough to do it again
• Inside every man is a grade 8 boy waiting to get into trouble
• Now my body says, “You can’t do this boy”, But my pride says, “Oh, yes you can”! I ain’t as good as I once was. by Toby Keith
• Growing old is compulsory, growing up is optional. 
• I don’t know how to act my age, I’ve never been this age before. 

Some regular Aleve, ice packs and rest have helped a lot in making me feel better. I’m looking forward to a great year in 2016. Back to work today! 🙂 

Ever since I can remember, my dad had a jar of scotch mints or jelly beans in his office. When I got a desk and my own office I started a similar tradition. I started with rockets candy and discovered they were too addicting. Then I tried M & M Peanuts, but discovered they got eaten by others (Mud) too fast for me to be able to afford them. It was going to cost me over $600 per year. Needless to say I needed to find something that wasn’t so expensive. I settled on scotch mints. Like father like son it turns out. Also, people don’t tend to eat more than a couple at one time. 

A few times I have given a mint jar to someone as a start for their new office. This Christmas I sent small jars to my 2015 Widji summer leadership staff. They spent a lot of time eating mints in my office. We even debated the virtues of pink or green mints. It always comes back to the white ones for me. 

A new tradition has begun. I hope they like it!