We say a prayer and then we wait for how God will respond convinced that He will answer in due time. The waiting is the hardest part when those we love need help, when complex reasons mean their lives don’t rhyme.
Sometimes the Good Lord gives “thumbs up.” Sometimes He answers “no!” But often we must just anticipate how He will choose to bring about the outcome He deems best. And in the meantime, we are called to wait.
Yes, prayer requires having faith. It’s not a rabbit’s foot. When we call out to God, we trust His plan. We’re confident that He’ll respond (not knowing when or how). And so, we hold His strong (yet tender) hand.
In addition to each week’s post on this website, Greg Asimakoupoulos offers daily video devotionals on his YouTube channel. Here is a sample video. If you are interested in receiving these devotionals Monday through Friday, you can subscribe on Greg’s channel.
The fireplace mantel in the Asimakoupoulos family room
Over the past two weeks we have been glued to our television sets watching the Olympics from the “city of light.” There were memorable moments (like the opening ceremonies in the pelting rain) that we will recall for years to come. At least until our nation hosts the Summer Games in four years.
But we don’t need to wait for the Los Angeles Olympics to participate in the “Olympics of Life.” Regardless of whether you frequent a gym or exercise at home, here are some events that anyone can incorporate into their daily routines.
Remember to stretch. Flexibility is not as prevalent as it once was. In our current cultural environment, there is not much stretching to reach across the aisle on Capitol Hill (or in church). Differences in opinion and perspective are easily weaponized. There is a tendency to become rigid and unbending to the point of fracturing relationships within families and within congregations. What ever happened to the old adage “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity?” In the Olympics of Life stretching is a prerequisite to reaching out in love.
Recognize the balance beam of work and play. One of the highlights of the Paris Games for me was watching Simone Biles and her teammates on the balance beam. They demonstrated with seeming ease and grace just how beautiful maintaining one’s balance can be. And whereas the fruit of a balanced life is a thing of beauty, such fruit is not we Americans are known for. While watching the Olympic coverage, I heard a commentator mention how the French work in order to live whereas most Americans live to work. An unbalanced approach to our vocations can find us making a living without experiencing a meaningful life.
Wrestle worries and hurdle over fear. Like pebbles in a runner’s shoe, worry and fear keep us from maximizing our potential. We should learn from the Greco/Roman wrestlers and hurdlers we saw in Paris. They demonstrated how how to pin and leap over whom and what stood in their way. They faced their opponents and obstacles with the belief they can win. Faith in a God (who is bigger than whatever we are facing) can give us the same belief. There is a quote from Corrie ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor, that hangs on our refrigerator. It says, Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
Swim upstream against the current of what’s current. After Paris invested $1.5 billion into cleaning up the notoriously polluted Seine River, swimmers were prevented from participating in certain events for nearly a week. The pollution remained hazardous to the health of the athletes. Giving-in to cultural trends in order to be popular or to gain the approval of others can be just as toxic. As people of faith, we are called to take our cues from the truths of God’s Word in an attempt to perform before an audience of One.
Dive into what needs to be done. Can you imagine standing on the diving platform there in Paris? It’s comparable to standing atop a three-story building. As my Norwegian grandfather used to say, “uff-da!” But those Olympic divers have learned to leap with confidence. In the Olympics of Life, we are often called to jump into tasks that at times seem overwhelming. Procrastination is a nemesis we must resist. Like the paparazzi in Paris, what distracts us can take our minds off what needs doing. Delaying the inevitable only makes what we are called to do more difficult.
Walk with God. Are you familiar with that Olympic event where the walkers rapidly waddle around the track? To the uninitiated, the participants in that event look funny. But those are serious athletes. The first race-walking competition was held at the 1908 Games in London. In the Olympics of Life, the kind of walking I have in mind requires frequency and not speed. Walking with God is a daily activity in which we enjoy communion and conversation with the Creator of the universe. It’s an exercise regimen that helps us remain spiritually fit. And like those in Alcoholics Anonymous have discovered, progress is made one step at a time.
Greg recently officiated the wedding for Scotty Moore and Lauren Asimakoupoulos
This thing called love’s not hearts and doves. It’s struggle, sweat and grime. It’s hanging tough when life gets rough. And so I wrote this rhyme.
I’ll say it slow. I hope you know. This is no average day. This is the time for love to shine and so my friends I pray that you will find the means to mine the gold that’s buried deep. You’ve got to dig. You can’t renege. That’s how your vows you’ll keep.
For we’re inclined to clutch what’s mine and seek what’s best for me. But love that lives won’t take, but gives like Christ on Calvary.
For in this life a man and wife can see that joy and pain each play a part to win the heart. And so make this your aim…
Be quick to say, “I sought my way. I’m sorry. Please forgive.” With each new dawn, let tiffs be gone. Show grace in how you live.
And if it seems you’ve lost your dreams, ask God to give you more. To aim for goals will fuel your souls to reach for what’s in store.
And when there’s pain, don’t try to blame each other for the cause. Just recognize that life breeds sighs, discouragement and blahs.
But in those times when lines don’t rhyme and you’re reduced to tears, confess your cares to God in prayer. Acknowledge that He’s near.
So here you stand. Please understand. These words aren’t just for you. They’re for us all so we’ll recall what makes true love stay true.
Greg Asimakoupoulos and his soon-to-be-married daughter Lauren Star
Seventeen years ago I had the privilege of officiating the wedding of Coach Mike Holmgren’s youngest daughter. It was the natural culmination of a fifteen-year friendship with the Holmgren family.
Mike and his wife Kathy became personal friends when I was a pastor in Northern California. Shortly after he left the Forty-Niners organization to become head coach of the Green Bay Packers, our family moved to Illinois. My allegiance to the leader of The Pack in the heart of Bears Country found me cheering for the Packers. I was definitely in the minority on Sunday afternoons. As a result, I wore my Cheesehead discreetly.
After a handful of years and two Super Bowl appearances, Mike moved to Seattle to become head coach of the Seahawks. And in 2005 when I accepted a call to a church in suburban Seattle, I became the head coach’s lead pastor. And as you might expect, I also became a devoted 12. Amazingly, within a few months of our move to Washington State, I was cheering for Mike and the Hawks in Super Bowl XL.
When Mike’s daughter approached me about coaching her and her fiancé through their premarital counseling, I was delighted. We huddled at our local Starbucks to review the plays I’ve discovered lead to a committed relationship. Over lattes, we planned their ceremony.
As the big day drew near, I pictured the Xs and Os that inevitably were going through Coach Mike’s head. I wanted to share something with my friend that would be meaningful. Because I had never been the father of the bride at that point, I could only imagine the emotions that were crowding his heart. Putting pen to paper, I came up with the following:
When you stand beside your daughter and you hear the Wedding March, I am guessing you’ll feel something like a sliver in your heart.
Though you’re thrilled beyond description that your baby’s now a bride, you will have a strange sensation like an itch deep down inside.
It’s a bittersweetish splinter that you cannot tweezer out cause it’s wedged and twisted sideways. It’s what good grief’s all about.
It’s a shard that’s caused by memories of those precious years you had planting seeds of faith and wisdom as her mentor, as her dad.
It’s a sliver that you’ll live with. You’ll thank God that it is there for it’s just one more reminder what you’ve shared is really rare.
Within four years of handing the coach my little poem, it was my turn to walk my middle daughter down the aisle. I discovered that what I had imagined was going through the coach’s mind was spot-on. That was back in 2011, but I still remember the lump in my throat and the tear in my eye.
And this weekend I will once again have an opportunity to put into practice the advice I’ve given countless other fathers-of-the-bride. This time it’s my baby girl who will be pledging a lifetime of love to the man of her dreams. In anticipation of the center aisle stroll Lauren and I will be taking, I’ve reread the words I composed for Mike Holmgren seventeen years ago. And even though I’m the one who wrote them, they speak to me of the sacredness of what’s ahead.
Poetry is like that. There is something about rhyming words and phrases that capture what prose often can’t. The emotions that dance in the heart of a bride (and her father) on her wedding day are more easily described in word pictures. In the forty-five years I’ve been a pastor, I have used poetry to create such portraits of life’s sacred moments. The birth of a baby. The death of a parent. The completion of a degree. A couple’s engagement. Unexpected unemployment. A job promotion. A doctor’s dreaded diagnosis. Or even a coach’s Super Bowl victory (or defeat).
But for this weekend, I’m taking my own medicine and practicing what I’ve preached.
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In addition to each week’s post on this website, Greg Asimakoupoulos offers daily video devotionals on his YouTube channel. Here is a sample video. If you are interested in receiving these devotionals Monday through Friday, you can subscribe on Greg’s channel.
Jim Griset with a book given to his father in 1919 at his grandmother’s grave
During Christmas break 2005, I visited my favorite thrift store near my in-laws in Southern California. What I discovered was a treasure that meant as much as any gift I’d received beneath the tree.
There on a dusty bookshelf was a slender antique volume entitled “Nearer My God to Thee.” That old hymn reminded me of the Titanic’s tragic voyage. As you may have read, while the famous ship was sinking, the band remained on deck playing that poignant melody.
I opened the fly leaf of the book and noticed a handwritten inscription. The beautiful script acknowledged the 8th birthday of Francis Griset and the date of his birth. July 14, 1911. It was signed by one of Francis’ grandmothers. Because I was already thinking of the Titanic, it struck me that this young boy was born just nine months before the infamous vessel struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912. As I held the book and focused on the personal inscription, I felt as if I had found buried treasure. And to top it off, my find was only 99 cents.
For the past nineteen years that little treasure has been a valued part of my collection of Titanic memorabilia that includes a plastic model of the ship and several books that document the disaster. I have displayed the book as an illustration whenever I have preached one of my favorite sermons: “Spiritual Lessons from a Sinking Ship.” In a newspaper column I wrote three months ago referring to the Titanic, I referenced my antique book including a photo.
Upon my return to the States from three months in Switzerland, I was retrieving a boatload of voicemails on my landline. One message stopped me in my tracks. It was from a man by the name of Jim Griset. His brief message indicated that someone had sent him one of my newspaper columns. He went on to say that it was an article about a book I’d found in a thrift store inscribed to a Francis Griset. In his recorded message he informed me that Francis was his father. I was stunned.
Returning his call, I thanked Jim for reaching out to me. He told me about his dad who had died in 2005. Upon asking more about his father, I discovered that Francis was only nine months old when his twenty-four year old mother died (ironically on the same day the Titanic went down).
Jim told me it was Francis’ maternal grandmother who inscribed the book to him on his eighth birthday. Quite conceivably she gave the boy the book because of what it represented. It’s quite possible the hymn and the book were meaningful to her because of its connection to the Titanic story. After all, she lost her daughter (Francis’ mother) to death on the same day 1,500 lives were lost in the North Atlantic.
In our conversation I was fascinated to learn that Jim’s father and my wife’s parents (although they never met) lived in the same community and both attended Presbyterians churches. I told Jim that my in-laws were career missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators started by William Cameron Townsend. He told me that his dad was actually related to the Townsend family. Another small world connection!
Jim related to me that as his dad grew older, he would often play hymns for his father on the piano. Ironically it was the very piano given to Francis’ mother before he was born by the same grandmother who gave him the book. Jim told me his dad loved it when he played “Nearer My God to Thee.” What he’d received as a child had taken root deep in his young heart. And for good reason.
As Jim continued to share information about his dad, something else dawned on me. Francis received the book from his grandmother in the summer of 1919 during the Spanish Flu pandemic when people were dying throughout the nation. That beloved hymn must have offered comfort to young Francis just as they had to the grieving woman who had given the book to him.
When Jim and I finished our conversation, it was clear what I had to do. With joy I mailed the book to its rightful owner.
My Rhymes and Reasons 