Author: jcudd14

We’ve talked a little in here before about fountains and drains. We all know fountains and we all know drains. We have all been both as well. But, we all tend to be one more than the other. It just depends on our outlook on life in general. We all know those people that always have a smile on their face and have a positive outlook on life. We also know those people that always have that frown on their face and when they speak, it is usually something negative. Sometimes we can become more of a drain at certain times in our life. We can become more negative, depending on what is going on around us. But we are known as one or the other. We all are. We may have never thought about it when thinking about ourselves. But trust me, others have.

I am typically more of a glass half, sometimes 3/4, full. I have actually been accused sometimes of being too optimistic or positive. That’s just the way I am. Maybe sometimes it is to a fault, I don’t know. But I have a tendency to feel like everything will be ok, no matter what the circumstance is. That’s just the way I’ve always been. Now there have been times in my life when I have not been so positive. But as I look at those times and think about those situations, most of the time it all has to do with who I am around and how I let them effect me. The same can be said for the other side as well. The best and most positive times in my life have been when I surround myself with people that are positive. We don’t fully understand our impact on people a lot of times. We get in a rut of being a complainer. We bring others down with our complaining or bad attitudes. We whine and complain about things we have no control over. We think our opinion is the only one that matters. We get so caught up in ourselves. It is a trap that satan uses to bring others down through us.

We don’t always look at that as being satan. But think about it. Satan tries to find ways to cause problems in our life. He tries to find ways to bring people down. He uses whatever and whoever he can to try and destroy people. He wants nothing more than for us to be miserable. He wants us to be miserable and for us to suck the life out of someone else too. It becomes a vicious cycle that is easy to fall victim to. He knows that if he can get us to fall into that trap, that pulls us away from God. That is exactly what he wants. He wants to use drains to recruit more drains.

Here is one example I came across this week that drove this point home to me. I go to a lot of ballgames. Most of the games I go to are the ones our school competes in. But, I also go to other games that our kids are not involved in as well. I also go to my own children’s games. Those are a lot of times more eye opening than the JH and HS events. I hear so much negativity at most of the games I go to. I am also guilty of this myself every once in awhile. I try and be positive, but there are those occasional times when I gripe at the officials. Then I stop and ask myself, did that really do any good? Have I ever seen an official stop the game and say, “Jared, you are right. That is the wrong call. Thank you for pointing that out. I am going to change that call.” No that hasn’t happened and it never will. Now talk about a positive thing for that official to do. That would be an incredibly nice thing for them to do when they are obviously wrong (according to me, the fan). But it’s just simply not going to happen. Now I’m not talking about coaches. That is part of their job to defend their players and work hard for them. But, as a fan, I try and just be positive for our school’s kids, or my personal children if they are the ones playing. But man, there is so much negativity at these events. I just can’t believe what goes on sometimes. I stand there in amazement. I’m not saying that we will love every call that every official makes. That will never happen either. The competitor comes out in us sometimes and the love for our children and the desire to see them succeed plays a factor. But I see a major problem at these events that is really sad to me.

I see children that are too young to be playing in the games, or that don’t play and just come to those games as spectators, and they yell at the officials from the start of the game to the end. And guess why, because that is what they see and hear from the adults the entire game every night. The negativity of the parents and fans has rubbed off on those kids so much that they yell the entire game. Here is a classic example of this. I stood there this last week at the Area Tournament and watched a lot of games. A lot of the time I was by different town’s students sections. There is one game in particular that our teams weren’t playing in, but I was by a certain town’s student section. No I’m not going to say which town it was, but their students yelled at the officials the entire time. It was really bothering me. The stuff that was coming out of their mouths was not fit for adults to say or even hear, much less for 8-18 year old kids to be saying. I found myself getting furious at these kids. Then I stopped and looked across the gym at the adults from that same town and it all made sense. Those students were just a product of their environment. That’s simply all it was. Then it really made me sad to think that is all those kids know. About all they have seen are negative experiences at all these ballgames all year. Some of them aren’t even old enough to have a deep understanding of what is going on during the basketball game. But they do know from their experiences all season that if the official blows the whistle and it goes against their team, it must be wrong. Talk about influence. Influence in the negative way. Wow, that really made me stop and think. It made me sad for those kids to think that is all they know.

We have the option to stop that cycle. This isn’t just about athletics. Really not much of it is. That is just a really small part of our lives in the grand scheme of life. It is just what I have been around a lot lately. Because of what I do for a living and what I have always been involved in, sports is just what I relate things to a lot. I feel like sports can teach us so many lessons about life. That is why I love them. It’s not what life is all about, but some great lessons can be learned through sports along the way. We get to wake up every day and say, “Not today satan. You are not pulling me away from God. I am going to work today for God. I am going to be uplifting to those around me. I am not going to complain today.” That doesn’t mean we love everything that goes on every day. No one does. But that doesn’t mean that we have to complain about it either. The majority of the time complaining doesn’t fix the problem, it just brings those around us down. Some people may not like happy, positive people. Most likely that is because they are a drain. If they get enough overspray from the fountain, maybe they will switch teams too.

Here is another situation that I came across in this same tournament this past weekend, but with a completely different impact. I watched two teams, once again not going to say what two teams, do battle for 4 quarters. During the 4th quarter, the team that would end up losing had a player foul out. She is a very good player for that team. The opposing fans gave that player a standing ovation as she walked off the court. How is that for positivity? Then, moments later, when that same team took their starters out for the last time, the same thing happened. People from the opposing crowd stood up and cheered for those girls. Then after the game was over, fans from the winning team were congratulating the opposing coach on a great season. That is a great example for those around them to be watching. Some people can mistake that for not being competitive or being soft. Some say, “Oh they don’t want to win bad enough. They shouldn’t like anyone from that other team or give them any credit.” That is not it at all. That is just knowing how to compete and also have respect for people at the same time. That is being a positive influence on all of those kids sitting in the stands watching the adults and learning how to act, either in a positive or negative way.

That’s how I look at this situation. I look at it as teams. Team Fountain vs Team Drain. It might be in your workplace, your home, your church (yes this happens in churches too), or anything else we are a part of. Even if our natural personality is to be a fountain and have a positive outlook on things, satan is always there challenging us to turn negative. It’s an inner struggle we all have that we have to overcome. It’s tough to do sometimes. A lot of days it takes more energy to be positive than negative. Being negative is easier because more people complain than compliment. Think about that with ourselves. How many times a day do we complain vs how many times a day do we compliment someone. I am going to venture to say we would be surprised by the results if we kept track. I don’t think it would be as positive as we would want it to be.

My challenge for everyone is to wake up every day this week and make it a point first thing to remind ourselves that we are not going to complain about anything that day. Now the reality of that happening is in our hands. If we catch ourselves about to complain and we think about what we are working on with this challenge, it might just make us stop before we speak. It might be as simple as us complaining about something a co-worker did. We have to ask ourselves, if I say this to someone about someone else, is it going to help anything? Is it going to make a positive impact on someone? The answer in that situation is no. It is going to do one of two things, or both. It might remind the person we are talking to that we are a complainer and they will continue to have a negative image of us engrained in their mind. It might also make that person we are talking to think less of that person we are talking about. It might make them feel the same way we do. In the moment sometimes that is what we want. But, is that what we should really desire? No, we should want to lift others around us up.

Think about how much better we would feel about ourselves and everyone around us if we didn’t deal with so much negativity. Think about how much happier we would be if we didn’t experience so much negativity on a daily basis. Think about that person we know that just makes us happy every time we see them. What it is about them that makes us feel that way? What is it about them that makes us feel special or laugh? What is it about them that is uplifting? Make it a point to try and be that person for someone else. If someone does that for you, pay it forward. I promise life is much better on the positive side. If we make it a habit, it becomes easier and easier to do each week. We have to start small. We have to start somewhere. We have to pick our team for the week. Are we going to be a part of Team Fountain or Team Drain?

We all have them. They are those special people in our lives that we go months or even years without seeing, or maybe even talking to. We don’t see them for a long time and when we do see them it feels like we saw them the day before. The conversations pick up right where they left off months ago. I bet you can picture who those people are in your lives right now too. We have friends like that. We have a few families that we unfortunately don’t see a whole lot but when we do it is like that. We have some that may call us up and invite us to Branson on Tuesday and on Thursday we leave to go to Branson. We might talk about a trip to Atlanta to watch the Braves play on Thursday and leave on Friday. I say that because it has happened. We might not see them very often, but when we do it is like we live next door to each other and see them daily.

In this blog I have talked about our relationship with our family and with God a lot. But one thing I haven’t talked much about is friends. The need for friends change over time. The dynamic of friendships change with time. When we are young, sometimes we associate friends with popularity or status. We want the most friends so we can be the “cool” kid or part of the “in” crowd. Even as kids we might have a best friend or two, but the more friends we have the more popular we feel. As we get older that becomes less of a concern. We don’t worry as much about the quantity as the quality. We figure out that truly good friends are really important, but how many we have isn’t as important as we once thought.

Another thing that changes is how we choose our friends. When we are in high school most of our friends are who we go to school with. Sure we have others outside of our school. But our best friends generally come from the same school. That is because that is who we are around most of our childhood. Those close friends from high school can be lifelong friends. I still have a lot of friends from high school that I talk to and that I am good friends with. But as we move on from high school it is a little different. We no longer are just friends with who go to the same school as us because we are together everyday. As we get older, we select our friends differently. We are around so many more people the older we get. Not that our high school friends are bad, we just most likely aren’t around them like we were through school. We have to make new friends. Once we start college or enter the workforce we make decisions about who our friends will be that most likely have a huge impact on our lives forever. We are definitely influenced daily by who we are around. If we choose good friends, they will be a positive influence in our lives. If we don’t choose so wisely, they can negatively impact our life. That’s why it is so important to know what we want in a friend and choose wisely.

I Corinthians 15:33 says, “Bad company corrupts good character.” I feel like this is very true. Friends are so influential in our lives. That can be positive or negative. It is easy to be negative if that is what we are around all the time. On the other hand, we can have a positive impact on those people as well. We just have to make sure we are rooted deep enough in our morals and convictions to not let them negatively impact what we do. If we are strong enough in how we do things, we can just pray that we will have that positive impact on them.

Good friends are the type of people that can help us through tough situations. Sometimes they don’t have to say much of anything. Just be there for us and us for them. But, sometimes they talk us through things. Sometimes they are the shoulder we cry on. They are the person that talks sense into us when we have crazy or terrible ideas. They are brutally honest with us when we need to hear it. They are the type that we can trust with anything we tell them. The list of characteristics can go on and on, but we all have in mind those friends like this that we have in our life.

We have some friends that we have had for 20 years. We met in college. They were a couple of years older than us. They were married in college, but Kristin and I were not. I lived with them one summer. I bet that was a joy for them. They hadn’t been married very long and had another guy living with them. At the time it sounded like a great idea, to he and I anyway. He and I enjoyed it but I’m not sure his wife was not always ecstatic about it. But through it all we are still friends. They are the ones we have been to Branson and Atlanta with on a couple of days notice. We left one night and headed to Lawton to get Crispy Creme donuts at 10:00 pm and ended up in Dallas. The stories of the fun we had and the things we did could go on for hours, but I won’t bore you with all of those. But when we were together we never knew what was going to happen or where we would end up. We later started having children. This changed things a little bit. It didn’t change our friendship, just what we did. We didn’t drive to Atlanta with no real advanced notice. We didn’t leave for Lawton and end up in Dallas. We unfortunately don’t see each other as much now. One thing that hasn’t changed though is the fact that nothing has changed. When we see them we pick up right where we left off. Although we don’t do those spur of the moment trips much anymore due to life happening and busy schedules, we still have a blast when we are together. Our kids now love being together. They are the types of friends that will last a lifetime. We have seen each other through rough times and good times and would do anything to help each other out.

We also have those close friends that we see more often. Those friends know more about our daily lives. They know more about our struggles and our high points we go through on a daily basis. These people are so important to have in our lives. They are the ones that keep us going each day. They are the ones that sometimes convince us we are being dramatic or selfish. They help us to see the other side of things sometimes. They advise us sometimes when we don’t want it, and don’t think we need it. But we usually realize that we actually needed, we just didn’t want to hear it. At times they humble us when we need it and lift us up when we are down. But no matter what, they have our best interest at heart. They are always in our corner. They take us and get a coke when we need to get away. They send us a positive text message at just the right time when we need to hear something positive. The list of things a close friend does could go on and on. But we all have these people in our lives. We all have those people we depend on daily. Sometimes we just need someone outside our family. We just need a friend.

The challenge for us is to examine ourselves. We need to ask ourselves are we that type of friend in return. Are we the ones getting the uplifting text from a friend or are we sending them as well? Are we the ones that are being helped all the time, or are we looking for ways to be that for someone else? Sometimes we get caught up in thinking about ourselves. We get to feeling down or thinking that our situation is bad and someone should be taking care of us. We get our feelings hurt if someone doesn’t do that for us. But we forget to be that for someone else. We don’t realize that we haven’t been that for someone else in a long time.

This week I challenge all of us to take a good hard look at what kind of friend we are. What do we do for our friends? Do we do anything for them? Do we just rely on others doing things for us? Being a good friend takes work. It takes us being aware of what others need and sometimes putting those needs before our own. It requires us to be open to putting ourselves out there to help others. As the saying goes, “To have a friend you have to be a friend.” It goes both ways. I hope that we can examine what type of friend we are. Friends are such a big part of our lives. Sure we have family and we should place a lot of reliance on God, but Earthly friends help in so many ways. This week, take a look at how we can become a better friend. Cherish the ones we have. Show them what they mean to you. Everyone may do that in a different way. It goes back to the golden rule, “Treat others how you want to be treated.” If we do this, we will have have the type of friends we want to have. More importantly, we will be the type of friend that we want to have!!!

Think back to the first time you remember someone talking to you about God. Maybe you just always grew up hearing about Him. Maybe as a kid at your house you went to church whether you wanted to or not. In my house growing up, we were at church every time the doors were open. My parents and grandparents were instrumental in teaching me about God. They were my biggest influences early in life. That may have been how you heard about God. Maybe you heard the story of Jesus later in life. Maybe you were a teenager or a young adult. If that is the case, think about the person that introduced you to Christ.

Maybe you were an older adult. There are a lot of people that become Christians later in life. I had a great grandpa that was in his 60’s when he was baptized. If that is the case for you, think about how you heard about Christ. Who was the one that got you interested in what God has done for you? Maybe you were one that grew up going to church and being raised in a Christian home, but you strayed away for awhile. You went your own path for a little bit. What brought you back? I’ve talked about before that Kristin, my wife now of 15 years, was a big influence on me. She helped me when I had gone my own way for awhile. Who or what was the biggest factor in bringing you back to Christ? Perhaps that is you right now. Maybe you have wandered away and haven’t been able to get back on the right track. This could be the time to make that happen.

Whatever your case is, someone at some point told you about God. It may have been your parents, a friend, another family member, or anyone else in your life at that time. Everyone’s situation is different. But someone told you about God at some point. Think about that person, or multiple people if that’s the case. Think about what they mean to you. Think about how they shared something with you that changed not only your physical and spiritual life on Earth, but your eternal life as well. What an awesome gift they gave you!

Have you ever been that for someone else? Have you ever shared the Good News with someone else? Maybe you have with multiple people. You might have seen an opportunity to do it but just didn’t have the courage. That happens a lot. It takes boldness to talk to someone about God. You don’t know how they will react. You aren’t sure what their response will be. Maybe it is a friend of yours and you are afraid they will get mad or think different of you. You think it might change your relationship as friends. But we are called to do this. We are commanded by God in Matthew 28 to “go and make disciples of all nations.” The Gospel is the best news we can give someone. We just have to look for opportunities to do this and have the courage to step out of our comfort zone and do it. The more we do it, the easier it becomes for us to discuss the story of Jesus with others.

Several years ago our church had an idea called 200 by 2020. The purpose of this was to involve 200 people in mission work around the world by 2020. We accomplished that as we have had over 200 involved in missions by the start of this year. Now there is a new initiative called “Across the Street, Around the World.” The purpose of this is to continue to spread the good news of Christ to people around the world and in our own communities as well. There are a lot of things that go into missions. It is not only the people that go on the mission trips, but the people that help in other ways as well. There are people that might not be able to go, but they can give financially. There are many ways that people can help with this effort.

There are people that are full time missionaries and people that go on mission trips with groups. But here is something that for years I didn’t think about when it came to mission work. Just because you don’t go on a mission trip around the world doesn’t mean you can’t be a missionary. You can do it right here where you live. You can do it where you work. You can do it where you shop. There are so many ways to do that. For years I looked at what I did for a living as just a job. I looked at myself as a teacher and a coach. My job was first to go teach in the classroom, then to go coach ballgames. I have said in here before that I am not always a deep thinker. Although I’m getting better at this, for a long time I just saw what was on the surface. I saw myself as a teacher and a coach. The year I took off that I discussed in an earlier post changed the way I look at my job. I really don’t look at it as a just a job anymore. Sure, I have duties to fulfill every day. But now I also look at what I do as my mission field. I have the privilege of impacting 500 kids and 75 adults every day when I walk into work. That doesn’t mean I preach to them every day. But, the way I treat them, interact with them, or work with them is important to me. That is a responsibility I take seriously. I have good and bad days just like anyone else. I have days when I’m not the best at it, but I try to be. I try to conduct myself in a way that everyone else I come in contact with knows I’m a Christian by how I act. I want to have a positive and uplifting impact on everyone I come in contact with. There are times when, as the principal, I have to discipline students. But I hope when that is all over they still know I love them and would do anything for them, and I think they do. It’s the same way with baseball. There are times when I might be chewing on a player pretty good. Ten minutes later we may be joking around in the dugout. When it’s over, they still know that I love them and the only reason I do that is to make them better at not only baseball, but life.

Everyone has an opportunity to be a missionary for Christ. Everyone has people they can influence. Everyone has something they can do to influence people in a positive way. We do things that influence people without even knowing it. But, the more aware of it we are the better we will be at it. We are not all preachers in the formal sense, but we all have gifts as Christians that we can use to bring others to Christ. Our preacher Aaron talked about this very thing Sunday morning. He said he wondered if the people he saw in Walmart or anywhere else he goes knows that he is a Christian by how he treats people there. Will the people he sees in restaurants know that he is a Christian by how he acts in there? My question for all of us is will people know that we are Christians because of the way we conduct ourselves. Will people at work see Christ in us? Will people in public see Christ in us? Will our family members or our children see Christ in us? The fact is if we answered no to any of these, then we might need to re-evaluate how we do things. We might need to make adjustments. Actions speak louder than words sometimes. Our actions will tell them a lot about us. Will they see Christ in us?

This is something that is an ever evolving part of our lives. We are never done growing as Christians. I know that I have a lot of growing left to do. I hope that I can still find a lot of souls to bring to Christ. My prayer for everyone is that we all make it a point to be encouraging to others. Not only people that are not Christians, but to other Christians as well. We can always lift someone up. We can always be that positive influence on other people. That is what a missionary does. We can be a missionary across the street. I bet we would be amazed how many people right here among us have never heard the good news of Jesus. If we look I bet we could all find some. That should be our mission. That should be what we work for. This is a command from God and one that we all have the ability and talent to follow through with. We just have to be mindful of it. I challenge everyone this week to think about how we can be a missionary to people. Think about your life and where you can be this for other people. Think about your daily life and how you can spread the good news and look for opportunities to do just that. In the process, we must not forget to work hard at getting better ourselves every day. I pray that we all have the courage to be missionaries in our daily lives and show people what Christ’s love is all about. After all, that is the greatest and longest lasting gift we can give anyone, and someone once gave that gift to us!