As we stood side by side I began to look more closely at him. He looked sharp. He was well groomed with a good looking suit and shirt, and his shoes were well polished.

I reflected on my appearance.

I was wearing an older pair of pants with a sport coat that was a little tired and worn. My shirt was good – pressed, professional and stylish. However, my shoes were not well polished and were looking tired and worn as well. I needed a haircut.

It began to dawn on me as I stood beside this sharp-dressed man that I looked sloppy.

I had gotten a little lazy and was letting things slip. Compared to this business professional I was not on my “A Game” – at least as it pertained to appearance. This got me thinking…

“Where else have I allowed myself to become sloppy?”

Here is what I mean by sloppy: it’s not holding yourself to a high standard. It’s not insisting on excellence wherever and whenever possible. It’s being careless and lazy.

We can become sloppy in every area of life: in attitude, in speech, and in action.

Excellence is the opposite of being sloppy. I believe excellence is an attitude, it’s a habit, and it takes place in the details. Being sloppy is a refusal to hold ourselves, or allow others to hold us, to high standards. We sink to a low common denominator instead of intentionally stepping up and stepping into excellence.

Our excellence can be an act of worship. The Lord is worthy of our best, not our second best. He is worthy of excellence. We are encouraged in scripture, no matter what we are doing, to work at it wholeheartedly like we are working for the Lord. I see that as ensuring we work to a high standard, a standard of excellence – as an act of worship.

I find it’s easy to let myself slide into an “it’s good enough” mentality. What helps me to stay away from this slippery slope is surrounding myself with people who have high standards. Observing other men and women walk in excellence in various areas of their lives shines a light on the sloppy areas of my life. Their excellence encourages me to up my game.

Excellence applies everywhere. How we walk with the Lord; our prayer life, our study of scripture; how we serve; how we take care of our health; how and what we eat; our sleeping habits; what we allow ourselves to watch on TV, the internet, movies and videos; how we take care of our house and yard; how we maintain our vehicle; our work habits; our table manners; our personal grooming; how we talk to our wife and kids; how we monitor our thought life – we can allow ourselves to become sloppy anywhere in our life.

So, get honest with yourself right now, where have you allowed yourself to get sloppy?

Ask the Lord to help you to see 1 significant area in which you have gotten sloppy. There may be lots of them. You may be feeling overwhelmed by the gravity of your sloppiness, but don’t go there. Just pick 1 significant area and focus on that.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

How do you create a life of excellence? One step at a time. Pick one area and determine what excellence would look like for you. Ask for the input of others if you like. Or, observe others to learn from them. Then, take action. Do something differently. Make change.

We shift from sloppy into excellence one step at a time.

Ask the Lord to help you, and then offer your excellence as worship to the Lord. See your excellence as an offering to God, as your attempt to say, “Thank you Lord for your goodness and grace.” We are not trying to earn His love or approval, we are simply saying thank you with our best.

Have you become sloppy? Determine to offer your best to the Lord. He is worthy of your best in every area of your life.

Psalm 96:6-9

“Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.”

Revelation 4:19

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

Proverbs 22:9

“Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank.”

Colossians 3:23-25 (The Message)

“Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t cover up bad work.”

I didn’t even notice what was happening. It happened so slowly, so innocently that I was oblivious to its insidious nature. Something so simple, yet the ramifications were enormous…

We were in Ottawa visiting our son David. We had enjoyed a fabulous day together sharing in his new found love for this beautiful city. We were now enjoying a great dinner out at a hip burger joint – an Ottawa favourite.

We had ordered some cold beverages that sat right in front of us on the table. Condensation began to form on the outside of the glasses. It then began to ever-so-slowly creep down the sides of the glasses onto the table. As if on command, the water droplets found each other, formed up into a deadly army and pooled at what I assume was a slightly lower point on the table.

That slightly lower point on the table just happened to be where I had placed my phone face down. The water surrounded my phone and soaked into the screen.

The water killed my phone.

Yes, I put it in a bowl of rice to dehydrate it. Yes I left it off. No, it did not recover.

Simultaneously another calamity was stocking me on our trip…

May laptop – now my trusty communicational backup for email and internet access – was about to suffer a similar fate.

My power cord was not connecting properly with my mother board to charge my battery. The power cord was working fine, it was a problem inside the computer. Sometimes it would charge, other times it would not. Then, on the next leg of our holiday, it quit charging all together. Finally, the battery died and I had no computer access at all.

No phone, no computer. I was completely incommunicado.

Picture that: what would life look like for you if you had no cell phone or computer? Maybe you would be fine, but I was utterly dependent on them and was now hooped.

I don’t know any phone numbers – they are all programmed in my phone. Email is a primary form of communication for me – I now had no access. Texting – nada. I felt like I was trapped in a foreign country with no knowledge whatsoever of the language. The only person in the whole world I could communicate with was my wife who was with me. (Which was not such a bad thing.)

We decided we could live that way for the duration of our trip, but I would certainly have to immediately solve this issue once we returned home.

I began to realize that I was more acutely aware of the pain of being technologically incommunicado, than spiritually incommunicado.

How often am I spiritually incommunicado and don’t even realize it? I keep moving on in life not recognizing that I am out of touch with the Lord. I am not connecting with Him in prayer, I am not connecting with Him through His Word. I am doing life in my own strength, not in His.

It’s a pretty sorry situation when I am more concerned about losing all my technology that I am with losing daily communication with the Lord. Sadly it’s fairly easy to become incommunicado with the Lord. We think we are too busy to make time to spend with Him. We get distracted with the things of life and don’t connect with the source of our life. We chase after the things of this world, and don’t purse the one who made this world.

The Lord wants us to be in ongoing communication with Him. He wants us to remain in Him, to find our life in Him. He wants us to be deeply rooted in His Word and in His presence. He wants us to be men of Truth, filled with faith and the Holy Spirit.

Like Keith Green said, “He is divine and we are debranch.” We have to stay connected with Him.

We have to be in communication, not incommunicado, with Him.

Let’s be men who realize we have no life apart from the Lord. Let’s be men who choose to remain in Him, in communication not incommunicado.

Are you incommunicado? Remain in Him.

John 15:4-8

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

Have you spent any time around boats? I have no doubt at some point in time you have seen a boat tied up to a dock. A row boat, a ski boat, a yacht or a cruise ship all use lines to tie up to a dock. Bigger boats just have bigger lines.

There is actually a system by which you tie a larger boat to a dock, which I recently learned on my yacht piloting course. When bringing a mid-sized boat into dock, the key line to get around the dock cleat is the stern line. Once the stern line is around the cleat the pilot of the boat can easily bring the bow of the boat alongside the dock.

The point of any dock line on a boat is to pull the boat toward the dock and hold it secure to the dock. When you put a line around a cleat on the dock you never expect to pull the dock closer to the boat, you pull the boat closer to the dock. The dock is fixed and unwavering, and if the boat is not tied to it then the boat will drift with the current and ultimately end up in harm’s way.

This is a picture of prayer: prayer pulls us closer to the Lord. Prayer does not pull Him closer to us, it pulls us closer to Him.

Let’s define prayer. Prayer is talking with God; communing with God, communicating with God. Prayer is really all about relationship with God.

Sadly though, we often through prayer treat God like a vending machine and try to pull Him closer to us. “Lord, please give me more peace.” “Please provide that job.” “Lord, please give me hope…faith…strength…freedom…”, etc. Like with a vending machine we hope that if we press the right buttons we will get what we want.

We need to see prayer as a means to draw near to God, to talk with Him and commune with Him. The true gift of prayer is God Himself: to hear Him, to see Him, to feel Him, to know Him…to love Him.

Sure, the Lord knows we have needs – He knows what they are before we even pray. What He wants is our hearts. He wants us to desire Him above all things; not to simply want Him for what He can do for us, but for who He is. He wants us to seek His face, not just His hand.

How would your wife feel about you if every time you talked with her you were asking for something…

“Hi honey. I love you. Can you please go to the store and get some groceries, and then get the laundry done for tomorrow. I’d like some clean sheets on the bed too please. And if you could clean up the house that would be great. Thank you. I love you. Amen.”

I know for a fact I would not enjoy a good relationship with my wife if that was how I communicated with her.

True friendship is not one-sided. It is two people giving to each other and enjoying each other’s company.

Prayer is not about getting what we want from God, it’s about getting God. And, the miracle of prayer is that the Lord enables us to participate with Him in His purposes as well. He encourages us to ask for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Prayer is not meant to be a one-sided conversation. The Lord speaks to us. The Lord’s voice is like a radio frequency, we have to attune our hearts to hear Him clearly. The Lord speaks to us in myriad ways if we will listen: in silence, in creation, in scripture, through people, and through music, movies, pictures, art, words, trials and countless other ways if we will listen for Him.

Prayer draws us closer to the Lord. Prayer is talking with God, communing with Him, enjoying relationship with Him, discovering His heart and aligning our heart with His.

Why pray? Prayer connects us with God Himself. He is the true benefit of prayer.

Psalm 25:14

“The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.”

Psalm 73:28

“But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”

Ephesians 6:18

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”

Matthew 6:6-8

“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”