The Good News About Scary Stuff

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Friday, September 29, 2017

O my people, listen to my instructions.  Open your ears to what I am saying, for I will speak to you in a parable.  I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us.  We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders….the miracles he did for their ancestors on the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.  For he divided the sea and led them through, making the water stand up like walls!  Psalm 78:1-4, 12-13^(NLT)

I can remember as a child in Sunday School first hearing about the Israelites escaping the pursuit of Pharaoh’s armies through the Red Sea.  God made the waters stand up as a wall of water.  Our teacher, Uncle Sid, could get dramatic with this, describing at agonizing length the looming height of the water-walls and how scary it must have been to wonder if the water would come back down on them.  For a 7 year old, that was some scary stuff!

Now it’s quite clear that water standing up, held back in its place by nothing visible, forming an escape route for a million or more people, and only crashing back down when the last one stepped on the other shore, and the Egyptian chariots were right where a tsunami could swallow them up, like an avalanche…well, THAT kind of suspending the natural order of the physical world is what we call a miracle!

And a miracle is what makes any scary stuff into good news!

Scary stuff comes in all sorts of packages:

·       Hurricanes

·       Medical reports

·       A phone call from the state trooper late at night

·       A drunk driver swerves into a head-on collision course with your vehicle

·       Your credit card statement has a $22,000 charge for a weekend in Maui (and you haven’t been out of town since Nixon was president).

But sometimes those scary things are just the invitation to a larger miracle blessing: 

·       A hurricane releases terrible power, but it also is the harbinger of starting anew and building stronger

·       A medical report is an opinion; it has come just in time to save your life

·       A state trooper has arrested your child for driving under the influence; that might just save your child’s life and put him on a better pathway

…and on and on…the scary tsunami water walls are sometimes God’s way of rescuing you from the evil that’s after you.  The issue with any issue going on in our lives at any one moment is hardly ever the issue God is working on. 

·       Have you ever looked back on a bad time in your life and suddenly realized that, as rough as it was to get through that time, the lessons you learned became a valued source of strength?

·       Has a friend ever disappointed you, hurt you?  And yet, in time, the pain caused you to see that friend in a new way – you now have a more compassionate love for that friend that you never knew was on your tool belt?

·       Has an embarrassing moment or fallout from a bad choice ever made you want to crawl in a hole and pull the ground over you…only to turn into the very wakeup call which caused you to change the direction of your life?

This stuff is known as living…and it is the one certain reality for anyone who wants to pick up a cross daily and follow Jesus.

For You Today

Staring at a wall of water these days?  Don’t blink…keep trusting; you’re not home yet!  And if God promised He wouldn’t destroy the earth with a flood, he certainly won’t destroy His children that way.  Whatever happens will turn out for your good.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

Making Plans

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Thursday, September 28, 2017

Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year.  We will do business there and make a profit.”  How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?  Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.  What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”  Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.  James 4:13-16^(NLT)

A long-time and good friend of mine, Dr. Don McCutcheon recently posted a picture of he and his fiancée, Debbie.  It was an announcement of their engagement.  Naturally I asked him:  When’s the big day?  His reply was nothing short of what I’ve come to love and respect about my Godly friend; he began his response with:  Lord willing….   

And then, today, the Apostle James showed-up in my inbox. 

I love that about God’s timing.  Sometimes I read a Bible passage and later that day or the next, a challenge shows up to reinforce the message of what I’ve learned.  Sometimes a challenge shows up and then later I read Scripture which reminds me God wrote it through the hand of a prophet ages ago, and now twenty or thirty centuries later God places it on my reading plan as a reminder that He is sovereign and can handle my battles.  Either way – before or after – I am blessed with the comfort that God has always had my back!

And that (as always) begs the questions…do I have His…and am I listening and submitting to His leading?  Are my plans made Lord willing?

James, the apostle and half-brother of Jesus, understood he was not in charge of the universe; he didn’t even claim to be in charge of his life as a whole, or the next ten minutes.  His plans were made with the proviso that everything was subject to the will of God; he was ready for change at a moment’s notice…or with no notice.  When you start your day or any project with Lord willing, it means you’ve accepted having God make the major decisions.     

There is a marked difference between having confidence and living-in confidence.  Having confidence in self (the product of your will), means you know you’re up to the task and your strength will accomplish that which you’ve planned...the polar opposite is living-in confidence.  The latter is a matter of settled choice that, having begun in prayer and study of God’s Word, you placed your will second to His will; you have become confidently-assured in the knowledge that God will guide you to His perfect outcome for you and His Kingdom. 

That is living Lord willing!

For You Today

I have always had the free will to choose my will, making plans my way; that is God’s gift to us all.  In my case (and perhaps in yours as well), every time I chose my will over God’s ways I have made a mess of things.

The best choice I can make with my will is to surrender it to His!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

Making a Mess of Prayer

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Wednesday, September 27, 2017

“And say to the people, ‘Purify yourselves, for tomorrow you will have meat to eat.  You were whining, and the Lordheard you when you cried, “Oh, for some meat!  We were better off in Egypt!”  Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will have to eat it.  And it won’t be for just a day or two, or for five or ten or even twenty.  You will eat it for a whole month until you gag and are sick of it.  For you have rejected the Lord, who is here among you, and you have whined to him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”  But Moses responded to the Lord, “There are 600,000 foot soldiers here with me, and yet you say, ‘I will give them meat for a whole month!’  Even if we butchered all our flocks and herds, would that satisfy them?  Even if we caught all the fish in the sea, would that be enough?”  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Has my arm lost its power?  Now you will see whether or not my word comes true!”  Numbers 11:18-23^(NLT)

Now the Lord sent a wind that brought quail from the sea and let them fall all around the camp.  For miles in every direction there were quail flying about three feet above the ground.  So the people went out and caught quail all that day and throughout the night and all the next day, too.  No one gathered less than fifty bushels!  They spread the quail all around the camp to dry.  

Numbers 11:31-32^(NLT)

In a conversation with our friend and fellow church member, Julie, we both agreed that nobody…absolutely nobody prays for patience!  That is, you don’t pray for patience if you’re in your right mind, because when you lift that prayer heavenward, the next sound you hear (after God’s muffled laughter) is the sound of tribulation and trouble knocking at your front door!  We both laughed at that…nervously, only half-joking!

But the truth is, I have repented of that thought.  I absolutely NEED patience!  Why would I not pray for patience to not go insane over the dumb things I see us do in our culture today?  Indeed, why wouldn’t I ask for patience to see and think clearly considering the dumb things I do? 

We can make a mess of life with our selfish choices, particularly in bringing that warped perspective to the prayer closet…we ask for things, material “blessings” which turn out to be weights around our necks.  We ask for relief from the very circumstances God may have engineered, because we wouldn’t listen any other way.  We try to push God into our corner (when He’s already there), and wind up pushing Him away with our unbelief.  In short, we pat ourselves on the back for being so spiritual as to spend that three minutes and 16 seconds in prayer daily, checking-in to make sure God hasn’t forgotten something we had on the list…and then we quickly sign-off and move out because we’ve got so much really important other stuff to do this day!

God’s children hadn’t matured very far as disciples in the wilderness.  They were getting tired of manna and wanted meat!  Then God told Moses to tell the people to buckle their seat belts – they were in for a lesson in table manners.  I believe I can hear God’s voice in that exchange when I remember what my Dad said to me a time or two when I got the whine-ies:  You crying?  I’ll GIVE you something to cry about! 

Wise parents know that sometimes the only approach you can take with greedy kids who want something so badly they just don’t want to see any other possibility, is to give them that for which they whine.  And so God not only granted them meat…he gave them enough to get sick of it.  That has been the case with many people in history…rising to the top of the heap of humanity (Napoleon, Caesar, Howard Hughes, Elvis, Solomon, and so many more…), they find they’re sick of the life of which they dreamed, and want nothing more than a little peace in their soul.

For You Today

Every experience in prayer that has ever turned out in a positive growth in my relationship with God follows an unshakeable pattern – it is time spent unhurriedly courting the surrender of my will to His.  I start with adoration for the God who is my Creator…move to confession of my sins…press on to thanksgiving for what He has, and will do, in, through, for, and with me…and if there is still something pressing on my heart, I then ask in supplication for His will to be overwhelmingly accomplished!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

 

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com (modified)

Crabby Kids

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Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said.  Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp.  Then the people screamed to Moses for help, and when he prayed to the Lord, the fire stopped.  After that, the area was known as Taberah (which means “the place of burning”), because fire from the Lord had burned among them there.  Then the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt.  And the people of Israel also began to complain.  “Oh, for some meat!” they exclaimed.  “We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt.  And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted.  But now our appetites are gone.  All we ever see is this manna!” Numbers 11:1-6^(NLT)

The Lord had some crabby kids in the wilderness.  God had sent Moses to get them out of the hands of their Egyptian captors and lead them to freedom.  The trip, even for a huge group, several million strong would have been only a few weeks.  However, their crabby complaining stretched the journey to forty years.  I know what Moses must have felt; I once drove straight through from Florida to New York with three siblings under 12 in the back seat of my car!  During that trip my crabby kids showed me the real meaning of Bill and Gloria Gaither’s song:  He Touched Me.

Churlish behavior is the consummate definition of ingratitude for what you have.  Humankind has made that something of an art form, never being satisfied for more than a nanosecond over what God gives.  Impatience in the wilderness makes you crabby!

In the wilderness the people churned-up complaints against Moses for a lack of meat and veggies.  They wanted leeks, onions and garlic; God provided them manna from Heaven.  Where once they worried about eating at all, as soon as God gave them a food source that completely met their need, they graduated to demanding five-star dining.  Thus it has always been for us.  Those of Adam’s race are not thankful by nature.  

·       Adam and Eve weren’t thankful with a perfect garden environment and a perfect relationship with God; they had to have the kind of knowledge God possessed. 

·       Cain was not satisfied with all the produce of the ground, he killed his brother because his brother possessed favor with God, and he wanted that! 

·       King David wasn’t happy with all the riches and power God had given into his life; he had to add another man’s wife to his collection.

John D. Rockefeller was the world’s richest man in the last decade of the 19^th century.  When asked once, "How much money is enough money?" He replied, "Just a little bit more."[2]  Abraham Lincoln was walking down the street in Washington with his two boys in tow, both of them screaming their lungs out.  A passer-by asked him, what’s the matter, Mr. President?  It is said Abe’s answer was:  What’s the matter?  What’s the matter with the whole world…I have two children and three walnuts!

Most of us will never know the riches of a Rockefeller, or the power and prestige of a King David or Abraham Lincoln.  We will never have a perfect environment like Adam and Eve.  And if those rich, powerful, and blessed people could be churlish and ungrateful in all they were given, what makes us think a little more than we now have will make us any happier?

If the task of parenting were to alter course a wee bit in our culture, from teaching children they can have/be anything they want (which is the nauseating phrase I hear – and have also used), to:  you can be exactly what God wants you to be if you listen and obey Him…it seems contentedness would be a lot more common in the human family.

For You Today

As the children of Israel learned in the wilderness, longing for the things of your former captivity only makes you cry; onions have a way of doing that!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

[2] New World Encyclopedia

Living An Authentic Life

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Monday, September 25, 2017

Your commandments give me understanding; no wonder I hate every false way of life.  Psalm 119:104^(NLT)

The sociology professor held up the book we were going to study…and an ominous thought crossed my mind…it’s going to be a long 16 weeks!  The book (at times) was semi-interesting, but really difficult to digest.  I’m not sure whether the problem with digesting the author’s ideas was due to the writer’s style or my discomfiting realization that the ideas presented by the author were too-close-to-home!  

The book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,[2] used the metaphor of stage performance to “explain” how we conduct our lives in the presence of others.  The suggestion to the reader was that, like players on a stage in Shakespearean times, actors wore masks to represent the different characters they were playing.  The number of roles one person could play was limited only by how many masks you could hold in your hand (and, I presume, whether you were schizophrenic enough to suppress multiple personalities while wearing only one mask at a time).

I have to admit that the idea of people not being honest with you was new to me.  Being just 24 years old at the time, I was appalled at the thought that people would lie to you.  (I was something of a late-bloomer when it comes to human relationships).

In retrospect – and after 45 more years of interaction with people – I suspect the author was onto something; not everything that glitters is actually gold, and not every word that proceeds from a person’s mouth will stand close scrutiny.  Chalk it up to expediency, creativity, or Adam’s sin in the Garden; people have been lying to each other since the Serpent schooled Eve in how to get around the truth!

The Psalmist presents a different, refreshing perspective:  hating any false way of life.  And how different it is than what we experience in our culture every day.  The Psalm writer suggests a life where, under the instruction of God’s Word and ways, you put all the masks you’re tempted to wear in the recycle bin and go with what your Creator gave you.  You live an authentic life.

Think of the benefits:

·       Never being caught in a lie

·       Never having to worry about keeping your story line straight because truth never changes

·       Only having friends who will accept the real you, because that’s what they get every day…(incidentally, once people get over the shock of hearing truth in a false culture, they’re very attracted to it…truth brings hope)

·       Never having that queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when you finally get around to praying…because you’ve been living authentically, not living a lie

·       …and so on.

For You Today

You’ve got a choice today…put on the masks and juggle the half-truths you use to make sure you get what you want, even though in the end you’ll have stuff, and a self-made false image of what people think of you……or……you can lay the masks down and live the uncluttered and uncomplicated way of truth – an authentic life!

Just thinking about that helps me understand why Jesus said the truth will set you free!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

[2] Erving Goffman, 1956, Anchor Books (via Wikipedia)

Walking Softly Carrying a Big Stick

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Friday, September 22, 2017

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.  Test yourselves.  Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.  As you test yourselves, I hope you will recognize that we have not failed the test of apostolic authority.  We pray to God that you will not do what is wrong by refusing our correction.  I hope we won’t need to demonstrate our authority when we arrive.  Do the right thing before we come—even if that makes it look like we have failed to demonstrate our authority.  For we cannot oppose the truth, but must always stand for the truth.  We are glad to seem weak if it helps show that you are actually strong.  We pray that you will become mature.  I am writing this to you before I come, hoping that I won’t need to deal severely with you when I do come.  For I want to use the authority the Lord has given me to strengthen you, not to tear you down.  2 Corinthians 13:5-10^(NLT)

Walk softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far is a saying attributed to Theodore Roosevelt (although Teddy claimed it was a West African proverb).[2]  The statement’s meaning is that a leader can be civilized and calm during a diplomatic negotiation because there is an implied use of military force behind everything the leader proposes.  There’s little need for bluster and threatening; a leader leads with the power of the people behind him.

The big stick of apostolic authority seems far removed twenty-first century American culture.  It’s hard to identify with first century Christians who knew what it was like to have leaders who, with direct authority from above, could speak prophetic utterances that either extended or ended lives.  Theirs was a big Heavenly stick!

Paul’s leadership was not like today’s leadership.  Paul led largely by using the authority he possessed sparingly; he resisted throwing his weight around just because he could.  And he did things that way because Paul’s purpose was to help build God’s people, rather than tear-down.  Paul didn’t want to conquer anyone else; Paul wanted to strengthen and prepare the church to do everything God wanted. 

Because of his prominent position in the early church, and the conflict that surrounded Paul’s ministry, his reputation has suffered over the centuries as being a woman-hater and autocratic dictator.  However the man is perceived by those who don’t read the Scriptures closely, it is obvious Paul was an enthusiast.  Some would call him fanatical, bigoted, or extreme, but the proof is in the result; Paul was a builder of the church, and his tool belt carried a big enough stick that he could walk very softly.

Today, in the church and in politics, our culture seems to reward those who walk loudly, brashly promising big stick results.  The consequences of such may be building something, but it is neither a church, nor a culture which resembles something to love, and for which you would sacrifice.  We are headed with our secular, hedonistic, pragmatism towards a cultural cancer that will rot us from the inside.  By our choices of rewarding and honoring the squeakiest wheel, we are losing sight of Godliness – the pursuit of holy living which loves and esteems others above ourselves.

For You Today

The last time I checked, bragging and bashing others with a big stick were not on the list of spiritual gifts.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

[2] Wikipedia.com

The Truth Shall Set You Free

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Thursday, September 21, 2017

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.  And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  John 8:31-32^(NLT)

My friend and UMC elder, Drew McIntyre shared his review of a new book by David Watson, in which the author makes the point that there is no such thing as a church without creeds: 

There are churches with implicit creeds and churches with explicit creeds. Every Christian tradition, however, is organized around some set of beliefs that set it apart from other traditions, and the adherents of those traditions generally know what those beliefs are. These beliefs help to shape the ways in which the community of faith understands and applies Scripture.[2]

Creeds are simply that which we believe about God, and which we continue to pass along as the faith once delivered to the saints[3].  You might say that a church of folk who are creed-aphobic could be defined as those who are afraid of being known as holding any thoughts about the nature of God and our relationship with Him. 

McIntyre makes the exact opposite point;

We should not be shy about the traditions we inhabit and the beliefs that go along with them.  In part, this is simple honesty: be up front with insiders and outsiders about who you are and what you are about….Better to own it than to deceive.

Beyond simple integrity about what we claim to believe, I would carry it one step further and hold that this very truth is what sets us free, and makes us strong , or Godly.  In fact, everything we do in our daily lives restates part of the creed we hold.  Every hymn sung or act of worship in which we participate, witnesses to what we believe or hold as creed about God.  To deny this, or to be embarrassed in it, is to deny the very faith we claim to possess. 

You are a Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, or whatever label history has crowned upon the distinctives of your creedal tribe; because of recent events or changes, or lack of change, you find yourself being too embarrassed to even claim being part of that tribe.  This would be a good time to reflect on what makes you nervous about the place where you once found faith.  Like Martin Luther and countless other reformers and protestors who sensed they served a church that was missing the mark, it’s time to do what Paul the Apostle suggests:

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith. 

2 Corinthians 13:5^(NLT)

For You Today

Now, as one who has served the church, loves the church, and wants only the advance and strength of the genuine church of Jesus Christ, do not mistake what I am suggesting.  This is not a call (or convenient excuse) for wholesale scrapping of local churches and denominations.  But, if after diligent prayer, heart-searching and personal honesty, you cannot say you identify with the church where your faith once heard the call of God to labor together and heartily, vibrantly server others…if the creed which was once your own now only serves to divide you…then, like Luther and others, if you cannot own it, live it, and proclaim it, it may be time to leave it! 

As it was in school, where nobody else can take your tests for you, it is most certainly true in the weightier issues of life, faith and eternity – no other person can take that test for you.  But when you live out those tests with honesty and integrity you will find truth, and He, THE Truth will set your feet on freedom’s path!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

[2] Scripture and the Life of God

[3] Jude 3