The Silk Purse in the Sow's Ear

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Thursday, August 30, 2018

This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad.  Greetings!  Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.  If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.  He will not rebuke you for asking.  But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone.  Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.  Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.  James 1:1-8^(NLT)

The followers of Jesus were chased from Jerusalem; the church was in hiding.  Persecution had scattered the believers like water poured on a grease fire spreads it everywhere.  And, James, their praying pastor, told them to look at their displacement as an opportunity for great joy; you gotta love his optimism!

It’s just like James to give us the answer before he poses the question.  The reason the disciples’ trials and hardship were to be considered great joy isn’t that we are supposed to love getting clobbered for the faith, but that suffering any kind of humiliation grows our faithful endurance.  James was comparing their experience to what a fighter goes through in rigorous, determined, physical training, pushing the development of his stamina to the limit, so that when he enters the ring, his body is conditioned, strong and resilient, ready to prevail in the fight, whatever the enemy throws at him.

To tell you the truth I have never been partial to that kind of conditioning.  In high school I decided to try out for the football team.  That first day I never saw a football stadium, or even a football; there was only pushups, wind sprints and something the coach called up/downs.  It was a grueling 15 minutes of running in place until coach blew the whistle, and you were supposed to drop to the dust, landing on all fours.  But it wasn’t nap time; you had to spring to your feet and keep running to nowhere.  Up – down – up – down…up/downs!  It didn’t take too long before I wanted to go home!

But, for three weeks we conditioned our bodies.  Then we finally got to play a little football.  For me the emphasis there was on the word “little”.  I got clobbered (in practice, of all things) and wound up on the operating table with a ruptured spleen, bleeding internally.  After the operation the surgeon (bless that man) told my parents my young body’s muscle-tone was well-developed, and that conditioning I’d received in football helped control the bleeding, so I hadn’t needed a transfusion.  This turned out to be significant, because the nearest blood bank that had my type was in New Jersey.

The point – those wind sprints, pushups, and…heaven help me…up/downs contributed to the kind of endurance I would need to survive 11^th grade.

So, this is the great benefit of accepting life’s hardships and trials with great joy – God is blessing us with a growing, faithful endurance, which conditions followers of Jesus Christ for spiritual warfare.  It may not be the kind of fun, or easy ride you envisioned when you became a disciple, but the up/downs, and running for the sake of endurance build a faith that cannot divide your loyalty from Christ; and that is the whole point of what you need…not what you wanted.

For You Today

It may look like you’ve been handed a sow’s ear with what you’re going through…but God has a way of making a silk purse out of the strangest circumstances!

So…rejoice today…greatly!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image: Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Wake Up Calls

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Thursday, July 5, 2018

Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”  Instantly, the man was healed!  He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking!  But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected.  They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath!  The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”  But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”  “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.  The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.  But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.”  Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.  John 5:8-15^(NLT)

I’ve had quite a few wake-up calls in my 71 years.  Some of the things that happen to us are God’s way of getting our attention.  Here are a few of mine:

The Knees – when I was a freshman in high school the doctor looked at the lumps in my knees and called it something I couldn’t pronounce – osteochondrosis.  Even today I have to recheck the spelling on that one.  Here’s a brief definition:

Osteochondrosis is a family of orthopedic diseases of the joint that occur in children, adolescents and other rapidly growing animals, particularly pigs, horses, dogs, and broiler chickens.[2]

So, fine…my first wake-up call put me in the barnyard!  I spent a whole summer as a 14-year-old not playing baseball or getting off the couch!  But I did get to think a lot about why bad stuff happens to really good people (in my case…just why bad stuff happens).

The Bees – put me in the hospital.  I was helping Dad trim some dead branches out of the oak tree that threatened the back of our house.  I picked on the wrong branch; the one with a yellow jacket nest.  Dad was holding the ladder; he looked up when I started hollering.  (Later he told me he couldn’t see my face, it was covered in yellow and black creatures).  Anaphylactic shock from bee venom closes off your airway.  Dad raced his second-born to Doc Bleeden’s house only half-conscious.  Two days in the hospital was something of a vacation compared to jumping out of an oak tree to get away from the bees.

The Knee – this time wasn’t mine, but Harry’s when I was 16.  Harry and I played high school football together.  We were supposed to be on the same team, but this was practice, and Harry’s knee met Russell’s left side.  The spleen split, and I woke up three days later with tubes everywhere.  Once again…lots of time to think about it.

The VC’s (Vietcong) – As a nineteen-year-old, Uncle Sam thought I’d be useful in southeast Asia.  I would have preferred spending my two-year Army career in Colorado, or maybe Honolulu, but Vietnam was the order, and this time I had 11 months and 28 days to deal with heat and people who wanted me dead.  I did get to visit Honolulu, by the way; Elizabeth and I met there for R&R half-way through my Vietnam tour. 

The wake-up calls of my teens must have provided enough angst for my parent’s hair to turn white a few hundred times over. 

I’m familiar enough with these wake-up calls to know how it drives you to think about your mortality – that your days are numbered, and God has that number.  I’m also familiar enough with them to understand that, one of those wake-up calls may not do it; sometimes God needs to use a two-by-four to get our attention.  I’ll save that experience for another day!

For the man Jesus healed – a paralyzed beggar who had been that way for 38 years, sitting, begging – sitting, begging, every day for 38 years…one call just didn’t do it.  He met the King of the universe, who brought strength to useless legs, and gave him a new life…and all the man could do is report him to the human authorities, so he wouldn’t get a ticket for carrying his mat on the Sabbath!

Russell finds it hard to condemn this man…I’ve had more wake-up calls than that, and still didn’t get the message.  I’m a lot older now, and a little bit wiser; I’m learning.

For You Today

Everyone has bad stuff that comes our way.  For me it was bees, knees (several times), and VC’s.  For you…well, you know those, don’t you? 

Have you learned, like I’m beginning to learn…that God wants your attention…one way, or another?  It’s true…wake-up calls are a gift; don’t waste them.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Wikipedia

A Father's Guiding Hand in Troubled Times

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Monday, June 19, 2017

Finally, when we could stand it no longer, we decided to stay alone in Athens, and we sent Timothy to visit you.  He is our brother and God’s co-worker in proclaiming the Good News of Christ.  We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through.  But you know that we are destined for such troubles.  Even while we were with you, we warned you that troubles would soon come—and they did, as you well know.  That is why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find out whether your faith was still strong.  I was afraid that the tempter had gotten the best of you and that our work had been useless.  1 Thessalonians 3:1-5^(NLT)

I’m certain Paul considered the believers at Thessalonica his children in the faith.  His fatherly love for them shouts through this passage when he confesses he couldn’t stand it any longer, not knowing if they were still holding firm in the faith.  It seems Paul had heard about the persecution the young Christians were facing, and was anxious to know how they were faring.  It’s like that with fathers.  A father has dreams that his children’s dreams will come true; you want the best for them.

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and it was also the 99^th anniversary of my Dad being born.  He went home to be with Jesus two years ago and I miss him terribly.  That being said, I would not draw him back from Heaven for even a moment, even if that were possible. 

But I do think often of his care for me, and the ways he was anxious for my well-being.  I never felt wanting when it came to being loved by my father.

When I was 16 I played high school football.  One time I zigged when I should have zagged, and a knee from another player found its way into my side, and that led to a speedy trip to the hospital in the back of Coach Weitz’s station wagon, and emergency surgery for a ruptured spleen. 

Mom and Dad spent six hours in the waiting room while the docs put me back together.  There was plenty of “waiting-room coffee” but nothing to eat.  I am told that when they wheeled me out of surgery around 10pm past my parents I was white as a sheet, unconscious, and had tubes, needles and IV bags hooked-up to arms, legs, and any other available spot.  Dad never ate lunch, and hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast that morning.  Sources say he turned white as his comatose son, got wobbly-kneed, sagged back into his chair and fainted.  Now my Dad was 6’2” and a man’s man, but the sight of his little boy in that shape drove any pretense of remaining strong when your kid might bleed to death.

Years later I can think of that whole escapade and laugh.  If Dad were still here he would say in his customary lame way:  That’s easy for you to say…you were taking a nap the whole time!

It’s true; I was out cold and never knew the real danger I faced, and how the doctors were busy saving my life.  But Dad never prayed so hard or felt so pressed and helpless.  Such is the burden of one who cares.

For You Today

It is a good reminder, Father’s Day, to remember and give thanks for those who have cared for you and guided you through troubled times. 

We have a Heavenly Father to thank, and for Whom we can be grateful!

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

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NOTES

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[i] Title Image: Pixabay.com