Who rules in heaven?
I used to ask that question to kids when the Trophy Wife and I led Children’s Worship at the church we attended in East Lake, a community in Birmingham, Al., that could best be described as ‘transitional.’ The children’s ministry did not reflect the attendance of the church as a whole because it was decidedly mixed. Our Vacation Bible School drew kids from the neighborhood, which was racially mixed, while Sunday morning worship was very White.
When I asked that question, these kids would kind of look at me as if unsure of what to answer, like it was a trick question. Eventually, someone would answer “God?” in a quiet voice, turning the answer into a question.
Then I would ask, “Who rules in hell?” And it was amazing – without missing a beat, with no pause whatsoever, I’d get a very loud, confident response from both the kids who grew up in church and those who didn't: “The Devil!”
Which is incorrect, of course. God rules in Hell just as He rules in Heaven. God created Hell as a place of punishment and separation where, eventually, the Devil (or Satan or Lucifer - pick your name) himself will be cast into for all eternity. How can the character we call “the Devil” rule in a place where he is being sent as punishment for his rebellion?
But what amazes me about this is how much our theology is shaped by popular culture. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons that often depicted this fiery-red, pitch fork wielding, horned Devil sitting on some kind of throne in this place called “Hell,” directing his demons.
The character of Satan, in John Milton’s epic “Paradise Lost,” at one point says, “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
I put that last line in bold face, because it has been oft-quoted. And I wonder if that isn’t where this concept began that permeates our culture that somehow Heaven and Hell are equal and opposite reflections of each other, the one where God reigns over streets of gold while the other is a place where Satan reigns over fire and brimstone.
Even our concept of Heaven gets twisted. In the popular book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom, a newspaper columnist I really admire, the story is told of a man who feels unimportant, who dies and goes to heave and meets five people who tell him how much his life really did matter. There the man discovers what his life was all about – but nowhere in this story do we get a glimpse of God or Jesus Christ.
Even in our Christian churches, when a member dies we often hear people say, “They’ll be welcomed in Heaven by …” and we’ll go on to list a lot of family and friends who preceded this person in death – spouse, maybe a child, mother and father, a dear friend – without mentioning the only person that matters: Jesus.
The Trophy Wife and I went to see a really wonderful movie recently called “Paul, the Apostle,” which has to do with the apostle Paul in prison in Rome, and the plight of Christians being persecuted in that city yet converts being added to their number daily. In the end – and I hate to be the spoiler – Paul is executed, and we get a glimpse of Paul awakening in this place that we assume is heaven, and all these people who are lined up to meet him. Off in the distance, finally, we see this person coming over a hill that we assume is Jesus, as if Jesus is waiting to let these family and friends greet Paul before Paul sees the one person that, if you’ve read Paul’s writings, you know Paul was most longing to see and who is the focal point of a Believer’s afterlife.
I am afraid I am sounding critical here, and I guess I am. I'm not saying we won’t see other people in Heaven. I assume we will – Jonathan Edwards put it this way: “The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things . . . but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.” In other words, all these other things will be secondary gifts that God gives us, and our happiness in those things will only be part of our happiness in being in the presence of God.
But I know that the one person who, according to Scripture, will welcome me and who will be the focal point of it all is God, with His Son Jesus by His side. As the Apostle John wrote of his experience in viewing Heaven: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).
But for some reason, we have trouble putting Heaven and Hell in a proper, Biblical perspective.
That was a long introduction to get to where I what I really want to talk about, which is the first two chapters of one of my favorite books of the Bible, the book of Job. I encourage you to read the first two chapters, because it's a strange, strange story with a lot of implications.
Job gives us this glimpse into Heaven, into the presence of God. And when I read this passage with people in church, I always ask “What bothers you about this passage?” And there is a lot to be bothered about.
But one thing that always gives people pause is the line that says “One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”’
Wait. Satan in Heaven? Presenting himself to the Lord? And God not only acknowledging Satan, but having a conversation with him?
I have had people say that can’t happen, that God cannot tolerate the presence of evil. I have had people say that God banished Satan from heaven and would not allow him to return. I have had people tell me this is just a story, a prologue to an allegory if you will, not to be taken literally because Satan would not be in Heaven.
Yet in the book of Zechariah (3:1-2) we read, “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. …” and in Revelation (12:10) where it says, “Then I hear a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night …”
Satan is throughout the Bible story – blinding minds (2 Cor 4-4); stealing God’s Word (Matt 13:19); opposing God’ work (1 Thess 2:18); tempting God’s people (1 Cor 7:5), attacking God’s word (Gen 3:1) spreading false doctrine (1 Tim 1:3), persecuting God’s church (2:10).
But throughout it all, Satan’s main purpose seems to be spelled out in that verse in Revelation: accusing. If indeed, as Zechariah and Revelation say, Satan stands beside God making accusations, then clearly there is something going on we don’t often hear about in our churches.
And if you go on to read the story of Job, it’s kind of a scary idea. Because while Job is certainly “upright and blameless,” I wonder if Job isn’t a picture of all of us, to some extent; I wonder if Satan doesn’t stand there accusing even me to God, trying to prove me unworthy in God’s eyes (which I am of course, except for the fact that my unworthiness has been replaced by the ultimate worth of Jesus and his Sacrifice, redeeming me in the sight of God and even, I assume, before the eyes of Satan himself).
And while I love that God is so confident in Job’s faith that God even says to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?”, and I pray that would be worthy of that kind of faith in me by God, I also fear that kind of attention by Satan and God. Do I really want God to say to Satan, “Consider my servant Ray?” Especially when I see what happens to Job next?
Maybe Job isn’t such a strange story. Maybe it’s our story – all of us who are followers of Christ. Maybe this is just part of the plan - We commit to being followers of God, so God choses, for whatever reason, to risk His reputation – His glory – on our actions.
And I have to ask, what is God thinking? Doesn't He realize how weak and willing to sin I am?
Yet from the beginning, didn’t Satan believe he could turn Adam and Eve against God? Didn’t he even believe he could tempt Jesus himself to turn against God? Isn’t that the essence of the whole cosmic battle?
Job was an ordinary man, flesh and blood. But he was asked to endure something with cosmic consequences.
For some reason, what we do here in this life matters to God. Paul says in 1 Cor 4:9 - “We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.” There are verses about the cloud of witnesses that observe what we do. Maybe that’s the gathering that takes place at the beginning of Job, that presenting of the beings to God.
It’s an amazing responsibility we’ve been given.
I wonder if I really comprehend what my faith means to God. In some mysterious way, Job’s ordeal was worth it to God, because God took a risk in giving human beings like you and me free will, giving humanity a value to God that we can’t imagine. I’ve often wondered about that passage in Matthew 13:58, where Jesus’ power seems limited by a lack of faith.
We need a right understanding of God, of Heaven, of what our lives mean in the sense of eternity and what it means when the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that our chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.
See, true faith is not about getting God to give me the life I want.
True faith is about putting me in a position to glorify God in whatever comes my way.
Ravi Zacharias said it this way: Faith is confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in his power so that even when his power does not serve my end my confidence in him remains because of who he is.
Because Satan is indeed in heaven – for a time, anyway – accusing us before God, saying we’re not worthy and ready to make a bet with God that we will reject God when things don’t go our way.
The question we must live with every day is, who is going to be proved correct? Satan? Or God?
Monday, April 30, 2018
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Know thyself
Self-discovery. Self-esteem. Self-fulfillment. Self-expression. Self-knowledge.
Library shelves –if not entire libraries – are filled with books helping us as individuals to learn more about ourselves, discover ourselves, look inside ourselves to feel better about ourselves.
And a certain amount of self-awareness and introspection is healthy.
But I fear there is a huge difference between a ‘certain’ amount and the amount of introspection that many of us engage in, that our cultural know-it-alls tell us we need to do in order to be emotionally healthy and well-adjusted.
Simply sign on to Facebook to see how many “selfies” – pictures we take of ourselves – are posted. I was on a flight recently with a women's college athletic team. The young lady across the aisle spent the entire two-hour flight scanning pictures on her phone – of herself. She zoomed in, cropped, turned, and did all the things we can do on our phones to see ourselves. I saw an article recently that said 30 percent of pictures taken by young people age 18-24 are “selfies.” In fact, "selfie" was the 'word of the year' recently, indicating how important and used that word became in today's world. The very word reeks of narcissism.
Most Christians are familiar with the verse where Jesus said he can sum up the law and the prophets in a couple of sentences: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Unfortunately, the words from that verse that seem to stick with us are “buzz buzz buzz love noise noise noise yourself!”
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t love ourselves. What I am saying is that loving ourselves is pretty easy. Even those of us who are not happy with the way we are seem pretty consumed with our own misery and insecurities and how we don’t think we match up to whatever the “ideal” is. We can be consumed with both how great we think we are as well as how lacking we think we are, and both are indications of an over-absorption with self.
That verse we usually call “the Greatest Commandment” (there is one, followed by "a second that is like the first") says nothing about loving ourselves, except that we should love others as we love ourselves. And I’ll come back to some thoughts on that idea in a minute.
There is a real value in some amount of self-study. Scripture acknowledges this: we're told to examine ourselves in 2 Corinthians 13:5; examine our ways in Lamentations 3:40; keep a close watch on ourselves in 1 Timothy 4:16; keep our hearts with all vigilance in Proverbs 4:23; look carefully at how we live in Ephesians 5:15, and to not think more highly of ourselves than we should in Romans 12:3. These commands require us to do some soul-searching and looking inside ourselves.
But not to the extent society says we should. Today, everything is about "how I feel" and "respecting my feelings" and "being real'' (whatever that means), and this type of extreme over-kill of self-study reinforces our own natural self-centeredness and self-absorption, which is the crux of sin.
In a previous blog I wrote about knowing God, and how our focus is supposed to be on knowing Him, not Him knowing us. He doesn’t need an introduction to us. He created us. The very hairs on our heads are numbered.
I don’t think the Bible is there to teach us about ourselves. I think the Bible is there to teach us about God – and to learn about human nature. The Bible teaches us more about ourselves than we can ever learn by constant introspection.
The most important things we can learn about ourselves we learn by focusing on Christ.
We’re called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for focusing on our self.
The second part of that verse – love your neighbor as yourself – helps us, I believe, to find our true worth.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if you are confident and happy with yourself, then love others with the same confidence and happiness in them. See them as you see yourself – and encourage them to be confident and happy. Don't make your self-confidence based on how you compare to other people (thinking more of yourself than of others); see others as being just as capable and worthy as you see yourself.
If you have what we call a “poor self-image,’’ meaning you think of yourself as lacking and worthless and unlovable, and you want to overcome that, then start by treating other people the way you wish you could treat yourself, the way you'd like to see yourself. Look at them as if they believe they are lacking and worthless and unlovable, and help them get over that by encouraging them, telling them how wrong they are, reminding them of what they have and how worthy they are and how much you love them. I have to tell you, I can be around people who tell me how much they believe in me all day, and no matter how I feel about myself I always walk away wondering if they might not be right!
In turn, you just might find yourself. Psychologists or psychiatrists or whoever it is that studies people always point out that the people who are involved in other people’s lives tend to be happier and better adjusted. Maybe it’s getting involved in a program that feeds and clothes and builds houses for other people; maybe it’s as simple as talking to a stranger and telling them how great you think they are. But it’s been proven over and over again that when you focus on other people and get engaged in causes outside yourself, you end up feeling happier about yourself, better about yourself, and what we call “well adjusted.”
Crazy, isn’t it? The less we focus on ourselves, the more in-focus we seem to become.
The disciple John often referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Now, John may have thought of himself as being special in some way – and there are conversations he had with Jesus and the other disciples that could lead you to believe that – but I think John was simply saying what all of us can say; we are all the “people that Jesus loves.”
John, in 1 John, writes “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as he is.”
Looking to Jesus is not only how we learn who Jesus is, and what love is, but also who we are and who we are meant to become.
I can't learn that by studying myself.
Library shelves –if not entire libraries – are filled with books helping us as individuals to learn more about ourselves, discover ourselves, look inside ourselves to feel better about ourselves.
And a certain amount of self-awareness and introspection is healthy.
But I fear there is a huge difference between a ‘certain’ amount and the amount of introspection that many of us engage in, that our cultural know-it-alls tell us we need to do in order to be emotionally healthy and well-adjusted.
Simply sign on to Facebook to see how many “selfies” – pictures we take of ourselves – are posted. I was on a flight recently with a women's college athletic team. The young lady across the aisle spent the entire two-hour flight scanning pictures on her phone – of herself. She zoomed in, cropped, turned, and did all the things we can do on our phones to see ourselves. I saw an article recently that said 30 percent of pictures taken by young people age 18-24 are “selfies.” In fact, "selfie" was the 'word of the year' recently, indicating how important and used that word became in today's world. The very word reeks of narcissism.
Most Christians are familiar with the verse where Jesus said he can sum up the law and the prophets in a couple of sentences: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Unfortunately, the words from that verse that seem to stick with us are “buzz buzz buzz love noise noise noise yourself!”
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t love ourselves. What I am saying is that loving ourselves is pretty easy. Even those of us who are not happy with the way we are seem pretty consumed with our own misery and insecurities and how we don’t think we match up to whatever the “ideal” is. We can be consumed with both how great we think we are as well as how lacking we think we are, and both are indications of an over-absorption with self.
That verse we usually call “the Greatest Commandment” (there is one, followed by "a second that is like the first") says nothing about loving ourselves, except that we should love others as we love ourselves. And I’ll come back to some thoughts on that idea in a minute.
There is a real value in some amount of self-study. Scripture acknowledges this: we're told to examine ourselves in 2 Corinthians 13:5; examine our ways in Lamentations 3:40; keep a close watch on ourselves in 1 Timothy 4:16; keep our hearts with all vigilance in Proverbs 4:23; look carefully at how we live in Ephesians 5:15, and to not think more highly of ourselves than we should in Romans 12:3. These commands require us to do some soul-searching and looking inside ourselves.
But not to the extent society says we should. Today, everything is about "how I feel" and "respecting my feelings" and "being real'' (whatever that means), and this type of extreme over-kill of self-study reinforces our own natural self-centeredness and self-absorption, which is the crux of sin.
In a previous blog I wrote about knowing God, and how our focus is supposed to be on knowing Him, not Him knowing us. He doesn’t need an introduction to us. He created us. The very hairs on our heads are numbered.
I don’t think the Bible is there to teach us about ourselves. I think the Bible is there to teach us about God – and to learn about human nature. The Bible teaches us more about ourselves than we can ever learn by constant introspection.
The most important things we can learn about ourselves we learn by focusing on Christ.
We’re called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for focusing on our self.
The second part of that verse – love your neighbor as yourself – helps us, I believe, to find our true worth.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if you are confident and happy with yourself, then love others with the same confidence and happiness in them. See them as you see yourself – and encourage them to be confident and happy. Don't make your self-confidence based on how you compare to other people (thinking more of yourself than of others); see others as being just as capable and worthy as you see yourself.
If you have what we call a “poor self-image,’’ meaning you think of yourself as lacking and worthless and unlovable, and you want to overcome that, then start by treating other people the way you wish you could treat yourself, the way you'd like to see yourself. Look at them as if they believe they are lacking and worthless and unlovable, and help them get over that by encouraging them, telling them how wrong they are, reminding them of what they have and how worthy they are and how much you love them. I have to tell you, I can be around people who tell me how much they believe in me all day, and no matter how I feel about myself I always walk away wondering if they might not be right!
In turn, you just might find yourself. Psychologists or psychiatrists or whoever it is that studies people always point out that the people who are involved in other people’s lives tend to be happier and better adjusted. Maybe it’s getting involved in a program that feeds and clothes and builds houses for other people; maybe it’s as simple as talking to a stranger and telling them how great you think they are. But it’s been proven over and over again that when you focus on other people and get engaged in causes outside yourself, you end up feeling happier about yourself, better about yourself, and what we call “well adjusted.”
Crazy, isn’t it? The less we focus on ourselves, the more in-focus we seem to become.
The disciple John often referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Now, John may have thought of himself as being special in some way – and there are conversations he had with Jesus and the other disciples that could lead you to believe that – but I think John was simply saying what all of us can say; we are all the “people that Jesus loves.”
John, in 1 John, writes “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as he is.”
Looking to Jesus is not only how we learn who Jesus is, and what love is, but also who we are and who we are meant to become.
I can't learn that by studying myself.
Friday, April 20, 2018
Speaking the truth about God (Job 42)
Do you want God to know you?
Or do you want to know God?
In today’s church and among younger Christians, I often hear people talk about having a “relationship” with God – which is absolutely correct. However, most of our culture seems to think of “relationship” as something that is casual and doesn’t take any real work. Too many of our relationships end when one party gets dissatisfied, usually because they feel the other party in the relationship has quit caring about their feelings, or “just doesn’t understand me.”
I read this quote recently from a student at Calvin College, a Christian college in Michigan, who said, “When I realize that my faith wasn’t necessarily about the Christian Reformed church and it wasn’t even necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God and that God is all-compassing and loving, I felt very free.”
See what I mean? "My faith wasn't necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God."
But how does this young person know God? By his emotion, by what makes him feel loved and affirmed and even approved. It's like we think the important thing is that God knows us, as if we're some kind of mystery to the God who, according to Scripture, knows the very hairs on our head (Luke 12:7).
The issue isn’t God knowing me. He knows me; heck, He created me.
The issue is, how well do I know God?
Occasionally I like to ask the following trick question: How many stories are in the Bible? The answer, really, is just one – the story of God. All Scripture is designed to reveal God to us, through many mini-stories, if you will.
And how do we get to know God? It’s rather old-fashioned, of course, but the best way is to read His Word.
I know, I know. That’s what your fundamentalist grandfather always said. But where is the emotion in reading Scripture? Where is the feel good?
Oh, it’s not that folks are against a structured, daily reading of The Bible, but there sometimes seems to be a “feeling” that it isn’t really critical, because, they argue, God only cares about our heart.
I was going through the book of Job – again – and something in the last chapter hit me in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, but maybe because the book is so long (42 chapters), with so much dialogue, I was ready to simply skip through the resolution and hadn’t given the last chapter the complete study it deserves.
But right there after God finishes his long monologue where he reminds Job that He is God and no one else – least of all Job – is, God turns to Job’s friends and “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”
We get so caught up in God talking to Job that we sometimes forget that Jobs’ friends could apparently hear God, or that God actually talks to the three friends and says, in essence, “You thought you were speaking about me and on my behalf to Job, but you were only speaking from your own wisdom and foolishness.” And God says to them, “You better ask Job for forgiveness, and if Job forgives you, I will forgive you.” There is a whole chapter’s worth of implications in that passage, but I’m not going there right now.
No, what struck me is God getting angry because these three well-meaning and pretty knowledgeable men did not speak the truth about God, and God didn’t (doesn’t) like being spoken of incorrectly.
For some reason, I started reading the book of Ezekiel the other day.
And if you want to know what makes God unhappy, read Ezekiel. It’s really pretty brutal. More specifically, in the context I’m trying to make, read Ezekiel 13 from The Message, the passage that says (and I’ve edited for space), “Son of man, preach against the prophets of Israel who are making things up out of their own heads and calling it ‘prophesying.’ Preach to them the real thing. Tell them, ‘Listen to God’s Message!’ God, the Master, pronounces doom on the empty-headed prophets who do their own thing and know nothing of what’s going on! …. All they do is fantasize comforting illusions and preach lying sermons. They say ‘God says . . .’ when God hasn’t so much as breathed in their direction. … Aren’t your sermons tissues of lies, saying ‘God says . . .’ when I’ve done nothing of the kind? Therefore—and this is the Message of God, the Master, remember—I’m dead set against prophets who substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies. The fact is that they’ve lied to my people. They’ve said, ‘No problem; everything’s just fine,’ when things are not at all fine. …”
If that doesn’t put some fear into you, I don’t know what does.
I write about God, my faith, and even teach a bit when asked. There are all kinds of passages warning people who teach about the extra burden put on them, but these two – the reaction of God at the end of Job and God’s reaction in Ezekiel – really hit me. Because the truth is, I have talked about God my whole life, and I know that things I believed to be true about God 15, 20, 30 years ago were not correct. It’s what I believed at the time, but age and study and learning have shown me where I was wrong, and I am afraid I’ll have to answer for not telling the truth about God, even if I meant well (as I believe Job’s friends meant well).
So how do we know about God?
Now we get to the point.
The primary way we get to understand God is by reading the Bible. God’s Word. Holy Scripture. As Luther would say, “Sola scriptura,” which means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true.
I’m not talking memorizing Bible verses, although that’s not a bad thing. Personally, I can’t give you chapter and verse, yet when someone starts quoting a verse of Scripture chances are I know it and can say it along with them (in one translation or another). I know people who can give you chapter and verse and I wish I was like them. I even bought a little book called “52 Verses Every Christian Should Memorize” or something like that, and really worked on memorization. At the end, I knew the verses – but still couldn’t recall book, chapter and verse!
What I’m talking about is just reading. Letting the words seep into your brain, your heart, your soul. It’s reading with a purpose – not to make ourselves smarter, but to know God better.
Jesus, in Matthew 22:37-38 (I know the verse by heart, but had to look up the reference), said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
All your heart, soul and mind, which is pretty thorough. And as we have seen in Job and Ezekiel, wrong thoughts about God produce wrong belief about God. You can’t really love what you don’t really know.
Paul writes in Philippians 1, “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Love “abounds” with knowledge and discernment.
Paul, again, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
We become what we behold. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like the characters John Wayne played in the movies. So I watched and studied them, and tried to walk and talk like John Wayne (which conjures up a pretty funny image, I know).
Likewise, when we read and study God’s Word, we find it transforms us. We find ourselves suddenly losing interest in doing things we used to do; find that better person that reflects the image of God that resides in us. We start to actually look more like Christ! (Paul even says we should be “imitators” of Christ in Ephesians 5).
Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Most of us want to do “good works.” Young people today, in particular, seem more interested in getting involved in making the world a better place to live than they are in getting a good job, a career, etc. Many young people honestly desire to do something for God. But what Paul said is pretty clear: you can’t be equipped to really do good work until you are immersed in the word of God.
The Bible shows us God’s priorities, His values, His mission, His heart. It shows us what he has been doing in the world, and what He is doing. It shows us, as one writer said, how to love “the forgotten and the misfit. It shows us the value of shepherding our families. It introduces us to the generosity of other Christians (2 Corinthians 8:1–7), and calls us to be openhanded with what God gives us. It heralds the sanctity of every human life and inspires us to fight for the unborn. It declares that race should not be a barrier to Christian unity, but a beautiful occasion for it.”
But along the way, we have to know how to speak correctly about God. And that only comes from knowing God’s Word.
I don’t know exactly where I heard this so I don’t know who to give the credit to, so let me just say this isn’t my original idea. But the words went something like, “This world is not falling apart; God’s plan is coming together.” I like that. It is a great reminder, and a great comfort. But I don’t understand what God’s plan is unless I see the picture presented in Scripture.
When I find myself in those times when I struggle with prayer or reading Scripture, I know down in my soul that I must continue.
It’s like talking to my wife – sometimes I have to stay with the communication process even when it seems we’re on totally different levels. And eventually, because of our commitment, we get back on the same page.
I like the way John Piper put it when addressing the loss of joy in your relationship with God: “… I am reminding you (1) that God is present in the darkness, (2) that he is holding on to his people when they feel barely able to hold on to him, and (3) that though you may feel unsure of your salvation in this struggle, you may be totally sure you will not have salvation if you give up the struggle and walk away.”
You can’t have your relationship with God without the Bible. You can’t grow in your relationship with God without the Bible.
The good news (quite literally) is that we do indeed have access to the Bible - and, therefore, to being able to speak truthfully about God.
Or do you want to know God?
In today’s church and among younger Christians, I often hear people talk about having a “relationship” with God – which is absolutely correct. However, most of our culture seems to think of “relationship” as something that is casual and doesn’t take any real work. Too many of our relationships end when one party gets dissatisfied, usually because they feel the other party in the relationship has quit caring about their feelings, or “just doesn’t understand me.”
I read this quote recently from a student at Calvin College, a Christian college in Michigan, who said, “When I realize that my faith wasn’t necessarily about the Christian Reformed church and it wasn’t even necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God and that God is all-compassing and loving, I felt very free.”
See what I mean? "My faith wasn't necessarily about the Bible, but about my relationship with God."
But how does this young person know God? By his emotion, by what makes him feel loved and affirmed and even approved. It's like we think the important thing is that God knows us, as if we're some kind of mystery to the God who, according to Scripture, knows the very hairs on our head (Luke 12:7).
The issue isn’t God knowing me. He knows me; heck, He created me.
The issue is, how well do I know God?
Occasionally I like to ask the following trick question: How many stories are in the Bible? The answer, really, is just one – the story of God. All Scripture is designed to reveal God to us, through many mini-stories, if you will.
And how do we get to know God? It’s rather old-fashioned, of course, but the best way is to read His Word.
I know, I know. That’s what your fundamentalist grandfather always said. But where is the emotion in reading Scripture? Where is the feel good?
Oh, it’s not that folks are against a structured, daily reading of The Bible, but there sometimes seems to be a “feeling” that it isn’t really critical, because, they argue, God only cares about our heart.
I was going through the book of Job – again – and something in the last chapter hit me in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, but maybe because the book is so long (42 chapters), with so much dialogue, I was ready to simply skip through the resolution and hadn’t given the last chapter the complete study it deserves.
But right there after God finishes his long monologue where he reminds Job that He is God and no one else – least of all Job – is, God turns to Job’s friends and “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”
We get so caught up in God talking to Job that we sometimes forget that Jobs’ friends could apparently hear God, or that God actually talks to the three friends and says, in essence, “You thought you were speaking about me and on my behalf to Job, but you were only speaking from your own wisdom and foolishness.” And God says to them, “You better ask Job for forgiveness, and if Job forgives you, I will forgive you.” There is a whole chapter’s worth of implications in that passage, but I’m not going there right now.
No, what struck me is God getting angry because these three well-meaning and pretty knowledgeable men did not speak the truth about God, and God didn’t (doesn’t) like being spoken of incorrectly.
For some reason, I started reading the book of Ezekiel the other day.
And if you want to know what makes God unhappy, read Ezekiel. It’s really pretty brutal. More specifically, in the context I’m trying to make, read Ezekiel 13 from The Message, the passage that says (and I’ve edited for space), “Son of man, preach against the prophets of Israel who are making things up out of their own heads and calling it ‘prophesying.’ Preach to them the real thing. Tell them, ‘Listen to God’s Message!’ God, the Master, pronounces doom on the empty-headed prophets who do their own thing and know nothing of what’s going on! …. All they do is fantasize comforting illusions and preach lying sermons. They say ‘God says . . .’ when God hasn’t so much as breathed in their direction. … Aren’t your sermons tissues of lies, saying ‘God says . . .’ when I’ve done nothing of the kind? Therefore—and this is the Message of God, the Master, remember—I’m dead set against prophets who substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies. The fact is that they’ve lied to my people. They’ve said, ‘No problem; everything’s just fine,’ when things are not at all fine. …”
If that doesn’t put some fear into you, I don’t know what does.
I write about God, my faith, and even teach a bit when asked. There are all kinds of passages warning people who teach about the extra burden put on them, but these two – the reaction of God at the end of Job and God’s reaction in Ezekiel – really hit me. Because the truth is, I have talked about God my whole life, and I know that things I believed to be true about God 15, 20, 30 years ago were not correct. It’s what I believed at the time, but age and study and learning have shown me where I was wrong, and I am afraid I’ll have to answer for not telling the truth about God, even if I meant well (as I believe Job’s friends meant well).
So how do we know about God?
Now we get to the point.
The primary way we get to understand God is by reading the Bible. God’s Word. Holy Scripture. As Luther would say, “Sola scriptura,” which means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true.
I’m not talking memorizing Bible verses, although that’s not a bad thing. Personally, I can’t give you chapter and verse, yet when someone starts quoting a verse of Scripture chances are I know it and can say it along with them (in one translation or another). I know people who can give you chapter and verse and I wish I was like them. I even bought a little book called “52 Verses Every Christian Should Memorize” or something like that, and really worked on memorization. At the end, I knew the verses – but still couldn’t recall book, chapter and verse!
What I’m talking about is just reading. Letting the words seep into your brain, your heart, your soul. It’s reading with a purpose – not to make ourselves smarter, but to know God better.
Jesus, in Matthew 22:37-38 (I know the verse by heart, but had to look up the reference), said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
All your heart, soul and mind, which is pretty thorough. And as we have seen in Job and Ezekiel, wrong thoughts about God produce wrong belief about God. You can’t really love what you don’t really know.
Paul writes in Philippians 1, “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Love “abounds” with knowledge and discernment.
Paul, again, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
We become what we behold. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like the characters John Wayne played in the movies. So I watched and studied them, and tried to walk and talk like John Wayne (which conjures up a pretty funny image, I know).
Likewise, when we read and study God’s Word, we find it transforms us. We find ourselves suddenly losing interest in doing things we used to do; find that better person that reflects the image of God that resides in us. We start to actually look more like Christ! (Paul even says we should be “imitators” of Christ in Ephesians 5).
Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Most of us want to do “good works.” Young people today, in particular, seem more interested in getting involved in making the world a better place to live than they are in getting a good job, a career, etc. Many young people honestly desire to do something for God. But what Paul said is pretty clear: you can’t be equipped to really do good work until you are immersed in the word of God.
The Bible shows us God’s priorities, His values, His mission, His heart. It shows us what he has been doing in the world, and what He is doing. It shows us, as one writer said, how to love “the forgotten and the misfit. It shows us the value of shepherding our families. It introduces us to the generosity of other Christians (2 Corinthians 8:1–7), and calls us to be openhanded with what God gives us. It heralds the sanctity of every human life and inspires us to fight for the unborn. It declares that race should not be a barrier to Christian unity, but a beautiful occasion for it.”
But along the way, we have to know how to speak correctly about God. And that only comes from knowing God’s Word.
I don’t know exactly where I heard this so I don’t know who to give the credit to, so let me just say this isn’t my original idea. But the words went something like, “This world is not falling apart; God’s plan is coming together.” I like that. It is a great reminder, and a great comfort. But I don’t understand what God’s plan is unless I see the picture presented in Scripture.
When I find myself in those times when I struggle with prayer or reading Scripture, I know down in my soul that I must continue.
It’s like talking to my wife – sometimes I have to stay with the communication process even when it seems we’re on totally different levels. And eventually, because of our commitment, we get back on the same page.
I like the way John Piper put it when addressing the loss of joy in your relationship with God: “… I am reminding you (1) that God is present in the darkness, (2) that he is holding on to his people when they feel barely able to hold on to him, and (3) that though you may feel unsure of your salvation in this struggle, you may be totally sure you will not have salvation if you give up the struggle and walk away.”
You can’t have your relationship with God without the Bible. You can’t grow in your relationship with God without the Bible.
The good news (quite literally) is that we do indeed have access to the Bible - and, therefore, to being able to speak truthfully about God.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Peace? Goodwill? We can always hope
The story goes that the man was walking down the street on Christmas Day, deep in his own world of hurt. His wife had died two years before; his son was critically wounded while fighting in a war that seemed might never end. And as he walked, he heard the church bells ringing and couldn’t help but feel despair and thought, “Christmas bells! Peace? Goodwill?”
He got home and wrote:
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, good-will to men …”
It’s easy, today, to wonder about the same things. Peace on earth? Goodwill toward men? With this country feeling as divided as it ever has, where even church members – Christians – argue over politics and policies and say things like, “As a Christian how can you vote for …” whomever, or whatever.
And the divide between church-goers and non-church goers seems even greater. Court case after court case is fought over the “intrusion” of faith-based ideas into the public sector, one side arguing that you can’t limit the practice of ones’ faith to the privacy of the home and church while the other side argues you can’t impose your religious “beliefs” (which are often mocked) onto your neighborhood and certainly not your neighbor.
The man walking down the street who wrote those words was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was 1863, and this country was truly more divided than it ever had been. One entire section of the country had pulled away from the other, and in the new territories – out west, where new states were being formed – the battle raged over which side those new states might side with, which policies most of the people agreed with.
In the face of his personal – and national – tragedy, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after his wife’s death, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th, 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."
And so Longfellow, in this poem, went on to write:
“Till, ringing, singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
You can imagine the cold, cruel irony Longfellow must have found in those words. In fact, he doesn’t hide his feelings in the next verse, which goes:
“Then from each black, accursed mouth the cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent the hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn the households born of peace on earth, good-will to men! ...”
Certainly, 2017 is not the most divided this country has ever been. In my own, increasingly extensive lifetime I can remember being a child coming of age in the 1960s, of seeing my own part of the country torn by arrests and beatings and fire hoses and police dogs, while in other parts of the country riots left stores and cars burned, people beaten by the very people who were their neighbors. On college campuses, students led protests and took over administration buildings to protest a government and a war, and on a college campus in Ohio the national guard fired shots into a protest, killing four students.
I have read of the serious division in this country in 1939-40, over involvement in European wars. And we know of the era of the 1920s-30s, Prohibition and the Great Depression. Maybe it’s the nature of a country as large as ours, and as diverse, to periodically be divided over deeply held beliefs.
Longfellow’s’ words continue:
“And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Today might not be the most divided our nation has ever been, but history brings no comfort when you’re living through a time such as this, when even good deeds are questioned, when honest intent is doubted, when one group seems to honestly believe the other has become a threat and there is no common ground. There seems to be very little ‘‘social’’ about “social media,” just as there was very little “civil” in what is referred to as the “Civil War.” It’s so easy to criticize when you don’t have to face the person you are criticizing; so easy to infer evil motives when you don’t take the time to try to understand the person whose actions you are doubting; so easy to hate when you’re talking about people you never met, never had a conversation with; so easy to “know” the “truth” in an information stream unlike any in the history of the world where not only do we have access to more truth than ever before, but we’re also being lied to more than ever before. And all that access to more information than ever has simply made is easier to refuse to allow ourselves to be challenged in our assumptions.
Still, even in the midst of his despair – and in ours – Longfellow’s’ ending rings true. It has to be true. Life makes no sense unless it’s true.
He writes:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men."
I heard the words of another song-poem recently. I don’t know who wrote it or even who sang it, but these words – or something close to them – stuck with me: “The world is not falling apart. God’s plan is coming together.”
That’s my hope. And every year, through the ups and downs of life, Christmas reminds me of that truth that I hold to and in my life I have found to be self-evident.
And so, I wish you “Peace on Earth, good-will toward men.”
Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year.
(For full disclosure, the idea of formatting my thoughts between verses of “Christmas Bells” is not original with me. Congressman Gary Palmer did this in a Christmas speech to a veterans’ organization. However, the commentary between stanzas is mine.
He got home and wrote:
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, good-will to men …”
It’s easy, today, to wonder about the same things. Peace on earth? Goodwill toward men? With this country feeling as divided as it ever has, where even church members – Christians – argue over politics and policies and say things like, “As a Christian how can you vote for …” whomever, or whatever.
And the divide between church-goers and non-church goers seems even greater. Court case after court case is fought over the “intrusion” of faith-based ideas into the public sector, one side arguing that you can’t limit the practice of ones’ faith to the privacy of the home and church while the other side argues you can’t impose your religious “beliefs” (which are often mocked) onto your neighborhood and certainly not your neighbor.
The man walking down the street who wrote those words was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was 1863, and this country was truly more divided than it ever had been. One entire section of the country had pulled away from the other, and in the new territories – out west, where new states were being formed – the battle raged over which side those new states might side with, which policies most of the people agreed with.
In the face of his personal – and national – tragedy, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after his wife’s death, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th, 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."
And so Longfellow, in this poem, went on to write:
“Till, ringing, singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
You can imagine the cold, cruel irony Longfellow must have found in those words. In fact, he doesn’t hide his feelings in the next verse, which goes:
“Then from each black, accursed mouth the cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent the hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn the households born of peace on earth, good-will to men! ...”
Certainly, 2017 is not the most divided this country has ever been. In my own, increasingly extensive lifetime I can remember being a child coming of age in the 1960s, of seeing my own part of the country torn by arrests and beatings and fire hoses and police dogs, while in other parts of the country riots left stores and cars burned, people beaten by the very people who were their neighbors. On college campuses, students led protests and took over administration buildings to protest a government and a war, and on a college campus in Ohio the national guard fired shots into a protest, killing four students.
I have read of the serious division in this country in 1939-40, over involvement in European wars. And we know of the era of the 1920s-30s, Prohibition and the Great Depression. Maybe it’s the nature of a country as large as ours, and as diverse, to periodically be divided over deeply held beliefs.
Longfellow’s’ words continue:
“And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Today might not be the most divided our nation has ever been, but history brings no comfort when you’re living through a time such as this, when even good deeds are questioned, when honest intent is doubted, when one group seems to honestly believe the other has become a threat and there is no common ground. There seems to be very little ‘‘social’’ about “social media,” just as there was very little “civil” in what is referred to as the “Civil War.” It’s so easy to criticize when you don’t have to face the person you are criticizing; so easy to infer evil motives when you don’t take the time to try to understand the person whose actions you are doubting; so easy to hate when you’re talking about people you never met, never had a conversation with; so easy to “know” the “truth” in an information stream unlike any in the history of the world where not only do we have access to more truth than ever before, but we’re also being lied to more than ever before. And all that access to more information than ever has simply made is easier to refuse to allow ourselves to be challenged in our assumptions.
Still, even in the midst of his despair – and in ours – Longfellow’s’ ending rings true. It has to be true. Life makes no sense unless it’s true.
He writes:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men."
I heard the words of another song-poem recently. I don’t know who wrote it or even who sang it, but these words – or something close to them – stuck with me: “The world is not falling apart. God’s plan is coming together.”
That’s my hope. And every year, through the ups and downs of life, Christmas reminds me of that truth that I hold to and in my life I have found to be self-evident.
And so, I wish you “Peace on Earth, good-will toward men.”
Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year.
(For full disclosure, the idea of formatting my thoughts between verses of “Christmas Bells” is not original with me. Congressman Gary Palmer did this in a Christmas speech to a veterans’ organization. However, the commentary between stanzas is mine.
Friday, November 17, 2017
From democracy to oligarchy
I don't want to talk about Roy Moore, or Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders, or Al Franken.
I want to offer up a possible reason as to why so many times when we go in to vote, we feel like we're having to make rationalizations, or deal in situational ethics, or choosing between the lesser of two evils, or telling ourselves we're not voting "for" someone as much as we're voting ''against" the other candidate.
I have written before about voting. I have written - tongue in cheek - about how I like it when people don't vote, because the fewer people that vote, the more they make my vote count.
And that's true, but I honestly I wish more people would vote.
Here in my home state of Alabama, we have gone through a series of special elections, of which we're not finished. We had a primary to choose Republican and Democratic candidates for Senate. Then we had a run-off to determine a Republican candidate. And soon - as you may have heard - some of us will go to the polls to make a final vote on who we want to represent us in the U.S. Senate.
I say "final,'' although it may not really be final. If Roy Moore wins, there is all kinds of talk about the Senate not seating him (which I don't believe, Constitutionally, they can do; go back and look at the Court ruling when the House tried to not seat Adam Clayton Powell in 1967), or once he's in office begin an immediate process of possibly expelling him (which will take a two-thirds vote, and it is one of those things where everyone in the Senate better take a long, hard look at themselves before they go down the road of expelling someone for what they may or may not have done 30-40 years ago).
Even if Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate, wins, this seat will be up for election again in 2020, because this vote is just to finish former Sen. Jeff Sessions' term which was set to expire in 2020. And regardless of who wins, I'll be shocked if there are not a whole bunch of people lined up to run for this office in 2020, and even more shocked if whoever is the incumbent holds on to the seat.
Let me also say, as someone who has made Alabama my home, this election is not a referendum on Donald Trump or anything else of national mood. This has become simply a race where people in Alabama, one of the most red of red states, feel they have had outside influences trying to determine the outcome of this election from the state. To show the state of the Democratic party in this state, if you add up all the votes cast in the Democratic primary, they still wouldn't have beaten the top vote-getter in the Republican primary, Roy Moore. And my guess is that many people who voted for Roy Moore - although he does have a considerable base - did so in the run-off because they didn't like the Washington DC-based campaign that was run on behalf of Luther Strange, who was appointed by former Gov. Robert Bentley to fill Sessions' term before Bentley was forced to resign ... well, it gets complicated.
Needless to say, we've had a rather bizarre run of political intrigue here in Alabama over the last two years, with the Speaker of the House resigning after being indicted, the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court (Moore) being basically forced out of office (suspended, actually, but in reality forced out), the Governor appointing the then- Attorney General to the Senate in a move that many people feel was a quid-pro-quo in an attempt to end the investigation into the Governors' behavior, only to have the Governor forced to resign anyway and the new Governor ordering a special election to fill the Senate seat, which brings us to where we are now.
That was a very short, very edited version of politics in the great state of Alabama over the last few years.
Which brings me to my point:
In the 2017 primary featuring both parties, only 18 percent of eligible voters turned out to vote. In the Republican run-off, only 14 percent of eligible voters showed up to participate in the most basic and most important part of our system of government.
Which means, at least in the Republican run-off, about 8 percent of the voting population decided that Roy Moore would be the candidate representing the Republican party.
That, to me, is an oligarchy.
Not the traditional oligarchy where a small group of military leaders, or business people, or party elites run things.
But the first definition of "oligarchy" that popped up on my google search reads: "a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution."
I'd say 8 percent of the voting population deciding who the candidates are is an oligarchy.
When you don't participate in the process, you get what others decide they want for you.
When only 8 percent of the population makes that decision - or even just 14 percent, or 18 percent - what you get are the truly hardcore and committed who may not reflect the belief and values of the great "silent" majority - determining who our leaders are.
Which is why the tragedy of a democracy, even a democratic republic like we have, is that it usually ends by suicide. People quit participating, and the process dies or becomes a, well, an oligarchy.
I have heard it argued that we really don't want the 'great unwashed' voting, the people who don't follow the intricacies of politics and policy and the repercussions of actions beyond the initial, most immediate result.
(By that, I mean as simple as while you may not have liked Donald Trump as a person, you knew that whoever won the last presidential election was going to nominate at least one Supreme Court justice, but maybe didn't realize there were also roughly 125 Federal judgeships to be appointed. That is a massive influence over the way the judicial branch will operate over the next decade or more. And that is just one example of most of us not being aware of the ripple effect of politics, how there are very few decisions made in a vacuum that don't have repercussions that could be more dramatic than even the initial decision).
Yes, the great masses get fooled by 'fake news.' The core of the whole "Russian influence" issue is that people allowed themselves to believe "news" posts (and social media posts) that reinforced their own biases and fears. Hey, that's what advertising and bumper stickers and tweets and campaign slogans are all about; what we're really saying is, we don't want our voters fooled by the fake news of other countries, only our own.
But I'd still rather be ruled by the many than by the few.
The more people who participate, the better off we'll ultimately be. You know what? I don't care if you actively participate in one party or another. I'd prefer you did, but more than that, I just wish people would vote. I have found it's amazing to get that ballot, look at all the names on the list of people who may decide my future and the future of my children, and realize I wish I had done a little more research into each of them than I did.
Then I vote anyway. But every time, I have come away determined to do it better next time.
And that's all we can ask.
Maybe it won't improve the quality of candidates we seem to be faced with in every election; maybe it will even get worse.
But at least it will more of us making that decision, and not just the 8 percent.
If you don't vote, my vote counts for more. And I don't really want to be in the oligarchy of American government.
We do have the power to change things - through voting. All of our opinions matter. But if you don't vote, then it may not be long before our individual opinions no longer matter.
And if that happens, we all lose.
I want to offer up a possible reason as to why so many times when we go in to vote, we feel like we're having to make rationalizations, or deal in situational ethics, or choosing between the lesser of two evils, or telling ourselves we're not voting "for" someone as much as we're voting ''against" the other candidate.
I have written before about voting. I have written - tongue in cheek - about how I like it when people don't vote, because the fewer people that vote, the more they make my vote count.
And that's true, but I honestly I wish more people would vote.
Here in my home state of Alabama, we have gone through a series of special elections, of which we're not finished. We had a primary to choose Republican and Democratic candidates for Senate. Then we had a run-off to determine a Republican candidate. And soon - as you may have heard - some of us will go to the polls to make a final vote on who we want to represent us in the U.S. Senate.
I say "final,'' although it may not really be final. If Roy Moore wins, there is all kinds of talk about the Senate not seating him (which I don't believe, Constitutionally, they can do; go back and look at the Court ruling when the House tried to not seat Adam Clayton Powell in 1967), or once he's in office begin an immediate process of possibly expelling him (which will take a two-thirds vote, and it is one of those things where everyone in the Senate better take a long, hard look at themselves before they go down the road of expelling someone for what they may or may not have done 30-40 years ago).
Even if Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate, wins, this seat will be up for election again in 2020, because this vote is just to finish former Sen. Jeff Sessions' term which was set to expire in 2020. And regardless of who wins, I'll be shocked if there are not a whole bunch of people lined up to run for this office in 2020, and even more shocked if whoever is the incumbent holds on to the seat.
Let me also say, as someone who has made Alabama my home, this election is not a referendum on Donald Trump or anything else of national mood. This has become simply a race where people in Alabama, one of the most red of red states, feel they have had outside influences trying to determine the outcome of this election from the state. To show the state of the Democratic party in this state, if you add up all the votes cast in the Democratic primary, they still wouldn't have beaten the top vote-getter in the Republican primary, Roy Moore. And my guess is that many people who voted for Roy Moore - although he does have a considerable base - did so in the run-off because they didn't like the Washington DC-based campaign that was run on behalf of Luther Strange, who was appointed by former Gov. Robert Bentley to fill Sessions' term before Bentley was forced to resign ... well, it gets complicated.
Needless to say, we've had a rather bizarre run of political intrigue here in Alabama over the last two years, with the Speaker of the House resigning after being indicted, the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court (Moore) being basically forced out of office (suspended, actually, but in reality forced out), the Governor appointing the then- Attorney General to the Senate in a move that many people feel was a quid-pro-quo in an attempt to end the investigation into the Governors' behavior, only to have the Governor forced to resign anyway and the new Governor ordering a special election to fill the Senate seat, which brings us to where we are now.
That was a very short, very edited version of politics in the great state of Alabama over the last few years.
Which brings me to my point:
In the 2017 primary featuring both parties, only 18 percent of eligible voters turned out to vote. In the Republican run-off, only 14 percent of eligible voters showed up to participate in the most basic and most important part of our system of government.
Which means, at least in the Republican run-off, about 8 percent of the voting population decided that Roy Moore would be the candidate representing the Republican party.
That, to me, is an oligarchy.
Not the traditional oligarchy where a small group of military leaders, or business people, or party elites run things.
But the first definition of "oligarchy" that popped up on my google search reads: "a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution."
I'd say 8 percent of the voting population deciding who the candidates are is an oligarchy.
When you don't participate in the process, you get what others decide they want for you.
When only 8 percent of the population makes that decision - or even just 14 percent, or 18 percent - what you get are the truly hardcore and committed who may not reflect the belief and values of the great "silent" majority - determining who our leaders are.
Which is why the tragedy of a democracy, even a democratic republic like we have, is that it usually ends by suicide. People quit participating, and the process dies or becomes a, well, an oligarchy.
I have heard it argued that we really don't want the 'great unwashed' voting, the people who don't follow the intricacies of politics and policy and the repercussions of actions beyond the initial, most immediate result.
(By that, I mean as simple as while you may not have liked Donald Trump as a person, you knew that whoever won the last presidential election was going to nominate at least one Supreme Court justice, but maybe didn't realize there were also roughly 125 Federal judgeships to be appointed. That is a massive influence over the way the judicial branch will operate over the next decade or more. And that is just one example of most of us not being aware of the ripple effect of politics, how there are very few decisions made in a vacuum that don't have repercussions that could be more dramatic than even the initial decision).
Yes, the great masses get fooled by 'fake news.' The core of the whole "Russian influence" issue is that people allowed themselves to believe "news" posts (and social media posts) that reinforced their own biases and fears. Hey, that's what advertising and bumper stickers and tweets and campaign slogans are all about; what we're really saying is, we don't want our voters fooled by the fake news of other countries, only our own.
But I'd still rather be ruled by the many than by the few.
The more people who participate, the better off we'll ultimately be. You know what? I don't care if you actively participate in one party or another. I'd prefer you did, but more than that, I just wish people would vote. I have found it's amazing to get that ballot, look at all the names on the list of people who may decide my future and the future of my children, and realize I wish I had done a little more research into each of them than I did.
Then I vote anyway. But every time, I have come away determined to do it better next time.
And that's all we can ask.
Maybe it won't improve the quality of candidates we seem to be faced with in every election; maybe it will even get worse.
But at least it will more of us making that decision, and not just the 8 percent.
If you don't vote, my vote counts for more. And I don't really want to be in the oligarchy of American government.
We do have the power to change things - through voting. All of our opinions matter. But if you don't vote, then it may not be long before our individual opinions no longer matter.
And if that happens, we all lose.
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Thoughts and prayers
The whole concept of prayer, for me, is a tough one to figure out.
Whenever there is a tragedy, like the recent mass shooting in the church in Texas, we see immediate responses from people who want to express their concern and use the phrase "thoughts and prayers." And the last few times events like this has happened, the response from a large section of the country has been to make fun of or belittle the concept of "thoughts and prayers." As one national Democrat said, "Prayers are for pastors and priests; we need action!" And even some in the faith community like to throw out that prayer is not enough, using the verse in James that says, "Faith without action is worthless" (my translation; the most common translation is "so faith without works is dead also," from James 2:26). They say "Prayer alone isn't doing enough."
I admit the phrase "thoughts and prayers" is a bit of a cliché. It's what you say when you don't know what else to say, like saying "I'm sorry for your loss" at a funeral. You want to say something to express your sympathy and emotional distress over what has happened, while at the same time showing some measure of compassion for the survivors. So we've reduced it to the phrase "thoughts and prayers" (I think the "thoughts" part is simply added in so as not to offend those who might not believe in "prayers.")
Yet what else can most of us do in the face of horror, tragedy, and pure evil?
If you believe there is a God, and you believe that God is in control, then you pray.
If you don't believe in God, then you rely on your own strength, or the collective strength and ideas of those around you, to try to figure out what can be done to stop (or at least reduce the chance) this from happening again.
Those people might even say, "Yes, pray!" but that along with prayers we need more and tougher laws - as if laws ever really stopped evil. Heck, even those of us who believe in God recognize that despite the fact that Moses received the Ten Commandments straight from God, and a whole book of laws was written with some pretty horrible punishments for those who violated those laws, those laws were probably being broken before the next morning's camp fires were put out to start the days' march.
So what do we do in the face of such evil?
Those of us who believe, turn to God.
Those who don't believe point to horrible evil like the shooting in a church in Texas and say, "See? Prayer doesn't work. There is no God to protect the innocent."
But those people don't understand how prayer works. Heck, I'm a Christian who has read the Bible and attempted to follow the teachings of God my whole life, and I can't say I fully understand how prayer works. I mean, if God is unchangeable, how can prayer change things? Yet we're commanded to pray, and told to ask for things that defy the logic of whatever situation we're concerned about. We're told that somehow, someway, our actions and our faith here on earth affect things in Heaven. Even Jesus, at one point, said he was limited in his earthly ministry by a lack of faith (Mark 6:5 - "because of their unbelief, he couldn't do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them...")
Prayer is not a magic phrase that gives us what we desire and protects us from all harm. I can pray for things that are, ultimately, bad for me or my community and God in His wisdom won't grant my request. I can pray for things that are outside the will of God and God is under no obligation to even consider my prayer, as heartfelt as it might be. I can pray for what seems perfectly right and reasonable for my own situation, but I don't have knowledge of the bigger picture (think of the first chapter of the story of Job).
My prayer is to be aligned with God's will. Can I change God's will? There is certainly evidence in the Bible that suggest when people pray, God can decide to not do something He was thinking of doing, or put off doing something to give the people time to repent and get it right.
At the very least, my faith commands that I pick up my figurative cross and keep moving forward, and prayer is a way to both focus on God in the midst of everything that happens and, yes, to ask for supernatural courage and strength and wisdom to do the right thing when it seems impossible.
And the crazy thing is, sometimes we see the impossible accomplished, we see logic defied.
Other times the outcome doesn't change to reflect the way we wanted it to be, but we come to accept it because we do believe in a sovereign God who has the whole world in His hands, whose Will will be accomplished, and we believe that His Will is perfect, beyond our understanding. We've seen over and over that horror quite often gives way to salvation, that suffering has led to improving the lives of thousands, if not millions. As the Bible says in Genesis 50:20, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
The simple truth is that neither those of us who pray and those of us who demand more laws really have a human answer for stopping evil. It has existed since just after the world began. For all of our knowledge and advancements and enlightenment, we still haven't figured out how to stop famous actors from sexually assaulting young men, or teachers from taking advantage of students, or angry people from killing those who make them angry, or dictators from eliminating millions who oppose them, or people engaging in activities associated with expressions of love that result in disease and death, or someone from simply walking into a Dollar General and taking something without paying for just to see if they can, or ... you can fill in the seemingly endless blanks of evil actions, big and small, that we witness every day.
More and more, I realize that while not everyone believes in God, if we lived the way we're told to live in the Bible - care for one another, encourage the timid and weak, be careful how we eat, work, have sex with only one person for your entire life, care for the environment, don't tell lies, don't build monuments to people or things that are man-made, be content - we could eliminate almost all the problems and many of the diseases that have the potential to make our lives so tragic. It really does sound like the way man was meant to live.
Of course, we don't do those things because we want what we want and believe its "not fair" that I should deny myself those things I desire.
Teaching people "right" and "wrong" and writing laws to prohibit behavior we find unacceptable, while at the same time encouraging people to "be who you are" and "do what you want" and to not let society define you, is a contradiction. It just doesn't work. How can society tell you to "be who you are" and then turn around and condemn you and demand you change because it now deems your behavior to be offensive? I'm not saying we shouldn't teach and talk and write laws and hold people to standards, but its clear that those actions are basically bandaids on a bigger problem.
Then you get into prayer. God changes lives by changing hearts. I've seen it. I've witnessed it. I've experienced it. And you can explain it however you want, but those explanations are usually after the fact. To the person who has been changed, they know - they know - something miraculous took place, something unexplainable, something beyond the norm.
So in the face of evil like we're witnessing every day - we pray. We pray for forgiveness, for humility, for love, and for change; real change that must start with me, but powered by God's grace and mercy and power and love because, quite frankly, it's hard for me to change. Sometimes it's hard for me to fully understand why I even need to change.
So we pray for wisdom, and guidance, and courage.
How else can we know what action we are called to take?
Whenever there is a tragedy, like the recent mass shooting in the church in Texas, we see immediate responses from people who want to express their concern and use the phrase "thoughts and prayers." And the last few times events like this has happened, the response from a large section of the country has been to make fun of or belittle the concept of "thoughts and prayers." As one national Democrat said, "Prayers are for pastors and priests; we need action!" And even some in the faith community like to throw out that prayer is not enough, using the verse in James that says, "Faith without action is worthless" (my translation; the most common translation is "so faith without works is dead also," from James 2:26). They say "Prayer alone isn't doing enough."
I admit the phrase "thoughts and prayers" is a bit of a cliché. It's what you say when you don't know what else to say, like saying "I'm sorry for your loss" at a funeral. You want to say something to express your sympathy and emotional distress over what has happened, while at the same time showing some measure of compassion for the survivors. So we've reduced it to the phrase "thoughts and prayers" (I think the "thoughts" part is simply added in so as not to offend those who might not believe in "prayers.")
Yet what else can most of us do in the face of horror, tragedy, and pure evil?
If you believe there is a God, and you believe that God is in control, then you pray.
If you don't believe in God, then you rely on your own strength, or the collective strength and ideas of those around you, to try to figure out what can be done to stop (or at least reduce the chance) this from happening again.
Those people might even say, "Yes, pray!" but that along with prayers we need more and tougher laws - as if laws ever really stopped evil. Heck, even those of us who believe in God recognize that despite the fact that Moses received the Ten Commandments straight from God, and a whole book of laws was written with some pretty horrible punishments for those who violated those laws, those laws were probably being broken before the next morning's camp fires were put out to start the days' march.
So what do we do in the face of such evil?
Those of us who believe, turn to God.
Those who don't believe point to horrible evil like the shooting in a church in Texas and say, "See? Prayer doesn't work. There is no God to protect the innocent."
But those people don't understand how prayer works. Heck, I'm a Christian who has read the Bible and attempted to follow the teachings of God my whole life, and I can't say I fully understand how prayer works. I mean, if God is unchangeable, how can prayer change things? Yet we're commanded to pray, and told to ask for things that defy the logic of whatever situation we're concerned about. We're told that somehow, someway, our actions and our faith here on earth affect things in Heaven. Even Jesus, at one point, said he was limited in his earthly ministry by a lack of faith (Mark 6:5 - "because of their unbelief, he couldn't do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them...")
Prayer is not a magic phrase that gives us what we desire and protects us from all harm. I can pray for things that are, ultimately, bad for me or my community and God in His wisdom won't grant my request. I can pray for things that are outside the will of God and God is under no obligation to even consider my prayer, as heartfelt as it might be. I can pray for what seems perfectly right and reasonable for my own situation, but I don't have knowledge of the bigger picture (think of the first chapter of the story of Job).
My prayer is to be aligned with God's will. Can I change God's will? There is certainly evidence in the Bible that suggest when people pray, God can decide to not do something He was thinking of doing, or put off doing something to give the people time to repent and get it right.
At the very least, my faith commands that I pick up my figurative cross and keep moving forward, and prayer is a way to both focus on God in the midst of everything that happens and, yes, to ask for supernatural courage and strength and wisdom to do the right thing when it seems impossible.
And the crazy thing is, sometimes we see the impossible accomplished, we see logic defied.
Other times the outcome doesn't change to reflect the way we wanted it to be, but we come to accept it because we do believe in a sovereign God who has the whole world in His hands, whose Will will be accomplished, and we believe that His Will is perfect, beyond our understanding. We've seen over and over that horror quite often gives way to salvation, that suffering has led to improving the lives of thousands, if not millions. As the Bible says in Genesis 50:20, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
The simple truth is that neither those of us who pray and those of us who demand more laws really have a human answer for stopping evil. It has existed since just after the world began. For all of our knowledge and advancements and enlightenment, we still haven't figured out how to stop famous actors from sexually assaulting young men, or teachers from taking advantage of students, or angry people from killing those who make them angry, or dictators from eliminating millions who oppose them, or people engaging in activities associated with expressions of love that result in disease and death, or someone from simply walking into a Dollar General and taking something without paying for just to see if they can, or ... you can fill in the seemingly endless blanks of evil actions, big and small, that we witness every day.
More and more, I realize that while not everyone believes in God, if we lived the way we're told to live in the Bible - care for one another, encourage the timid and weak, be careful how we eat, work, have sex with only one person for your entire life, care for the environment, don't tell lies, don't build monuments to people or things that are man-made, be content - we could eliminate almost all the problems and many of the diseases that have the potential to make our lives so tragic. It really does sound like the way man was meant to live.
Of course, we don't do those things because we want what we want and believe its "not fair" that I should deny myself those things I desire.
Teaching people "right" and "wrong" and writing laws to prohibit behavior we find unacceptable, while at the same time encouraging people to "be who you are" and "do what you want" and to not let society define you, is a contradiction. It just doesn't work. How can society tell you to "be who you are" and then turn around and condemn you and demand you change because it now deems your behavior to be offensive? I'm not saying we shouldn't teach and talk and write laws and hold people to standards, but its clear that those actions are basically bandaids on a bigger problem.
Then you get into prayer. God changes lives by changing hearts. I've seen it. I've witnessed it. I've experienced it. And you can explain it however you want, but those explanations are usually after the fact. To the person who has been changed, they know - they know - something miraculous took place, something unexplainable, something beyond the norm.
So in the face of evil like we're witnessing every day - we pray. We pray for forgiveness, for humility, for love, and for change; real change that must start with me, but powered by God's grace and mercy and power and love because, quite frankly, it's hard for me to change. Sometimes it's hard for me to fully understand why I even need to change.
So we pray for wisdom, and guidance, and courage.
How else can we know what action we are called to take?
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Little things might keep you from a big fail
There is an old saying that has been attributed to any number of coaches and athletes, and quite frankly I'm not sure who said it first.
It goes, "Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect."
The internet credits former NFL coach Vince Lombardi with that statement, which could be correct. Because what good is practice if you aren't practicing the right things? What good is learning to defend an option team if the team you're facing is a four wide-receiver, empty backfield passing team? What good is it to practice to beat a zone defense if all you're going to face is man-to-man?
What good is it to practice the piano if you're getting ready to be tested on car repair? Or to become perfect at changing light bulbs when its' the toilet that needs fixing?
In other words, Practice makes perfect - but what you practice needs to be perfect as well, because we're very good at practicing things that ultimately don't matter, since practicing the things that make us better is usually more difficult.
Then there is the rejoinder that goes, "Practice makes perfect. Nobody is perfect. So why practice?" I'm not sure who said that, but it could have been the legendary NBA star Allen Iverson, in an epic rant that went like this:
"Now I know that I'm supposed to lead by example and all that but I'm not shoving that aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man. We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice. When you come to the arena, and you see me play - you've seen me play right, you've seen me give everything I've got? - but we're talking about practice right now. ... Hey I hear you, it's funny to me too, hey it's strange to me too but we're talking about practice man, we're not even talking about the game, when it actually matters, we're talking about practice ... How the hell can I make my teammates better by practicing?"
Iverson has nothing to do with the topic I want to address. But sometimes I get caught up in stream of consciousness.
The point is, you've heard all those phrases: practice makes perfect. It's the little things that matter most. It's what you do when no one is looking that defines who you really are.
Sure, it's what I like to refer to as "wall poster philosophy,'' but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
As a kid, I had one of those old "Bible Story Books,'' that I used to read religiously ("religiously" - get it?). There were several stories that I loved more than the others: Samson, David, Solomon, and the one about Elijah backing down the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel.
And if you were looking for a sports blog, I'm going to disappoint you.
The part about Solomon I was fascinated by was when God offered Solomon anything in the world, and Solomon asked for wisdom. That really stuck with me over the years, and I have regularly prayed for wisdom - for me, for my wife, for my children. I'm not saying I'm particularly wise, but I hate to think how much more stupid I might be if I hadn't prayed for wisdom all those years.
But there are two aspects of the stories of both Solomon and Samson that apply to the "practice makes perfect" or "it's the little things that matter most" quotes.
Both were given three very specific guidelines to follow, in return for which God promised favor.
Both violated all three, at different times, and found their lives taking a very disappointing turn.
For Solomon, it was what I call "big picture" stuff. He was told, quite simply, that as king he "must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.(Dueteronomy 17:16,17). You've probably heard sermons on this, how horses, wives, and wealth equate to the three "P's": power, pleasure, and possessions.
And we know what Solomon, credited with being the wisest man who ever lived, did.
He collected horses: "Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem." 2 Chronicles 1:14 - and other references).
He collected wives: "And he (Solomon) had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart." 1 Kings 11:3
He collected possessions: "Each year Solomon received about 25 tons of gold." 2 Chronicles 9:13.
And the end result, as it says in I Kings, "his wives turned away his heart." I don't blame it all on his wives; his power and possessions had something to do with Solomon ending his life sounding bitter and disappointed.
"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Ecclesiastes 1:2 ... "Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Ecclesiastes 2:17
Samson's life is far simpler. He was, after all, more muscle than brain. He wasn't a leader, he was a fighter. He was apparently the only child of doting parents who were older and saw Samson as an answer to prayer; Judges 13 says a messenger from God visited Samson's parents and said, "You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
What did it mean to be a Nazirite? According to Numbers 6: "They must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. 4 As long as they remain under their Nazirite vow, they must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins. During the entire period of their Nazirite vow, no razor may be used on their head. They must be holy until the period of their dedication to the Lord is over; they must let their hair grow long. Throughout the period of their dedication to the Lord, the Nazirite must not go near a dead body. ..."
But before you know it, young Samson gets smitten by a woman who is not of his faith and insists his parents arrange his marriage. On his way to see her, Samson takes a shortcut through a vineyard (which is where wine and vinegar comes from; some traditions say a Nazirite was not to even touch grapes or raisins). He is attacked by a lion, which he kills, and on his return trip through the same vineyard he goes to mess with the dead body of the lion, reaches inside to get some honey and eats - apparently taking very lightly the command not to go near a dead body and certainly eats something that would be considered unclean. So is it any wonder that, eventually, he gives up the secret of his hair and allows Delilah to cut it all off, completing his disregard for his vows?
Little things. A short cut through a vineyard; eating honey that happens to be caught in the carcass of a dead animal; revealing the secret of his strength to a woman who has already tried to trap him before. A king who accumulates horses, possibly even horses that were gifts; a king who accumulates wives, possibly even when those wives were just about political alliances and a way to show respect for his peers; a king who accumulates wealth, even when he may not have asked for that wealth but it was offered as tribute, recognition for his great wisdom and power.
I can make excuses for all of both Samson and Solomon's errors in judgment.
But how much better would it have been for both men if, when faced with their biggest challenges, they'd laid the foundation of practicing the little things all along? Would it have been that much further for Samson to go around the vineyard (and avoid the attack by the lion)? For Solomon to say, "Thank you for your offer of a horse, woman, or gold, but I have all I need?"
I can look at my own life and see all kinds of compromises I have made, excuses for actions that I knew weren't exactly right, but not really wrong. And yet because I was willing to compromise in the so-called little things, it made it that much easier for the compromises to get bigger and bigger as time - and life - went on.
Of course, the world would have us believe it's no big deal. The world would have us believe sometimes its OK to lie - until, as a recent scandal proved, a whole bunch of men get exposed for joining a website that suggested it was OK to have an affair.
Isaiah 30 says, "this is a rebel generation, a people who lie, a people unwilling to listen to anything God tells them. They tell their spiritual leaders, “Don’t bother us with irrelevancies.” They tell their preachers, “Don’t waste our time on impracticalities. Tell us what makes us feel better. Don’t bore us with obsolete religion. That stuff means nothing to us ..." (from The Message).
The end of Romans 1 warns, "Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (italics added by me).
Too many people don't want to hear the truth. Many of them not only don't want to hear the truth, they want to celebrate and approve those who tell the best lies, who live without an restraint.
But I think most of us, deep down, know there is truth, and that continually seeking out our own pleasure leads to an inability to find happiness, because it takes more and more to achieve that increasingly fleeting sense of satisfaction.
It's almost a cliche, but so many people end up like Solomon, who at the end of his life wrote, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
So let's try to "keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps His word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25).
It may seem like a little thing, in the big scheme of life.
But sometimes the little things are the hardest to do consistently, because its so easy to start taking them for granted. "Of course I won't do that,'' we say. "I've got that one; I'm going to go work on the big things."
Oswald Chambers said, "An unguarded strength is a double weakness."
Never take a strength for granted. Never fail to work on the little things.
It just might keep you from a big fail.
It goes, "Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect."
The internet credits former NFL coach Vince Lombardi with that statement, which could be correct. Because what good is practice if you aren't practicing the right things? What good is learning to defend an option team if the team you're facing is a four wide-receiver, empty backfield passing team? What good is it to practice to beat a zone defense if all you're going to face is man-to-man?
What good is it to practice the piano if you're getting ready to be tested on car repair? Or to become perfect at changing light bulbs when its' the toilet that needs fixing?
In other words, Practice makes perfect - but what you practice needs to be perfect as well, because we're very good at practicing things that ultimately don't matter, since practicing the things that make us better is usually more difficult.
Then there is the rejoinder that goes, "Practice makes perfect. Nobody is perfect. So why practice?" I'm not sure who said that, but it could have been the legendary NBA star Allen Iverson, in an epic rant that went like this:
"Now I know that I'm supposed to lead by example and all that but I'm not shoving that aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man. We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice. When you come to the arena, and you see me play - you've seen me play right, you've seen me give everything I've got? - but we're talking about practice right now. ... Hey I hear you, it's funny to me too, hey it's strange to me too but we're talking about practice man, we're not even talking about the game, when it actually matters, we're talking about practice ... How the hell can I make my teammates better by practicing?"
Iverson has nothing to do with the topic I want to address. But sometimes I get caught up in stream of consciousness.
The point is, you've heard all those phrases: practice makes perfect. It's the little things that matter most. It's what you do when no one is looking that defines who you really are.
Sure, it's what I like to refer to as "wall poster philosophy,'' but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
As a kid, I had one of those old "Bible Story Books,'' that I used to read religiously ("religiously" - get it?). There were several stories that I loved more than the others: Samson, David, Solomon, and the one about Elijah backing down the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel.
And if you were looking for a sports blog, I'm going to disappoint you.
The part about Solomon I was fascinated by was when God offered Solomon anything in the world, and Solomon asked for wisdom. That really stuck with me over the years, and I have regularly prayed for wisdom - for me, for my wife, for my children. I'm not saying I'm particularly wise, but I hate to think how much more stupid I might be if I hadn't prayed for wisdom all those years.
But there are two aspects of the stories of both Solomon and Samson that apply to the "practice makes perfect" or "it's the little things that matter most" quotes.
Both were given three very specific guidelines to follow, in return for which God promised favor.
Both violated all three, at different times, and found their lives taking a very disappointing turn.
For Solomon, it was what I call "big picture" stuff. He was told, quite simply, that as king he "must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.(Dueteronomy 17:16,17). You've probably heard sermons on this, how horses, wives, and wealth equate to the three "P's": power, pleasure, and possessions.
And we know what Solomon, credited with being the wisest man who ever lived, did.
He collected horses: "Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem." 2 Chronicles 1:14 - and other references).
He collected wives: "And he (Solomon) had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart." 1 Kings 11:3
He collected possessions: "Each year Solomon received about 25 tons of gold." 2 Chronicles 9:13.
And the end result, as it says in I Kings, "his wives turned away his heart." I don't blame it all on his wives; his power and possessions had something to do with Solomon ending his life sounding bitter and disappointed.
"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Ecclesiastes 1:2 ... "Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Ecclesiastes 2:17
Samson's life is far simpler. He was, after all, more muscle than brain. He wasn't a leader, he was a fighter. He was apparently the only child of doting parents who were older and saw Samson as an answer to prayer; Judges 13 says a messenger from God visited Samson's parents and said, "You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
What did it mean to be a Nazirite? According to Numbers 6: "They must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. 4 As long as they remain under their Nazirite vow, they must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins. During the entire period of their Nazirite vow, no razor may be used on their head. They must be holy until the period of their dedication to the Lord is over; they must let their hair grow long. Throughout the period of their dedication to the Lord, the Nazirite must not go near a dead body. ..."
But before you know it, young Samson gets smitten by a woman who is not of his faith and insists his parents arrange his marriage. On his way to see her, Samson takes a shortcut through a vineyard (which is where wine and vinegar comes from; some traditions say a Nazirite was not to even touch grapes or raisins). He is attacked by a lion, which he kills, and on his return trip through the same vineyard he goes to mess with the dead body of the lion, reaches inside to get some honey and eats - apparently taking very lightly the command not to go near a dead body and certainly eats something that would be considered unclean. So is it any wonder that, eventually, he gives up the secret of his hair and allows Delilah to cut it all off, completing his disregard for his vows?
Little things. A short cut through a vineyard; eating honey that happens to be caught in the carcass of a dead animal; revealing the secret of his strength to a woman who has already tried to trap him before. A king who accumulates horses, possibly even horses that were gifts; a king who accumulates wives, possibly even when those wives were just about political alliances and a way to show respect for his peers; a king who accumulates wealth, even when he may not have asked for that wealth but it was offered as tribute, recognition for his great wisdom and power.
I can make excuses for all of both Samson and Solomon's errors in judgment.
But how much better would it have been for both men if, when faced with their biggest challenges, they'd laid the foundation of practicing the little things all along? Would it have been that much further for Samson to go around the vineyard (and avoid the attack by the lion)? For Solomon to say, "Thank you for your offer of a horse, woman, or gold, but I have all I need?"
I can look at my own life and see all kinds of compromises I have made, excuses for actions that I knew weren't exactly right, but not really wrong. And yet because I was willing to compromise in the so-called little things, it made it that much easier for the compromises to get bigger and bigger as time - and life - went on.
Of course, the world would have us believe it's no big deal. The world would have us believe sometimes its OK to lie - until, as a recent scandal proved, a whole bunch of men get exposed for joining a website that suggested it was OK to have an affair.
Isaiah 30 says, "this is a rebel generation, a people who lie, a people unwilling to listen to anything God tells them. They tell their spiritual leaders, “Don’t bother us with irrelevancies.” They tell their preachers, “Don’t waste our time on impracticalities. Tell us what makes us feel better. Don’t bore us with obsolete religion. That stuff means nothing to us ..." (from The Message).
The end of Romans 1 warns, "Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (italics added by me).
Too many people don't want to hear the truth. Many of them not only don't want to hear the truth, they want to celebrate and approve those who tell the best lies, who live without an restraint.
But I think most of us, deep down, know there is truth, and that continually seeking out our own pleasure leads to an inability to find happiness, because it takes more and more to achieve that increasingly fleeting sense of satisfaction.
It's almost a cliche, but so many people end up like Solomon, who at the end of his life wrote, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
So let's try to "keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps His word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25).
It may seem like a little thing, in the big scheme of life.
But sometimes the little things are the hardest to do consistently, because its so easy to start taking them for granted. "Of course I won't do that,'' we say. "I've got that one; I'm going to go work on the big things."
Oswald Chambers said, "An unguarded strength is a double weakness."
Never take a strength for granted. Never fail to work on the little things.
It just might keep you from a big fail.
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