Dust Covered

So, Bloom Already!

2010-10-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know how it is for you, but for me the lessons I learn are often repeated or confirmed several ways in a short period of time. I'll read something in my Bible, or hear it from a trusted friend, or feel the Spirit is telling me something, and then I'll hear or see something similar soon thereafter.

A week or so ago I was in a class taught by a man I admire for his wisdom and his gentleness. He related some advice he and his wife got from a doctor when they were going through some hard times and were trying to decide whether to leave the church and the fellowship where they were, or to stay and work things out from within. This doctor told them, "Bloom where you are planted." It sounds so simple. In fact, it sounds like a cliché. But remember that a cliché starts as a truth. It only becomes cliché when it is overused. And even then there are times when it is true.

Those simple words meant the world to this man and his wife. That phrase guided them through that part of their lives, and obviously still have an effect on them over 30 years later. And when he spoke those words, they seemed to have special impact for me. Recently some things have popped up which have made me question how I was serving God, my church, and my community. It has been a stressful and somewhat disheartening time for me and for my wife. We've run into some situations that gave us doubts about people we had trusted for a long time. Things were done that should not have been. Other things that should have been done were left undone. It has been a struggle for us to know how to react, what to do, what to say. We even began to consider leaving the church where we have worshipped and served for over 30 years.

So the simple phrase, "Bloom where you are planted" meant a lot to me.

The day after that class, I was talking to a friend who told me he was planning to hire someone to do what I do. In the current job market, I was naturally intrigued by that. This friend's company is booming while many other companies are fading. I feel sure I could get that job and do well in it. Almost immediately after hearing this, though, I also heard a quiet voice inside say, "Bloom where you are planted."

Then came the dream. Now I am not one to attribute great meaning to my dreams. In general, dreams are just random thoughts caused by your brain re-booting. In fact, I am one of those people who seldom remember my dreams. I'm sure that I have dreamed something each night, but I almost never have even the vaguest glimmer of what the dream was about. If I do remember anything it is usually something like, "Let's see. There was a puppy, a big noise, and the smell of cucumbers."

This time I not only knew the basic outline of the dream, but I could remember great numbers of details. In the dream, I went to a specific city (Chicago, for reasons that aren't clear to me) and went through a days-long interview and testing process for a job. At the end of that time, the hiring team came to me and offered me the job for substantially more than I make now (or probably will ever make). In addition, they told me that none of the others were ever really under consideration. They were just there for form. And I turned the job down, not because there was anything bad about it (okay, I really don't have any desire to live in Chicago), but because I wanted to stay where I was. Again, "Bloom where you are planted."

Okay, God. I get the message. But then come the questions. Is this really where I was planted? What does that mean? What part of my life is it about?

I can't tell you that I know the answers to those questions. I can tell you some of the ways I plan to listen for the answers.

I'll read. Both in scripture and in other books by authors whose work I trust. It may not happen to you, but I'm pretty sure God keeps sneaking stuff into my Bible. I'll read a passage for years, and then one day something will jump out at me that I've never noticed before. A similar thing often happens when reading other books, frequently books that aren't on spiritual subjects. Sometimes it's a work of fiction. But some dialogue, some scene, some phrase will hit me with a force that far outweighs simple words. I've learned to listen in those times.

I'll listen to God. I don't expect a big, booming voice speaking to me from the sky, nor do I expect to see a disembodied hand writing on the wall (although that happened once). I'll pray some more, and when I pray I'll try to be open. Just last night I was praying, asking for wisdom to give to some brothers of mine, when I heard, "Let them give to you." That was exactly what I needed at the time.

Which brings up another thing I'll do. I'll listen to Godly brothers and sisters. God puts us into community for a reason. I can't tell you how many times a person I respect and love has shown me something that was clear to them, but not to me. And I've done the same thing for them.

And I'll listen to my heart. I know, I know. "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" That's Jeremiah 17:9. You know what Jeremiah 17:10 says? "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." We've misused that first verse to tell people that they can never trust their hearts. Yet God told us, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26) God gives us desires and puts them into our hearts. Could Mother Theresa have ministered to the poor in India all those years if her heart wasn't in it? Could Paul have endured shipwreck, beatings, hunger, hardship, and pain without his heart? No. Remember that the Pharisees were experts in the law, very good at outward righteousness. But Jesus condemned them because of their hearts.

I don't have all the answers yet. But whatever they are, I'm going to bloom in the best way I know how. I might be a blooming idiot, but that has never stopped me before.

Are you blooming?

Stand by Your . . . Stand

2010-09-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

I hunt deer. To some of you that is akin to confessing that I drink the blood of babies under a full moon. To others, it's more of a "so what" kind of thing. Others think, "Cool. When can I get some venison?"

All of you can keep reading. No deer (or babies) were harmed in the making of this story. It isn't a hunting story. It's more of a pre-hunting preparation story.

As part of my preparation this year, I bought a hunting stand. It's a tripod stand, three long legs leading to a platform with a seat. The legs are braced to each other and one has ladder rungs on it so you can climb to the platform. The whole idea is to get up higher so you can see over brush, short mesquite trees, and folds in the land. The place where I hunt is small, and most of it is covered with heavy oak forest. But there is one place where I can see for 150 yards in a couple of directions, if I can get a little height. Hence the stand. I love it when a plan comes together.

My first check came after I picked the thing up at the local Bass Pro Shop and got it home. It was a heavy, tightly packed box, and when I opened it, it looked like a giant green erector set. Okay. I liked erector sets when I was a kid. I can do this.

Since it was 107 degrees outside that day, and since my mother didn't raise any fools (except maybe my brother), I brought the first parts of the stand inside to assemble them on the living room tile. Of course, I first had to find the parts I wanted, which always seemed to be under the ones I would need later. And naturally, the bolts supplied were of four different sizes, in one bag, most of them only identifiable with a ruler or by comparing them with each other. Did I mention there were about a hundred bolts?

I laid out the first three pieces, the platform out on the floor, and began to attach them to each other. Immediately I ran into trouble. One of the sections was welded badly. Oh, it's strong enough, but there was no way the supplied bolts were going to stretch from there to there. Well, that's no problem for a handy guy like me. I just happened to have a couple of longer bolts in the garage. Back on track.

After several trips back to the truck where I had the rest of the pieces, I managed to get the platform, the seat, and the safety rail assembled. I knew I wouldn't be able to attach the legs, or even assemble them completely, because the whole thing had to be transported in my pickup to the ranch. After I got the legs partly assembled (short enough to fit in the pickup), I was done for the moment. When my son got home I got him to help me carry the assembled platform outside.

Well, almost. You see, no matter which way we turned the thing, there was no way it would fit through the door. From assembly to disassembly in four, or five, or maybe fifteen easy steps. Eventually we got the parts out into the back yard, where my dog was sure to mark them. What the heck, it has to stand up to the weather for years anyway.

The plan was to take the parts to the ranch and put it all up the next weekend. It was even supposed to be a cool day. That, of course, didn't work out because of some family emergency. So it was a not-so-cool Saturday morning when I headed out early to the ranch. Early because it's cooler then. Not cool enough, but every bit helps.

Once at the site it was clear that my original location wouldn't work. It was not level enough in front of the trees to put up the stand, unless I wanted to dig deep holes for two of the three legs. Did I mention that our ranch is mostly rock covered by a thin dusting of soil? That was out.

Still, I found a relatively level spot and began to put the legs together and attach them. It was then that I realized they had not given me even one extra nut or bolt in the package. Did you ever try to find a black 5/16 inch lock nut in high grass?

The instructions also forgot to mention that you really need two grown men and a bull elephant to put the whole thing together. And it's certain that in the process both of the men and perhaps the elephant will be reduced to tears. But maybe elephants are tougher than that. My experience with them is limited.

I'd pick up a leg, balancing it in the middle, and attempt to slide it into a socket that was just a bit larger than the leg itself. Ever try to guide a 15-foot steel leg from seven-and-a-half feet away? Eventually, I would get it inserted, then go to see that the holes didn't quite line up. Okay. Pick up the end of the leg and ever so gently, slide it forward. Set it down and check. Too far. Go back and tug on it. Set it down and check. Too far. Try again. And again.

Then it comes time to insert the braces. Hmmm . . . gravity seems to be working against me. This is where the elephant would have been handy. Brace against the upper leg, strain, groan, guide the brace into place . . . don't let it buckle! Do it again to insert the bolts. Okay, one down, five to go. And of course, they get harder as you go.

Dripping sweat, hands numb, back throbbing, I finally got it all together. Surprisingly, setting it upright wasn't that hard. Take that, elephants! Drive the hold down stakes which, in a brilliant display of poor engineering, are blunt, hollow tubes. Two go in with only mild battering. The third is apparently dead center on a large rock about three inches below the ground. You know what, two are probably enough.

There it is. Sturdy. High. Positioned so I can see a long way. Unfortunately, it's kind of exposed. In the military, they tell you not to silhouette yourself against a skyline. That's exactly what I've done. And my camouflage isn't going to do much against the sky.

I think I'm going to dress like a cloud.

Foretaste of Fall

2010-09-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

We've been dealing with 100+ degree days here in North Texas. We had 17 in a row, then one day when it was only 99 degrees, then another run of 100+ Toward the latter part of that we've been running at 106 – 108. Just brutal. You step outside and you're instantly soaked with sweat, and don't even think about getting into a closed car without letting it air out a bit. And my motorcycle riding has been even more curtailed. When I did ride, the mornings were only uncomfortable. The afternoon ride home was a trial that left me feeling like a half-chewed piece of jerky.

And then came the change. A cold front came through, with the promise of highs in the lower 90s, and morning lows that actually seemed like morning. We even had an overcast day with occasional light sprinkles of rain and a high that didn't get out of the lower 80s.

That afternoon, as I rode through a wooded suburban neighborhood, the smell of fall rolled over me, the smell of cool air on damp leaves. I breathed it in deeply, smiling, and thanking God for the change.

Fall! I love it. It is by far my favorite season. Some in the northern lands may long for spring, may pine for the end of the snow and the first sight of a crocus. But after a long Texas summer of 100+ degree days, 85 degree nights, air conditioners struggling to keep up and all that, I long for fall. Just to have the temps stay below 90 for a few days is a wonderfully luxury, and that smell of damp leaves really brings it home.

Of course, the leaves are not even close to changing color yet. More likely some of the trees were experiencing heat stress. Still, that will come, and if we don't have spectacular New England autumns here, at least we do get to see some color change and smell that blessed fragrance.

I grew up in Wichita, Kansas. While that's not a town known for its vast forests, still we had lots of leaves falling in autumn, and as kids we piled them up and dove into them with abandon. And of course our autumn was much earlier there than it is here in Cowtown.

Fall has other pleasant memories for me. For most of my life it has been the season of hunting. We start with the doves, when it's really not fall yet, and progress on to waterfowl, quail, pheasant, and deer. Great times sitting around a fire talking about whatever, sitting still in the dawn as the world wakes up around me, watching squirrels chase one another, hearing coyotes yodeling in the near distance, seeing the clueless armadillos puttering along and digging for grubs. Wood ducks swooshing overhead with a sound like swooping jet planes, crows calling, dogs barking in the distance . . .

The sights, sounds, and smells of fall are my favorites. So come to us quickly, fall. We're waiting.

I Saw Church

2010-07-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

It has been five years since I wrote this, five years since the events that precipitated it. The anniversary brought it back to me, and I thought it was worth sharing.
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Yesterday I saw church. Not a church. Certainly not what most people think of as a church, a building with a steeple. Not even the worship gathering that Christians commonly think of as “church”. No, I saw THE church. In action.

The location was unusual. It was in the lobby of a hospital. We tend in this nation to forget that the vast majority of our hospitals were built and funded by churches. But that fact made the location oddly appropriate. Jesus made it even more appropriate. In the book of Matthew, Jesus said he came to the sick, not the healthy. That’s why we were there – for the sick.

One was physically sick. Badly injured, unable to speak, move, or even breathe for himself, our brother, Daniel Roberts, lay in a bed in ICU, clinging to life. The rest of us were there because we were heart sick. We were heart sick for Daniel, for his parents, Ron and Mary, for his sisters, Domecia, Lydia, Lynae, and Victoria. We were heart sick for ourselves. We were heart sick for each other.

We were there because we are church.

Daniel was injured on Sunday afternoon. He suffered a massive head trauma and apparently had at least one stroke. On Sunday evening, we began to learn of his condition, and the church started to gather. At first it was just a few, a trickle. Then, as word spread, the trickle grew into a rivulet, a stream, a flood. Twice, as the response grew, the hospital staff moved the group to larger areas. And still it grew. It became much more than a gathering. It became a vigil.

It became church.

Some brought food. Some brought blankets and pillows and sleeping bags. Some brought gifts and books and games. All brought love, and prayers, and hope. Here is a group of pre-teen girls gathered around young Victoria Roberts, offering comfort as friends, peers, sisters. Here is a gathering of Daniel’s friends, sharing remembrances and stories from his life, from his recent mission trip to Valles, Mexico. There are some men and women with kids of their own Daniel’s age, praying together for healing, for life, for peace, for understanding. Everywhere are hugs, encouragement, reports of Daniel’s condition, comfort, tears, even laughter. For Daniel loves laughter, and generates it wherever he goes.

As the doctors work over Daniel, reports come in. There is hope! He is responding a little, and breathing on his own occasionally. Thanksgiving, joy, praise, all ring out in the lobby. Those passing by stare at the crowd. Some smile and nod. Some frown. Some are puzzled. People come in and receive all the latest updates. People leave to return to jobs and homes, to get a little rest or take care of a little business. But most return. The composition of the group changes, but still it grows. Lydia and Lynae Roberts arrive from Ruidoso, where they have been on their mission trip. They are welcomed with hugs and tears, and go to see their brother.

On Monday evening, Ron and Mary Roberts come downstairs and motion for everyone to gather around them. The news is grim. Tests say that Daniel is no longer getting blood flow to his brain. Another test will be done in a couple of hours to confirm.

His voice breaking, Ron says, “We couldn’t have done this without you. We’re going to donate Daniel’s organs. Daniel has a new body now.”

“We’re going to throw one great party,” says Mary. Then, “We would like you to go up in twos to say goodbye to our boy.”

Tears flowed anew as the church gathered around Ron and Mary. In truth they dealt out as much comfort as they received. The two young men who were with Daniel when he was injured cried out, sobbing. Mary Roberts went and spoke to each of them, offering her love, her comfort. All around the room were those comforting and receiving comfort.

Some felt the battle had not yet been lost and encouraged us to further prayer on Daniel’s behalf. Regardless of our feelings, we all clung together and prayed. We prayed for healing. For comfort. For peace. For God’s will. Soon voices began to lift quiet songs of praise. Song followed on song, scripture on scripture, prayer on prayer. People lined up to go upstairs and spend a few moments with Daniel. As they came back down, those waiting held them and loved them.

Monday night Daniel leapt into the arms of Jesus. He got a new body and a crown. He left behind many people who love him still. We miss his smile, his easy laugh, his quirky humor. The tears we cry are for ourselves, for each other, for his family. They’re real tears nonetheless. But Daniel cries no more. He looks down on us and smiles.

For he sees church.

Prayer for Michigan Senate

2010-06-16T11:55:00.001-07:00

This is the prayer that was offered for the opening session of the Michigan Senate June 15, 2010. It was delivered by Patrick Mead, the preaching minister at Rochester Church of Christ, a very dynamic church in the suburban Detroit area. This is a prayer that all legislative bodies should hear and heed.

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, we approach you this day and ask you for guidance. We remember that you promised to give your servant, Solomon, anything he asked for and he earned your approval by asking not for riches or power or fame but for wisdom.

Father, we ask you for wisdom for our State has entered troubling times. Good, decent, hard working people have found themselves out of a job and unable to find another one. People are losing their homes. Pensions have evaporated and a spirit of fear has entered our hearts. Our prayer is that You will guide the decisions made in this chamber in such a way as to bring peace, freedom, and security to our families and our State.

Father, turn our hearts from the petty and mundane to matters profound and wise. Let us not look first to our own careers and our own position but, rather, let us examine the matters placed before us to see what is right, what is good, what is decent, what is honest, and what is honorable. And when we find what is honorable, help us to have the courage to choose that path regardless of any pressures placed on us by our own weak hearts or by the machinations of others.

We are mindful of the fact that we are all here today because of the blood of others. Others wore the uniform of this nation and gave up families, homes, loved ones, safety, career, and riches in order to serve a higher calling. We honor them and we thank you for them, Father. Help us to never forget that their tribe continues to this day. To this day, good and faithful men and women are in the field, under fire, under harsh conditions, serving people they will never meet. Bless them. Protect them. Bring them home soon in victory and honor. Bring them home soon whole and healthy.

Let those in this chamber never forget the sacrifices that have allowed them to be here. I pray that they will never use the people they serve in a dishonorable way. Never let them climb for position on the backs of those they are supposed to serve. Never let them gain power and influence by using the money and labor of others for their own purposes. Let them treat the people they serve, their labor, and their hard earned money and goods as sacred things; a sacred trust to be treated gently and with much care and prayer.

Let us see their faces. Let us feel their beating hearts. Let us feel the sweat on their faces. And let us deal with them and with our state in a way that allows us to stand before you one day without fear, certain that we have loved the least among us, that we have served all with pure motives, and that our hearts are pure before you. Bless this house and bless the State of Michigan, we pray.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

If you would like to hear more of Patrick Mead's teaching, you can find the Rochester Church website here.

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters

2010-06-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

I have not posted anything here for a long time, and I thought it would be good to get back into form with a book review.

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters
by Meg Meeker, M.D.

I am always looking for something to help me be a better father to my three kids. There are lots of good books out there, and lots that aren't so good. However, it seems as if I have found more books about raising sons than I have about raising daughters. Partly, I think this is because of a recognized need in our culture. Boys in our culture are caught in a trap. There has been little to help them understand what manhood is, and even less to help them attain that. So there have been some great books written to address that need. On the other hand, because I work in a men's ministry, I see the results of this lack of training, upbringing and focus for boys.

But I recently realized that my daughter was nearly grown, and while I have put a lot of effort into helping her grow, I needed to do more. So I began to search for information. Dr. Meeker's book came to the top of the stack, and I'm glad it did.

Dr. Meeker is a pediatrician, and has seen thousands of girls from birth to late teens in her practice. She has an extensive background of doctor-patient experience to draw upon, and she has a secret for you. You, Dad, are the most important person in your daughter's life.

Our daughters are literally assaulted by a society that tells them they can never be thin enough, popular enough, or well-dressed enough. From the time they can walk they are supposed to be sexy. From the time they start school, they are told they must please boys, must measure themselves against sex-pot actresses and singers, must live up to the world's standard of beauty or they aren't worth anything. They are assaulted daily, and their chief defense against that is how their fathers see them, speak to them, teach them, and treat them.

Dr. Meeker pulls no punches. She tells stories of girls whose fathers have crippled them emotionally, and who seek affirmation in hook-up sex, drugs, and alcohol. She also tells stories of girls whose fathers have armored them against such things by their own love. Some have gone to the wall for their daughters, and their daughters thrive because of it. She tells stories of fathers who didn't do everything right, but when the crisis came, they stood up for their daughters and drew them back from the brink of death. There are stories here to make you weep and stories to make you cheer. And they are all true.

In addition, Dr. Meeker sets forth statistics and studies that show how important fathers are to their daughters, and just the kind of stresses and pain our daughters face. There are many facts and stories here about eating disorders, which are literally causing our daughters to waste away before our eyes. Naturally, as a pediatrician, Meeker has seen many such cases. She also has treated many teen girls for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and she give absolutely frightening statistics about our daughters (and our sons, but the daughters are the focus here).

Depression ranks as one of the major health issues for teen girls, and Dr. Meeker has seen and treated much of it. She says that she has come to view depression in girls as another STD, because it is always linked to sexual activity.

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters is not just a listing of the woes and troubles that face our daughters, though. Meeker details positive, active ways you can strengthen your daughters, lift them up, and ensure that they succeed in life, in love, and in spirit. While Meeker is obviously Christian and writes from that viewpoint, this isn't a preachy book. She does stress the need for faith in your life and your daughter's, but she doesn’t specify any specific faith. She sees faith as one of the major factors in your daughter's health. As such, those who don't want to read a "Christian" book on raising their daughters will find this book eminently readable and applicable to their lives.

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. Get it, read it, use it. Your daughters will thank you.

The Gospel According to Puddleglum

2010-03-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me well, knows I am a reader. That's a bit like saying Michael Jordan could play a little basketball, or Imelda Marcos liked to shop for shoes. I read pretty much constantly. My wife is the same way, and our kids have inherited the disease to varying extents. We live in a library that grows like a jungle, slowly enveloping all the horizontal surfaces in our home. Every once in a while we chop it back, but I think the jungle is winning.

More specifically, I love to read stories. I'm not immune to the virtues of good non-fiction, and I always try to keep a non-fiction book going. But fiction really speaks to me. In fact, I am convinced that the Holy Spirit speaks to me through the stories I read. Not all of them, certainly, but many, many times I have learned Biblical truths when reading a fictional story. I can remember one such incident several years ago when I was reading one of the books in Stephen Lawhead's Arthurian cycle. There was an incident in the book of demon possession and spiritual warfare that was more real to me than anything I had ever read in another book or seen in any film. It struck something deep within me, and gave me a fuller appreciation of spiritual warfare than I ever had before. Suddenly it was undeniably real.

That happened again, recently, although not in quite so dramatic a fashion. Considering what I was reading, it really shouldn't have been that surprising. I was reading C. S. Lewis's The Silver Chair, part of The Chronicles of Narnia. Those books were an attempt to put the truths of the gospel into a children's fantasy setting, and Lewis succeeded admirably, in my opinion. They are very approachable books for children, yet continue to delight adults (such as myself). In addition, they do present God's truths in a novel way.

The Silver Chair is the story of Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole, two children from our world, who travel with Puddleglum, a Narnian Marsh Wiggle, on a quest to find and rescue Prince Rillian. Puddleglum, for me, is the most memorable character, and the hero of the story. He is a dour, pessimistic grumbler who sticks tirelessly to his duty, and manages somehow to find good in every bad situation, all the while supposing that things will get much, much worse. When it rains, Puddleglum is certain it will soon turn to sleet, but thinks how much more grateful they'll be then for the rain. He muses that the wood will probably be too wet to make a fire, and is pleasantly surprised when it burns quite well. To Puddleglum, no silver lining is without its dark cloud. The children call him a "wet blanket", and they wish he'd stop grumbling and looking for the worst all the time. In the end, they come to realize that he really is a happy person, and one of the bravest they have ever met.

But what really struck me from the story was how God uses the good and the bad to make things work out. Aslan, the great lion who is a stand-in for Jesus in The Chronicles of Narnia, gives the children four signs that will help them on their mission to rescue Rillian. The first is that Eustace will meet an old friend in Narnia, and must speak to him to get help. They muff that one almost immediately, and they must go forward in secrecy and without help they would otherwise have had. Consequently, as they set out on their difficult journey, they devote themselves to remembering and repeating the signs nightly.

But as their journey becomes long and difficult, they cease remembering the signs, caught up as they are in fighting the elements and their own weariness. At one point Jill says, "Oh, bother the signs!" In that moment she is more interested in finding warmth and comfort than in remembering the purpose for which they have come. Consequently they miss the ancient city of the giants, though they are actually struggling through its ruins at the time. That, in turn, causes them to miss the third sign, and after that they find themselves in a very tight place, indeed, where they must struggle for their own survival, not just to complete their quest.

And yet . . . in spite of missing the first three of the four signs, they find a way to get back on track, and move toward the goal. It is hard, and dangerous, and looks as if they will fail and likely die in the attempt. But their way becomes clear.

Then it struck me. How like us, and how like God! God put Adam and Eve in the Garden, and told them to guard it. But it’s not long before Adam and Eve are in a relationship with the serpent, close enough that he is able to convince them God is holding out on them. And so enters death. The first sign muffed. But even before he drives them from the Garden, God announces the way things will be made right, through the sacrifice of his own son, indeed of himself.

And we continue that pattern today. Who of us could honestly say we have done everything right, and have always chosen God over ourselves, over our own pleasure, over our fears? Not a one. And yet . . . in spite of muffing sign after sign after sign, he still makes a way. We get another chance to get back on track, to continue on the quest, to do the right thing.

And then, in The Silver Chair, Puddleglum and the children hear the last sign. The madman is tied into the Silver Chair, where he comes to his senses and begs them to free him in the name of Aslan. All prudence, all good sense, all care for their own safety tell them to ignore his pleas. But Puddleglum says it best:

“But then, supposing this was the real Sign? . . . They had muffed three already; they daren’t muff the fourth. “Oh, if only we knew!” said Jill. “I think we do know,” said Puddleglum. “Do you mean you think everything will come right if we do untie him?” said Scrubb. “I don’t know about that,” said Puddleglum. “You see, Aslan didn’t tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he’s up, I shouldn’t wonder. But that doesn’t let us off following the Sign.”

Here Puddleglum shows us our only course. We cannot change the past. We cannot make a future where our sins did not happen. We’ve muffed a lot of signs. But when God makes a new way, when we see the next sign, when we come to the next choice, nothing must stop us from choosing right.

There is such freedom in that! No matter what kind of mess I’ve made of my life, I can still choose right. I can still declare my allegiance. I can still fight on God’s side. It’s not up to me to determine what the cost will be. It is only up to me to obey.

That’s good news, the Gospel according to Puddleglum. Thanks, Puddleglum. And thank you, God, for giving us stories that point us back to you. Wherever they may be found.

And if Not . . .

2010-03-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

A friend posted a blog recently that I really got a lot out of and agreed with. Except for one thing. He's younger than I am (isn't everyone?), and he posted on Matthew 7:1 ("Do not judge, or you, too will be judged.") He repeated the idea that this was now the best-known Bible verse among college students, whereas 20 or 30 years ago it would have been John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.")

I believe that is correct. John 3:16 used to be the best known verse, and now Matthew 7:1 is better known. Where I had to differ with my friend was the reason he gave for that. His thought was that his generation had seen so much religious intolerance, from the 9/11 terrorism, to crazy street preachers calling out against things they didn’t like and putting Jesus' name on it.

Hey, there is a ton of religious intolerance in the world. And there are lots of folks who have decided that the things they particularly dislike are the things God dislikes, and they love to share their opinions with you as if they are Holy Writ. I'll agree with that.

But it's not new to this generation. It's not even particularly prevalent in this generation, compared with many others. Let's not forget that Islam conquered all of the Middle East, and a good portion of Europe in the name of Jihad. So that's not new. Let's also not forget that the Crusaders killed virtually everyone in the city of Jerusalem—Muslim, Christian, and Jew—in the First Crusade. You can argue that these were actually political wars covered over with religious trappings. I think you'd be right to argue that. But the point is, intolerance, even violent intolerance isn't anything new.

Just about every generation has seen religious intolerance, and a good many of them believed it was worse in their time that in was in times past. The same thing goes for legalism. It has been here since the beginning, and this generation has it easy when it comes to legalism.

So, what explains the popularity of Matthew 7:1 vs. John 3:16 today?

There is likely not any one reason. But I can think of two factors that are a big part of that.

The first is our society's emphasis on personal freedom and expression. Freedom has come to mean freedom to do anything without worrying about consequences or what the neighbors (or God) might think. Tolerance has been held up as the highest virtue, with a definition of tolerance that our forefathers would never have considered. In the past, tolerance has implied that one idea could be superior to another. One tolerates what one does not agree with. Now, it has come to mean celebration of all ideas as equal.

We have made an idol of personal freedom. And it is not the generation that is now in college that has done this. It is my generation and the generation of my father. In some respects it might be viewed as the pendulum swing away from legalism and strict societal controls on behavior. You can make a case for that. But whatever the reason, the current young adult generation did not create it. They are simply having to live with the consequences.

As a bit of a side note, my friend's blog points out that the young adult generation does judge one another. And they do it on a performance criteria, which is the direct opposite of how God sees us. It is a very good post, and you can read it. The direct link isn't working, so you'll have to go to http://stormented.com, click the Archive link, and look for "Do Not Judge."

But the reason Matthew 7:1 is well known is that we have made a society where people do not want to be judged and cannot even bear the thought that someone might think ill of them. That's not really new, either.

As for why John 3:16 got knocked out of the top spot, I think you have to look at how the Bible has been taken out of Western culture. In past generations, the Bible was considered to be a foundational book for education. You found quoted verses in newspapers, magazines, literature, radio, television, theater. It was simply part of our culture. It is only in the past 50 years or so that it has been slowly removed from our culture. I'm not going to go into the why and how of this right now. Chuck Colson, in one of his Breakpoint commentaries gives an example of how ingrained the Bible was in Western culture not so long ago, and how that has changed:

June 1940: Hitler's armies are poised to destroy the cornered British Army, stranded on the beaches at Dunkirk. As the British people anxiously await word of their fate, a three-word message is transmitted from the besieged army: "And if not . . ."

The British public instantly recognizes the message: It's a reference to the biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego standing before King Nebuchadnezzer's fiery furnace. "Our God is able to save us . . . and if not, we will remain faithful to him anyway."
The message galvanized the British people, and thousands crossed the English Channel in small boats to rescue their army.

Fast forward sixty-one years to January 22, 2001: President Bush delivers his Inaugural Address. Afterward, Dick Meyer of CBS News confesses "there were a few phrases in the speech I just didn't get. One was, 'When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.'"

"I hope there's not a quiz," Meyer concludes.

What a difference a generation makes. For centuries, biblical references were the common coinage of Western speech. As Dunkirk demonstrates, people were so steeped in the Scriptures they immediately recognized a cryptic biblical allusion. But today that memory has been erased.

There, in a nutshell, is the reason and the problem. Our nation no longer knows the Bible. Or we choose only to know what helps us feel good about our lifestyles. There truly is "nothing new under the sun." And we "reap what we sow."

Lost, then Found

2010-03-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me even moderately well know I'm a Lost fan. I actually came to the series late, sometime in the second season. But my son had the DVDs of the first season, and we borrowed them from him. We were almost immediately hooked. Side note: The DVDs of past seasons are a great way to watch the show. No week-long (or longer) breaks, no writer's strike, watch at your own pace, go back to see things you missed, etc.

Okay, side note over. Lost is one of the few network television shows my family watches. It actually has good writing, which is something I absolutely demand. It has great characterization, interesting plot and plot twists, cleverness, and a story about people. There are time travel paradoxes, which are like old home week to this long-time science fiction fan. Lost also has some great themes that echo Christianity.

Warning: Spoilers ahead. If you haven't seen Episode 7 of Season 6, Dr. Linus, you are going to see things here you might not want to see yet. You've been warned.

The biggest of those themes are redemption and forgiveness. I am certainly not the first to write about that, and won't be the last. But this whole show could be sub-titled Island of Second Chances. Because everyone there gets a second chance. And a third, and a fourth . . . Locke gets his legs back. Charlie gets to kick his habit. Kate escapes the law. Sawyer goes from con-man to protector, to leader. Even the Others get a second chance. Some make terrible choices with their second chance. Every one of them blows it at least once, even Hurley. But they get to pick up and try again.

Since the time shifts started and we began to see the flash sideways scenes, we've seen even more second chances. And they're wrapped up with redemption and forgiveness. But I was truly struck by redemption and forgiveness in this latest episode. And the best examples are those that take place for Benjamin Linus, the most despicable character in the show.

Ben is Machiavellian to the max. He has lied to and used everyone he met. He even killed his own father (with glee, I might add) when the Others wiped out the Darma Initiative. Most recently, he has killed Jacob at the instigation of the man in black (masquerading as John Locke). He also let the mercenaries kill his own adopted daughter rather than give himself up to them. Ben is rotten to the core. He's the slime that scum wipe off their feet.

But . . . in the flash sideways he becomes another man. He still has that Machiavellian spirit inside him. He uses knowledge of his Principal's indiscretion in a bid to gain the Principal's position. But when it comes to a choice between that and helping his favorite student (who was his daughter in the other timeline), he chooses to help the student. He makes the sacrificial choice. He saves his daughter, at a great cost to himself. Anyone see a Biblical echo in that?

And in the "real" timeline (what is "real" in Lost?), we see an even greater act, one of incredible forgiveness. Ilana, who has come to the island to bring several "candidates" to Jacob, and to protect them, finds out that Ben is the one who killed Jacob, who was the only father she ever had. She is one fierce lady, and bent on revenge. She shackles Ben to a tree and forces him to dig his own grave. When the hole is getting deep, the Man in Black frees Ben and tells him there is a rifle leaning against a tree inside the jungle. As he runs to get it, Ilana gives chase. But he gets there first and forces her to drop her own weapon. Yet he doesn't shoot her. He admits killing Jacob, and doing many of the other heinous things he has done. But he doesn't want to shoot her. He wants only to get away and join the Man in Black on the other island.

"Why?" Ilana asks.

Ben says, "Because he's the only one who will have me!"

After a moment's pause, Ilana says, "I'll have you," then turns, picks up her rifle, and walks back toward the beach.

Ben is absolutely speechless, beyond stunned. (So am I.) We see that perhaps for the first time in his life he has experienced real forgiveness, real acceptance. He simply cannot process it, not yet. He walks back to the beach, sets down the rifle and offers to help Sun fix her shelter.

How many of us have been through that "I'll have you" moment? Certainly all of us who have faced our sin squarely and fallen on the grace of God. You see, redemption is real. Forgiveness is available. New life happens.

John Newton, the ex-slaver said it pretty well in Amazing Grace. "I once was lost, but now I'm found." All it takes is to realize your predicament, lower your weapon, and follow.

Made to Compete

2010-02-23T16:16:00.000-08:00

As I write this, the 2010 Winter Olympics are underway in Vancouver. Top athletes from around the world are sliding, sledding, skating, swooshing, and shooting for the honor of a gold, silver, or bronze medal, and the pride of their nations. People who have never strapped on a pair or skis or seen a bobsled are cheering on their nation's athletes, shouting victoriously when they win, and falling into a funk when they lose. At this point, The USA is ahead in the medal count, followed pretty closely by Germany. This gives great joy to Americans, and spurs Germans on in the race.

We do this every four years (every two years when you realize that the summer Olympics are on an offset schedule). We'll sit up late at night to see the results of the Men's Giant Slalom or the Ice Dancing competition. We talk about it at work. We write e-mails to our friends. We gently (and not-so-gently) tease our friends from other countries. We'll hold Olympics parties, and we'll hold our breaths when an athlete takes a hard fall or crashes in a turn.

Ever wonder why? For that matter, did you ever wonder why grown men (and women) cry when their college football team wins a national championship or the NBA team they love gets knocked out of the playoffs? Sometimes it's not even the local NBA team or the college they attended. Why do NASCAR fans wear their favorite driver's number like a badge of honor? In all likelihood they've never met the guy and they sure have nothing to do with how many races he wins or loses.

I'm not ragging on sports fans here. Far from it. There is something in athletic competition that thrills us, something that drives us to choose sides and defend that choice in the face of all odds. Just a little over a month ago, we saw the New Orleans Saints win their first Super Bowl. Ever. Before this year they had gone 42 years without a playoff win. People who have never even been to Louisiana and couldn't locate New Orleans on a map walk around shouting "Who Dat?" The Saints' rise out of the watery devastation of Katrina inspired a nation. Who can forget that joyous celebration, that picture of Drew Brees holding up his little son, the boy's tender ears protected by headphones?

It's as if we were made to compete, or to take sides. Let me be a little more definite about that. We were made to take sides. It's in our blood, our genes. It's in our souls.

I don't mean that we are all supposed to be athletes, or that those of us who aren't (and believe me, I'm not) are less important than those who are. What I mean is that we were born into a cosmos at war, and from the beginning we were meant to take part in that war.

In Genesis, when God placed Adam and Eve in the garden he told them to "care for the garden." Actually, the word we translate "care for" is the same word that is used later, after the fall, when God set the Cherubim to "guard" the garden, keeping Adam, Eve, and their offspring out. Our original job on this earth was to guard creation. We were put here to be on God's side. We have always been intended to be God's allies in the battle against Satan and those with him, the third of the angels who followed him in rebellion against God.

We came into a world at war, and it is reflected by our love of competition. It's also reflected in the way we admire courage and despise cowardice. Think of it. Cowardice is the one vice that is universally hated. Even those who are cowards (and we all fall into that category at one time or another) hate the idea of cowardice. It's the one sin that doesn't even generate the least bit of pleasure.

But we admire courage, even among our enemies.

We all have a competitive nature. It is stronger in some than in others, and it takes many different forms. But it is something that is within all of us.

Now, it's easy to be over-competitive, or to use our innate competitive drive for the wrong thing. I mean, some people are actually Philadelphia Eagles fans.

Okay, that was a bad example. But we can and do twist our natural competitiveness into evil shapes. Remember that all of the angels were originally created to serve God. Yet a full third of them rebelled. So you have things such as the mayhem of soccer hooligans, and fans at football games throwing batteries at the opposing players, and men who twist their competitiveness into cheating, or bullying, or brutality. There is plenty of that in the world.

But the impulse, the original competitiveness, is a good thing. Without it there would be no striving for excellence, no courage, no sacrifice, no initiative.

So, cheer on your favorite athletes. You're exercising a small portion of your calling. But guard against the darkness that lurks in the shadows. Ask yourself, "Am I building someone up, or tearing someone else down?" The answer will help you (and me) stay on track. Even if you like the Eagles.

Look! There with the baby! It’s Super Mom!

2010-02-07T05:40:00.001-08:00

We have had our new foster baby Ariana for a week now. She’s just 12 days old, and perfect in every way. Except she doesn’t sleep. At all. Okay, that’s wrong. She sleeps a lot, but never more than an hour, maybe two at a time. Those of you who have had newborns know all about that. Cry, eat, poop, sleep for an hour. Repeat until oblivion. It is hard taking care of a newborn.

And my wife hasn’t stopped smiling since this beautiful little girl came into our home. She sleeps, when she sleeps, in a recliner or on the couch. Usually with Ariana in her arms. She changes innumerable diapers, washes and fills formula bottles, keeps Ariana clean and well-dressed, takes her to doctors and the adoption agency, shows her off to everyone she meets, and still has the energy to smile and be the wife to me and mother to Rachel that should make her the envy of the entire world.

She is Super Mom! I am in awe. This is a woman who has raised three of her own children, but still has such a heart for infants that she is willing to sacrifice her time, her energy, her sleep for a new child. And she wants to keep doing this. We had two whole weeks between letting Rodie go to his new family and the call notifying us about Ariana. And Shan absolutely jumped at the chance to care for her. She has been looking forward to this for a long time, and she is giving Ariana the best care that anyone could ever hope for. Rachel is also on cloud nine, and I can see the kind of mother she is going to be one day. It makes me swell with pride. I am just the third string in this game. I love little ones, and I pitch in where I can, which translates to I get to hold Ariana when Shan and Rachel have to do something else.

So, here’s to Super Mom. And to Super Sissy. Children will bless your names for generations to come.

Why Didn't I See That Before?

2010-01-29T06:06:00.000-08:00

I think I've said before that God sneaks things into my Bible all the time. He's really good at it, too (as if God would be bad at anything). What happens is this: I'll be reading a passage I've read a dozen or two times before, or listening to such a passage, and—wham!--something jumps out at me, something I've never before seen or considered. Usually it's a kind of an "Aha!" moment. Sometimes, though, it's a "Duh!" moment.

I know, I know. The words were always there. Right. Got it. It's the understanding of the words that wasn’t there before. But it's usually so obvious that it seems like it's new stuff.

Today it happened again. I was listening to Luke. I have the Gospels on my MP3 player and try to listen to that every day while driving. Not only do I get immersed in the words of Jesus, but I find it helps me drive with more of the spirit of Christ. Which is a good thing for all those people around me. Anyway, there I was, driving along, listening to Luke 16, when I came to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You know the parable. Lazarus died and was with Abraham. Then the rich man died and was in torment. So he calls out to Abraham and asks him to send Lazarus to bring him just a drop of water. Abraham says that is impossible—the rich man had his good things in life, and Lazarus had only bad things. And besides that, a great chasm separated them.

Now, before we go further, we need a little bit about what a parable is. A parable is a teaching designed to make a point. The point is typically made at the end. But the circumstances of the parable aren't necessarily true, in the sense that the rich man was a specific person that Jesus or his listeners knew. He's a character in a story. For that matter, a lot has been written about heaven and hell from this parable. That really doesn't hold a lot of water, it seems to me. Remember, the point is at the end. All the stuff about the rich man, Lazarus, anf the chasm is part of the setup.

Anyway, on to the "Aha" moment. The rich man then asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his house to warn his brothers about what awaits them. We'll pick it up there:

"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

At that point, the thought came to me, "Even if someone rises from the dead. Like Jesus did."

How many times have I read that same parable, and missed that it was talking about the resurrection of Jesus? This may not be as big a revelation to you as it was to me. Maybe you've thought of this before, but I can honestly say I have never heard anyone teach on that parable and bring up that point. It's always about how Lazarus cannot go back and warn the brothers. Or it's about how the rich should treat the poor (it is, but that's an issue that Jesus covered elsewhere, too). Mainly, the takeaways I've heard from this parable are about fire insurance. You know, "Do the right thing so you don't end up in hell."

I am just beginning to see the implications of this new understanding. Here are a couple.

Jesus here proclaims once and for all his endorsement of the Old Testament (Moses and the prophets).

If you can't accept the story of God that is told by Moses and the prophets, you're not going to accept the resurrection.

That last point is huge. We in the church, especially the evangelical church, have focused largely on the New Testament to the neglect of the Old. After all, the New Testament is about Jesus! It's about the church! It's the New Testament.

And without the Old Testament, it doesn't have any foundation. We've been guilty of forgetting that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. That was his culture and the culture of his followers. He kept the law. Perfectly. That meant everything from the sacrifice offered for his birth as a firstborn son, to his circumcision, to celebrating the Passover—all of it. It was his perfect sinlessness that made his death the sacrifice that frees us from sin. Without the law, without Moses and the prophet who foretold him, it would not have been possible.

We've also been guilty of thinking of splitting God into the Old Testament God and the New Testament God. We think of the New Testament as the time when God became a Christian. Or we think of God as the mean old man, and Jesus as the nice young fellow who goes around hugging lambs and makes God be nice to us.

In reality, Jesus was there from the beginning. John makes that clear. And if you read your Old Testament and look, you can find him. He is there as "the commander of the Lord's armies", or as "the angel of the Lord." But that's a tale for another time. This tale is about how God continues to sneak stuff into my Bible.

I think they call that the Holy Spirit. And without that, a Bible is just ink on paper.

And Away We Go Again

2010-01-28T06:55:00.000-08:00

We heard yesterday that we will have another foster child sometime this week—a newborn girl. This is really what we have wanted to do, so we are very thankful to have the chance to foster her. We'll likely have her a month or more.

And who needs sleep, anyway? It's overrated. Right?

Goodbye, Little Buddy Revisited

2010-01-21T12:04:00.000-08:00

A short video of our foster son's time with us.

Goodbye, Little Buddy

2010-01-17T15:59:00.001-08:00

Many times in this world, someone comes into your life for while, and he brightens your world. That has been my story lately. Yesterday we said goodbye to our foster son Rodie. (That's not his real name, but it's what we usually called him.) It was a very bittersweet moment. He really was a bright light to us. Such a beautiful smile, so loving, so needy, and so much fun. He was a handful at times, and almost always demanded a great deal of attention. But that was to be expected. He is, after all, a small child, one who missed out on some of the development he should have had before he came to us.

But he gave us much more than he took. He always ran to greet me when I came in, sometimes with his hands held up, asking to be hugged, sometimes with a toy to show me, but always with a huge grin on his face. He loved to show me his cars, and even learned to share them with me, especially if I was doing something else and wasn’t paying attention to him. He loved to be read to, and I have to say those were some of the sweetest moments. I have re-learned the joys of Green Eggs and Ham, Go, Dog, Go!, and children’s Bible stories as they can only be known through the insistent, repetitive delight of a child. I have memorized most of One Fish, Two Fish and tangled my tongue repeatedly over Fox in Socks. (By the way, I hope you know that Dr. Seuss was a towering genius.)

I’ve changed many diapers, and Shan has changed many, many more. She really bore the burden of caring for Rodie. My daughter Rachel and I have simply been the second string. I’ve spent many meals trying to get Rodie to eat, and telling him over and over to chew and swallow (he has a habit of just holding food in his mouth, probably because he had only soft foods and had never learned to chew before coming to us). I’ve taken the dog food up repeatedly to stop him picking it out of the bowl to dribble on the ground for our smallest dog.

I’ve also laughed and smiled as he threw the ball for the dogs and wrestled joyfully with them, squealing and shouting. I’ve tried my best to puzzle out the things he says, and watched with delight as he learned to speak, going from four words when he came to us, to full sentences when he left. Watching him has been like watching a video on fast forward. He learned so much in his time with us.

One of his favorite games was to stand on the bed and be pushed over backwards. In fact, we could just point at him, and he’d fall over, squealing with delight.

I have also seen him meet and start to fall in love with his adoptive parents. They are marvelous, loving people, who are already making a great home for him. He’ll have a big brother who has been praying for a little brother or sister for a couple of years, and who has been showing off his picture at school.

Yesterday was bittersweet, with the sweet outweighing the bitter. Perhaps that is because we have always known we would only be temporary parents, a waypoint on his journey to a new life. Perhaps it’s because we know that what is ahead of him is love, attention, learning, and joy. It helps that we know we’ll get updates on him periodically.

I think, though, the thing that helps the most is knowing we did good things for him. Having him with us was joyous (and tiring), but knowing we did something for him is the best reward we could have.

After everyone was gone yesterday, we went to see The Blind Side. In case you don’t know, it’s the story of Michael Oher, who was picked up off the street and nurtured by the Tuohy family. Oher was a huge young man with great athletic skills, and has since been selected in the first round of the NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens. It is a marvelous movie, with a great message, but his story of neglect and redemption might not have been the best movie for us to see the same day we turned R over to his new family. I shed tears like a fountain all through the movie. The fact that so, so many children are essentially thrown away really hit home with me.

Then again, maybe it was exactly the right movie to see yesterday.

Every last one of us has the opportunity to help a child. It might be your own child. It might be a foster child, or a kid you coach, or one you never see who benefits from the money you donate. The need is great, but the joy is greater.

May you all have the joy of helping a child.

Virginia (Ginny) Rose Gill Manly

2010-01-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

This is a tribute to a marvelous woman. My aunt Ginny passed away in the early morning hours of Dec. 29th. She had fought a battle with aggressive cancer, and while her body lost the battle, her spirit won. In the months of her illness, she never lost her spirit or her good will.

Ginny was a very special lady. She is more than my aunt. She's in many ways my second mother. She was definitely a mother to my sister. You see, after our parents died, we both went to live with another aunt and uncle. They were wonderful people, but each of us, my sister and I, developed bonds with other relatives. I saw that my uncle David, my father's brother, was so much like my father. I boldly wrote to him and asked if I could live with him. My sister Alison had already fallen in love with Ginny, and she made it known that was who she wanted to live with. We split up to live in different cities, but we both made the right decision.

Later, when I was married, I came to the DFW area largely because Ginny was here. She had that kind of appeal. She was always a grandmother to my children, and we treated each other like mother and son. I'm glad for that.

For her memorial, four of us; Ginny's son Tom, my sister Alison, my cousin Tim, and I, wrote short memories of her. None of us trusted ourselves to read them, but we were able to write and let Rusty Peterman, the attending minister read them for us. I'm reproducing them below. The four different views say things I could not say on my own.

First, from Tom, Ginny's son:
Coming up with something to say about Mom is difficult. I could tell you stories about her taking me to the ER about a dozen times, or about being grounded for attempting stunts that would lead to an ER visit. How she would do ANYTHING to help someone, or how she could read your mind and say just the right thing to make you feel better.

Most of you know this already. You know her because she is an open book. A loving, fun, faithful book. She cares for everyone she meets and you know your important to her by the way she absorbs every word you say, every gesture you make.

She was a great Mom. I always knew where I stood with her. I could rely on her and trust her. She would support me even when she was unhappy with me.

And happy she was. Ever the smile and laugh, she would find humor in anything, even if you didn't yet find it funny. Even when she was hurting from the cancer, she would laugh at my bad puns and jokes. My humor definitely came from her. Though I consider it a blessing from her, some don't quite see it that way for some reason.

She cared for everyone she met. She made you feel important to her with the way she hung on every word you said. Little kids would seek her out because of her smile, laughter and attention. No one ever distrusted her.

In the last days, I've had a lot of time to spend with Jim. He shares a strong love with my Mom. Repeatedly, he said how kind and forgiving she was and how she was always supportive of him. My sympathies pour out to him as I know he is loosing so much.

I grew up going to Church, learning the Bible and singing. I always knew I lived in a faithful home. That foundation is still firmly under my feet. When I strayed, I always knew I could return home to the foundation she built with Gods guidance. She is a true believer, ever faithful, true follower of God. I know she is now with God, but I selfishly wish she could still be healthy and whole with us.

Next, from my sister Alison:
Most of you know that Ginny was my Aunt, the youngest sister of my Father. You also know that my parents were killed in a car accident when I was very young. When Ginny became my guardian, my life changed in many ways. I had to adjust to being in a new family, and in every way she made that adjustment easier for me. She told me many times that I was the daughter she always wished for. It was not long before I called her "Mother" as she was completely in my heart as my mother. Every year on December 5 we would celebrate the day we became mother and daughter. She would tell me "Happy Anniversary" and we would relate little stories to each other about how happy we were to have each other.

No one in the world has been or ever will be just like Mother. She always listened...always cared and even when she did not agree with what I was doing in my life, she was always there for me. She did not judge, but counseled. She was the most faithful person I have ever known, both in her spiritual life and in her faith in the people she loved.

When I was asked to give one word that described her, the very first word that came in to my mind was "Mother." She gave me so much, and I will selfishly miss her terribly. The last thing I told her was "Thank you for being my mother."

Now from her nephew, Tim:
I remember Ginny from my earliest days. She was a teenager when I was born, and she was frequently my babysitter. When I was grade school age, I thought she was the coolest aunt anybody could have. She was hilariously funny, and she drove cool cars - well, except for the red Mercury. That was definitely a mom-mobile.

When I was in college, Ginny and I discovered that we were really kindred spirits. She once told me, "I love your sense of humor. It's just like mine - warped!" It was about that time that the two of us began a long running contest to see who could give the other the meanest - and funniest - birthday cards. I'm not sure who won; it doesn't matter because we both enjoyed the game.

Ginny was the queen of the one-liners - unfortunately, they were often a day late. Once when she was working as a spotter for a bike race at the ranch, a rider broke down right in front of her and yelled, "Hey lady, I've got problems. Can I get a screwdriver?" She later told me, "Just as he got the bike restarted, it occurred to me to answer, 'No - but could I fix you a Bloody Mary' "

Most of all, what I remember Ginny for what happened the day I arrived home from Germany and the Army. She introduced me to a girl in a blue sweater vest. Five months later, I married her. Thanks, Ginny - Jan & I are forever indebted to you.

Finally, my words:
The other day when we talked to Rusty about Ginny’s memorial, he asked us to think of single word descriptions of Ginny. For me, the first word that came to was “laughter.” Ginny was always ready to laugh. For a cut-up and clown like me, that was a very welcome quality. She was quick to laugh at a joke, a story, or herself. I really have a hard time remembering Ginny when she wasn’t smiling. She was always glad to see me, and especially glad to see my children. My kids always called her Nana, at her insistence.

Alison always called her “mother,” for good reason. Truly, Ginny was a mother to me as well, although I never called her that. When Shan and I moved here in 1977, Ginny welcomed us into her home and into her heart. Truthfully, she was a big factor in our decision to move here. We immediately began to come to Richland Hills because she was here. She became a mother to both Shan and myself, and she was definitely a grandmother to our kids.

Ginny was also a kindred soul. Shan and I (and Brian, Duncan, and Rachel) have always been avid readers, or if you prefer, book addicts. Ginny was just as addicted as we were. Shan told me early in our marriage that she knew Ginny was a kindred spirit when she learned that Ginny also read the shampoo bottles and toothpaste tubes in the bathroom. Ginny and Shan even had much the same taste in reading, and passed books back and forth so much at church that I felt like a Bookmobile.

Ginny had a sweet, sweet spirit. She put up with the kids (and me) surprising and scaring her at every opportunity, and even encouraged it. She loved to bring joy to children, and she brought joy to me through my entire life. I suspect at this moment she is laughing with Jesus. In fact, I’m sure of it.

Farewell, Ginny. We miss you, but we will see you again.

It Ain't Over 'til It's Over

2009-12-22T06:08:00.000-08:00

I wrote this a few days ago and have been waiting to post it . . . because there is good news at the end.
_________________________________
A few days ago we were visited by our foster son's adoptive mother. You might recall that I said it was "all but a done deal." No such joy now. Yesterday we got a call from the adoption agency rep. She said, "Brace yourself. You're not going to believe this." The adoption was off. Why was it off? Because the adoptive mother's parents threatened to disown her and her family if she adopted an African-American child.

I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Here was a family who had pursued an international adoption for four or five years. They had a heart for adoption. The mother came and visited with us and absolutely fell in love with R. The children in the family had already made signs to welcome their new brother home. And then the grandparents threatened them because R is black.

I have no criticism for the family who wanted to adopt him. I do not know the dynamics of their extended family. I only know that they are heartbroken. Some might say they should just go ahead with the adoption and let the grandparents disown them. I can't make that call from the information I have. There is too much I don't know. Certainly, the relationship with parents and grandparents is important. And also certainly, the coldness R would feel over the years from those grandparents would be a burden to him, and to the family.

I can only say that it takes a small, crabbed person to despise a child because of the color of his skin.

Think what that means to their grandchildren. "Sorry, kids. But we won't speak to you again if you allow a black child into your family. No, we've never met him. We just don't like the color of his skin." This coercion, this emotional blackmail, will poison that relationship. What a legacy to leave your grandkids.

Nobody with an ounce of humanity could look at R, spend half a day with him, and see him as anything other than a beautiful, loving, bright child who needs only a good home to help him grow into a man. But, of course, they don't want to see him as a child. They don't want to see him at all.

So, now the agency starts over, looking for another permanent family for R. Fortunately, he is too young to know what has been happening. He only knows that he is with people who love him right now. I pray he is much older before he learns how small some people are.

We ask your prayers. Please pray that a family is found soon for him. Pray also for those who thought he was going to be part of their family, and those who have denied him that blessing. And pray for me. I am having a hard time letting go of my anger. And that is not how it should be.

And now for the good news. There is another family who wants to adopt R. They have been waiting over a year for a child, and will be making a trip here the week after Christmas. So the roller coaster clanks its way back to the top of the hill. Pray that this ride ends successfully.

All but a Done Deal

2009-12-15T06:50:00.001-08:00

This weekend we met our foster son’s adoptive mother. I previously said “prospective adoptive mother,” but I don’t think that applies anymore. After just a few hours with R, we knew that this was going to happen.

She came in from the east coast on Sunday, and her first exposure to R was seeing him throw a little fit about having to leave the church nursery, where he was having a lovely time playing in the cars. She also saw how quickly his little meltdowns end, and what a loving, happy child he is. We got to spend some time with her and find out about her family, and everything we learned just made us love her more. There are already two children in their family, and they just have a heart for adoption. She told us they have been trying to adopt a child from China for several years, and she just “happened” to go online and saw R’s profile. She sent in their profile and they were contacted within two days.

God is really taking a hand in this adoption. Right now, the only difficulty is the last of the paperwork. The social worker in their area is leaving for vacation on Friday. If she gets the final home study and paperwork done by then, the new family will come out next week (they have to spend four days here in town), and will take R home with them for Christmas. If not, it will definitely happen after the New Year.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers for us and for R and for his adoptive family. Your prayers have been powerfully effective. It will definitely leave a hole in our hearts to see R go, but we know he is going to his forever family, and that it will be a blessed place for him.

A New Family?

2009-12-09T06:16:00.000-08:00

We were contacted this week by a potential adoptive mother for our foster son, R. They already have two children, a boy and a girl, and have been wanting to adopt for over a year. They are a Christian family on the east coast. Initially they were pursuing an overseas adoption, but have turned their sights to the U.S. now. And the potential mother is coming here this weekend to meet us and R! This is very exciting for us. We're eager for R to get a new start with his permanent family, and everything we've heard so far leads us to believe this is a great one. She is coming in on Sunday. Pray that all goes well.

Another Foster Care Update

2009-12-04T17:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all your prayers. The hearing about relinquishment of parental rights for our foster son, R, went through without a snag. The agency called us the other day and told us they had a potential family on the East coast who had been waiting for a child for about a year. They thought they could get this done in time to have R in his new home by Christmas. That has been our hope and prayer, too. Then, about an hour later, the same agency rep called us again. Apparently, the state case-worker has to do a new home study, and she "will not let her social life be dictated by an adoptive family." She isn't going to do a thing until after Christmas. Wonderful response from someone who is supposed to work for the health and welfare of children, don't you agree?

So . . . we will have R through Christmas. That's no real hardship for us, but it's obviously not the best thing for him. It would have been so good for him to make his Christmas memories with his new family. Keep praying for him. He is making great progress on his speech and social skills. It's as if he has turned a corner in the past two weeks. When he came to us he had about a 5 word vocabulary. Now he uses many words, and is stringing them together into sentences. He loves his little cars, and the other day he asked "Where cars, please?" We were overjoyed! He is also (slowly) learning to share and take turns. It's something he has never had to do before.

On Myth . . . and Jesus

2009-12-04T07:21:00.000-08:00

I am very moved by myth. In our current age, the term is often used in a derogatory fashion. "That's just a myth," is used as an insult, usually against beliefs or ideas that are not ostensibly based in science. This is a commentary more on the thought of our times than on what myth really is. Myth is story that conveys truth. Myths persevere because of the truths they contain.

I have long been convinced that the reason stories speak to us so deeply, the reason myth moves us so much, is that all stories, certainly all myths, are reflections of the Great Story. The stories we love reflect the story of God, of Satan, of man, of the fall, of Jesus. This is not a new idea with me. John Eldredge illuminated this in his book Epic. Others have said it before him. But when you grasp this, it will help you see the Great Story in the small stories of life.

John Mark Reynolds says this very well in a recent essay in Scriptorium:

"Knowing Jesus must have been hard in this way. He was a walking myth . . . all the stories come true . . . once He was, the Lord of time, happy, and forever alive: the factual basis of every fairy tale. It is no wonder that people who knew Him either converted or wanted to kill Him. The symbolism of His every move could have provoked Socratic discourse to discover the deeper meaning. The gospel writer says that the world could not contain the books that could be written about His life and this is not hard to believe in a man who threatened to make every cup He used a Holy Grail."

You can (and should) read the whole thing here.

Seeking Prayers

2009-12-02T06:32:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick update. I ask for your prayers for two things today. First, my aunt Virginia has been hospitalized with a collapsed lung. She is fighting cancer, and this occurred last night. Please pray for her health and for a cessation of pain.

Second, today is the formal hearing for the relinquishment of parental rights for our foster son. Pray that there are no snags, and that the agencies can aggressively pursue an adoptive family for him. We are praying that he is in his new home by Christmas. What better way to start a new life!

Obedience

2009-11-23T01:04:00.000-08:00

If you love me, you will obey what I command.

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
(John 14:15, 21, 23-24, 15:10)

These are the words of Jesus, recorded in the Gospel of John. If you read these words and took them at their face value, you would think that obedience was very, very important to Jesus. And you’d be right.

It’s not just evident in this passage from John. It’s a major theme throughout the Bible. We all know this, at least in some way. Even those who don’t profess to be believers have this idea down. We constantly hear how Christianity is all about rules and following them. That’s by no means the whole story. But when even those outside of our beliefs know this, it ought be a clue to us that obedience is important.

In fact o-b-e-y is how God spells love. At least as far as our love for him.

But this goes so much further than simply obeying the commands of scripture. I do not want to downplay obeying God’s clear commands. Not at all. There’s a reason we are given those commands. To disobey them is to place ourselves in opposition to God, and to mess up our lives. God gave us commandments to help us—sin hurts us, and it keeps us from becoming more like God, which is his ultimate goal for us.

The clear commands of scripture are good, but obeying them should be a no-brainer for the believer. Obedience goes deeper than that. It goes to the level of obeying the Spirit at any moment.

Just this week, I had a chance to exercise this kind of obedience. I was driving home from work one day, when I felt a prompting to call a friend of mine. When the Spirit speaks to me, it is usually in this fashion. It’s not a great, booming voice. It’s a small prompting, or a new thought, usually telling me to do something, perhaps something unexpected, something a bit radical, or something I’d rather not do. This friend of mine has been going through some very tough times lately, and he has been expecting either good or bad news. I was pretty sure that if he had received good news he would have told me. So I never expected this to be the most pleasant of calls. I would either hear that he’d had no news, or bad news. But I have learned that when I hear that still, small voice to obey what it says.

So I called my friend and asked him how he was doing. Immediately I could hear in his voice that things were not good. He had received word just that day of a loss, one that was devastating to him. He hadn’t even yet told his wife.

Now, I wasn’t any great fount of wisdom for my friend. I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t know why he got this bad news and not the good news he was hoping and praying for. All I could do was to tell him I loved him and that I was praying for him. We talked for about 15 minutes, and while I could not change the nature of his news, still he felt better and stronger when we were done. This was none of my doing, but simply the good grace given by a friend who cares, who understands, who shares in struggles.

And I’ll let you in on a little secret: I didn’t want to make that call. As I said earlier, I didn’t expect good news. But I was obedient to what the Spirit told me, and it benefitted not only my friend, but me.

Now, I am no giant when it comes to hearing the Spirit speak. I have been blessed at times with hearing from God’s spirit. It doesn’t happen nearly often enough. And I frequently wonder if I do hear the Spirit at times, and just ignore it as one of the many thoughts that come to me. You may even say that this was merely a thought from my own mind. I won’t argue the point. It’s way too subjective for a good argument anyway. I will say that when I do listen, and when I am obedient, I’ve seen many, many good things come from that obedience. The longer I live, the more convinced I become not in just the reality of the Spirit speaking to us, but that he speaks a lot more than we listen.

How many times have I passed up the opportunity to help someone, to honor God, to lift up my own soul? Far too many to count, I fear. But I know that when I am obedient, when I do show God the love he deserves, I tend to hear the Spirit easier the next time.

Obedience. It’s how God spells love.

Another Short Foster Care Update

2009-11-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all who have been praying for our foster son, R. He is doing very well. We have him in speech, physical, and occupational therapy. I'll bet you didn't know a 2-year-old could have occupational therapy. It's really about his fine motor skills. He really loves his speech therapist, who just happens to be our daughter-in-law. I think my son has a new rival for her affection . . .

R has also discovered that he likes attention very much, and is ready to pitch a fit if things don't go his way. Shan, acting on an idea from the occupational therapist, made him a little mat, which she carries in the diaper bag. Whenever R throws a fit, she gets it out and sits him on it. The consistency of being made to sit on the mat really lets him know he's in unacceptable territory.

His speech is really starting to improve, and he is starting to use sign language as well. That helps him communicate when the words just won't come.

We found out last week that the adoption agency got the official paperwork, and they are looking for a family for him now. We also discovered that there is one promising potential family for him. These folks will be in town over Thanksgiving weekend, and we will hopefully get to take R to meet them.

This whole process has been tiring, especially for Shan, who has R basically 24 hours a day. But she is a warrior and a great mother, and she is doing so much good for him.

We're praying that this will be the right family for him. We'll miss him, but that has been the whole point of fostering him—to give him a new family.

More Than Meets the Eye

2009-11-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

The other day a couple of colleagues and I were talking about health care. It's a big topic these days. As part of the conversation, one of the men said he thought that overweight people just needed to be educated. He pointed to some of his in-laws who worked out at the gym but couldn't lose weight, "because they go home and eat donuts afterward."

Now, this man is a good person, and since this was a business relationship, I merely said that wisdom did not equate to intelligence. But I really wanted to say a lot more. Basically, he was saying that overweight people are either ignorant, stupid, or both. Following his line of reasoning, Nobel Laureates should all be very fit. They're not. Doctors should not ever have weight problems. But they do. And if his premise were true about overweight people, would it not also apply to alcoholics, smokers, drug addicts? Doctors, dentists, and nurses are particularly at risk for drug addiction. Is there any class of people who is more educated about the risks of drug abuse? I wanted to ask if another colleague, a very talented, bright, well-educated man with a severe weight problem were either ignorant or stupid. The obvious answer is "no."

Human behavior is far, far more complex than that. There are as many reasons for unhealthy behavior as there are people. We are all different.

But it is so easy to forget that. Hollywood sure doesn't help. All the successful, smart, happy people are good looking, fit, trim. Those Hollywood wants to make fun of are ugly, fat, stupid, or usually all three. For women it's many times worse than it is for men. The ideal female body image promoted in the media is so thin that only a starveling can qualify—unless of course the females in question have hyper-inflated breasts. We do cut them some slack for that. It has reached the point that even stick-thin models are Photoshopped to make them look thinner.

And we all do the same thing in our personal lives. It is very hard not to judge people based on their appearance. We tend to drop people into convenient categories—successful, old, thin, young, loser, beautiful, ugly, sexy, bald, alcoholic—you get the point. We look at the outside and decide instantly who is interesting, who is not, who is worthy, and who is a waste of time.

James talked about this, in terms of rich and poor, but it applies also to fat and thin, young and old, pretty or plain:

Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
James 2:2-4

James doesn't pull many punches, folks. You can see what he calls this: evil thoughts. Just in case you didn't know, when the Bible calls something evil . . . that's a bad thing.
It is good to be fit. It's good to be free of addictions. It's good to be whole, and healthy, and strong, and emotionally stable. But everyone is coming from a different place. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, differing desires and dreams.

Everyone has a back story. Some stories are horrible. Some seem pretty normal to us. But everyone has some kind of wound, and if we knew the story, knew the wound, we might not be so quick to judge. But whether or not we ever hear the story, we know that there is more there than meets the eye.

Foster Care Update

2009-10-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

We have had our foster son for almost four weeks now. (I'll call him R as I'm not sure I should publish his name.) He has really made a home in our hearts. His speech development is about 12 months behind, but he is rapidly adding vocabulary. When he first came to us, he could care less about books, and we were very surprised at how much he played by himself. Now he brings us books constantly, and he has learned that he really likes attention and demands a lot of it.

Our dogs have taken to him like a duck to water. He loves to throw the ball for them, and they get to clean up the snacks he drops. Murphy, our littlest dog, absolutely dotes on him. He will come and poke us to let us know R is awake from his nap. Murphy is eating better, too. R makes sure the other dogs give him his share.

Last weekend we thought we were going to have to take R back to his mother because of some holdups in the paperwork for his adoption. We weren't happy about that, as the situation described to us was not really the best. I can't in good conscience get into the problems, but there were problems. However, by Sunday things had been straightened out and the paperwork is starting to get done. In a week or two the agency will be able to try to match him up with a family, and he can begin his new life.

That will of course leave a hole in our hearts. We love this little guy immensely. When we thought he was going back into a difficult situation, we grieved. But it will make a lot of difference to know he's going to a good home with people who want him very much. Some family is going to get a great kid.

Since we started this we've had a lot of people tell us how wonderful we are for fostering him and helping him to get a new start on life. That is very nice to hear, but to be truthful we don't feel like we're making any great sacrifice. I certainly don't. My wife is bearing the lion's share of the workload. What I do know is that we are getting a lot of love and satisfaction in return. His smile is worth everything.

And I have memorized Go Dogs Go!

Forgiving

2009-10-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matt. 6:14-15

Just a few simple words. Part of what we usually call The Lord's Prayer, but which probably should be called The Disciples' Prayer. After all, it's how Jesus told us to pray.

Nonetheless, those simple words are perhaps the hardest teaching of the whole Bible. Because if we don't forgive, the Father will not forgive us. Jesus basically told us it is our jobs to forgive. Just go around forgiving 24/7. Because there will never be any shortage of offenses to forgive. Oh, no! We're stuck! We have to forgive. So, let's just do it, right?

Would that it were so easy. Forgiving is hard to do. God has the ability to remember our sins no more, but we're somewhat limited in that capacity. We remember, and the memory rankles, and it builds up into resentment, and before you know it we're harboring un-forgiveness in our hearts . . . even after we've said, "I forgive."

I have some experience with this (he said in an amazing display of understatement). A few years back I went through a process that revealed to me that I had not forgiven something that happened to me a long, long time ago. As in 35 years ago. I'll write here about that sometime. It is a story that still astounds me. I don't want to dwell on those specifics at the moment. I'll just say that the result of my lack of forgiveness was buried anger that bubbled up to the surface in specific situations. And I didn't even know I was harboring those feelings. When they came to light, I was intensely surprised.

Recently, the need for forgiveness has come home to me again. I was hurt by someone's actions, someone I would never have thought would hurt me in that way. Immediately, when I learned what had happened, I knew I needed to forgive. And I told God, "I forgive." But it has still bothered me. Satan keeps bringing it up, and I have to fight my own human tendency to dwell on it and get angry all over again. And frankly this was a minor thing as offenses go. Millions of people go through worse every day. That just goes to prove how difficult forgiveness is.

So, how do we forgive? What is the process?

I'm not sure I know all about this, but I can tell you what isn't part of the process. It doesn't require the other party to ask for our forgiveness. The other party may not even know of the offense. Or if they do, may not consider it an offense, or just don't want to talk about it. Those crucifying Jesus did not ask for forgiveness. He asked the Father to forgive them anyway. If I remember correctly, Jesus is supposed to be our guide in such things.

Neither does forgiveness depend on a feeling of forgiveness. If we wait for that, we may be waiting a long, long time. Meanwhile, the acid of un-forgiveness will be eating away at us, tearing up our lives. I guarantee the resentment and un-forgiveness I held for all those years didn't hurt the other person. That person never even knew what was going on. For that matter, I didn't consciously know what was going on.

No, forgiveness, like love, is a choice. It's a decision to never hold that offense against the other person no matter what. Most times it must include a decision never to speak of the offense. There are exceptions to that. A parent who is hurt by a child may forgive the child, yet still correct the child. Forgiveness is truly offered, but correction must come for the child's own good. We see that also in how God deals with us. He forgives sin, but consequences still come.

In addition, forgiveness must include a decision to continue to forgive. The feeling of forgiveness will eventually come, but only if we continue to make that choice. This, too, is much like love. We love each other even when things go wrong, even on days when we don't feel very loving. It's a conscious choice, and from that conscious choice, the feeling of love grows and increases.

I will recommend a few other things, too. First, pray about it. Ask God to help you forgive. He is eager to do so, and he wants you to ask him for your every need. This is a big one. Second, speak your forgiveness out loud. There is something powerful in speaking the words. I can't explain this, but I've felt it and seen it in others. Third, if at all possible, tell someone you trust of your decision to forgive. Sometimes you can't do this because to do so would betray the confidence of the person you are forgiving. But it helps to have someone else hold you accountable. And this can be a sounding board for you. If in telling your story you find you're still holding resentment, that should be a clue that you have more work to do.

So I'll continue to forgive the one who hurt me. It gets easier every time I do it. And I'll continue to tell Satan to drop it. The feeling of forgiveness will ebb and flow until one day it will just be the way things are. On that day, I will thank God again for what he has forgiven me.

Oh, and if you think this is about you . . . please forgive me.

Our First Foster Child

2009-10-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

My wife and I have been certified for foster care for over a year, and now we have our first child! We wanted (and still want) to do short-term newborn care, taking care of newborns and helping them get their start for a couple of weeks while the new adoptive parents are doing final paperwork and getting ready for them. But we work with a small agency, and we haven't had a baby yet.

Two weeks ago, we picked up this beautiful little two-year-old boy:

Actually, he's not so little. He's very tall for his age. He's also a happy child who has shown absolutely no fear of anything. We have three dogs, ranging in size from about 15 pounds to 95 pounds, and he thinks they're the greatest thing ever. They think the same about him as he loves to throw the ball for them and he's the Keeper of the Cheerios.

We will have this young lad a minimum of two more weeks, and perhaps longer, as they don't have an adoptive family for him yet. Please join me in praying for him, for the parents who have surrendered him for adoption (a VERY hard choice), and for his adoptive family.

And it is very interesting having a two-year-old in the house for the first time in about 14 years . . .

Ouch Moments

2009-10-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Some people have "Aha" moments. You know, when something becomes clear to you in an instant, or when you finally discover something you've been searching for or thinking about for a long time. Rather like Archimedes crying "Eureka!" (I've found it!) when he discovered that he displaced water when he got into his bathtub. Or those folks in the cartoons who get little lightbulbs above their heads. We think, "Aha!" as the idea comes to us.

Well, I have those, too. But I also have what I call "Ouch" moments. Those are the times when you read something or hear something that is obviously pointed directly at you and your own behavior or attitudes. It's typically something that you realize is true about you, but which is rather unflattering. I get Ouch moments sometimes while listening to our preacher. I haven't yet figured out why he's preaching directly at me, but he does it with distressing regularity.

I had an Ouch moment the other day, and it was in concert with a friend's Ouch moment, too. My buddy was telling several of us about some time he'd spent alone with God. He was seeking to hear from God, and he opened his Bible to read this passage in Isaiah:

And now the LORD says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD
and my God has been my strength-
he says:
"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
Isaiah 49:5-6

Except for one small glitch. In verse 6, my friend read two words out of order. I was listening rather than reading along, and didn't notice it at the time. He read, "Is it too small a thing . . ." instead of "It is too small a thing . . ." That turned a statement into this question: "Is it too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept?"

My immediate response was "Ouch!" In fact, I said that out loud. That verse, when put that way, hit me squarely between the eyes. Now there is no disputing that the verse doesn't ask that question. For Isaiah, that wasn't an Ouch moment. (He had plenty of others.) Isaiah heard it correctly. We didn't. But hearing it incorrectly had a big impact on my friend, and on me.

Please, please don't misunderstand me here. I'm not suggesting that we try to misread scripture and draw lessons from it. But the principle expressed by that question is one that is found throughout scripture. God told David he was not to be the one to build the temple. He told Paul that God's grace was sufficient, and he wasn't going to heal him. In addition, this principle is something we all should recognize and feel in our bones. We often want God to do one thing for us, or with us, or through us, and God tells us that he has something else in mind. And he gently tells us that he has blessed us in other ways, given us other talents, performed other deeds through us. "But that's not what I wanted," we whine. So God gives us that Ouch moment.

I've had lots of Ouch moments in my life. Some are painful, such as the time I heard and saw myself scolding my son on videotape. That was me? I really sounded like that? I hate it when people sound like that with their kids. Ouch! That left a mark.

Some Ouch moments are hilarious. One of my favorites is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (How's that for a theological movie?)

In the film, the peasants have brought a woman (whom they have dressed like a witch) to Sir Bedivere, crying "A witch! A witch! Burn her!"

Bedivere asks, "How do you know she's a witch?"

One of the peasants (John Cleese) replies, "She turned me into a newt!"

His Ouch moment came when all of them look at him in his obvious non-newtness.
After a moment of embarrassment he mumbles, "I got better." And they went on to more silliness, eventually deciding that if the woman weighed the same as a duck, she was a witch.

Our Ouch moments are teaching moments, if we have the wit and courage to recognize them.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go bandage up this wound . . .

Two by Two

2009-10-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.
Luke 10:1

While I was reading this passage the other day (actually listening to it on my iPod), I was struck by the fact that Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs. Two by two. It was a little thing, but it brought home to me how much we need each other in the battle we call the Christian life.

So many times, we try to do everything on our own. Not only do we try to do things without God, but we try to do them without another brother or sister. But Jesus didn't send the seventy-two out separately. He sent them out together. Because they needed each other.

How do we miss this? The scriptures are absolutely full of reminders of this.

As iron sharpens iron,
so one man sharpens another.
Prov. 27:17

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecc. 4:10-12

Remember the story of David and Jonathan? Could they have done what they did alone? Or even the story of Jonathan and his armor-bearer battling the Philistines in 1 Samuel 14?

Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him. In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre.
1 Sam. 14:13-14

Jonathan didn't go it alone. He had his armor-bearer at his back.

The early Celtic Christians had a concept and a practice that we would do well to revive. They called it the Anam Cara. It means "soul friend." It actually stems from pre-Christian Celtic thought. Your soul friend was your teacher, companion, and guide. He (or she) was one to whom you could say anything. You could confess to him, lean on him, ask him advice, for help—anything. Your Anam Cara would hold you accountable, speak truth to you, even tell you the hard things that you really didn't want to hear, but needed to hear. It not an authoritarian relationship, but complementary. Usually one was older, wiser, more practiced in spirituality. But learning flowed both ways, accountability and truth were spoken and heard by both.

We all need an Anam Cara. We all need someone who can say anything to us, and receive anything we can say back. We need someone who knows us as well as we know ourselves, and probably better. We were never intended to go through this life alone. Isn't that just about the first thing God said about Adam? "It is not good for man to be alone." We need each other.

Usually, I suggest that men choose an Anam Cara from among men, and women from among women. That's not to say that our spouses cannot be our soul friends. Quite the contrary. But we need someone else who can see our relationships from the outside. Men need other men to stand with them. Women need other women. One of the problems with out society today is the lack of real friendships outside of romantic involvement. Especially for men.

When Jesus sent them out two by two, he knew exactly what he was doing. (Doesn't he always?)

Who is your Anam Cara?

Marred Clay

2009-09-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
(Jeremiah 18:1-10 – NIV)

There is so much here that it's hard to know where to begin. I could talk about nations repenting like Ninevah did in the book of Jonah. I could talk about nations that are blessed by God turning away and abandoning God. I could speak of how God actually changes his actions based on the actions of nations.

But I'm going to talk about marred clay. Have you ever seen a potter working on a wheel? The clay starts out as just a lump, but soon, under the pressure of the potter's hands, it begins to rise and form into a cup, a pitcher, a jar, a bowl. Sometimes, though, there's a weak spot in the clay, or the potter presses a bit hard, and the clay collapses in upon itself. What was going to be a beautiful vessel is suddenly just a misshapen lump of clay again.

So, does the potter yell at the clay, pluck it off the wheel and throw it away? No. He changes his strategy. Sometimes he starts over, patting the clay back into its initial shape before trying again. Sometimes he takes what was going to be a tall vase, and makes it into a short, broad bowl. The point is, he makes something useful of the clay that was marred in his hands.

We are all marred clay. The potter picked us up out of the mud (what do you think clay is?) He took us and began to lovingly shape us into a beautiful vessel, fit for the home of a king. Instead, through our own failures, and through the action of God's enemy, we were marred in the potter's hands. We didn't fulfill the destiny that God originally had for us.

But God does not throw us away. He wastes nothing, not even the sins that marred our lives and turned us away from his original plan for us. He uses everything in our lives to build us up. He takes every sin, every virtue, every bad decision, and every good one and makes something to bring himself glory. It may not be the thing it could have been, but it will bring glory to God.

No matter what you have done in your life, God can use you. And he starts anew right where you are.

Joy and Sorrow

2009-09-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received some very bad news. My aunt Ginny, who has been very much a mother to me in the past 30 years, raised my sister, and has been a grandmother to my children, has terminal cancer. What she initially thought was a rotator cuff problem turned out to be a bone tumor, which was actually a secondary tumor, having spread from one in her lung. We got through the initial shock of that, and she was starting radiation for the shoulder, when more tests turned up tumors in her brain, liver, adrenal gland, and lymph system. The estimate is that she has between 3 and 12 months to live.

Needless to say, it has been a hard time for all of the family, none moreso than her husband Jim. I've been fighting a sense of deadness over this news. I haven't really been in denial, but I've had trouble grasping the reality of it. This is a vital, vibrant woman. She has had some tough times in her life, but has always fought back hard, bringing joy and blessing to all those around her. And she will continue to do that, I'm sure. It's not within her to be morose and self-pitying. Her biggest concern is for those she will be leaving.

It is hard for me to imagine a world without Ginny. She has been Nana to my kids since my oldest was born. After my parents died, she traveled down to Mexico to take care of my sister Alison, who was injured in the crash that killed our parents. She and Alison have shared a special bond since then. When my new wife and I moved to this area, we naturally leaned on Ginny, and really chose to go to Richland Hills Church of Christ because she was there. What a blessing that has been!

It was in this semi-dazed, somewhat mournful frame of mind that I went to our Wednesday worship service. I spoke to a couple of people coming in, answering their "How are you's?" truthfully with "I've been better." As the worship started, take a guess what the first song was.

The Joy of the Lord.

Here I am, grieving over the news I still have not completely taken in, and we sing The Joy of the Lord. If you're not familiar with the song, these are the beginning lyrics.

The joy of the Lord will be my strength

I will not falter, I will not faint.

He is my shepherd, I am not afraid

For the joy of the Lord is my strength.

It continues in that vein. As you might guess, it is a very joyful, exuberant song. Not exactly in line with my mood, right? And yet as we sang the spirit of the song overtook me, and I began to sing wholeheartedly and with conviction. Before long I lost myself in the joy of the Lord, in praise and worship of the one whose gift is joy.

Joy comes not from easy times, or from a life that lacks hardship. There is no such life. Joy is sometimes unexpected, but always welcome. It can come through new life, as when a child is born. It can come through beauty, as when the sun shines through clouds to highlight a flower. It can come through laughter, through meeting old friends, through victory, through learning. It can even come through sorrow.

I am reminded of the time the family had gathered for my Grandma Gill's funeral. It was a time of sorrow, to be sure. We were saying goodbye, and that always hurts. But a time of joy also came out of that sorrow. Several of us gathered at Grandma's house (a trailer, really), and went through her things. Understand that Grandma was not wealthy by any means. She had no great store of possessions, and what she did have was of no great quality. But there was meaning there. We all found little things that meant something to us, often gifts we had given to her and Grandpa over the years. I came away with a cheap weather set, barometer, thermometer, and hygrometer, which I had give to Grandpa for Christmas many years before. We found old snapshots, jars of Grandma's pear preserves, rusty knives, beat up fishing lures. All worthless, all precious. And we found joy in the midst of sorrow.

That's not quite what it was like for me as I sang last night. The joy I found came not from memories. It came entirely as a gift from God. I cannot truly explain it, but I did feel joy in the moment, joy in praising God, and strength that came from somewhere else. It certainly didn't come from me. It didn't eliminate my sorrow. But it made the sorrow seem more distant and infinitely more bearable. It's odd, but joy and sorrow can coexist. But joy so outshines sorrow. Sorrow becomes like the moon in daylight. You can see it, but it's not the light source.

There's more here, I know. There will be more sorrow coming. That is the condition in which we live. And there is more God wants to teach me about both joy and sorrow. Because sorrow, too, can be from God. I pray I am open to the teaching. And I pray peace for Ginny, Jim, and our whole family. I ask for your prayers as well.

One Day at a Time

2009-08-24T07:09:00.001-07:00

Ask anyone in recovery, whether it’s a member of Alcoholic Anonymous, a person in drug rehab, or a man struggling with porn addiction, and they’ll say this: you have to do it one day at a time. It’s no good looking far into the future and imagining what it’s like to be free of whatever addiction or demon besets us. We can only live in the moment, and do our best to make good decisions today, this day. We’ve all heard this so often that it has become something of a cliché. One day at a time, we hear from counselors, from friends, from mentors, from out accountability partners. We hear it so much that we are a bit dead to it.

But it’s not mere cliché. For that matter, a saying only becomes a cliché because it contains truth. If there were no truth there, it wouldn’t be repeated enough to become cliché. A cliché is a proverb that has had a lot of success.

In the case of “One day at a time,” the cliché originates with . . . Jesus. He said it in Matthew 6:-34:

“Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

In the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow. It’s another way of saying one day at a time.

And it’s great wisdom. We cannot change tomorrow. Yet. We can only change tomorrow when it comes to us. We must receive the blessings and trials of each day as they come.

Easy said, right? Not so easy to do. But, really, what else can we do? We are all locked within time. Not a one of us can reach forward to tomorrow or backward to yesterday.

Also, look at the verses just before this in Matthew. Jesus is talking about worry and how it is contrary to dependence on God. The pagans worry, he says. But God knows what we need, and we should be about seeking the Kingdom.

So, we should deal with one day at a time when it comes to our food and our clothing. Makes sense that it should apply to the strength we need to resist temptation or do the right thing, too.

For that matter, even God deals with each day as it comes. I know, you’re going to say that God is outside of time, that he’s eternal. A day is as a thousand years to God.

And you’re right. God is outside of time. But we are not. So much of what God does uses, even depends on us. He used Noah, and Abraham, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses, and Joshua, and David, and Solomon . . . you get the point. God is outside of time, but we are locked in it. And God has always, since he created Adam and Eve, worked with the people he created. Sinful though we are, frail and foolish as we are, he works with us. He created us to be his allies. And since the day when we turned against him, he has worked to make us strong allies, soldiers in his war against Satan and the third of the angels who rebelled with him.

There can be only one reason for this. He loves us.

And because he loves us, he provides for us, works through us, and lives in us.

One day at a time.

So, the next time someone tells you to live one day at a time, take heart. Know that God is living this day with you. Look beyond the cliché, and see the one who made this day. He’ll make another one tomorrow, and give you everything you need to get through it.

Resisting the Devil

2009-08-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7

Something I heard recently has bearing on my last post, Pray Hard. I am very familiar with this verse, and I've quoted it to a lot of people. Unfortunately, my understanding of this verse (and I'm not alone) has been somewhat inadequate. It all stems from translation and not knowing the culture in which this was originally written. Thanks to Patrick Mead for pointing this out to me in one of his recent lessons.

There are a lot of sporting terms in the New Testament. That's hardly surprising. The Greeks, if you remember, started the Olympics, and they had conquered everything from the Adriatic to India. Greek was the language of trade and literature, and Greek social customs and terms had filtered out into all the cultures they touched.

When James speaks of resisting the devil, he is using a sporting term. It is from a type of wrestling where the participants wrestle to the death. It had a specific meaning to James' readers, but over the intervening years and through translation we have lost that meaning.

That kind of puts a different slant on "Resist the devil," doesn't it. We have had this idea of just saying, "get away, Satan", and he heads for the hills, screaming like a little girl. That couldn't be further from the truth. What James is saying is that we have to fight hard against Satan, resisting him even to the death, and he will flee. We have to be willing to give everything, even our lives, in the battle against him.

Really, this should not be shocking to us. Look at 1 Peter 5:8-9:

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

I don't know about you, but I've never lived in a place where lions roam. We think of lions as those big, placid cats at the zoo. Those who live with lions know to fear them. An adult lion can be over 450 pounds, and can kill and carry off a grown man with as little trouble as a cat playing with a mouse. Does it make any sense that you can just resist a lion with a glance or a word and it will leave you alone? In addition, look at the last part of those verses. Do you think those folks being persecuted could just say, "leave me alone, Devil," and their persecution stopped?

Look also at Hebrews 12:4:

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Umm . . . didn't that say something about shedding blood?

This is not a picnic day in the park we have signed up for. It's a battle. God is at war, and we are soldiers in the line. Nobody said it would be easy. There will be casualties. Our leader and savior was crucified. He told us that we needed to pick up a cross to follow him. I think that might be a hint.

Pray Hard

2009-08-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. "Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."
Luke 22: 45-46

It's funny how you can read a passage of scripture repeatedly throughout your life, and then one day it will just jump out at you. That happened with this passage. And I wasn't even reading the passage. I was actually listening to Luke on my iPod.

The first thing that hit me was that the disciples were exhausted from sorrow. They were grieving because Jesus was grieving, and that wore them out. If you remember, this was in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed so intensely that his "sweat fell like drops of blood." Apparently, the disciples weren't up to this. They fell asleep.

But Jesus was up to it. That tells me what a mighty man Jesus was. The disciples were a rough lot. Most of them were zealots, most of them men who made their living with their hands and their strength. But Jesus prayed intensely while they fell asleep.

But the thing that hit me hardest was what Jesus said to them. "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." How many times have I read that and missed it? None of us wants to fall into temptation. We all want to have the strength to resist. So, what's the secret?

Pray.

That's it. Just pray. I'm assuming that Jesus wouldn't have told the disciples to do it unless it was effective against temptation. Pretty safe assumption, wouldn't you agree? There we have it in Jesus' own words. Pray so you will not fall into temptation. Considering what Jesus is going through here, I suspect he's not talking about a quick "Help me, God. Amen." He's talking about struggling in prayer, wrestling in prayer. Praying against resistance.

Praying hard.

Generally, we fall into sin because we are weak, or because we are willful. We've all seen both sides of that coin.

But maybe, just maybe we didn't pray enough, or hard enough.

Bring Your Hoe

2009-07-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

Notice there's an "e" on the end of that word. I'm talking about the garden implement, not . . . never mind.

I was talking with a friend today, a man who has been at Wild at Heart Boot Camp a couple of times. We were talking about how Satan deceives us, and how we miss the glory that God sees in us.

At the Boot Camp, they show that scene from Braveheart where William Wallace is riding back and forth in front of the assembled Scotsmen, inspiring them to stand and do battle with Edward the Longshanks' soldiers. It is an amazing, stirring scene, one that makes us want to stand up and shout, "Freeeeedom!"

The Boot Camp instructor for that session, a man who has been involved in Wild at Heart for years, confessed something to them that day. He said that when he sees that scene, it's hard for him to put himself in the picture as one of the brave warriors at the front of the line. He sees himself not as a William Wallace with his greatsword, or as one of his companions with a battle axe or a mace. Instead, he sees himself as "that little scrawny guy in the third row carrying a hoe."

That was evidence to him that we really don't see the glory God has in mind for us. We don't see how we reflect God's glory, how we are allies with God, warriors in the battle against Satan. We're not the big, brawny soldiers, but the little shrimpy guys, poorly armed, untrained, inadequate.

I'm going to have to take exception with that. Not with the fact that we don't see God's glory in ourselves clearly. That's pretty evident for most of us. We need others to show us how that glory is reflected in us. It's one of the reason we need true friends, brothers and sisters who can come alongside us and show us what we really are.

No, what I take exception with is that the little guy with the hoe was somehow less glorious than Wallace and his companions. Far from it. That little, scrawny guy was there.

He willingly chose to come to the battle. He willingly chose to stay and fight. He didn't have armor, or a shield, or even a real weapon. He wasn't big and strong. He wasn't well-trained. Yet he chose to expose himself to the deadly shower of arrows the English launched toward him. He stood his ground when the heavy cavalry charged, shaking the very ground. He even chose to taunt the overwhelmingly superior English by mooning them.

Talk about glory! That guy waded into a maelstrom of battle, swinging his hoe. He was a man's man, full to the brim with bravery and boldness.

We are in a battle. Not all of us can be Braveheart. In fact, few of us can be. Not all of us even have a proper weapon. But we can all bring our hoes, rakes, and pitchforks to the battle. We can all stand between the enemy and our families. We can all fight alongside the greatest hero the world will ever know. We are allies with Jesus in the battle against Satan.

Bring your hoe, brothers.

A Man After God's Own Heart?

2009-07-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

In 2 Samuel 11 and 12 is one of the most amazing stories of the Bible. David, the king of Israel, a man after God’s own heart, the little boy who had enough faith to take on Goliath, commits adultery and murder. He takes Bathsheba, probably against her will (who can resist the king?), and after finding out she’s pregnant, tries to get her husband Uriah to sleep with her so the baby can be passed off as his. When that doesn’t work, he orders Joab to set Uriah up so he’ll be killed in the battle.

Now, what is amazing is not that David committed these terrible sins. What is amazing is that God forgave him. Not only did God forgive him, but David is held up in scripture as one of the heroes of the faith. And to add to the strangeness, God continued David’s line on the throne by making Solomon, the son of Bathsheba, king after David.

Now, that is scandalous to the nth degree. Look at what he did! He committed adultery (maybe rape), and murder! He tried to sweep it all under the rug. Does God not care about sin?

Hardly. There were terrible consequences for David and for those around him because of his sin. The son of his union with Bathsheba died. David’s concubines were taken by Absalom, who had sex with them in a tent on the palace roof so everyone would know what was going on. Absalom took the entire kingdom during his rebellion, and many, many people died.

Oh, God cares about sin. He hates our sin. It’s something he cannot help. Sin is simply the opposite of God’s nature.

But he loves us more than he hates our sin. Because he loves us, he does not keep us from sinning, like robots. He permits us to either choose him, or to choose sin. At this point in his life, David chose sin. But look at what he wrote after that:

Psalm 51
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.

There’s a lot more, and it would be a good passage for all of us to memorize. But I really want you to consider the note at the top, where it begins "For the director of music." David published and distributed this Psalm. He went public with his sin. He confessed it freely, and then he wrote a Psalm about his sin and sent it to the director of music to be performed.

Don’t hold back. Don’t let shame keep you from proclaiming the grace and freedom you have received. We, too, can be men and women after God’s own heart. In spite of our sin.

My Sister's Keeper

2009-07-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

This has been a summer of great movies for me. I’m not a big movie-goer. It’s not that I don’t like movies. I do. But I resent the amount of money it takes to see a film, and don’t even get me started on the price of a soft drink and popcorn.

As an aside, have you noticed that movie popcorn is yellow? Even the unbuttered kind is yellow. When I pop popcorn at home, it’s white. But movie popcorn is popped and seasoned with so much yellow food coloring it looks like it ought to be banana flavored.

Anyway, let’s leave the snack bar and return to the theater. I usually get around to seeing the flicks I want to see when they’re at the Dollar Theater, or when they’re out on DVD. This summer there were several I really wanted to see right away: the new Star Trek flick, Pixar's Up, and the newest Harry Potter film. Two down, one to go. Then there was My Sister’s Keeper. The previews I saw intrigued me, as they did my wife and daughter. So when we decided to drop 50 bucks (that’s at matinee prices) on a movie and popcorn, we chose My Sister’s Keeper.

I had not read the novel by Jodi Picoult, so I didn’t have to worry about unhappy comparisons with the book.

In this age of in-vitro fertilization, embryonic stem-cell research, and promised miracle cures, no thinking adult should miss this movie. This is not a movie that makes you cheer, as Star Trek was. It’s not a movie that leaves you with good warm feelings, as Up did, although there are plenty of warm moments in My Sister’s Keeper. This is a movie to see, to think about, to feel. It will raise questions for you that you probably haven’t considered. For example, what are the rights of a child to her own blood, bone marrow, even her kidneys? When is it time to say, “Enough” to what extreme medical measures can do for a sick person? This movie will not only tug on your heartstrings, it will yank them so hard you’ll check for a hole in your chest. Especially if you are a father with a daughter, it will reduce you to tears of sadness and of joy. I speak from experience here.

I will print no spoilers. There is no need. Young Amanda Breslin and Sofia Vassilieva give superb performances as Anna and Kate. There really aren’t any bad performances here. I especially liked Joan Cusack as judge De Salvo. But there are two things I missed in this movie. The first is Jesse’s story. I suspect a lot of his story was left on the editing room floor. It seems vague and incomplete.

The biggest thing I missed, though, was God. There was a little talk of “where you go” after death, and a vague understanding of “I’ll be okay,” but that was all there was of the afterlife. There was virtually no mention of faith of any kind, and none of the comfort or understanding, or even the struggle that faith brings. I’m not talking about the soft, mushy, Precious Moments faith that is the background of a lot of vaguely Christian films, nor the obvious evangelizing of films like last year’s independent surprise, Fireproof. Nothing against Fireproof. It was a good film that hit its mark very well. But that wasn’t what My Sister’s Keeper was about. This film was a perfect opportunity to show how faith bears on the biggest questions of our existence, questions about sickness, suffering, death, and duty. Now, I suppose it is too much to hope that Hollywood would have dealt with these things well, but I can dream, can’t I?

Go see My Sister’s Keeper. It will make you think, it will make you feel, and you won’t regret it.

Eyeglasses

2009-07-10T05:25:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about eyeglasses lately. The other day I was listening to Matthew on my iPod. (Don't you just hate those cutesy product names with a lowercase letter before an uppercase one?) At any rate, I was listening to Matthew, and came to the place in Matthew 20 where Jesus heals two blind men. And I began to wonder if they were totally blind, or if they just had such bad vision that we would call them "legally blind". There are lots of folks in the world who have some vision, but cannot see well enough to work. And this was in an age before there were eyeglasses, so even with a fair level of vision, they would still be called blind, I think.

Now, before you go thinking the wrong thing, I have no doubt that Jesus could heal someone who was totally blind. No doubt at all. In one healing, Jesus not only heals a man's eyes, but he heals his brain as well. Check it out. In Mark 8, Jesus "spits on the man's eyes and put his hands on him," then asks if he can see. (It's interesting that he had to ask, don't you think?) The man says, "I see people. They look like trees walking around." Then Jesus laid his hands on him again and he could see everything clearly. This seems to me to indicate that Jesus healed his eyes, but his brain at first could not interpret what his eyes were seeing. I don't know the name of the condition that causes this, but it's not all that uncommon.

Still, the fact that Jesus could heal someone who was totally blind doesn't mean it happened that way in every instance.

And that thought led me to be very, very thankful. You see, I'm one of those people who can't see well without some sort of corrective lenses. I believe the technical term is "four-eyes". If I was living in an earlier time, say, the Middle Ages, or the time of Christ, I would be very much restricted in what I could do, how I could work, how I could live.

I'm a recreational shooter, and I'm not bad, really. (Not all that good, either, but you get the idea.) Without eyeglasses, I wouldn't be just bad, I'd be dangerous. Nobody would volunteer to go to the skeet field with me. In a more primitive era I wouldn't be one of the guys who shoots a bow well enough to stay out of the line of battle. I probably wouldn't be in the line of battle, either, as I might have a hard time telling friend from foe. I wouldn't be able to see the mountains in the distance, or the ship coming over the horizon, or the sheep that was starting to wander toward a cliff. Maybe, just maybe I could make my living in a profession that didn't require great vision, as a potter for instance. But more likely I'd be the guy who was told to go dig a ditch, or carry rocks, or shovel manure. There is nothing wrong or belittling in any of those professions. It's just that my choices would be limited, as would my appreciation of such things as a mountain vista or the shape of clouds in the sky.

Yes, I'm very, very grateful that I was born in a time and place with not only eyeglasses, but antibiotics, computers, universal education, motorcycles, and air conditioning. We are all very blessed. I've heard it said that we are in many ways richer than Solomon ever was, because he never had the opportunity to ride in an airplane, or eat ice cream, or listen to a symphony.

But consider this . . .

Solomon did live without all those things. As did David, and Job, and Elijah, and Moses, and Jesus. They seemed to do all right without them. We have some great things, to be sure, wondrous things. But in the final analysis they are just things. No amount of things can make your children grow wise, or your spouse love you, or your favorite dog live forever.

But God can. And God loved those blind men no less than he love you and me. He loves us all, yet the blessings he grants us are not all the same. We all have different measures of wealth, health, and happiness. So the essence of God's love, his richest, truest blessings cannot consist of those things.

Still . . . I'm happy for eyeglasses. And so are the folks who shoot with me.

The Impact of Two Lives

2009-07-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

This past Friday, we were privileged to witness the marriage of my eldest son and his new wife. It was a beautiful, joyous occasion to witness the union of two great young people. It is so clear that they love each other and love God. What more can a father ask?

And yet . . . I received much more.

I was able to witness how many good friends they have, and what great friends they are. As parents, we have always prayed that our children would have good friends who would help point them toward God and walk beside them in truth and light. That prayer was answered in spades. Many of these young men and women I already knew, of course, since they were my son's friends growing up. Some were his bride's friends, and I have only recently begun to know them. But all of them show a quality, a grace, and a beauty that is obvious. How blessed we are that our son and new daughter have such people alongside them.

I was able to see the love that my son and his wife give to others. Everyone I met had great things to say about them, and it was easy to see that they were genuine, not just the vague things you say about folks when you're trying to be polite. At the rehearsal dinner, we had a microphone set up for folks to say a few words about the couple. It was clear that even in their short lives, they have both had a profound effect on people. Their love for children was evident, as was their love for God. That was a huge blessing to me.

I was able to hear my new daughter's thoughts on the man she wanted to marry, and how my son filled all those desires. What impressed me most was the fact that she was looking for a beautiful soul who shared her love for children, and her desire to minister together. That was marvelous.

I was also able to hear my son speak of five men who had shaped his life. I was in that list, and that alone is enough to fill my heart with joy. But the others who were in that list, two of his youth leaders and the fathers of his two best friends, were an even greater indication of the way he has been blessed. It's expected that a father have a good influence on his children. In my own small way, I've done that. But the other good men who have influenced him are icing on the cake. I commend those men, and thank them for their love for my son. I pray that their children can say the same thing about me.

It is great to have a new daughter in our family, especially one this sweet, kind, and joyful. But it may be an even greater blessing to have my son grow into the man that he is. They do grow up. They go away as children and come back, hopefully, as friends.

May you all be so blessed.

Mordecai and Obama

2009-06-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not a fan of President Obama. I didn't vote for him, and won't when he runs in four years unless he changes his politics drastically. That much change would be less like the proverbial frog turning into a prince, and more like the frog turning into an interstellar spaceship, so it's not likely.

Okay. You get the point. Still, as a disciple of Jesus and a believer in the scriptures, I'm obligated to obey the laws of our land, even when I don't agree with them. Further, I'm obligated to pray for Obama and for all our leaders.

This has posed a problem for me. Obama stands for many things I oppose, and stands against many of the things I support. (This applies to many others in government, but let's just confine this to one official for now.) Some of the things he stands for are just plain wrong, and some—not to mince words—are evil.

But I am not freed of my duty of praying for him, showing him respect, and even doing good toward him. I've struggled with this, and I've been able to pray for him, but it hasn't been a terribly pleasant duty, and it has been hard to put my heart into.

The last thing I want to do is to mouth insincere prayers.

Lately, though, I've received some help in this from what some might call an unlikely source: from Summer Spectacular, our church's version of Vacation Bible School.

Now, when I say "Vacation Bible School", many of you have an image of a group of sweaty kids singing If You're Happy and You Know It and Kum Bah Ya or watching a teacher with a gray bun putting Noah's ark up on a flannelgraph. And you couldn't be further from the reality of Summer Spectacular. We go absolutely all out for Summer Spectacular. It's a full musical performed over three nights (actually performed twice over six nights), with classes for all the kids and the adults, autographs from the characters, prizes, games—the works. It really is as spectacular as the name says.

This year, we put on the story of Esther. For those of you unfamiliar with Esther, it's the story of a young Jewish girl who is selected to be the new queen of Xerxes, the ruler of the Medo-Persian empire. The Jews have been in captivity for many years, and their original captors, the Babylonians, have been supplanted by the Medo-Persians.

In the story, Mordecai, Esther's cousin, saves the king from a plot against his life. This is the same king who keeps the Jews from returning to their homeland, who gets rid of his first queen because she won't appear before him and his nobles at a drunken party, and who has an entire harem of young, beautiful girls, most of whom he sleeps with once and then sends away. He's also the king who later issues an edict to kill all of the Jews in the empire and allowing those who kill them to take all their property.

Let's just say Xerxes is not the world's nicest guy. Let's go a little further and say he makes Obama (or any President I've ever known) look like a saint. And really, you wouldn't expect the king of a great, expanding empire to be a nice guy. It's unlikely he got to such a position by kissing babies and making speeches. Far more likely that his ascent was a bloody one. And yet Mordecai not only saves his life, but honors him as king and ruler.

Now, I've known this story for a long time. But seeing it played out brought it home to me in a new way. A big part of the story is that Mordecai does not give honor where honor is not due. He refuses to bow before Haman, who comes up with the idea of killing all the Jews. But he does honor Xerxes. And the Bible is full of other stories that bring this home in the same way. Joseph honored Pharaoh, even though he was enslaved and imprisoned falsely. Daniel honored the king in the same way that Moredecai did, even though he was sent to the lion's den for refusing to stop his prayers.

Suddenly, it's not so hard to pray for Obama. Now, unlike Mordecai, we live in a representative republic. We get to participate in the political process and even vote. As I understand it, we have a duty to do so. So I'll continue to work for the things I think are right and against those I think are wrong. And I'll cast my votes for those whom I think are best suited to govern. But no matter who wins or loses, I'll continue to pray protection, wisdom, peace and strength for our leaders.

There is a lot more to the story of Esther. It's a great story of courage and deliverance. I found myself cheering for both Mordecai and Esther. But I'll always remember Summer Spectacular for what Mordecai taught me about honoring rulers. Even those I oppose.

Father's Day Thoughts

2009-06-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

Becoming a father was the most life-changing thing that ever occurred to me. I say this even though I probably should be saying that my salvation was the most life-changing thing. But I'd have to lie to do that. You see, God has taught me so much through my children, and I firmly believe that only through my children have I come to understand who God is and what his love means. I can't credit my children with saving me, but they helped point me in the right direction.

Becoming a father changes absolutely everything. Much of this may sound a bit mystical to some folks, but it is a true and necessary mysticism. From the first moment I held my firstborn, I knew that a change had come over me. The full nature of that change didn't come to me right away. But change was obvious. I was a bit of a reluctant father. Shan and I told each other we would wait five years after our marriage before having children. It seemed the best choice considering how young we married (I was just 19). Even when that five-year deadline came to pass, I was still unsure about becoming a parent. Shan was the one who brought the subject back up. I agreed, but it was more for her than for me.

At only four weeks into the pregnancy, we got a scare. Our doctor (Shan's obstetrician as well as our GP) scheduled a sonogram, as he was concerned it might be a tubal pregnancy. Thankfully, the sonogram revealed a normal pregnancy, and at four weeks we could see a heartbeat on the monitor. We still have a black-and-white Polaroid picture of that little bump that was our son Brian. I knew then by the fear in my heart that I was a father, and a different man. We went through all the pregnancy rituals; childbirth classes, talking to the baby, acquiring the myriad of stuff that babies require.

But when I held that perfect little person, felt the warmth of his skin, and the beating of his heart, and the movement of his little arms and legs, I was lost forever. Such a wave of love came over me as I had never felt. In that one moment, I knew just a bit of how God loves us. I knew I would gladly trade my life for my son's. It was stronger, in a way, than the love I felt for Shan. It was instant, and total, and completely involuntary.

I felt that same thing with my other children, first Duncan, then Rachel. Instant love, instant responsibility, instant willingness to take on the world to defend that little life.

My kids aren't so little anymore. My youngest is 16. But I still have that same willingness to sacrifice anything, even life, for them.

And it is a sacrifice to be a father or mother. For our children we give up time, money, attention, sometimes even our dreams. Having a child changes your life totally. And I wouldn't go back for anything. In spite of the problems, in spite of the mess, the expense, and the time, I wouldn't trade any of the time with my children. Just the opposite. I wish I had spent more time doing the little things with them—reading a book, playing a game, listening to them talk, just sitting with them. There never seems to be enough time. But I take satisfaction in knowing that my time with them is not over. No, they aren't little kids anymore. Now they are becoming more like friends. That's good, too.

There are lots of folks who will not willingly make the sacrifice that children require. There are lots more who start to do so and fail to keep their commitments down the road. Neither of those alternatives has any appeal to me. My greatest joys, my greatest triumphs have come to me through fatherhood. Also my darkest times and greatest failures. And I'd never want it to be any other way.

Happy belated Father's Day to all the fathers. And to my children: thank you for making me the man that I am.

A Mighty Man and a Woman of Great Strength

2009-06-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

Here is the updated post about Jimison and Connie Clark . . ..

Last night I was privileged to attend the testimony of a friend of mine, Jimison Clark, and of his wife Connie. Jimison is a man who has been part of the Pure Iron Men, a support and accountability group that I facilitate at my church, Richland Hills Church of Christ. Pure Iron Men is for men who are coming out of pornography and other sexual addiction. Jimison has felt for some time that he needed to go public with his struggle and do something to help other men who are caught in that same web of bondage. It's a vicious addictive cycle, and it's something virtually all men are vulnerable to.

I've talked to Jimison many times over the past year or so, and prayed for him often about this. This is something that takes a lot of courage. Porn and other sexual addictions are the great hidden sins. You can go to a lot of churches and find help for alcoholism or drug addiction, but most won't offer any help for sexual addiction, and most don't even want to hear about it. I don't know how many times I've had men come to Pure Iron Men who simply can't get any help at their home church, and have encountered roadblocks that range from "Oh, we don't have that problem here," to "You must not really be a Christian if you like that stuff." It makes my blood boil, sometimes.

Jimison's church, Abiding Word, isn't like that. When Jimison spoke to the church leadership about what he wanted to do, they supported him and basically created a special service just for him and his wife, Connie. More about Connie later.

Jimison invited me to hear his testimony, and I was excited and happy to do so. One of the best things about being involved with Pure Iron Men is seeing one of my brothers start a group or ministry of his own. It has happened several times in the past few years, and it fills me with joy and pride.

After a scripture reading, a song, and some prayer, Jimison got up and related how he had grown up in a good home, but had fallen in with a friend who got him in to gangs and dealing drugs. God saved him from that, and he didn't carry any of those problems with him into adulthood. But porn addiction did. He was very open about his addiction and how it took a mighty effort on his part and a mighty work of God to free him. But free he is, and God impressed on him the need to go public and start his own ministry, Thirteen to Thirty, to help others gain freedom.

I was so proud of him! It takes great courage to admit to any fault and to admit to sexual addiction is way over the top in terms of difficulty. But he did it, and his testimony was very powerful.

Then Connie began to speak. I had never previously met Connie. I knew little more about her than her name and the fact that she was married to Jimison, and freely forgave his sins against her with pornography. That right there was enough to make me a big fan. But there was so much more.

I can't go into Connie's story here. It's hers to tell. I will tell you this: Connie's story made Jamison's look tame. She has overcome so much! What a mighty family! It is my honor and privilege to know them and to have had some small part in Jamison's freedom.

Jamison and Connie have both created websites to help those who struggle as they do. For Jamison's site, go to www.13233.org. For Connie's site, go to www.dndm.org.

I pray that their stories help you with yours.

Surprised by Despair

2009-06-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I surprise myself by how clueless I am. Allow me to elaborate, if you will. Lately I've been plagued by a feeling of malaise and pointlessness. It isn't debilitating, and it only seems to appear when I am not caught up in all of the usual things that keep me busy. Between work, family, ministry, and even a hobby or two, I have a lot going on in my life, and I am usually quite busy. And when I'm not busy, I'm ready for some rest.

But as I said, lately whenever I've had some down time, I've been fighting this feeling of pointlessness, even of despair. It's almost like a mild depression. I start to dwell on things that have not turned out as they should, on the roadblocks in my path, on failures, hurts, setbacks, and losses. I find myself focusing on physical pain, and feeling sorry for myself. I know, intellectually, that I am blessed beyond measure, and that God is really looking out for me. But in the quiet, inner places, I still feel this malaise. I've chalked it up to illness, or weariness, or just a response to things that really have gone wrong. And it keeps coming back.

Now, I'm fairly attuned to spiritual warfare. I know God has an enemy, and the only way that enemy can hurt God is to hurt his children. That's you and me, in case you didn't know. Satan likes nothing better than to hurt those who follow Jesus. If he can't keep you from being a disciple, he'll do his best to make you ineffective (usually through sin and addictive behavior), and if he can't do that, he'll steal your joy. I know these things. I've seen them many times. I speak into the lives of others who are under this kind of spiritual oppression, pray for them, and frequently see them set free.

So, why didn't I see it for myself?

I began to get a clue when I realized (thank you, God!) that God wasn't happy with the way I was feeling, but Satan would be. God doesn't want his children to be swallowed up in despair. He wants us to succeed at the tasks he has given us. And we accomplish little when we're sitting around bemoaning the past and worrying about the future. Then Satan tipped his hand. He went a bit too far, and started to remind me of a situation where I thought I was wronged. The idea was, "If you can't have that, what good is it to go on? You deserve better than that."

Nice try, but no dice. That really let me know the source of my troubles. No good purpose is served by rehashing old slights and hurts. No good purpose is served by feeling sorry for myself, or by seeing a brother or sister as my enemy. The only purpose those things serve is to make Satan laugh.

You see, I'd been neglecting to pray about such things, to ask God for protection from such spirits. I'd neglected to take hold of God's promises and instead I'd listened to accusation.

I quickly remedied that, asking not only for protection, but for deliverance. And I'm still asking, because it is going to take more than one quick prayer. I'd allowed despair to establish a beachhead, and now it was going to take some time to drive it back into the sea.

And I'm asking God daily to reveal to me any other footholds I've given to Satan. You see, Satan, being the father of lies, knows how to come after us. He doesn't start with some strange, wild accusation. No, he takes truth and twists it just the slightest bit, at first. Over time he twists it more and more, until truth is standing on its head. I still have physical pain, I still have setbacks, and roadblocks, and losses, and problems. Those are inevitable. What is not inevitable is yielding to despair. God has an enemy and so do we. This is a broken world, and Satan has no reason to stop coming after us. But God ultimately wins.

And we win, too.

Lifted Up

2009-06-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

For once, I get to review a movie before my son does. Hooray!

My wife and I went to see Up this weekend, and it gets my highest approval rating. Pixar is a company of geniuses when it comes to animated film, as proven by their unbroken string of great flicks. (Well, A Bug's Life was just okay.) Up trumps them all. Rarely have I been so uplifted by a movie.

And that is the point. The idea that a movie or play or book or story should lift our spirits has gone out of fashion. Hollywood and the critics in particular have decided that only dark stories and those about twisted, tortured characters are worthy of their respect and their accolades. If you leave a movie feeling disturbed, saddened, and sickened, they feel their work has been well done. Look at the films that win the awards and the acclaim.

At the box office, many of those films do well, but not as well as the ones that leave us cheering, smiling, and hopeful. Up is one of those, and I predict it will be a box office smash as well.

The movie also puts to rest the idea that animated characters must be cute and cuddly to be sympathetic. Carl Fredricksen is neither cute nor cuddly. He's 78 years old, stubborn, crotchety, and pugnacious. He's also totally, completely dedicated to his late wife Ellie, and a man of his word—to a fault.

The montage that chronicles Carl and Ellie's life together—encompassing their wedding, their first (and only) home, the loss of an unborn child, their dreams of living by Paradise Falls, and Ellie's death—covers just a few minutes with no dialogue at all. Yet it manages to convey all of their hopes, dreams, heartbreaks, triumphs, and tragedies in a way that most full movies can never approach. It is pure storytelling genius.

The characters are funny, quirky, and approachable. Even irascible old Carl becomes the gruff but loving grandfather we all wish we had. Russell, the young Wilderness Explorer, is impossible to resist. He's rather like a puppy. Dug, the dog with the translating collar and the squirrel obsession really caps it off. All of the characters ring true, but Dug is absolute doggie truth. Any of you who have had a dog know what I mean.

But the story and the message are what Up is really all about. Some will say that the messages about the importance of marriage, family, and stability will be lost on children, or too much for them to grasp. I must disagree. It is children who need these messages the most. They will take from this a better understanding of what it means to love for better or for worse, and of the importance of just being faithful and true to those you love.

A lot is being written about this movie, and I won't go further. I especially won't print any spoilers. Frankly, there aren't a lot of big surprises anyway. They aren't really needed when you have a story as perfect as this.

The Ranger Game Updated

2009-06-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Darrin Ellis did record us at the Ballpark on Friday. He posted it up on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsJOY-4J7rs

He was up in the stands with a hand-held video recorder, so the sound quality isn't great, but it sure sounded good from where I stood!

Pulled the Last Post

2009-06-01T14:57:00.001-07:00

I realized that I might have stolen a bit of Jimison and Connie's thunder with my last post, so I pulled it. I'll write later about their testimony in perhaps less detail.

I want everyone to know that I love and respect Jimison and Connie greatly. They are truly doing a great work, and they are awesome folks. Sometimes miscommunication happens.

Singing at the Ranger Game

2009-06-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. Last Friday (5/29/09) I was privileged to be part of a group that sang the National Anthem at the Texas Rangers game. My praise team from church (it's not really mine, just the one I'm part of) has done this several times, and it is always a lot of fun. We had a great arrangement with some really tight, beautiful harmonies. It's kind of barbershop-quartet-like at times, and at times very jazzy. Last time we did this the mikes didn't work well and the pitch was hard to hear, so it was a bit of a train wreck. Not bad, jut not really good.

This time it came off flawlessly. These folks I sing with are absolutely top-notch! I had people stop me in the stadium to ask if I'd sung for them that night, and all of them were very gracious. Unfortunately, we didn't get it videotaped as we planned. Maybe next time.

And the Rangers won both games! How cool is that?

The One

2009-05-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

You remember the story. It’s recorded in Matthew and in Luke. The details, the back story, are different in Luke. In Luke it's also told as part of three stories that illustrate how precious we are to God. Perhaps Jesus told the parable more than once. But in Matthew, the disciples had just been asking Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus called a child to come stand in their midst and told them they had to be like little children. Then he said,

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.” (Matt. 18:12-14)

He did what? He left the ninety-nine? Without a shepherd? Alone? In case you’re wondering, domestic sheep aren’t any safer from predators in a flock of ninety-nine than they are on their own. Oh, maybe a little bit safer. The big ewes and rams are a little better at facing down a wolf or a jackal than a lamb is, but without that shepherd, they can still get picked off, still fall down a cliff, still drown in a flash flood, still get stuck in the mud of a wadi.

Still, the shepherd leaves them and goes off after the one. This doesn’t make any sense in our economy. You don’t trade the safety of ninety-nine for the rescue of one.

God doesn’t think that way. To God, the one and the ninety-nine have the same value. Individually or corporately, they’re all worth searching for and rejoicing over. And it’s a good thing, or you and I would have been picked off by the jackals a long time ago.

You see, we are the one. We—all of us—are the straying sheep. There’s not one of us who hasn’t strayed away from the flock, looking for a better patch of grass, an easier way up the hill, a warmer bit of sunshine. Paul says it in Romans, quoting David:

As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one." (Rom. 3:10-12)

I don’t know about you, but I strayed a lot from the flock. I never went very far, but I spent years heading over the hill whenever it suited me. Then I’d get scared, or tired, or just sick of being on my own, and I’d run back to the flock. And I was pretty good at it. I could find the flock most of the time. Or at least, that’s what I thought I was doing.

It turns out that I never once found the flock on my own. Every time I came back, it happened because the Shepherd sought me out and brought me back. Without him, the first time I left, I would have kept on wandering until I got swallowed up.

But the Shepherd kept coming after me. Gradually, I have learned this is where I belong. I’ve lost my desire to head over the next hill.

Something else I’ve learned. The other sheep didn’t come looking for me. It was the Shepherd. Oh, certainly there is value in being part of the flock. There is safety in numbers . . . at least for most of them. Have you ever watched lions hunt? Sometimes they stalk close to the herd in heavy cover. Sometimes they drive the herd toward another lion. Sometimes they just wait for that one antelope to wander a bit too far from the rest, looking for the best grass. Occasionally, the herd comes to the defense of the victim. Have any of you seen the Battle at Kruger video? That shows a herd of Cape Buffalo rescuing a calf from lions. But not every Cape Buffalo is safe. Some still get eaten. And for the one that gets eaten, the herd wasn't very safe, was it?

That's the way it is with sheep, too. Except when there is a shepherd. The shepherd not only looks for the straying sheep, but he drives off the lion, the wolf, the bear, the hyena. Do you remember what David said to Saul before he went out to battle Goliath?

But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. (1 Sam. 17:34-35)

David was a shepherd. Apparently he was a good shepherd. He went after the lion or the bear and rescued the sheep.

I've been rescued, too. Except my rescuer didn't use a sling or a staff. He used a cross. And one day he'll return with a sword.

I am the one. So are you.

Renouncing Lies

2009-05-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, about telling our stories, I said I would get into this soon. Well, here we are.

First, a little quiz:

Q: What did Jesus call Satan?
A: The father of lies.

Q: What does Genesis 3:1 say about Satan?
A: He is craftier than all of the other creatures. (Serpent, Satan—they're the same thing.)

Q: How did Satan trick Adam and Eve? (Remember, Adam was right there with Eve.)
A: He lied. Maybe more specifically, he said that God lied.

Who do you think is happy when we believe a lie? Is it Satan, or God? DING, DING, DING, DING! Right. It's Satan.

And that's what renouncing lies is all about. All of us have been lied to our whole lives, and we have believed some of those lies. Lies about ourselves. Lies about God.

When we began this exercise of renouncing lies, one of our brothers again led the way. During an intensive spiritual retreat (okay, it was Wild at Heart Boot Camp), he began talking to one of the other men there, and after a few minutes the man stopped him and said, "I've heard you say several thing about yourself that I suspect are not true, and I know you've said things about God that are not true." Another man got involved, and after a while it became clear that there were many lies, not just one or two.

That day my brother took the time to write out all the lies he had believed over the years, and once he started, he filled pages with them. He showed the notebook to us, and it was amazing to see how much falsehood had been in his life. He renounced them all, and his healing was begun.

So, when we got together a couple of weeks ago to renounce lies, we were all supposed to come with our own lists. Now, I had a hard time putting such a list together. I asked, "Is this lies we believe now, or what we used to believe, or what?" I've always had a difficult time with listing out things like this. If you ask me to tell you the three best things that have happened to me this week, I'll hem and haw. I'll think of a thousand things and reject them all with the idea that maybe there was something better. I hate making lists. And I put it off.

The day we met, I got some news that really floored me, one of the recent setbacks I wrote about earlier. I was hurt, confused, and very, very low. Satan used that and began to shake me like a terrier shakes a rat. In the thirty minutes I had to get ready for our meeting, I sat and wrote out a list of things that really felt true to me, things like, "I'm forever destined to be second place." That was at the top of my list and it really hit me hard. It continued with such things as "I'm a bad father," and "I'm selfish."

When the time came, I told my brothers of what had gone on before the meeting, and how I'd made my list in about 10 minutes. I read it out to them and they all saw them as lies. Lies that I had accepted, and built my identity upon.

That's the key right there. When I wrote "I'm selfish," I knew there was an element of truth in that. Which of us has never been selfish? We all fall into that sin at times. God knows that, and he forgives us. The lie comes when we let Satan identify us by that sin. We make an agreement with him. It's not "I've done something selfish," or "I've had a selfish thought," but it's "This is what I am."

And that's a lie. We are who God says we are, nothing more or less. When we gave our allegiance to Jesus, when we surrendered to him, we became brothers with him, and sons of God. You are not what you do. You are what God does for you.

That is a concept I have fully embraced—in my mind. But until that night, I realized I had not fully embraced it in my heart. Deep down I felt I was a selfish, pig-headed, perennial second-stringer. Satan had done a good job on me.

But the funny thing was, I have learned not to accept that condemnation in parts of my life. God has freed me of so much. I've known for a long time that conviction comes from the Spirit, and condemnation comes from Satan. Yet I still held onto this identification that Satan had pinned on me.

I renounced every lie on that list. I renounced them out loud in Jesus' name. And I asked forgiveness for believing Satan and not God. My brothers prayed powerfully over me, and I left that place healing from something I didn't even know about 24 hours earlier. I've been through that before, and let me tell you, it feels very, very good.

Sometimes (always?) it takes others to see the lies we have believed. It did for my brother. It did for me. I wrote those things because they felt true. My brothers told me otherwise. May you find brothers and sisters who will do that for you.

No more lies!

What's Your Story?

2009-05-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

Each of us has a story. That story is the story of who we are: our struggles, our wounds, our victories, our failures, our loves and hopes and dreams fulfilled or unfulfilled. Each story is unique, and each story holds the seeds of our legacy. They are each a small part of the great story, the story of God's love, man's rejection, Christ's sacrifice, Satan's end.

Some of you know I work with a group of men who meet weekly to help each other overcome sins in their lives. We hold each other accountable for our actions. We encourage one another in the battle. And battle it is. This is a great group of brothers, and we have seen lots of powerful victories over the years. We've seen marriages restored, relationships rebuilt with God and with families, men changed from captives into warriors. It has been amazingly good to be part of this group of men.

But I knew there was something more.

I've felt for a couple of years that we needed something beyond accountability. We needed real brotherhood. I've been in that kind of relationship before, or at least on the fringes of it, and it far surpasses what accountability can provide. I began to pray for a way to move into true brotherhood, and to talk to others about it, mainly the men I looked upon as leaders in the larger group.

Several months back, a small group of us started something new (to us), and the results have been astounding. We started with something so simple, and so obvious, it seems like nothing.

We told our stories.

Each time we met, one man would take the whole time, usually 90 or 120 minutes, and tell us his story. Starting with "I was born . . ." he told us the story of his childhood, his adolescence, his young adulthood, his early marriage, his career . . .his life. One of the men who has been through this before modeled it for us. He focused on the wounds he had encountered over the years, especially in his early years. It seems that every one of us has wounds, and those have molded who we are and how we respond to things for the rest of our lives. Satan takes those wounds, the "arrows" as they are sometimes called, and he gets us to build our identity around them.

This simple step, of telling each other our stories, has had amazing, dramatic effect. First, we now know each other in ways we never did before. We know things about each other that our wives don't know. It's not that we have hidden things from our wives. Far from it. This process has revealed things that it never occurred to us to tell others.

Second, in every case we have come to see the reasons why we are the way we are. For some, we see the roots of the simmering anger. For others, we see the rejection that led to a fear of abandonment. For others, the roots of addictive behaviors are clear . . .but not always to the man telling the story.

That's the third thing that has come out of this. In every case we have seen things that were unclear or completely unknown to the one telling the story. When we are the recipient of the wounds, when we have felt the arrows, we are too close to the pain to know what is going on. All we know is that we hurt, and we don't want to hurt like that again. So we bury it or mask it in some way that isn't even conscious. It's unknown to us until one of our brothers shows it to us.

And that's the fourth thing. Once exposed to the light, these wounds begin to heal. Lies live in darkness. They cannot survive in the light.

That's the next step: renouncing lies. After that, the final step is to see each other's glory. I'll talk more about each of these later.

Our plan is to continue meeting together for a few more weeks, and then for each of us to begin another group, where we can teach others to tell their stories and to renounce the lies we've all believed. If what we've seen so far is any indication, this will absolutely transform the men of our church. And it won't stop there. Transformed lives transform lives.

So, what's your story?

A Short Update on Foster Care

2009-05-15T18:07:00.001-07:00

We heard back from the caseworker at Adoption Works yesterday. Apparently CPS was involved in this situation from the beginning, and they actually came to Adoption Works to see if they had someone who would temporarily foster the twins. No slight on them, but Adoption Works really wasn't ready for this. In the past, they used to be larger with more funding, and wouldn't have had any difficulty with this situation.

I can only assume that CPS came to them because they had nowhere else to place the twins on such short notice, and because they thought the fostering wouldn't cost CPS anything.

It still remains to be seen if things can be worked out. There is a relative in the picture. But it is still possible those little boys may come to stay a while with us. We just don't know.

Pray for those boys. Not so much that they come to us, although we are ready for them if they do. Pray that they get the parenting they need. That's the real goal.

More on Deck Clearing . . . Sort Of

2009-05-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last week I posted about God telling me he was clearing my decks. I'd had several pretty difficult setbacks, and it seemed God telling me he was preparing me for a storm, or a battle, or a wild ride. Okay, God. I got it. Now what?

Two days ago I got an e-mail that brought back some of what I was feeling before. I had to deal with another wave of disappointment and bitterness. I could really tell that Satan was chewing on me. You don't think that disappointment and bitterness come from God, do you? The circumstances hadn't changed, but the bad feelings were back and in new strength. I recognized that pretty quickly and called a brother who prayed for me. He's on the same page with me—we both see these setbacks as an attack. That doesn't make them any easier to ignore, but it does help when dealing with them. Good enough. I knew the source.

Then I got home and we got a phone call from the adoption agency we are certified with. Just as a bit of background, my wife and I got certified to do foster care about a year ago. The thing we want to do is short-term care for newborns. Shan has wanted to do this for years. Basically, we would take newborns into our home and care for them while their adoptive parents are getting paperwork done, getting ready, and getting final approval. Normally, this would be 10 days or so at a time. Except we've not had any newborns yet. We've waited a year with nothing. This is a relatively small agency, and apparently it has suddenly become trendy for unwed teen moms to keep their babies, and so they do . . . for a while. Then, after the novelty wears off and they realize how hard it is to raise a child, some of them give the child up for adoption. So we haven't had any babies yet.

At any rate, the phone call from the agency asks if we can take in two toddlers; twin 2 ½-year-old boys. I could hear Shan on the phone saying things like, "We're not set up for toddlers," and "I really need to talk to my husband about that." After a bit more listening, she hangs up.

"What's up?" I asked. It seems that the mother of these boys wants to voluntarily give them up for two to three months while she gets her act together. We don't know, but in these situations it's usually for a period of drug rehab.

Wow. Instead of a single newborn, they want us to take two toddlers. We don't have beds, car seats, high chairs, etc. They said they could get those things to us. We never wanted to do long term foster care because we know, absolutely know that we will get very, very attached to these kids, and adoption is not in our future. Nursing homes might be in our future, but not adoption.

So we talked about it. I asked Shan what was in her heart, and she kept saying things about how much need there was. That wasn't what I wanted, so I kept asking, and she finally said, "I think my heart says we should take them."

Dinner was ready, so we sat down to eat, and when I prayed, I prayed mostly about this decision. We talked some more, and I mentioned God's word to me about clearing my decks. Maybe this was what he meant. Shan's eyes got really big.

Then we called Rachel, our daughter, who was at a friend's house. She's a big consideration in these things. Her immediate response was, "Get them!" Rachel can be uncertain about some things, but this was not one of those.

After dinner, Shan and I sat together and prayed for guidance and direction. As I prayed, I could feel God give me the answer. I guess Shan felt it, too, because as soon as I said Amen, we looked at each other and I said, "We have to do this." She said, "You're right," and immediately called the agency. The agency told us that CPS was talking with the mother, and they would get back to us in about an hour.

At that point we went into action. (I started to say we sprang into action, but we don't do a lot of springing anymore.) The front room has been used as a storage place for a while. We got the bed cleaned off and started washing the sheets, because we knew if we had two toddlers just taken from their mother that there would be some tears and difficulties at bedtime. Shan could sleep in there with them at first. We moved a bunch of stuff out, mostly things that should have been put in the attic after Christmas, and we cleaned up. I ran our lousy vacuum and wished for perhaps the eleven thousandth time that we'd replaced it. But we got the room tidy and ready for two little boys. I kept saying, "Are we stupid, or what?" and Shan kept laughing. It felt really good to be doing this.

An hour or so later, the agency called. CPS would not agree to pay the agency's fees for a temporary foster care situation. Those fees are not extensive, and most, perhaps all, would come to us to pay for all the care that little kids need. If I remember correctly, our agreement is that we get $25 a day per child. It has to cost CPS more than that to put a child into their system. But it's likely a turf thing. We are not in the CPS system. The agency has a policy that they cannot accept temporary foster kids without the fees. They just don't have the money to do it. In an adoption, those fees typically come from the adoptive parents. That couldn’t happen here. The mother has no money, CPS won't release any, and the agency doesn't have it.

So, no kids. What a let-down! After going through all the emotional strain of deciding we would take them, they were snatched away. It was quite the roller coaster ride. We felt flat, and tired, and confused. We had already begun to fill up with love for these two little boys—and we hadn't even met them! Then . . . nothing. I presume the children are now in the custody of CPS, and I pray that they are receiving the love and care they need.

And I still don't know why God is clearing my decks.

Praying a Lie

2009-05-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

Recently I heard a lie in a prayer, and it's something that our culture, including the church, almost universally accepts.

First off, let me say that the person praying this prayer is a wonderful Christian woman, a friend, and a prayer warrior. She meant no harm by what she said, and only repeated something that we have often heard and bought into. I hesitated to post this, and tried to write it without mentioning the prayer, but I thought I needed to point out how pervasive this is in the Church. I trust that if the lady in question recognizes herself, she will forgive me for bringing this up again.

We were praying for another lady who was pregnant and about to deliver her second son. The lady praying asked for God's protection for her baby boy, and her other baby boy, and her other baby boy, meaning her husband. There were quite a few chuckles in our group, and she continued on with her prayer.

But a hand grabbed my heart and squeezed. I know the husband in question. He's a young man compared to me (lots of men in that category), but he is unquestionably a man, a Christian man, and a man who is doing a good job of being the spiritual leader of his household.

Yet we called him not only a boy, but a baby boy, and most of us laughed.

This is a lie straight from the pit of hell.

Satan has done a great job with this one. You hear this all the time. Men are called little boys by their wives, by other women, and by other men. We all have heard, probably all have said, "He's just the tallest kid in the family." We laugh, and shake our heads, and we give credence to something that emasculates men, strips them of respect, and serves Satan's purposes perfectly.

Let's take a closer look at the idea that men are really just bigger boys. According to the Bible, Christ is the head of the church, and the husband is the spiritual leader of his household. (And if you don't buy into the Bible, it makes no difference. Everyone in that room where we were praying does buy into it.) Does it make sense, in light of that, to equate the leader of the household with a child? Does a woman who believes that really want a child as the leader of her household?

This idea comes from a variety of sources. For one thing, there are way too many men who act as if they're still boys. The Peter Pan syndrome is well known. There are reasons for that failing of men, and we'll likely discuss that at another time. Why, though, do we act as if all men are in that category? Even good, godly men who are doing their dead-level best to lead their families?

In part it is because we have decided that many of the things men like are childish. Most men are devotees of sports. Sports are games. Games are for kids. Therefore men are kids. It is faulty logic based on faulty premises, but how many of you really think it's true?

Men love sports because there are goals, solid outcomes, action, sacrifice, effort, talent, discipline, excellence, and teamwork involved. Men love all these things. And they are the things that help men in other arenas of life. Men want to be part of something larger than themselves. We live for that. And that translates over to business, to government, to family, and to faith. This is not to say that some men don't overdo the sports thing. Far from it. But we don't say that women are little girls because they like romance, and many women overdo the whole romance thing. Capiche?

Another reason we place men in the same category as children has to do with the differences in the way men and women think.

I can remember a class at church once where we were discussing marriage. When we asked what women got out of marriage, we heard such things as companionship, stability, relationship. When we asked what men got out of marriage, the answer was overwhelmingly, "Sex."

Now, Think about that for a moment. All men want out of marriage is sex? We don't have any desire for companionship, stability and relationship? Folks, that's complete nonsense. If all men wanted was sex, they could find it quite easily without marriage. And less expensively, I might add. Yes, I said that. It's true. Live with it.

It's true that men generally desire sex more than women do. So what? Does that mean men are inferior to women? Let's turn that around. Women generally desire sex less than men do. Does that make them inferior to men?

Neither question makes any sense. Both genders are made the way they are because God made them that way. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." God created all of us as either men or women. We're different. Different does not mean either superior or inferior.

God also created sex and blessed it within marriage. But we have decided that the desire for sex within marriage is somehow inferior to the desire to be close without it. Sorry. Thanks for playing. Better luck next time. You won't find that idea in the Bible. Men typically express intimacy through sex. Men are more action oriented than women, and women are more verbally oriented than men. They're just different. Again, that says nothing about the superiority of one or the other.

Sure, you can have intimacy without sex. But can you have it at the level that a husband and wife are supposed to? Do you know many people who do? Anyone?

I don't either.

A third reason we place men in the same category as children is the real root of the problem. Just as women in Western culture were once considered vastly inferior in all matters outside the home, men are now considered vastly inferior in all matters within the home. This is the diabolical part. Think of who is happiest about ridiculing men because they are men, and about ridiculing women because they are women. Do you think God is happy with that? No! Satan is happy with that. It makes him chortle with glee. Satan will do anything he can to drive a wedge into a family, anything he can to destroy the image that God has placed in us.

The reality is that there is a seed of truth within this idea of the inferiority of men in the home. Women are naturally more nurturing than are men. Tell Dad you're sick and he'll give you medicine. Mom will rock you and hold you. (Some dads will, too, but we're talking about the overall trend here.)

But that seed of truth has grown into a lie in full flower. The qualities of a man—sacrifice, assertiveness, devotion to duty, risk-taking, even a level of aggressiveness—are just as important to a family. Just look at what happens to those who don't have fathers, or whose fathers are distant or uninvolved. It's a disaster.

Satan is most effective when he can base his lie on a bit of truth. That's how he works. And he has done a tremendous job with this lie.

So, if you want men to act like men, quit calling them children. And if I hear it, expect me to call you out. Gently, I hope.

Clear Your Decks

2009-05-07T02:28:00.000-07:00

Some things have happened in my life lately that have seemed like blows or setbacks. I won’t go into details, but in the past few weeks more than one thing I was pursuing has been denied me or taken away. These were all good things, and I honestly believed that they were right for me, that God was leading me toward them. I still believe that they were good, and right, and proper goals.

Then, in some prayer time yesterday, I felt a strong sense that God was telling me to clear my decks. No, that’s not right. He was telling me that he was going to clear my decks.

Now, I’m no sailor by any stretch of the imagination. But I do know a little about that phrase. When you clear decks you put everything up, tie it down, and reduce the clutter. You get everything out of the way that can be put out of the way. You clear your decks to prepare for one of two things: for a storm, or for action. You clear decks for a storm because everything not tied down and everything out of place is a hazard to the crew. In a pitching sea with water coming across the bow and a gale blowing lines straight and stiff as a pole, anything loose is a missile looking for a target. Action can be a battle, or it can be a race, and the same reasons for clearing decks apply. In a battle or a race, seconds count, and anything out of place slows you down and endangers lives.

I think God was telling me something is coming my way, either a storm or action. Or perhaps both. There are things that need to cleaned up, put away, lashed down. I think God was telling me he was doing this for me, to prepare me for what is to come. Notice that he didn’t even tell me to prepare. He’s preparing me. He loves me so much that he does this for me.

So I didn’t get some of the things I was working toward. That felt so much like rejection. It hurt. To deny that would be to lie. But these things that have happened might just be what I need. Certainly many of the things God wants for us require pain. Remember, Jesus tells us that we follow him when we pick up a cross. He didn’t tell us to pick up a comfy pillow and a nice cup of tea.

Besides the pain I felt, I also felt confused. Let’s be honest here: I still feel both. The things that were taken away from me were really good, God-honoring things. What’s up with that?

There are a few things I have to remember when I don’t understand why things go wrong. One is that God sees so much more than I do. For that matter, other people see things I cannot see. That is why we all need others who speak into our lives.

Another is that although God is sovereign, he doesn’t put in motion everything in our lives. Some of the things that happen to us come from our own sin. God certainly doesn’t do that. We do. And some of the things that happen to us originate from the other side, from God’s enemy. No, I am not saying that those who were involved in denying my recent goals are listening to Satan instead of God. Please don’t read that into what I am saying. Satan can engineer events behind the scenes to move us toward a certain goal. We know people do this all the time, so why do we doubt that Satan can do it? The point is not that we should see Satan in the actions of Godly people. It’s that we falsely attribute many things to God that he doesn’t cause. He can use them, certainly. And he does. But we cannot assign blame to God for everything. Someone recently quoted Romans 8:28 to me:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

I’m afraid we misuse that verse to say that everything that happens, God does for our good. It doesn’t say that. It says that no matter what does happen, God works for our good. Our ultimate good.

Finally, I have to remember that God doesn’t owe me an explanation. He’s God, and I’m not. In all of the 600-some-odd laws God gave to Moses, he never explains why. We have come to understand why in many cases, and not in others. But obedience is the standard, not understanding.

God doesn’t often get specific when he speaks to me, and sometimes I really wish he would. It would be great to hear God say, “Go here. Do this.” I think. Of course, Jonah heard exactly that, and he still ran from God. He got no peace until he did what God wanted, and even then he was mad about it. Maybe that’s why God speaks softly and subtly to me. He doesn’t want me to run.

Just One Thought

2009-05-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:5

I had a bit of a revelation the other night, and it came, of all places, from an old black-and-white movie.

TCM ran Carbine Williams, a bio-pic about Marsh Williams, a convict who invented a new kind of mechanism for a repeating rifle while he was in prison. It was later used in the M-1 Carbine, many thousands of which were carried by American soldiers in WWII. Jimmy Stewart played the title role, and did a great job. The story is that Williams was arrested for moonshining, and during the arrest a federal agent was killed. Nobody knew who fired the fatal shot, but Williams had made a vague threat against any "revenooer" who came on his land, and he was railroaded into prison. He actually pled to a lesser charge, then was suddenly sentenced to 30 years at hard labor by a new judge. He was a bitter, angry man, who had a talent with all things mechanical, especially firearms.

After some conflict with the warden, Williams was sent into The Hole, a small steel box, "until he begs to come out." He stubbornly stayed there for 30 days, until the prison doctor freed him. Later, the warden befriends him after Williams saves the warden from a rattlesnake bite.

It's a good picture, as evidenced by the fact that my daughter sat through about half of it without once asking to change the channel.

The scene that caught me came after the episode in The Hole. Williams is on his bunk, measuring and drawing something on a piece of paper. He hears a footstep and hides the paper, but the warden comes up and demands to see it. It is a detailed draftsman's drawing of a new rifle mechanism. The warden wants to take it, but Williams begs the warden to let him continue, then starts to talk about his time in The Hole.

"Did you know you can't think of two things at one time?" Williams asks.

The warden is puzzled, but interested, and Williams goes on to say how in his time in The Hole, he began to think of those Indian fakirs who lay on beds of nails. He realized that he couldn't think about the pain he felt if he occupied his mind with something else. For him, that something else was designing the rifle.

"At first, I couldn't think for more than 15 or 20 seconds about it before thinking about how much my back hurt again," Williams went on. "But I kept at it, and later I was able to go three or four hours without thinking about my back at all."

"Did you know you can't think of two things at once?"

That question really hit me. Something I tell the men in my accountability group is that you cannot think about nothing. If I tell you not to think about monkeys for the next ten seconds, your thoughts will be filled with monkeys. The secret is the thing Carbine Williams discovered. You have to think about something else. You have to take that thought captive.

Satan assaults us every hour of the day with things we shouldn't think of or dwell on. For men, it often takes the form of lust. That's just where men are most vulnerable. Our society is not exactly a modest and chaste one. Right? So the seeds of lust are always there. We can't just not think about them. We have to think about something else to push that thought out.

No, I'm not telling you to design a new rifle. I am saying that we should replace the thoughts we know shouldn't be there with ones we know should. The best thing to use is the scriptures.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness after 40 days of fasting, he used hunger, pride, and power to tempt him. He twisted the scriptures to make his points. Jesus answered him each time from scripture, essentially cutting him off at the knees.

We should do the same. Memorize scripture. Hide it in our hearts. Use it. When temptation comes, and it will, take that thought captive with one of God's promises. Recite a psalm. Fill your mind with the goodness, holiness, mercy, justice, power, and majesty of God. Remember the cross. Remind yourself how God redeemed Israel from Egypt.

Remember, the battle against sin is the battle of the mind. I've become convinced that this is the secret of those we know as great saints. They become so focused on God that other thoughts are driven out. Me? I'm just getting started.

Take that thought captive.

Sharing in Suffering?

2009-04-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." (Romans 8:17)

I read an article today written by Leo Thorsness, recounting an episode from his captivity in North Viet Nam. (You can find the entire article here.) After the Son Tay raid, the North Vietnamese moved all the prisoners of war into a central location. For the first time ever, men who had become friends through the "tap code" could actually see each others' faces.

On the first Sunday they were together, they agreed to hold a church service. As they gathered in one end of the room they shared, the guards burst in to break them up. Ned Shuman, the ranking officer, explained that there would be no trouble; they were just holding a church service. The guards would not allow them to gather in groups of more than three, and under no circumstances were they to have a church service.

During the next week, they felt bad about backing down and renewed their commitment to hold a service, with each man committing individually to it. Ned Shuman knew that when it happened, he would be hauled off for torture.

The next Sunday, as before, they began to gather and the guards, who had been watching for this, burst in. Ned Shuman was dragged out for torture.

"Our plan unfolded. The second ranking man, the new SRO, stood, walked to the center of the cell and in a clear firm voice said, “Gentlemen,” our signal to stand, “the Lord’s Prayer.” We got perhaps halfway through the prayer, when the guards grabbed the SRO and hauled him out the door toward Heartbreak.

As planned, the number three SRO stood, walked to the center of the cell, and said, “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.” We had gotten about to “Thy Kingdom come” before the guards grabbed him. Immediately, the number four SRO stood: “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.”

I have never heard five or six words of the Lord’s Prayer — as far as we got before they seized him — recited so loudly, or so reverently. The interrogator was shouting, “Stop, stop,” but we drowned him out. The guards were now hitting POWs with gun butts and the cell was in chaos.

"The number five ranking officer was way back in the corner and took his time moving toward the center of the cell. (I was number seven, and not particularly anxious for him to hurry.) But just before he got to the center of the area, the cell became pin-drop quiet.

In Vietnamese, the interrogator spat out something to the guards, they grabbed number five SRO and they all left, locking the cell door behind them. The number six SRO began: “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.” This time we finished it."

Reading this left me in tears. Tears for the men who had such courage in their convictions that they would stand up and pray, knowing they would be tortured. Tears also of shame, because I have never shown that kind of courage.

We live in a post-Christian culture. In some ways, we live in an anti-Christian culture. In my lifetime I have been looked down upon for my faith. I've been marginalized, laughed at, and ridiculed. I've even had my career affected. But I have never suffered imprisonment, torture, or deprivation for my faith. I have never had to face that.

So, is that what it means "to share in his sufferings?" Because if that is so, then I cannot "share in his glory."

This question has long troubled me. Most of the apostles were martyrs. All of the early Christians had to fear persecution from the Romans and from their own people. That is beyond question. But does that mean that we who do not suffer persecution are lesser Christians?

After long reflection and much study, plus a lot of help from people who are wiser and brighter than I am, I have to say the answer is "No." Jesus said persecution would come, but he did not say all would suffer in that way. It also seems to me that much of the talk of suffering in the Bible relates to the effect of sin upon the world. We all experience sickness, heartache, grief, loss, disappointment. All lives have pain. We all know this. Some have more than others. It takes different forms for all of us. Who am I to say that the man whose arms are forced out of joint suffers more than the man whose only child dies at the hands of a drunk driver? Or that the woman who is imprisoned behind iron bars suffers more than the woman who is imprisoned by her own fears and depression?

So, when I hear stories of martyrs, I thank God that such stories come to my ears. I wonder if I would have equal conviction, and through my tears, I pray that I would. And I resolve to love, forgive, and proclaim truth no matter what comes to me, be it bitter or sweet.

Keep Dreaming

2009-04-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a video clip I saw today that really got to me. When we were little, we all learned that we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, and that we really should hold onto our dreams. This brings both lessons home in a powerful way. I pray you enjoy this as much as I did.

Susan Boyle

This Is Not Your Room

2009-04-08T08:42:00.001-07:00

Do you remember Turner and Hooch? Okay, we already know that I'm a sucker for movies about dogs, and this one was no exception. But there is one scene from that movie that really hit me last night. Or maybe it was that God hit me with that scene.

In the movie, Tom Hanks plays Turner, a neat-freak police chief in a small coastal town. His life is very well ordered, his suits always immaculate, his house free of dust. Then he brings Hooch home. Hooch is a mastiff, a big, thundering hulk of a dog who drools some kind of thick slime, and who messes up pretty much everything. But he has witnessed his master's murder. Hanks has to bring this drool machine home with him for safe-keeping.

The scene I remember has Turner taking Hooch through his house, and in each room he says, "This is not your room," or "This is also not your room." Then he locks Hooch in a little foyer or mud room and goes off to bed. Hooch, of course, proceeds to destroy the mud room and break free into the rest of the house where he wreaks havoc.

It hit me last night that we treat the Holy Spirit this way. The first Celtic Christians liked to call the Holy Spirit the "Wild Goose" because he came and went as he pleased and did as he pleased. There was no telling when the Wild Goose would show up or what he would do. They delighted in that name for the Spirit, in his unpredictability.

We, on the other hand, are a bunch of little Turners. We want the Spirit with us. Or at least, we feel we ought to have him with us (much like Turner in the movie). I mean, he's part of the package deal, isn't he? But once we bring him into our lives, we tend to drag him around our hearts and tell him, "This is not your room." We're unsure what he'll do. We don't really know what to make of him. In the end, we are so consumed with understanding the Spirit that we don't allow him into most of our lives. He's left in that back room, the little one where he can't do much damage.

We tell people we've invited the Spirit into our lives, but when we go to the office we tell him, "This is not your room." When we sit down at the computer and surf we say, "This is not your room." When we go into the kitchen for that snack we really don't need we say "This is also not your room." We don't want the mess. We don't want the unpredictability. We don't want our little world disturbed from its routine.

The sad, yet funny thing is that the Spirit is so powerful. He's a little like Hooch in that respect. The dog had the muscle to break through doors and chew furniture into matchsticks. And the Spirit has the muscle to break down our barriers and turn our strongest fears into faith, our most pervasive sins into obedience. But, unlike Hooch, he wants the invitation. He bides his time, waiting until we ask him to come in. When we do, it's usually because we've already made a mess of the place. We have nowhere else to turn.

Ask yourself: what would be the difference in your life if you gave the Spirit permission to enter all your rooms? To say, "Wild Goose, go where you want. Do what you will."

Frodo

2009-04-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

All right, I’ll admit it: I’m a Frodo wannabe.

I know. Some of you are thinking, “The seventies were too good to you, weren’t they?” Others are thinking, “Frodo? Why Frodo? Why don’t you want to be Superman, or the president, or Jesus?” Still others of you who have been under a rock your whole lives are thinking, “Who’s Frodo?”

For you rock-dwellers, Frodo is the hobbit who, in J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, inherits the One Ring from his uncle Bilbo and agrees to take it to the Cracks of Doom to destroy it, thus saving Middle Earth from the evil dominion of Sauron. Got it?

Okay, now maybe I can explain. Frodo is my hero. He’s not strong. He’s not tall (probably 3-foot-nothing). He’s not powerful, influential, or famous. He’s not dashing. He doesn’t get the girl.

So, what’s to like about him?

Just this: in spite of all the things he isn’t, he still takes upon himself the most important, most deadly, most adventurous, most outrageous task ever known in fiction. Knowing that he is not likely to survive or even to succeed, he still stands up in the Council of Elrond, and says, “I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way.”

In giving Frodo the task of bringing down Sauron, Tolkein turns the world on its head. The small and insignificant becomes the hero. The meek and mild go where the mighty fear to tread. But, of course, Tolkein didn’t originate this kind of thinking. He got it from the source. He got it from the Word of God.

Look at your Bible and see how God turns the world upside down. How many times does he champion the underdog? How many times does he use the small and insignificant to overthrow the mighty?

Here’s a start:

Abram was a childless wanderer, and God made of him a great nation.
Jacob was a cheat and a momma’s boy, yet God made him father of the 12 tribes of Israel.
Joseph was a slave and a prisoner, from a family of shepherds. God made him second in command of Egypt, the greatest nation on earth.
Moses was a murderer and a refugee with a speech impediment. God used him to free his people.
The nation of Israel was a clan of 70 people. They became a nation of slaves. God freed them and made them the chosen people who would make his name known throughout the world, and through whom the Messiah would come.
David was the youngest son of an obscure shepherd. God gave him victory over Goliath and made him a great conqueror.

And then there is Jesus, the creator of the universe, he of the triune god, who becomes an infant, grows to manhood, and dies a horrible death on a cross. Defeating Satan for all time, achieving victory through surrender, making sinners into children of God—how's that for standing the world on its head.

That's why Frodo is my hero. He's a small (pun intended) reflection of Jesus.

As we are all intended to be.

The Hardest Victory

2009-03-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

If you have children, and if you live long enough, there comes a time when they draw more strength and get more enjoyment from their friends than they get from you, no matter how good a mother or father you have been. We went through this with our two sons, and now we're in the middle of it with our daughter, Rachel.

Rachel has been ill for more than the past two weeks. She's actually been a bit under the weather for several months, but we and the doctors have been attributing it to allergies, and we searched for the right allergy medication for her. But recently it has become worse. She coughs a lot, has a sore throat, and doesn't want to eat because it hurts and it doesn't taste like food to her. She has missed most of the past two weeks of school, and she has been totally uncommunicative, tired, and run down. We have had her tested for mono, had sinus, throat, chest, and esophagus x-rays, and we've had her at doctors several times. No change. (Please pray for her, if you would.)

Yesterday, though, she wanted very badly to go to church, and we let her go. She didn’t seem to have anything contagious, and she desperately wanted to get out of the house and go someplace other than to a doctor's office. I saw her after church, talking with her friends.

That's right—talking. She hasn't said more than twenty words a day to us for the past two weeks. But she was talking. A few minutes later, one of her friends asked if she could go home with their family for dinner, and we could pick her up later after a missions meeting. I agreed, because she seemed far happier than she had in quite a while.

When I picked her up, not only was she talking, but she was smiling. And—glory of glories—she actually talked to me in the car on the way home, and she laughed and smiled more during the evening.

It hit me then that she was getting from her friends what Shan and I couldn't give her.

That's something of a blow to a father (or mother). This is the child we have brought into the world. We have fed her, clothed her, loved her, taught her, and cared for her like no other person could have. I would literally give my life for her, and I know Shan would, too. Yet now she is more energized, and more uplifted by several hours with her friends, some of whom she hasn't known for more than a couple of years.

And yet . . .

Isn't this what we've been working toward? Isn't the goal of parenting to raise up a child who can leave our home, become an adult, develop strong relationships, make his or her own way in the world? In other words, isn't this a victory?

We've all seen kids who don't grow up, or who seem to be taking far too long to do so. It's a sad thing, something we don't wish on anyone. They are stunted people, spiritually or mentally immature. They don't live up to their potential.

But when our children do grow away from us, it is a bittersweet thing. Sometimes, especially when we're just getting used to it, the bitter far outweighs the sweet.

Rachel is an outstanding young woman. She has chosen the best of friends. They are all great kids. What's more, their parents are a great influence on Rachel. I could not choose better folks to be in her life. Yet it's sad for us to fade into the background. We have been the biggest part of her life for a long time, and now our part is dwindling. Maybe it is because of the job we've done raising her. I have to remind myself of that.

And . . .

One day another change occurs. The young man or young woman who was your child comes back to you . . . as your friend. They never cease to be your children. But they grow into something more than that.

I look forward to that day.

Man Enough

2009-03-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

All right, I’ve had it. I’m sick and tired of the way Jesus is portrayed in art, fiction, and even theology. You know exactly what I mean. All the classical paintings that make Jesus looking like an asthmatic surfer. The pale, frail, almost skeletal Jesus. And popular “Christian art” is even worse. The Jesus surrounded by cute, fluffy lambs and smiling, 20th century children. (Ever notice how many of those kids are blonde?) The Precious Moments Jesus. I’ve heard of Jesus meek and mild, but this is Jesus bland and insipid.

Blech! Does that Jesus impress you as the kind of man who threatened the authorities enough that they crucified him? Is that the same Jesus as the one who told the Laodicean church, “I am about to spit you out of my mouth” because they were “lukewarm—neither hot nor cold”? (Rev. 3:16)

Let’s get something straight. Jesus was a man among men. His disciples, with the exception of Matthew, were men who worked with their hands. He himself had the rough, work-hardened hands of a stonemason. Yes, you heard that right. Jesus was not a carpenter, at least not in our understanding of the word. The word used to describe his and Joseph’s trade was “tekton”, meaning builder. The European translators saw that and thought of European houses and decided he was a carpenter. But even a quick look at Israel of Jesus’ day will show you that people built out of stone. Wood was rare and two-by-fours couldn’t be picked up at Lowe’s or Home Depot. Jesus learned stonemasonry from Joseph. He quarried, selected, shaped and set stone. That kind of gives a new meaning to thought that we are “living stones”, doesn’t it? (I Pet. 2:5)

At any rate, Jesus wasn’t some pale, wan ascetic who looked as if he would fall over in a strong wind. He worked out of doors, with his hands, in a rough, hard trade. He walked everywhere he went, on hard, dusty roads. He was a man respected by other men. He inspired loyalty, and even fear.

Yes, fear. Look at what happens in John 18 when the soldiers, officials, chief priests, and Pharisees came with “torches, lanterns, and weapons” to arrest him.

Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, "Who is it you want?"

"Jesus of Nazareth," they replied.

"I am he," Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground. (John 18:4-6)

There they all were, a whole crowd of them, including soldiers with weapons. Yet when Jesus speaks, they draw back and fall down.

Tell me that’s not a mighty man!

The next time someone tells you Jesus is not manly enough . . .ask them if they have the guts to let someone pound spikes in their hands and feet.

Bad Blogging

2009-03-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm a bad blogger. I never have kept a diary, my journal writing has been very spotty, and I'm new at this blogging thing. I tend to think more in terms of articles than in blogs, but I promise I'll post something (besides this) soon.

Paco's Tale

2009-01-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

Not Paco's tail. Although Paco's tail was a spectacle to behold and a danger for anything on the coffee table.

Paco was our first Chessie, and perhaps the best dog I've ever owned. I'd never had a Chesapeake Bay Retriever before, and after Sheba died I looked for another Lab. I found one, too, a beautiful 6-month-old chocolate Lab we named Packy. She was incredibly loving, sweet, and loyal. My oldest boy, Brian, was about four when we got her, and he fell head-over-heels in love with her.

The problem was, she wouldn't retrieve. I had wanted a hunting dog for quite some time, and Packy would instantly drop anything the moment she saw me or anyone else. In time I learned the story, and why she was still at the breeders at six months of age. She had been bought by some people who raised show chickens. So when she showed her breeding and picked up a chicken, they scolded and swatted her. She developed a complex about carrying anything.

I took Packy out to a man I knew who trained dogs, to see if he could do anything with her. He had a cage of live pigeons he used for training, and Packy wouldn't even pick up a tied pigeon. He felt like there was little hope for her as a hunting dog, and said, "I have some 5-week old pups that will retrieve better than that." Sure enough, he let out several of his Chessie pups, and those pups fought each other to drag a pigeon back to me. I knew right then I wanted one of those pups.
It took some persuading, but eventually we got the breeder to take Packy back, after reminding her that she hadn't bothered to disclose the dog's past. And three weeks later we brought home Paco.

About that same time we brought home Duncan, our second-born. He and Paco grew up together, although Paco put on weight faster than Duncan did. By the time he was full grown, Paco weighed 120 pounds. It took Duncan many years to reach that mark.
From the start, Paco was fascinated with water, and with retrieving. I tossed a rolled up sock for him in the hall and he never tired of pouncing on it and bringing it back to me. He was very soft-mouthed, and never fought me for the ball, or toy, or stick.

When he was seven months old, I took him out to west Texas, where Shan's parents live. I hunted pheasants there every year at Christmas, and I took Paco out into the field, expecting to start working him a bit. He immediately knew what to do. He got one whiff of those wild birds, and he was quartering in front of me, no more than 20 yards out, nose to the ground, following scent trails. When we came to a frozen over pond, he jumped in, broke the ice, and swam around as if this was something he did every day. In truth he was born to it. Water was his environment.
At the lake he made the most spectacular water entries off the dock, leaping out and splashing down with absolute abandon. We used to tie a rope to a retrieving dummy and let him pull the kids around in the water like a little tugboat. When we went out skiing we had to lock him up or he would chew through his lead and follow the boat. In the back yard he dug a nice hole under the spot where the air conditioner condensate dripped. There he could lay in the water to his heart's content. I managed to break him of that by putting out a kiddie pool in the summer.

At home, Paco was a joy and a force of nature. He minded me very well. The rest of the family were a different matter. He was pretty good about minding Shan. Duncan and Brian grew up with Paco, and managed to control him some of the time. I can still see Duncan when he was about two, standing in front of Paco with a ball. Paco's eyes never left the ball. Duncan threw it, and Paco knocked Duncan flat to get it, then brought it back to him. They both loved it.

We had a Sheltie at the time named Piper. We pretty much always had a Sheltie. When Piper came in heat, Paco quit eating. We kept them separated, but he would sit at the back door and howl, crooning to his Love Goddess. He dropped 10 or 15 pounds each time she was in season. That was the only time I had difficulty with him, because he was so consumed with lust. Thank God they never got together.

In the field, Paco never lost a bird that I shot. He would plunge into lake beds full of thumb-thick willows that would have stalled a tank, and come out the side with the bird. And he always brought every bird to me, no matter who shot it. Other hunters would call him, and he'd steadfastly ignore them, bringing it straight to me. Good Paco!

Once, we were hunting a brushy ditch next to a vineyard. The grapevines were fairly new, and you could see for half mile under the arbors. One of the men winged a pheasant, which hit the ground running, heading through the arbors. Paco took off in a dead run, inscribing a great arc. He caught the bird about two hundred yards away, and they disappeared in a cloud of dust. Then he came trotting back, holding the bird and delivering it to my hand.

At that same spot, the landowner had planted pine trees in sunken 5-gallon buckets, to eventually grow a windbreak. As he was passing the buckets, Paco suddenly stopped, cocked his head, and plunged his nose down into one, wagging his tail in circles. When I got him pulled back, I parted the needles to see a mouse who had fallen in. Paco had heard or scented him. He didn't hurt the mouse, and I think he just wanted to play with it.

When Duncan was about 18 months old, he had a bit of a cold, so I stayed home with him on Sunday while Shan and Brian went to church. After a while I heard Paco barking and went to investigate. I couldn't see him through the patio door, but did notice a rabbit hopping along the fence. Oh, no! The neighbor behind us had rabbits, and apparently one had jumped into our yard. I quickly went to get Paco before he saw it and killed it. Before I got to him, though, I saw that he had another rabbit, and was barking at the neighbor's dog over it. Too late! But Paco gently picked up the rabbit and brought it to me. It was completely unharmed, but limp with fear and wet with dog spit. Paco was immensely proud of himself. After putting him in the garage I caught the other bunny, then looked for something to carry them in to take them back to my neighbor. The only thing I could find was an ice chest, so I popped both bunnies in it and Duncan and I delivered them back safe to our neighbor. I also advised him to move his firewood away from the fence. For about a year after that, Duncan assumed that any ice chest was a rabbit hutch, and he'd run up to open them, calling, "Bunny?"

There's so much more to tell about Paco. The time he stole a plum and spit out the cleaned pit within about a second. The time he licked up a spilled drop of Nyquil, then growled and barked and shook his head at the taste. The time he belly-crawled across the back yard, stalking a grackle in the honeysuckle vines. As he aged, he got to the point that nobody but me mattered to him. He never counter-surfed when I was around, but I'd leave the room and he'd walk over and start eating off someone's plate. It didn't count if I didn't see it.

He changed in other ways, too. He began to be stiff in his hindquarters, and I had started giving him aspirin on the vet's recommendation. Paco always viewed a trip to the vet as a holidy. He was happy to see everyone, especially when they gave him tasty chewable vitamins. And he never flinched at injections. He always took his medicine happily, licking aspirin up off the floor and chewing the nasty, bitter stuff. Which was amazing because he didn't chew other food, just slurped it down as quickly as possible. He still wanted to hunt, and cried if I left him. But his age was telling on him, and he'd sometimes get hung up in heavy cover and cry for me to come help him.

The last time I took him pheasant hunting, we went to a small tract about an acre in size. We started out as usual, with him trotting happily in front of me, quartering back and forth, nose to the ground. We didn't find any birds, and before we were halfway around the place, Paco had fallen back and was following me, panting heavily. He just didn't have it anymore. And he couldn't get into the van on his own. I had to lift him in.

The end was near, I knew. And there would be no more pheasant hunting. That fall I took him with me to a friend's place on Lake Granbury to hunt some doves. Paco immediately went to the water and swam around happily. But when it came time to get out, he couldn't climb the steps. He collapsed on the edge with his back end still in the water. And it seemed as if his head was misshapen. It was. A dog's head is mostly muscle, and the muscle had atrophied in moments. Crying, I helped him up the steps and into the van. I immediately rushed him to the vet, but we both knew his end had come.

On the table, I stroked his head and told him what a good dog he was. He thumped his tail as I said his name. And then it was over.

I'll never have another dog like Paco. He was a natural hunter, a wonderful companion, sometimes a big pain, and always a delight. We invest so much of ourselves into our dogs, and they return every bit of it many times over. Paco challenged us with his constant need for care, and he tried our patience with his mess, his smell, his moonlight serenades, his sheer dogginess. He sat quietly by me when I was sick or soul-weary. He danced with me when I was happy, he always met me at the door, he loved and protected my wife and kids, he ran through brush and swam through ice to bring me a bird. I've had other dogs since, wonderful dogs. But I still miss him.

Marley and Me, and Our Dogs Three

2008-12-31T10:14:00.000-08:00

Watching Marley and Me this week turned my thoughts to the dogs I've had over the years. It is a great movie, by the way, as much about marriage and family as it is about a crazy dog.

I think you could classify me as a dog lover. Okay, a dog nut. We didn't have a lot of pets when I was a boy. My dad wasn't all that big on pets. There was Tex, a Brittany Spaniel who ate dad's green tomatoes. Then we had a Dachshund named Doxie for a year or so. (My mother's name was Dixie, but Doxie's name didn't bother her, except when my father—using mom's middle name—called the dog Doxie Marie.) We had another Dachshund named Cindy who had back problems and had to be put down. And we had Snoopy, a Lab-Pointer mix we had when I was 11 who was my favorite. She had a habit of pointing—at airplanes flying overhead. She also had a habit of barking and of chewing up things. Like trash cans. Dad found her a new home. I was heartbroken.

I didn't have another dog until I was in college. While still living in the dorm, I managed to talk Shan, my fiancé (now wife), into letting me keep a dog at her duplex. Sheba was a black Labrador who had been raised without much human contact until she was six months old. She absolutely adored me, and liked Shan pretty well. When Shan and I sat together, Sheba would wedge her way in between us and lay her head on my shoulder. The day after our wedding, we came back to the duplex to get some things. Sheba had escaped from the back yard (she was a prodigious digger). I left Shan inside to pack, and went out with the car to look for her. It was early in the morning, and few people were out. I found her a few blocks from the house, and opened the car door so she could get in. This was the car we'd had at the wedding, the one that was still decorated with streamers and balloons, with "Just Married" painted on it. Sheba sat right next to me in the car with her head on my shoulder. We passed a man out watering his yard who gaped at us, surely thinking, "That is the ugliest bride I've ever seen."

We had Sheba for many years, along with Lady, the Sheltie that Shan had when we met. Sheba was the best mother I've ever seen. She had false pregnancies several times, and she took care of Lady's pups and the cat's kittens.

When Lady died, Sheba pined for her. (We all did. Shan was nearly hysterical.) Sheba had seen Lady when I laid her in the front yard, and cried piteously. She wouldn’t eat for days. Shan finally got her to eat by putting bacon grease on her food, and when she stopped a few weeks later, Sheba ran to the stove to show her where the bacon grease was.

With Sheba we had several Shelties (we've almost always had a Sheltie), including one male named Scamp who managed to open a locked door in between them and knock Sheba up. They were really cute puppies (all ten of them), who later grew up into strange looking black dogs. At that time we lived in a mobile home, and couldn't leave the dogs outside during the day. Every day when we got home, Sheba would meet us at the door, wagging furiously, and we'd play a game of "Find the Puppies." For some reason, perhaps to keep them away from the cat, she would hide puppies all over the house. One even fell down into an open heater vent and was stuck in the duct work. Getting a blind puppy out of a heater duct was an experience not to be missed, unless you had something more fun to do, like exploratory surgery. Without anesthesia.

We've had lots of doggy adventures over the years. I'll write more about them at another time. At the moment, though, we have three dogs, Chewbacca, Snickers, and Murphy. You might have guessed that the rest of the family is just as dog crazy as I am.

Snickers is our obligatory Sheltie. I bought her for my wife four years ago. She is an incredibly smart and fast dog, and my daughter Rachel trains her for agility trials. You know, where the dogs jump over bars, weave through poles, run through tunnels, etc. It's great fun to watch, and Snickers is very fast—when she pays attention. She's also a beautiful dog, and obsesses over a ball or toy, or anything she can chase.

Murphy is my daughter's dog. He was last year's Christmas present for Rachel. We'd lost my son's beagle, Pippin, in the summer, and all Rachel wanted for Christmas was another dog. When a 15-year-old girl shuns all the iPods, CDs, clothes, and other stuff you offer, you know she is really set on that one thing. When she opened the box that held a little stuffed dog and a certificate good for one dog of her choice (some restrictions apply), she burst into tears. A few weeks later we had Murphy, a cross between a Sheltie and a . . . well, who knows? He's black and tan like some dachshunds, but his long legs seem to belie that ancestry. He's a real character, who always, always grabs a toy to show everyone when he comes into the house, running around wagging his whole body like a canine sidewinder. He is also a very game little dog, and pesters Snickers and Chewbacca constantly.

I've saved Chewbacca (Chewie) for last, because we thought we'd lost him recently. He's a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, a hardy breed known for jumping into icy water to retrieve ducks and geese. Light tan in color, with a wavy coat, Chewie has never hunted anything (to my chagrin), but is a big, goofy kid. He makes more vocal sounds than any dog I've ever owned, including my previous Chessie. He loves to curl up in my recliner, as you can see.

A couple of weeks ago, we noticed that he was listless and throwing up. Shan made an appointment at the vet and left him inside to run some errands. When she returned there was blood all over the floor. She called me and we got him into the vet immediately, where they did x-rays and blood tests, and kept him overnight. He was one sick pup. The x-rays showed nothing, and the blood tests gave no indication of what was sickening him. We brought him home and when I let him out, he passed a huge stream of nothing but blood. He wouldn't eat at all. On Saturday he lay in the floor all day, not moving. At one point I thought he'd died because he was completely unresponsive, and his breathing was so shallow and slow. I sat and held his head, bawling. After a while I called Shan to let her know I thought he was going, and sent out a prayer request to a bunch of folks asking for his healing. Really, I was asking for my own sake.

Those of you who don't have dogs may not understand the love we give to our dogs and how much we get from them. I'm not one of those people who equate animals with humans. There is a difference. But dogs seem to reflect and magnify the love we give them. I sometimes wonder if that isn't the reason God gives them to us. I think they teach us a little bit about how we should reflect God's love.

People prayed for Chewie, and for us. And he just got well. Nobody knows why. By Saturday night he ate a little. By Sunday he was getting up and walking around. By that evening he was eating everything we gave him and asking for more. (He asks very loudly, with a kind of a cross between a growl and a howl. In fact, it sounds a great deal like Chewbacca did in Star Wars.) In another day he was running laps around the back yard for no particular reason. Maybe it just felt good to feel good.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll relate the story of the needle next time . . .

My Christmas Story

2008-12-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve, my kids and I went hunting. We were at my father-in-law's house outside Plainview, and we traditionally go pheasant and rabbit hunting at some time during our Christmas stay. This year it was me along with all three of my children—my 25- and 21-year-old sons Brian and Duncan, and my 16-year-old daughter Rachel.

It was really a lovely day, with mild temperatures, blue skies, and—rare for West Texas—light winds. We had a list of dry lakes, milo fields, and brushy areas to visit, and set out in mid-morning to hunt the first one.

We saw no birds there, although both Rachel and Brian saw rabbits. (We're still waiting for Rachel to get her first bird, or her first cottontail.) It was incredibly dusty and dry. Not much rain this year. At the next place, it was the same story. And the next. In fact, we saw no roosters that day, only a couple of hens (not legal to shoot), and a couple of rabbits. That was it. Yet in spite of our lack of game, it was a wonderful day. Rachel, after tromping through brush that came up past her elbows, enduring scratches from sticker burrs, yelled out, "This is so much fun!" And we all agreed.

What did it? What made it such a great day? Partly it was just being outdoors, walking in a land where you can see for miles, and knowing that all of this great sweep of earth and sky is just a small piece of God's good earth. Partly it was the anticipation that at any moment a rooster might flush cackling into the sky, or a rabbit might dash out of the brush at your feet. Hunting gives you a heightened awareness that brings everything into focus in a way that nothing else does.

But mostly it was just being together, enjoying each other's company, talking, laughing, loving.
I am blessed by my children. They are all bright, articulate, funny, and healthy. They poke fun at each other constantly (sometimes a little too constantly), and enjoy the verbal thrust and parry of conversation. They are so different, yet so alike. And, oh, how I love to spend time with them.

When they were younger, we made short hunting forays, and we always enjoyed the time. Each of them was a bird dog before becoming a hunter. Yet they tired more easily of the hunting than I did, and I spent a lot of time hunting on my own with just Paco, my Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Paco is long gone now, and we all miss him. I loved hunting with him. I cannot remember a single bird he failed to bring back, if I did my job and brought it down. There is a special joy in bird hunting with a good dog, and Paco was one of the best. But I wouldn't trade one moment of our hunt this Christmas Eve for all the time I spent with Paco, much as I loved him. I often wish I had spent less time hunting with Paco, and more time with my kids when they were small. But such wishes are pointless. We possess the time we have now, and that time is precious.

I love our Christmases. They are always spent with my wife Shan's family, which has become my family over the years. Usually we have lots of cousins, uncles, and aunts around on at least one day. Those days are okay, and I know they are precious to Shan, who grew up with all those cousins and such. But the best times for me are when we are with just the immediate family. The kids are always eager to open their presents, of course, but over the years they have become even more eager to give presents to others. And there is all the other time we spend together; playing ping pong, watching movies and ball games, looking at old pictures, and our family specialty: our cut-throat card games. We play a game called Liverpool Rummy, and in the midst of the hard competition, we laugh almost constantly.

In times past I used to resent that Christmas didn't go the way I wanted. Shan and I sometimes argued over the amount of gifts we gave to the kids. They are the only grandkids, and Christmas was a big deal for their grandparents. I sometimes resented the fact that Christmas was never at our house (barring one year), and that we didn't establish our own traditions like the ones we had when I was growing up. Over the years, God has taught me to love the traditions we have. I tease that "Santa can't find our house," but in reality I've come to take a kind of joy in that. And I know that I'm blessed to have Shan's family. We are not a perfect family, by any means. We all have warts and flaws and foibles. We disagree, and feelings are sometimes hurt. Yet in spite of it all, everyone looks forward to our Christmas time together. It is the highlight of our year. I thank God for that. I pray it will continue. And when Shan and I are the grandparents, I pray our kids and grandkids always want to be with us at Christmas.

May all your Christmases be equally loving and joyous.

Welcome

2008-12-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Dust Covered. The title comes from a rabbinical concept. A disciple of a rabbi, called a talmid is said to be "covered in the dust of the rabbi's feet." My rabbi is Jesus of Nazareth. It is my goal to be covered in his dust.

This blog will be about my spiritual walk, my family, my work in men's ministry, and occasionally about whatever else I want to write.