Sometimes I get all weird and judgmental on myself for working so slow and not finishing some things and for having ideas that I don’t seem able to execute. 

Then to escape the self-condemnation I’ll jump off the cliff into Jesus’ welcoming arms where he loves me no matter what.  And I can rest there and quit trying, which is good, but I can also go so far in trying to escape a sense of failure that I end up landing on, ‘It really doesn’t matter if I do anything or not.’  Which would be ignoring that Ephesians 2.10 created-for-good-works thing.

This seems to be out of whack and a pretty wide swing for a person to be like that.  So to try to stay out of the ditch in this area I have another little reminder card:

Creating things, producing and finishing things, counts. 

Now, you can go too far with that, and many do, ending up with ‘you are what you do.’  You don’t want your identity to be what you do.  You don’t want to define yourself and your value and worth by what you do.  God’s already assigned your worth in creating you, dying for you, and when you believe, in making you a partaker of his divine nature.

But you also don’t want to say that what you do and produce doesn’t count.

Could God have existed and been all that he is in his attributes, and NOT created the universe?  NOT created people and not allowed sin and a devil?  Or does who he is naturally lead to what he does and to his working and creating? 

Who God is and what he’s doing produces something.  So something should also be created and produced by those he made in his image. 

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A short series of reminders for when you start getting off-track.  Before you get stuck in the mud, get back on the main road.  These are not the basics of the Christian life and they’re not definitive – they’re just lists of reminders that have helped me.  The first two are HERE and HERE.  The third is HERE.

You’ve heard it.  Maybe thought it or said it yourself: God is a crutch.  Man invented God because man needs a God.  You need something to lean on because you can’t handle life.  The moral is that strong, well-adjusted people don’t need crutches.

Is food a crutch?  Jesus says just like food is necessary for physical life, so he is necessary for eternal life.  No food, no life.  No Jesus, no Life.

Is food an invention of man in his weakness and if you were only strong and well-adjusted you wouldn’t need to eat?  If you argued that food doesn’t really exist, and neither does physical life, what would people think?  Would they think you were a kook? 

Jesus doesn’t say food is a crutch or that physical life isn’t real, but he does argue in John 6 that eternal/spiritual life is more real than physical life.  That the eternal impacts the physical every day.  And not only does he put the priority on the spiritual over the physical, he says he is the center and source of that eternal life.  I don’t know if they thought he was a kook, but after that, they left. 

Maybe you could say that pretending that the physical is all there is, is a crutch – something to lean on because you can’t handle the truth.

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail – John 6.63

Now you’ll have to have your own list.  But when I’ve made things complicated and so had to force myself to boil down what I’m doing and what I’m here for, I've come up with five things.  “Come up” isn’t really right; it’s more like realized them, from reading the Bible and then a lot of trial and error.  What’s my job in church and as a Christian?

1.  Trust the living Christ living in me

2.  Worship the Lord

3.  Care about people

4.  Lead people to the Lord

5.  Disciple them, help them to grow and to do 1-5 with others

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A short series of reminders for when you start getting off-track.  Before it’s too late, get back on the main road.  These are not the basics of the Christian life and they’re not definitive – they’re just lists of reminders that have helped me.  The first two are HERE and HERE.

When you eat enough you get full and satisfied and you aren’t hungry anymore (yes, I know, I’m a genius).  You sit back and relax; you don’t go scrounging in the kitchen.  Until you get hungry again. 

One of the things that is most filling is bread.  It takes up a lot of space in your belly.  At its best, it’s also full of things good for you.  In the old days, bread was a very basic necessity.  And of course you have to have fluids, too, or you’ll die.  When we joke about the most minimum diet for life, what do we say?  Bread and water.

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst – Jesus, in John 6.35

Can you believe he’s saying that?  Like food gives life and satisfies hunger, he says he’s the end of the road for hunger and thirst; the hunger and thirst for another kind of life, which is superior to physical life. 

Superior but connected – this bread satisfies the soul, brings peace and overcomes the fear of death.  This bread stills the hunger that leads to anger, insecurity, bitterness and the need for more, more, more.  It’s the nature of belief to have that satisfaction that ends that kind of hunger.

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him – John 6.66

It’s the nature of unbelief to grumble, argue and dispute, to not be interested and to leave.  And to stay hungry and keep going back to the kitchen scrounging for something while ignoring the bread of life.

Even Martians know it – everyone has a leader.  And most of us, in some way, are both in authority and under authority.  At work and home, in the family, in marriage, and with government, church, school, clubs and teams – there’s someone over you and under you.

And you know that, for each of us, somewhere in those areas there is some degree of problem.  Maybe grumbling.  Or criticism.  Questioning.  Resentment.  Bitterness, jealousy, rebellion.  There’s the attitude, “I could do better” or “I should have that role.”  And there’s harshness -- “You just need to do what I tell you.”  Either you have the bad attitude or you hear it or you experience it. 

It’s one thing when the idea of authority is “over there;” when it’s someone else’s family, work, school, church.  That’s fine when it’s not you and it’s not me in charge or under authority at the license branch, or Blockbuster Video, or Walgreen, or the elementary school in the other neighborhood, or those houses behind us.  Whoever’s in charge there doesn’t usually affect me and it’s none of my business. 

And those Bible lists of kings and leaders?  That’s fine, too; none of them are you or me and their authority doesn’t touch us. 

But when it does affect me – when it’s MY family, job, school, neighborhood – well, that’s when I find out what I really believe.  That’s when it gets personal.  Suddenly it’s not spiritual, it’s not between me and God – no siree – it’s between me and that person over or under me.  You don’t even think about God. 

You might say you understand the idea of authority, but is it only as long as it’s in those areas over there, as long as it doesn’t effect you, as long as you can just talk about it?  When it gets close and personal do you forget what you say you believe?

Pretty much daily, we get blessed with the chance to realize what we really think about the idea of authority.  The whole world is filled with it.

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More of The God Show.  We’re on the authority channel.  The previous post is HERE.  You can find out more HERE.

The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

A short series of reminders for when you start getting off-track.  It’s easy to get lost and for things to get complicated.  Before it’s too late, get back on the main road.  These are not the basics of the Christian life and they’re not definitive – they’re just lists of reminders that have helped me.

I don't always do this in this order.  But I come back to it when I feel like I'm walking in mud...

To get things done:

Pray

Think

Have faith

Plan

Act

…is completely gone:

"The opposite of depression isn’t ‘Yippee!’ The opposite of depression is gratitude." – Dr. Richard D. Grant

When you start getting lost and losing your way, what do you do?  Start winging it and trying this turn, then that, and trust that you’ll get where you’re going even though you don’t know where you are now?  That’s one approach. 

Another is the thinking that the longer you go, the more off-course you could get, so before it’s too late, get back to the main road.  That’s what this is about – a brief series of little reminders of how to stay on the main road.  When things start feeling complicated, that’s your cue to keep it simple. 

I hate steps and lists when they become substitutes for appreciating the uniqueness of every moment and circumstance, but sometimes brief lists can be life-savers.  I have a bunch of these little lists I’ve collected on a handful of note cards paper-clipped together.  Some are things I’ve learned that have helped me while others I’ve seen somewhere and they hit me as helpful.  Here’s the first:

To avoid worrying, complaining, negativity and depression

1.  Thank God – continually.  If you absolutely can’t think of anything, like, say you have no arms or legs or family, and you’re just a head under a glass jar…

• then thank him that there’s air in the jar
• thank him that you have a glass jar around you that keeps cats from coming and licking your face…you can always find something to be grateful for…

2.  Work

• you were created to do good works
• there’s always something to be done
• you were born to create, to move things, to put things in order, to improve, fix – you are made in God’s image – that’s what he does
• when you’re feeling negative and depressed, that is NOT the time for reflection – take it as a cue that it’s time to work.

Pick any urban or suburban street in your area – maybe the one you live on – and as you drive up and down that street everyday, what do you see?  And you see it so much you don’t notice – it’s so commonplace: stores, jobs, workplaces, companies and businesses.  Churches, homes, schools, government offices.  And each one has an owner, manager, supervisor, team leader, pastor, coach, principal, dad or mom.

Each place has someone there responsible for the place – someone in charge who gets in trouble if things fall apart.  Someone who cares more or worries more about the thing.  Someone responsible for making sure the purpose of the place gets done.  Someone responsible for creating order and avoiding chaos.

And each of those people in charge answers to other authorities – someone in the city, state or federal government; someone in the denomination or school board, the church board or corporate headquarters. 

Is there anyplace where this is not so?  Any country or culture?  Any tribe or village or family or club?  Is there any time when this has not been so?  Even back when there were only two people on the whole earth, one of them did the naming of things, including naming the only other person.  One had the authority.  And when he neglected his authority, the one over him came looking for him demanding an answer. 

Everybody’s got someone watching over them, someone they answer to – no matter how far up in the chain you go.  You could make a case that you could be an absolute dictator and report to no one but yourself, but there is also revolution and assassination which would be another form of accountability.

Every person is in and under authority, somehow, someway.  The whole earth is filled with systems of authority.

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More of The God Show.  We’re on the authority channel.  The previous post is HERE.  You can find out more HERE.

The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

She was sixteen and sat down in the lobby next to my friend, a guy older than her father.  They small-talked some about the concert – it was a Christian singer, Mark Schultz.  She said she really like him.  She had never heard of him.  Said she didn’t even know this kind of thing existed. 

My friend was a little surprised and asked her, “So are you saved?” 

She hem-hawed a bit, so he asked, “If you died tonight would you go to heaven?”

More hem-hawing and then, “I don’t think I can be forgiven for what I’ve done.”  He asked her what it was.  She had a baby two years ago.  At fourteen.

He told her what Jesus had for her was a free gift.  No matter how good or bad you are, you don’t deserve it, can’t earn it.  It’s complete forgiveness for everything, no matter what.  It’s too good to be true and it’s totally free but there is a cost.

How can it be free but there be a cost?

He told her the gift is free, but once you accept it, it costs you your life.  The gift cost Jesus his life, and the gift is so radical, so awesome, that it doesn’t just improve you and make you better – it makes you a new person.  Like you’re born again.  But the moment you become that new person, you don’t belong to yourself anymore – that’s the cost.  You were bought at the price of Jesus’ life, and you belong to him.  And from then on you’re to live like it, and you can because he actually lives inside you and changes you.

She’s thinking about it.  It’s a big train.  You don’t take it lightly.

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Emily and her friends are also talking today about gifts waiting to be unwrapped.

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me – Psalm 50.23

Why would thanksgiving be a sacrifice? 

Because it isn’t easy? 

Because it removes credit from you and assigns it somewhere else?

Because it recognizes justice – that credit should go where it’s due?

Because it takes humility?

Because of laziness?

Because you’ve already got all the love you need?

Maybe being accepted by God is a given, not worthy of any special appreciation.

Because wrath and judgment and hell and mercy and forgiveness and a bloody cross aren’t that big a deal?

Because you can be your own help, safe haven, strength and wisdom, never needing more?

Because of a numbness to the real source of things – like air and sun and life?  You might get away with giving yourself credit for your home, job, and food – but you can’t buy air, sun and life.

Because it takes a conscious decision and action – it doesn’t just happen?

Because there really isn’t One who deserves it? 

Think you’ve got it tough?  This guy had a child die from scarlet fever, a fire ruin him financially, then four daughters drowned in a shipwreck.  Later, passing over the spot where his daughters died, he wrote these words:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Maybe you’ve sung it in church.  The shipwreck was 136 years ago today.  Here’s the story in 3 minutes:

(thanks Justin)

Listen long.  Don’t jump in with an opinion or with questions.  Listen until they run out of gas, or say ”what do you think” or start repeating.  Only stop them when you’re SURE you’ve heard enough.  Having a back and forth Q&A too early wastes time.  You’ll learn more just listening straight thru.  Plus it’s honoring to them to be listened to, but that’s not the main reason you’re doing it – it really is more efficient.  You’re trying to get maximum information so you can help. 

You’ll learn things, too, just from what they choose to say and how they say it – that could be helpful.  If they stop and you don’t have an opinion, ask a few questions.  Then listen again. 

Sometimes you’ll think of something real quick.  Wait and keep listening to make sure it doesn’t change.  Sometimes you’ve got nothing – that’s when you really want them to keep going. 

We’re not talking 2-3 hours here.  We’re not talking deep counseling (although listening is rule #1 there, too).  Most people will explain their issue in fifteen minutes or less.  Usually way less. 

Obviously there are exceptions.  Some people are long-winded or constantly give irrelevant details – you might need to steer some then.  Or maybe they don’t really want help, or you know their mind is made up and they’re just looking for affirmation.  It’s fine to interrupt and control the conversation then, too – you already know all you need to know.

Authority is the power to act, or the right to act, in some domain or jurisdiction. 

Google “authority” and the first definition you see is on the Free Dictionary: “The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.”

The presence of authority doesn’t necessarily mean it’s used.  But it could be.  It’s there.

This sometimes sounds good to people, especially when it’s thought of as, “Cool – I get to do what I want!  And everybody else has to do what I want, too!”  Most people know better, though.  We usually avoid taking or having authority – we innately know there’s a responsibility that goes with it which crushes the getting to do what you want idea.

Then we see some things God says and we’re maybe even less enamored:

• from whom much is given, much is required – Luke 12.48
• with the measure you use it will be measured to you – Matthew 7.2
• those given a trust must prove faithful – 1 Corinthians 4.2
• leaders are accountable for their leadership – Hebrews 13.17

But, some still embrace it.  They’re wired to, or want to use it for good (or evil or selfish) reasons.  Whatever, you can’t escape it.  The whole world is filled with authority.

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More of The God Show.  We’re on the authority channel.  The previous post is HERE.  You can find out more HERE.

I’ve never thought of thanks and power as being in the same sentence.  But in John’s description of Jesus feeding 5,000 with only two fish and five barley loaves, thanks is at the center.

Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them…  So also the fish, as much as they wanted. – John 6.11

Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. – John 6.23

He was thankful before the thing happened to be thankful for. 

More of The God Show.  This is the beginning of the authority channel.  The previous post is HERE.

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It’s obvious the nature channel is all God.  Do you know anyone who created the heavens or planets or sky or oceans or mountains?  Or forests, deserts, animals, birds, fish, insects or the first person?

The authority channel is different.  The whole earth is filled with authority and authority is filled with people.  The animal world is filled with authority, too, but it’s instinctual – there’s no thinking to it.  People decide – they vote and appoint and revolt and usurp. 

But who told people to put someone in charge?  Who told people to get married?  Who told people to live in families and raise kids?  There’s something built-in that tells you to do it.

Everybody has a sense of justice – even if it’s misplaced or wrong.  Kids yell, “No fair!”  Anger and murder and hate are payback for feeling wronged.  Court systems are there to determine and enforce justice, with attorneys, judges, juries and prisons.  Even primitive tribes and villages have systems of justice and retaliation.  When a sense of justice is violated in families you can have arguments and bitterness and separation and divorce, and sometimes worse.

Authorities are expected to maintain justice and order.  And the first justice priority to an authority is that they have the authority.  Don’t make them prove it – they will.  Being innocent of a crime is not enough if you run and resist – resisting and running and refusing to be under their authority is its own crime. 

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The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

You can get caught up HERE or at the link on the right under “other writings.”

Which of these things do you think are God’s highest priority in your life – the thing that’s most important to him?  Of course there are other choices, but for this, let’s go with these:

• your money
• your job, work, career
• your health
• your family/marriage
• your being conformed to the likeness of Jesus

If one of those were a higher priority to God, could there ever be a situation where your priorities were different than his?  Where you put something first that he didn’t?  If it were possible that could happen, and you did it, what might God do?  Is it possible he would sacrifice, maybe temporarily, maybe longer, a lower priority in order to accomplish the higher?  Would he ever sacrifice the higher priority to bring about the lower? 

Let’s use your job and your marriage as an example.  Let’s say God puts a higher priority on your marriage than on your job.  Would he sacrifice your marriage to accomplish his goals in your job, if he valued your marriage more? 

You can make it even simpler by thinking of kids – you tell them you value them getting their homework done more than them getting to skateboard, although you think skateboarding is fine.  But, would you tell them, “Sure, go ahead and skateboard instead of doing your homework?”

You might hear the argument, “Well, he’s God, he can do both.”  Sure he can – but what if you can’t?  Imperfect people are masters at making mistakes and being inconsistent and messing up priorities. 

So might God, at times, in seasons, sacrifice the lesser good things to accomplish the greater thing most important to him?  Might there also be times when he might do major surgery in some area that has metastasized and displaced something essential to his purpose for you?

If so, doesn’t that make, in some sense, all things that are not the top priority, tools to accomplish that priority?

Of all the wonderful things God says in his creation without using words, the most wonder fullest is this:

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him – Psalm 103.11

So how how high are the heavens above the earth?  However high, that’s how big his love is.  You can skip this six-minute video but you’ll miss a trip to the edge of the universe that might explode your perception of God’s love – it can’t be that much, can it?

On the nature channel we see the whole earth filled with God’s glory.  His holiness and majesty and power are revealed in the universe – it’s obvious; only he could do all that.  The whole earth is filled with people adjusting to God.  The whole earth is filled with birth and growth and death and cycles and rhythms.  The whole earth is filled with God’s pace and individual touch.  And the whole earth is filled with God’s immeasurable love.

The heavens declare the glory of God – day and night they pour out speech and knowledge – heard all over, everywhere – Psalm 19.1-3

The whole earth is filled with His glory – Isaiah 6.3

(Thanks Jeff for the whole idea of this post)

----------------------------------------

This is more of The God Show.  That’s it for the nature channel.  The previous post is HERE.  Next is the authority channel.

The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

You can get caught up HERE or at the link on the right under “other writings.”

So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”  The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”  Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.”  The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.    – John 4.48-50

That thing we think is the hardest to do, that we’re most concerned with, that dominates our thinking and emotions, that drives us to Jesus with a passionate, anguished cry for help? 

That’s the thing that’s easiest for Jesus.

Believing what someone says is one thing.  Believing IN them, trusting them, leaning on them with all your weight, betting your life on them – personally – that’s something else. 

Oh, not yet.  Maybe not ever.  But I got a hint of the end as the twins were loaded into the minivan ready to go home Sunday morning.  Ticklefly had been mostly quiet during their visit, but Ava wanted to say bye, and as he fluttered and flitted around her giggling face it hit me:  One day they won’t care.  They’ll be too big.  Maybe they’ll even forget, and we’ll be talking sometime in ten years when they’re 16 and I’ll make reference to Ticklefly back in the old days, and they’ll say, tickle-what? 

Which is how it all started – once they say tickle-what you’ve got ‘em and he bolts into existence and becomes part of the family forever.  Maybe.

Here’s Ticklefly being pursued in his prime a couple of years ago by Ava’s sister Stella.

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It’s Tuesday -- Emily's built-in day day to make sure you take time to notice the important “little” stuff that really makes up life.

And he makes things by hand.  He doesn’t crank things out on an assembly line.  Each is made personally by him; no heavenly elf helpers in a cosmic workshop.  Do you want or expect life to be predictable and controllable with straight lines?  I do.  But very few things in the nature he has created have straight lines.  And he doesn’t seem to like to repeat himself.  You think about that, and about the kinds of things he lets happen in your life, and you start thinking maybe crooked and unpredictable are by design, signed by him.

Leaves and clouds and rocks and mountains and rivers and people are consistent – each is clearly what it is, different from all the others that aren’t what it is.  But each is also different from the others like it.  People are clearly not rocks, but every person is different from every other person, every rock and cloud from every other rock and cloud. 

When man does what God does – creates -- then each thing he creates is unique; each song, story, movie, painting, sculpture.  There’s only one Phantom of the Opera book, and even though there have been over 15,000 performances of the play in the U.S., each is a sole performance never to be repeated in exactly the same way.

But most things man makes are unlike how God does it.  Buildings have straight lines and corners, and urban and suburban landscapes are groomed, tame and orderly.  But every tree in that landscape is different, even within the same species.  You can plant trees all in a row or cluster them to be esthetically pleasing, but you can’t make each tree exactly like all the others.

Left to themselves, meadows and deserts and forests do what they want and that’s our expectation – natural.  But give humans oversight and the expectation changes.  When we moved to Austin, Texas I hated that they left the medians on many roads un-groomed and uncut -- natural.  I was used to clean lines along curbs and evenly mowed grass; I wanted to tell someone, just mow it!  It didn’t fit my expectation.

Hot dogs are all the same.  Line a hundred up and it’s monotonous.  Line up a hundred coconuts and you won’t even be able to get them to sit up right – they’re all consistently coconuts but each size and shape and color will vary a bit.

   

Picture frames and pencils are straight and square.  Clouds and rocks?  Unpredictable – each is unique.

 

When you see God’s made-by-hand approach to creating, his love of one-at-a-time, it can help your expectation for what a day, or an experience or a relationship (or a life) should be: As unpredictable and unique as a cloud or thunderstorm.  No straight edges.  No formula.  Every experience and challenge a one-of-a-kind, made-by-hand event, signed by the artist.

*  *  *

This is more of The God Show.  We’re in the nature channel, seeing ways the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.  The previous post is HERE.  You can find out more HERE.

Ever watch an entire sunrise?  I mean the whole show, not just the highlight of the moment when the sun breaks the horizon.  Technically, it takes about 90 minutes from what they call Astronomical Twilight until the official sunrise, but the beginning is so quiet and imperceptible you can’t see it. 

I’ve only noticed about 45 minutes from total dark to glaringly bright.  It’s methodical – like a slow, powerful drama.  Watching, you’re reminded that God’s pace is not rushed.  He doesn’t skip any steps.  You can’t capture the highlights.

A sunrise is subtle and raucous – it ends up blazing and attention-getting but it gets there slowly.  It has a very different feel from my life.  Inside me, I hear Max with the E Street Band, or sometimes the TWO drummers of the Allman Brothers.  A sunrise is Bolero – you have to hear the whole thing or you haven’t heard it.  And there aren’t any single videos of Bolero on YouTube; they’re so long they have to be divided up. 

The divine drummer’s rhythm seems old fashioned, not modern.  As out-of-date as a fifty-year old jazz quartet.  But unless I get in step with God’s pace, I’ll never see a whole sunrise.  Or have his expectations of what the pace of living should be.  And that pace fills the whole earth, everyday.

------------------------------------------

This is more of The God Show.  We’re in the nature channel, seeing ways the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.  The previous post is HERE.

The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

You can get caught up HERE or at the link on the right under “other writings.”

Emily is unwrapping small gifts in the midst of the mundane again.  I have to leave in a few minutes and don’t have time to notice any small gifts (is time the qualifier for experiencing appreciation?) but I clicked over to Justin and saw one:

I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room – Pascal

I think the quietly is the thing there.  I can stay in my room.  And work, or try to, or feel guilty that I’m not.  Quietly can seem wrong when there's things to do (there's always things to do) and you’re not accomplishing anything.  Or are you?

Be still and know that I am God – Psalm 46.10

Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.  Can this be the Christ? – John 4.29

If a lady who had been married five times and who was now living with another man ran up to you excitedly and said, Hey come and see a guy I just met who I think might be the savior of the world, would you go?  Or would you think, like I would, that she’s not really the one to have any discernment on who the savior of the world is?

The people she said that to, went.  A whole bunch of them.  They believed her and followed her and found out for themselves it was true.

Sure, you want credibility.  You do everything you can to get it.  Without it, people have an excuse to not listen.  But this lady had none, yet for some reason, at least here, that lack did not get in the way of people hearing what she had to say.  And apparently it didn’t occur to her that she might not be believed because of who she was. 

It’s natural to let lack of credibility stop you.  It’s supernatural when it doesn’t.

Early on Friday one of my favorite devotionals reminded me my soul has a shepherd who is always speaking, I am with you, I am with you, and whose voice is meant to be heard during the mainstream of life.  This was not new and I totally agreed.

Later in the morning I took Brenda to the doctor.  She didn’t ask me to go but I think she was a little nervous and hoped I would and I’m her man and wanted to help.  It’s a small office uptown off Providence and since we hadn’t been there before I got directions off Google maps -- I thought knowing exactly how to get there would give her one less thing to be preoccupied about.  Also, I’m kind of a control freak and like to plan out where I’m going.

We got near the place a little later than I wanted.  And I wasn’t sure exactly where it was.  It had to be close.  Then I realized I have no idea – there’s no street numbers no nothing – we’ve probably passed it.  I zipped off Providence and into a parking lot to turn around.  We’re about to be late and this just doesn’t look anything like I expected.  I’m doing the guy huff – that gruff exhale that says, It’s gotta be around here somewhere!  Brenda doesn’t really need her man-comforter acting like that and adding to her stress but I don’t think about that.  I zip down the road all bummed and finally call the office.

It ends up that parking lot was it – we had to go back to it.  So I got all flustered because I thought I was lost, but pulled straight in the right place without knowing it.  And then left.

Later, my inner Jesus that I wasn’t listening to in the mainstream of life reminded me again: I am with you, I am with you. 

Even if it had been the wrong parking lot.

A few weeks ago Brenda couldn’t find a small block of wood that went with a table we bought at a yard sale.  “I put it right here in the corner of this box in the garage.”  We looked all over.  Looked in the garbage can.  Maybe the grandkids played with it and lost it.  Are you sure it was there?  She totally remembered putting it in the corner of that box. 

I looked up and down the driveway anyway, then opened the hatch on the 4-Runner – there it was.  In the corner where the wheel well bulges up.  I could picture her putting it there and then seeing the box in the garage and being busy and just thinking, corner.  Really, she was totally sure.  I was glad it happened to her – now I’m not the only one.  Lately, when one of us thinks the other is a little too confident in some matter of judgment or memory, we say, “and that block is in the corner of that box, too.”

*  *  *

I was sure the balloon boy thing was NOT a hoax.  I heard the whole 911 call – it was way too real.  When you’re acting, most people try too hard and add too much drama.  This was convincing because it wasn’t trying at all to convince.  I’m pretty discerning on this kind of thing.  Most people didn’t take time to listen to the entire eight-minute 911 call – I did.  Plus, you could really picture a kid messing up, getting scared, and hiding.  Even when the kid made the comment about doing it for the show, I thought it’s just a kid saying a thing that people misinterpret – happens all the time. 

*  *  *

We all knew Michael Jackson was all drugged up.  Abusing pain medication, right?  And who knows what else.  Friends, doctor acquaintances, everybody in-the-know, knew.  Even his sister said when the toxicology results come back all heckaroo would break out.  When the results did come, all that talk stopped.  He may have been all messed up using an anesthetic to sleep, but only the drugs the doctor gave him for that and to try to revive him were in him when he died.  No illegal drugs or evidence of abuse.  He was a normally healthy 50-year old.

*  *  *

I’ve been around awhile and you’d think your confidence in your ability to be right would grow as you get older.  It’s not working out that way.  Maybe it’s best to not let your conclusions put down roots when it comes to being sure about people, events and your own performance.  It could get embarrassing.

The barber said the shiny old Thunderbird out front was maybe worth $30-40,000.  “It’s a fifty-five.”

We laughed about how old things in new condition can be worth more than new things in new condition.  There aren’t that many really old things in new condition – you get one, it’s valuable.  You’re paying for overcoming the natural law of deterioration.  You can do the restoration yourself and pay with your work and time, or you can pay for someone else’s work and time.  But someone pays and works for restoration. 

It’s the same with people, but different.  Your body’s the T-Bird and there’s deterioration – you see it and feel it if you’re anything over 30-years old.  You can restore things and hold off the deterioration, but only to a point, and even that requires work and constant oversight.  Diet,  Denial.  Exercise.  You can shine up the outside with lifts and tucks but it still doesn’t look like new.

Your soul and spirit is a different deal.  It’s born a wreck, so wrecked it can’t be restored.  It’s condemned and needs to be replaced.  That’s what Jesus does, when you agree you’re a hunk of junk doomed to the scrapheap and trust only him to restore you.  But once that’s done a whole new dynamic gets started.  Your spirit never deteriorates!  You can ignore it, reject it, starve it to where you may not get the full benefit from it.  But no matter what you do or how many decades pass, your spirit will not stop being what it is with the potential to roar like that T-Bird when it was brand-new. 

You see it in front of the barber shop, in your mirror, and in your Bible:  Outwardly wasting away but inwardly being renewed day-by-day.  Putting on a new self and taking off the old -- the perishable putting on the imperishable.  Transformed, from one degree of glory to another.  A new creation and birth, with a new heart and spirit.  The path of the righteous is like the early morning that gets brighter and brighter until the sun fully blazes.  

The dad worked those 60-hour weeks for 35 years with no vacations. Years later the son wrote that if he had worked eight hours a day instead of ten, the dad would

have had in those years many days amounting to two or three years of time for work of his own choice, for rest, for play and talk with his children and friends, for his accordion and his Bible.  In those added two hours a day across those years his personality would have reached out and down and up, would have struck deeper roots in the good earth and sent higher branches toward the sky.

He never knew his son, Carl Sandburg, grew up to win two Pulitzer Prizes, meet Presidents and become a world-wide celebrity -- he died before those happened.  He never knew the son had any of that kind of thing in him. 

Brenda was changing channels and the very end of Entertainment Tonight came on.  Have you ever seen how they do the credits?  They fly by – they scroll up at 100 mph at least.  No way you can read any of them.  Maybe you recognize a logo or two – you think.

Brenda said, “Legalistic.”  She’s joking but she has a point.

You don’t really mean it.  You just want to be able to say you did it.  But you got no interest or passion or caring.  It’s all external.  Fulfill your legal obligation as minimally as possible, and if anyone challenges you, you can always say, Hey, whadyamean?  I did what I was supposed to. 

Lots of things you can do that way:  Work.  Parenting.  Marriage.  And of course religion.

Somehow we hooked up with Missy a couple of hours before the race last Saturday at Lowes Motor Speedway.  She works with Motor Racing Outreach.  She wanted to take us to the chapel that happens before the race.  So we followed her.  She walks us thru the infield and thru a gate in one of the chain link fences.  There’s an official at the gate and she tells him we’re with her and he waves us in.  The crowd is thinner here.  Then another fence with another gate and official and she draws big circles with her hand over us and says, “They’re with me.”

We walk past trucks and RV’s, but not the campers of the fans elsewhere in the infield -- these are really big, clean, modern homes on wheels.  Gee, are these driver RV’s?  Then we’re waved thru another fence and gate.  And then thru doors into one of the long pit garages that’s empty of cars and filled with people.   

Everyone here either belongs by NASCAR birth or they have credentials or they’re with the right person.  In the old days in Israel there was a temple with outer courts for the regular folk and inner courts the more of an insider you were.  In the very middle was the ultra-exclusive holy of holies.  This is it.  It’s like we’re with Jesus and as long as we follow him we go anywhere he does.

The pre-race drivers meeting is happening at the other end.  I’ve heard of this -- I didn’t know humans were allowed in.  Most of the people inside are lining a walkway waiting for the meeting to end so they can watch the drivers leave.  We hear Richard Petty and Bill France introduced.  It’s like being on the mountain with Jesus, and Moses and Elijah appear.  I felt like building them all a little shelter thing.  The meeting ends, most of the drivers leave thru the crowd and we go take our seats for the chapel.

Missy is next to me and whispers that Bobby Labonte is sitting on her other side.  She says behind us on the left is Bill Elliot, and Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth are over our right shoulder.  I don’t look – I might be struck dead.  The band Mercy Me is standing at the back.  Because we’re with Missy, we sit.  A mix of drivers, crews, family members, NASCAR people and don’t-really-belong-here’s like us all listen together to a message on who Jesus is and what he’s done, and we sing Mighty to Save with a lone guitar player at the front. 

Surrounding this garage are 150,000 people with a variety of beliefs and lifestyles, all living out those beliefs and lifestyles their own way before the race.  You see some loud and sloppy and rude and crude.  Most don’t realize that in the very heart of the speedway, the place where access is most coveted, in the middle of all the power and business and money and competition, an hour before all the gentlemen start their engines, there’s a quiet little holy place where some insiders and outsiders have come voluntarily to bow their heads.

What if all the outsiders could get in?  No guards, no gates, no credentials, no passes, no connections, no family birthright.  What if all you had to do was acknowledge your total unworthiness to be in that garage, put all your trust in only one person to get you in, and agree to quit living your own way?  Would it need to be bigger?

There are invisible eternal things going on around us daily that you’d never suspect.  Once in awhile you get to see one, and it reminds you there are others you might notice if you were sensitive. 

I think buying a book because you feel like it has something to say to you is a good reason to buy a book.  That’s why I bought this one – Penelope Niven’s biography of Carl Sandburg.  Used ($8.50).  I think it has something to say to me from reading a bit in it and from visiting Carl Sandburg’s home in Flat Rock last June.

All we knew then was he was a famous American who wrote that big Lincoln series a long time ago and won Pulitzer Prizes in poetry and history.  Sounded like an interesting fellow, and it’s only a few hours drive.  At the entrance to the long hike up to the house there’s a restroom building.  On the walls outside are photos and stories and quotes of Sandburg.  I saw these words and was hooked  -- I even had to go back to the car to get my notebook to write it down:

There is a place for me somewhere, where I can write and speak as much as I can think, and make it pay for my living and some besides.  Just where this place is I have a small idea now, but I am going to find it.

Then this:

It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in a forest and ask of himself, ‘Who am I, and where have I been and where am I going?’

Well, hello.  Maybe that doesn’t say ‘pssst’ to you, but it does me.  What kind of life did those words come from and lead to?  Getting to the house, we began to find out.  Self taught.  Eighth grade drop-out.  Owned 17,000 books.  Rejected by academic critics.  Most of the things I like reading are spiritual or leadership biography or business -- this guy was none of that.  It was the start of a growing little curiosity.  

You may not know what a book (or a life story, or a sunrise, or a piece of music) has to say to you, but you know what it feels like when you’re asked to listen.  It taps you on the shoulder and you tilt your head and give it a second.  If after a few taps you’re still listening, there may be something there for you.

John Maxwell said that in a devotional I picked up at a used bookstore last week.  So think: When you see dysfunction in family, marriage, workplace, church – do you see contentment, security and peace in the individuals? 

I don’t think hurting people say, “I’m hurting so I’m going to make sure everybody else hurts, too.”  That’s a cliché.  Hurting people hurt for a reason, and the reason makes you act the way you do.  If I’m confused or scared or feel insignificant, I might be short tempered and protective and act in selfish ways that hurt others.  If I feel unloved, I might feel lonely or bitter, and I might do unreasonable things to try to get love.  Fill a family, marriage, workplace or church with hurting people and hurt gets multiplied.

But if your need for love and acceptance and approval is met, you can stop grasping desperately for it.

When you know you have a soft place to land, when you know your need for love and comfort and significance is met by someone who is able and eager to fully meet it and who will never reject you, it does something to the hurt.  It stays where it belongs, away from others.  And it’s replaced by something that bubbles up the same way hurt does:

Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life – John 4.14

This is more of The God Show.  We’re in the nature channel, seeing ways the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.  The previous post is HERE.

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So on the nature channel of the God Show, the whole earth is filled with God’s separateness (or holiness); the whole earth is filled with people adjusting to God; the whole earth is filled with birth, growth and death.  And the whole earth is filled with cycles and rhythms.

Cycles of storms and peace, and life and death.

Thru the nature channel God gives us our basic division of time: The rhythm of days and years.  The earth spins once a day and each day has a morning and evening – our life is built around it.  A trip around the sun makes a year and each year has seasons – our lives are built around that, too.

There are tornadoes and hurricanes and thunderstorms and blizzards and floods.  And calm, beautiful days.  In living. there are seasons and times of storms and peace.  Sometimes the storms are big.  In the middle of one it seems never-ending.  But when the storm’s gone, you move on and often forget what it was like.  Between storms, especially if it’s a long between, can fool you into thinking the season of storms is over.  And it is – for a season.

There are droughts – will it ever be normal again?  In the Bible it’s a deer panting for water, a soul panting and thirsting for God, tears as food, taunts of “Where is your God?” and a downcast, disturbed soul within you.  And that’s just in one psalm (42).  

Nature proves itself stronger than we expect.  The Mount St. Helens eruption was supposed to ruin the area for decades.  But nature ran riot within a few weeks as plants and animals began returning.  The Crepe Myrtles in my backyard were hit by a long, hard freeze a few springs ago and looked dead and black.  My brother the landscape expert said we’ll just have to see, they could be goners.  Then slowly – pop! – flowers.  As long as it was alive it was going to do what a tree does.

Life is resilient.  Think back to a time of drought, fire, freezing, death or hopelessness.  Most of those episodes you’ve forgotten but at the time you felt they’d never end and life would never be the same.  Can’t you now look back, amazed at how some of those were resolved?  He restores what the locusts have eaten.  Nature is a constant reminder of the power of resurrection life.

Creation also reminds that resurrection life comes after death.  Without death, there’s no new life.  If you’re alive and following Jesus, you’re always being given over to things that feel like death so that Jesus’ life can be revealed in you (1 Corinthians 4.11).  Unless a seed dies to being a seed and falls to the ground, it remains only one seed – but if it dies it produces fruit (John 12.24). 

We hate death and failure and confusion and hopelessness.  And trees may hate dying leaves in the fall.  But the death of the old makes room for the new – there’s no new life without death.

When we see the cycles and rhythms of storms and peace and life and death in nature, it can help us have the right expectations of what life is like.  Storms and death are as normal as peace and life.

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The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

You can get caught up HERE or at the link on the right under “other writings.”

For some reason in the Christian world there’s this tendency or urge for many to be little teachers.  It’s beyond the individual calling that some have to preach or teach.  Regular, everyday (is there such a thing?) Christians (like me) will start teaching in the middle of a conversation, complete with upraised finger, repeating things they’ve heard as if you’ve asked.  The most common tip-off that this is happening is the phrase, “We as Christians should…”  Since I know that phrase is the tip-off, I avoid it to keep astute hearers from knowing I’ve just gone into teaching mode.

We like to impart knowledge and wisdom.  We like to be needed.  Maybe we also don’t mind letting people know how much we know and how wise we are.  For the less mature of us, it becomes more about me than you – I’m looking for an excuse to teach and you’re it. 

For the more mature ones – well, it will take you awhile to recognize them; they tend to hold back and pick their moments.  They use teaching in conversations sparingly, like seasoning.  Like a NASCAR driver who knows how to go 200mph in a race, but on the interstate he holds back and you don’t notice so easily what a great driver he is.

Much of Christianity is podiums and lectures and seminars and classes and conferences.  There’s analyzing and pondering and scrutinizing and controversy.  The Christians we really respect do that.  So if you were a serious Christian, wouldn’t you teach every chance you got?  Isn’t that what Christians do?

I’m thinking of all that after seeing this quote from John Piper, about the impression he had of God speaking to him when he was called to preach 30 years ago this week;

I will not simply be analyzed; I will be adored.

I will not simply be pondered; I will be proclaimed.

My sovereignty is not simply to be scrutinized; it is to be heralded.

It is not grist for the mill of controversy; it is gospel for sinners who know that their only hope is the sovereign triumph of God’s grace over their rebellious will.

Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? – Numbers 12.8

Like most families, and especially in the Bible, sooner or later there’s a family mash-up.  Moses’ brother and sister have a little gripe against him, and they expand that to, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses?”  If they leave it at that, you might be able to dismiss it, but they give themselves away with, “Has he not spoken through us also?”

Moses is the meekest man there is and would never say anything like that – he even tried to avoid letting God speak thru him.  He also won’t take up for himself. 

But God hears it and he’ll do the taking up.  He calls the three together and he’s angry and has his way of making the point that oh yes I have indeed spoken only thru Moses.  And a little leprosy should help them remember.

Moses was one-of-a-kind but the idea of God deciding who’s in charge is all over the Bible.  And finding a fault is not evidence that God hasn’t put them there.  He says he gives authority to even the lowliest.  He does it on purpose.  They’re not there because they’re better (although they might be). 

It’s so common it seems normal -- the idea that finding faults and weaknesses releases you from respecting a boss, parent, pastor, husband, teacher, president…you know the ones.  Yes, you can have disrespect for a person and still respect their position.  But once there it’s a very short foggy step to rejecting their authority over you.  And an even shorter step to the unspoken attitude: I could do better – it should be me.

David knew the difference and stayed far this side.  He even had the added motivation of knowing he was the chosen new authority once Saul was gone.  But when presented several times with the chance to fix the problem of an unrespectable overseer (with friends telling him these opportunities were signs it was God’s will to take Saul out), David will not touch what he calls ‘God’s anointed.’  When someone else does, David asks the same question God did – How is it you were not afraid to destroy him?  Then David takes him out.

The insecure, persecuting, rebel Saul chased David for 10 years with the seeming intent to kill him (protecting yourself is not the same as disrespecting).  Is your authority worse?  If not, speak against them and you may be speaking against God.

I’m kicking myself for missing out on those new LP Aspire bongos on eBay.  Forty-six bucks delivered.  I watched the bidding for days (only 2 bids) but never bid myself.  They sold for $2 more than they started.  They’re worth at least $90. 

I don’t play the bongos.  But I could; really, I know I could and I want to for some reason.  Have wanted to for a long time.  I’ve looked at cajons and djembes and congas on YouTube videos and I think bongos are most me.  But I haven’t actually played any.  And if I did it would be private -- in the garage by myself.  I think it’s a primal thing.

So I’m kicking myself because I refuse to pay $90.  Even the $46 I don’t like.  But I want to do the banging.  ‘Cuz I got the music in me.  And it’s just gotta get out.

Yeah, right.

If there’s something in you trying to get out, it can get out.  Unless you just want to talk about it and stop it with excuses and insist it look a certain way or have a certain reception once it gets out.  If these girls can do this, you can find a way.  Maybe there’ll be a video soon of me pounding the turned-over plastic car-wash buckets in the garage.

Delly’s our dog and like all dogs she loves sniffing.  The few times she’s out without her leash she doesn’t go far because running would waste valuable sniffing time.

We take 25-minute walks every day.  I march pretty brisk for 15 and let her sniff at her pace the other 10.  But, if I pause anytime during my march – bang – that’s her cue she can stop at every tree, every lamppost.  Her whole body language shouts , “Hey, we stopped at that other one, why can’t we stop here?”  A moment of mercy becomes not only permission but presumption. 

So for the next minute or two after the exception I keep snapping the leash as she stalls trying to get her way.  It’s almost not worth giving her a break if she’s just going to take advantage of it and not be grateful.  Oh yeah, she probably can’t be grateful in a thing like that – she’s a dog.

It’s easy to forget that a moment of mercy or permission or even an apparent alteration of God’s will may only be applied to that one time.  You can’t assume or presume or demand for the future.  Unless you’re a dog.

for they were too mighty for me -- Psalm 18.17

You have to know you need it.  Let yourself exhale in the hopeless place.  Feel it.  Admit it.  Be hopeless and desperate and convinced there's only one person who can help.

Of course, you’d also leave to God the timing of it and for what rescue looks like.  You might have to stare at it before you realize that’s it.  But maybe the biggest hitch to experiencing God’s rescue is something that’s good and honorable and so hard to let go of:  A flicker of hope that somehow you can work things out.

and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life – Proverbs 6.23

But I don’t want to wear a seat belt.  It’s restrictive.  Plus every time I hear that thing beep I hear the government telling me what to do.  I don’t like to be told what to do.  And I don’t want to wear a helmet or lifejacket.  And I don’t think I should have to secure my belongings and return my tray table to a locked and upright position.

But you’re actually free to not wear a seat belt or helmet.  You really are – no one will physically force you.  You’re not free to avoid the ticket or citation if you’re caught.  And the idea of those consequences is to spare you the worse consequence of being maimed or killed.  You could say the commands and the consequences are both disciplines for the good of your life.  Unless of course the consequences kill you. 

Most of the time you’re free to do what you want or like.  You don’t have to work.  You don’t have to go to church.  You don’t have to read the Bible.  Or trust Jesus.  You don’t have to eat – or restrict your eating.  You don’t have to pay attention to your kids or love your spouse or mow the lawn or pay your bills.  You can watch TV and cruise the internet all you want.  You can flirt or get angry or get drunk or have sex.  You don’t have to write the book or pursue the dream.  But you’re not free to pick what happens if you do or don’t do those things.  The only way you’re free to pick your consequences is by the discipline of restricting the choices that come before. 

This is more of The God Show.   We’re noticing now how the whole earth is filled with birth, growth and death.  The previous post is HERE.

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In the birth, growth and death cycle of nature you also see that fruit doesn’t come from the branch that holds the fruit.  The plant or the vine does the producing thru the branch -- but only if the branch stays stuck to the plant.  If you cut off the branch, the fruit stops growing and dies.  It’s the same with your invisible life with God who says, I am the vine, you are the branch; if a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.  Apart from me, you can do nothing (John 15.5).

And every living thing dies.  Life is long and short, and ends slowly or suddenly or violently or peacefully or unfairly or justly or publically or in solitude.  It’s final, irreversible and personal.  You can slow it down but you can’t prevent it.  It’s instructive in at least two ways: One – no one is stronger than death; funerals are filled with people realizing this.  Two – you should never be surprised by it, as if this wasn’t supposed to end this way.  It always ends this way. 

Every fall you watch and enjoy the death of billions of leaves.  There’s a smell that goes along with autumn, a musty, cool, fresh-dirt aroma.  It’s the smell of death – dying, decaying leaves.  But the removal of the old is necessary to make room for the new in spring.  Leaves can’t be born on trees already filled with foliage.  Death may be final, but it can also be the start of a new thing not possible without the end of what came previously.  You don’t get a new job or house without leaving the old.  It can be the same with a dream.

In creation the whole world is filled with the glory of birth, growth and death.  God shows us in the things he has made what expectations we should have about people being born again and growing.  We see the expectations we should have when nothing seems to be happening.  We see the need to depend on Jesus and trust him and not ourselves.  And we see that death is final and inevitable, but necessary to make way for new things, even when in the middle of winter it seems spring will never come.

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The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

We’re in the nature channel, seeing ways the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.  You can get caught up HERE or at the link on the right under “other writings.”