Ignorance Only Works Once

I received an invitation to get involved in a business opportunity guaranteed to make me lots of money and give me all the free time I want. I know it will work, because all the people featured in the promotional material have everything they ever wanted plus time to spend with their family and church. Yeah, right! As I read it I laughed out loud, remembering how I fell for a few of these right after we got married. I quickly learned you can either make money or have a life of leisure, but you can’t do both.  Investing the same amount of time it took to make these businesses work in anything would result in some measure of success.  I quickly learned the secret was not the business but the willingness to work hard.

What really made me laugh out loud was remembering the mailing scheme we tried. I now know it was a scheme because the stern letter we received from the U.S. Postal Service after our first mailing explained the illegalities of our new venture in very clear language. It also spelled out the fines and prison terms associated with our get rich quick scheme. After confessing all my sins and reminding God how little service this good church-going boy would be to him in prison, I found out it was a form letter sent to all gullible people who fell for this scheme. It worked. I am proud to say I have been crime free for decades now.

In retrospect, we should have done our homework, but we did not. The resulting ignorance earned us a warning. Had we thumbed our nose at that warning and continued doing what we were doing, the consequences of our actions would have been severe, and rightfully so. Have you received any warnings lately? Has God shown you, as only He can, the blind spots in your life that are taking you down a path of pain and suffering. If He has, you can use the excuse of ignorance only once.

I always look back on our home business debacle as a vivid reminder of God’s grace and mercy. If you have made a mistake, big or small, and God has been gracious to you, learn from the experience. Accept His forgiveness and purpose never to go there again. To repeat the mistake when you know better is no longer an act of ignorance but an act of sinful rebellion. There is no such thing as a business that makes you rich with no work, and there is no such thing as sin without consequences. Christ paid a high price for our sins and prepared a path of forgiveness, hope, and restoration that leads right to His feet. May we all go there often and not down the lonely and desolate path of rebellion. 

On Second Thought, Don’t Make Me Rich

If I had lots of money, or if I had this job, or lived in this neighborhood I would….well, you fill in the blank. Do you ever wonder why God does not allow those “blessings” to come your way? Maybe they are not blessings at all. Charles Manz, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, tells about an exercise he does regularly in his classes and professional seminars.

He randomly divides participants into three groups. Each group is given an envelope containing colored chips representing different values. The stated purpose of the exercise is to practice negotiation by trading and accumulating chips. What participants don’t know is that the exercise is designed so one group becomes rich, one group neither gains nor loses, and the third group becomes poor. As a reward for their success, the rich group gets to establish rules for the final round. The other groups can make recommendations in writing for rule changes, but the rich group has the final word on any and all recommendations.

Manz says the results are always the same. The rich group is animated, sitting close together, and working hard to come up with ways to consolidate their wealth while offering limited opportunities for the other groups to prosper. They often laugh out loud at the recommendations of the other groups and will actually crumple the paper and throw the recommendations in the wastebasket. The other two groups sit grim faced, uninterested, often ask to be excused from the room, and will even steal chips that are left out in the open.

Remember, these groups were randomly chosen. This means some of the most caring and sensitive participants are in the rich group, while some of the most productive and creative participants are in the poor group. The sad truth is the context of either power and success or hopelessness and despair had a greater impact on people’s behavior than did their personal values. When the truth about the exercise is revealed, those in the winning group, who behaved in a greedy and superior manner, report feeling guilty and ashamed. Those in the losing groups express feelings of anger and deception.

Oh my behavior would not change if I experienced great prosperity in real life. My personal values and identity in Christ would keep me totally humble and servant-hearted. Hmmmm, maybe I should pray Psalm 139:23-24 before I pray for a greater “blessing” in my life.  

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

What Is This Christmas Feeling?

Our senses come alive at Christmas; the smell of pies baking and scented candles, the sound of Christmas music playing, and the sight of Christmas lights and decorations of the season at every turn. All these conjure up feelings and emotions associated with this time of the year. How does this season make you feel? Carl Buechner said they may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Feelings are powerful, and they can be triggered by all the traditions that surround the celebration of Christmas. You may not remember what was said or what was done, yet you find yourself remembering every year, in vivid detail, how people or situations made you feel. Christmas can become the time when every year you stop being who you are and instead become that person those feelings require you to be. How about letting this be the Christmas that pattern stops.  Let this be the year you stop trying to gain everyone’s approval and instead step into the fullness of who God has created you to be. Be confident in who God made you. Be genuine and authentic, and then watch yourself become a change agent in the lives of those around you.  Instead of being the victim of your feelings, your acceptance of who you are in Christ can actually make others feel good about themselves this Christmas.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Cancel Christmas?

Early in the 17^th century, religious reform swept across Europe. Oliver Cromwell and his band of Puritans took over England. In an attempt to rid England of its corruption and rampant self-indulgences, Cromwell cancelled Christmas. He wanted people to go back to focusing on the birth of Christ and not on the eating and drinking that had become so much a part of that holiday celebration. It is reported that soldiers were ordered to go through the streets of London to take any food being prepared for Christmas. Can you imagine that? Cooking a goose could cook your goose (I should be ashamed of such a bad pun).

What would Cromwell think about Christmas in America today? Would he suggest it be cancelled again? I am! Oh, I’m not suggesting we get rid of Christmas, but that we cancel what it has become in our hearts. I don’t know about you, but I do not relish the fact that celebrating Christmas has become something I seem to wedge into countless end-of-the-year activities. Everyone is scrambling to tie up all the loose ends at work or at school until the sacredness of this season is lost in all the obligations to go, do, or worse yet, buy what this holiday season now requires.

Let’s ask ourselves. Am I too busy to hear the Holy Spirit say what the angel told the shepherds after Jesus’ birth? “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.” Men, let’s cancel the attitudes and behaviors that make Christmas a task to be completed instead of a celebration to be cherished. If we are unable to do this, all the bad news surrounding us will drown out the absolute good news of great joy this season represents.  ”Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’” (Revelation 5:13).  Let your Christmas celebration be a season of praise and honor to Him who sits on the throne. Cromwell would be proud!

No Going Back

Gabriel Marcel, a French philosopher, used the term “creative fidelity” to explain how we deal with the changes that inevitably occur over time in human relationships. Now stay with me. This is not a philosophy lesson. I am not a philosopher. Marcel’s creative fidelity is described as the willingness to trust, be attentive to, and suffer with the other even as the other changes. The other could be anyone in our life; a spouse, a parent, a friend, or a colleague at work. In essence, creative fidelity is the ability to remain trustworthy and faithful to someone even though they have changed over time, as we all do. Now, according to author, Luke Timothy Johnson, this is what creative fidelity is not.

·         It is not loyalty to what a person used to be.

·         It is not loyalty to one’s ideal image of another person.

·         It is not loyalty to the first commitment of loyalty we made to someone.

Men, God has called us to move forward, but I believe he knows part of us is always drawn back to the way things once were, or at least the way we remember them to be. Could this have been the reason the Israelites’ Red Sea experience happened as it did? God could have dried up the sea forever. He could have killed the Egyptian army in the desert. Instead, He provided a supernatural pathway way through the sea on dry land, and then closed that path so they could not return. We know from their murmuring in the wilderness, they would have indeed gone back into exile had they been given the opportunity. 

How many of us are yearning to go back?  We want people and situations to be the way they once were. Our faithfulness to those around us can be conditional with the condition being that I will continue to be faithful to you as long as you are the way you were back then. This constant looking back keeps us from moving forward, yet the path back is gone just as it was for the children of Israel. Those with whom we have been called to live and work have changed, and so have we.

Maybe it is time to break the hold the past has on us and release the grip that keeps us from seeing any progress in life. Let’s stop requiring people to be what we think they should be. We can find great joy in accepting people just as they are now. Let’s stop staring at the sea of our past, hoping it will part again, and instead embrace the inevitable changes life throws our way. Let’s begin with those closest to us.  Instead of using them as excuses for what we are not doing or being, let’s make even stronger commitments to the people they have become. After all we are not the same people either. We are all a work in progress, with the emphasis on progress. 

Is That a Reality Check on My Bumper?

They say confession is good for the soul, so here goes. City workers were working on a water line in our neighborhood today, so I was waiting to be waved through by the flagman. A car came up behind me, and the driver apparently assumed I was just parked. He attempted to squeeze his rather large car between my rather large SUV and the construction.…well there just was not enough room. When I jumped out to assess the damage, which was minimized by the fact that I practically pulled onto the curb to avoid the inevitable collision, he began driving away. Like a raving lunatic, I chased him down on foot and began pounding on his car until he stopped. I fear I may have severely traumatized the kids in a minivan who were watching all this unfold. When I ran to his window, I found myself staring eyeball to eyeball with an elderly man who didn’t even realize what he had done. Suddenly my anger melted into regret that I had allowed a scraped bumper to be that big a deal.

This little incident made the series of messages we have heard here at Greenbrier on finances and stewardship hit home with me in a real way.  What of little value have we allowed to become so big in our life that those things of great value are cast aside? As I stood and talked to this gentleman, I could only think of how precious he is to God. In fact, God sees him as one loved, significant, important, and of worth beyond measure. I knew God felt the same toward me and realized not one bit of that had been diminished in God’s eyes by my human response to this whole incident. God still sees me as one of great value. I looked back at my truck, and it just didn’t seem very important. It was only transportation with a bit of character added to the front compliments of an amiable old gentleman.  

Guys, what has become so valuable in your life that it is drawing attention away from people and relationships? Where are you making your investments today? I hope our priority is investing in people and kingdom work that pays eternal dividends and not investing in those things that can easily be worthless damaged goods tomorrow. Know any good auto body shops:)

Standing Firm

On February 25, 1852, the H.M. Troopship Birkenhead with 640 onboard, including troops and a few families, struck a rock off the coast of Cape Town. The only three operational lifeboats were launched with all the women and children loaded into the first one. This left most of the men of the Birkenhead onboard, mustered in rank, regiment by regiment, with no way of escape. The men were ordered to stand firm while the women and children moved away in the safety of the lifeboat. One survivor said you could have heard a pin drop as these orders were carried out. The men stood silently as the ship broke in half and sank only 20 minutes after hitting the submerged rock. Captain Wright, one of the few surviving officers, later wrote:

“The order and regularity that prevailed on board, from the time the ship struck until she totally disappeared, far exceeded anything that I thought could be effected by the best discipline; and it is the more to be wondered at, seeing that most of the soldiers were but a short time in the Service. Everyone did as he was directed, and there was not a murmur or a cry amongst them until the ship made her final plunge. I could not name any individual officer who did more than another. All received their orders and had them carried out as if the men were embarking instead of going to the bottom; there was only this difference, that I never saw any embarkation conducted with so little noise or confusion.”

 I was challenged by this story. What will history say of us? Will we be remembered as men who stood firm and completed the mission God put before us, no matter the cost; or will we be remembered as men who broke rank and sacrificed others to preserve self? We deceive ourselves if we don’t see that self preservation is the mantra of the day. May we break rank with the world and stand firm, being faithful to God, to our spouse, to our church, and to those who will see Christ in no other way other than by watching us stand as men of intense faith through the toughest of times.

Guys, I hope none of us ever have to make the decision the men of the Birkenhead made; to stand bravely in the face of death. Could we do it? Some of you already have!

By the way, the maritime rule “women and children first” was the result of the standard set by the brave men of the Birkenhead. 

What Do You See in the Stars?

Standing on the deck of a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I looked into a canopy of stars that was nothing short of awe inspiring. Now if you live in the mountains away from all the light pollution of the city, this is no big deal. I do not. The stars in my night sky are competing with streetlights, car lights, and house lights. I look up and see only the brightest stars faintly shining through a constant pink glow cast by all the streetlights surrounding us.

The light given off by a streetlight cannot compare to the brightness of a star that shines as the sun, but that which is closest appears brightest.  I stared into the heavens on that mountainside and began to ask God what I have allowed to get so close I can no longer see Him as He is. In these times of economic and political upheaval, have I allowed worry and anxiety to close in on me so they are more real than the peace of God that transcends all the situations of my life?

It has been a long time since I saw stars as clearly as I did on that mountainside, but they have always been there. They have not changed one bit. So it is with God. Even when the distractions of life press in on us and scream for our attention, God is still the same. His love for us has never diminished, and his plan for each of our lives is absolutely unaltered by all that is happening around us. Guys, take some time to pull away from life’s distraction and find God right where you left him. Do an inventory of those things in your life that have blinded you from seeing the goodness and mercy of God that accompany you every step of the way. If the One who created the stars and hung them in the heavens is for us, who can be against us! (Romans 8:31)

Why Is Nothing Happening?

I was recently on a ferry crossing the Pamlico Sound. The boat was traveling in the same direction and about the same speed as the breeze blowing from behind us. The sensation was that of dead calm. It was a hot day, and I was baking on deck, wishing for a breeze. The thought went through my mind, “I wish the captain would turn the boat into the wind so we could get some relief”, and then it hit me. How many times have I turned the ship of my life to a course that no longer takes me toward God’s desired destination as I seek to have my senses and selfish desires satisfied? How many times have I convinced myself that no progress is being made in my life, simply because I am uncomfortable and don’t have those sensations I require as evidence of progress or success.

Standing on the deck of that boat, I decided to change my focus. I moved my attention from the searing heat to the sound of waves splashing hard against the bow as the boat pushed forward. I looked at the giant wakes rolling out from each side of the boat and the foam boiling up behind us as the propeller churned us forward. Suddenly, the sensation of miserable staleness was replaced by a sense of great forward motion and progress. The reality that we were speeding on course to our destination became so much stronger than the deceptive feeling of standing still.

Guys, resist the urge to change the course of your life simply because you feel nothing is happening. Don’t turn from God’s plan to chart a course that may feel more exciting and more satisfying. Instead, change your focus. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the signs of progress, growth, and maturity you are experiencing in great measure. Though it feels you are dead in the water, look for the wake the ship of your life is rolling across the lives of those with whom you work and live. You will suddenly see, you are doing anything but sitting still. Stay the course, fight the good fight, and don’t be deceived by the fleshly desires that fog reality. He who started something in you will complete it (Philippians 1:6). Of that you can be certain!

A Treasure in My Fortune Cookie

My wife and I were enjoying a quiet meal at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants when we began to reflect on the implications of the economic crisis.  We realized that losing everything we own would leave us with only those things money cannot buy. We would then know just how rich we really are.

 We work so hard to accumulate temporary riches that moths can eat, rust can destroy, and thieves can break in and steal (Matthew 6:19). How often we are consumed with those things that are literally here today and gone tomorrow, yet ignore the immeasurable treasures God has given us in the relationships we have with family and friends.

The greatest tragedy of the stock market bust is not that so many have lost so much of their hard earned money. The greatest tragedy is that many sacrificed what cannot be earned to get money they no longer have. Men, look around and let the Holy Spirit show you what is most valuable in your life. You will then know the priorities God has established for you, and the real treasures to which He is asking you to devote your time and energy.

As Christine and I finished our meal and contemplated our own priorities and those things that deserve the best of who we are, I broke open my fortune cookie.  I was quite surprised when the message read, “You and your wife will be happy in your life together.” As we sat and smiled at each other, an unspoken question rested heavily on my heart; “How did Christine get that note in my fortune cookie without breaking it?” Even my skeptical side could not deny that little message was a great reminder to never take my greatest treasure for granted.

Guys, what treasures are the focus of your attention today?

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