kirkallanlewis@yahoo.com

A Hidden Treasure

Background Passages: I Chronicles 4:9-10; Jeremiah 33:3

The Antiques Road Show on PBS has become our default television program when there is absolutely nothing else to watch. If you’re not familiar with the show, hopeful people bring an item to an appraiser in hopes that what looks like a throw-away might actually be treasure.

I find most intriguing the items bought in a garage sale or sitting in the family attic for years. Some pieces are trash. Some pieces prove to be worth far more than expected.

On one recent program, a Corpus Christi family brought in a painting that hung behind a utility room door at his parents’ home for decades. Purchased in Mexico around 1930, the artist was a teenaged Diego Rivera, who would become one of the most influential Latin American painters of the 20th century.

Purchased for pesos, the painting was appraised at the Antique Road Show for $1 million.

It may be a lesson for everyone who bought one of my recent watercolors for a paltry amount. Hang it behind a door in your utility room, but don’t let your grandkids throw it away. It might be worth something 75 years after I’m gone. Another garage sale throw-away that turns out to be a hidden treasure.

I suppose that’s why I’m also drawn to the parenthetical tidbits I discover in scripture…those short, almost throw away passages hidden within the context of a broader story. I often find that the small tidbit becomes spiritual treasure.

I discovered another of those gems this week as I glanced through the early chapters of I Chronicles. Buried in the middle of a list of begats and begots that begin with Adam and end with David, you’ll find a parenthetical statement about a man named Jabez…a prayer of a righteous man hidden among the branches of an extended family tree between the sons of Helah and the sons of Kelub.

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory. Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. (I Chronicles 4:9-10)

While this scriptural insert tells us a little about Jabez, it tells us more about God. It tells us of the connection between the man and the God who blessed him. I find it instructive in my life.
Within these two verses, one can find three characteristics of the kind of life that a gracious God chooses to bless.

First, we see that God blesses those who walk the path of righteousness.

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers.

Little else is known of Jabez or his family, but clearly his brothers missed the mark set by those recording the genealogy. Their lives served as a footnote to the spiritual maturity of their brother. The honor attributed to Jabez seems spiritual in nature…not so much in the physical, financial, social or political realms.

Jabez was a godly man whose moral character, convictions and conduct stood out from those around him. Jabez was honorable, living his life in right relationship with God.

Honorable doesn’t mean perfect. However, if God had a spiritual destination in mind for Jabez…an idea of who he was now, growing into the man God wanted him to be…Jabez was headed in the right direction. He walked a path marked by righteousness.

David could have been talking about Jabez when he opened his Book of Psalms.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3)

Jabez chose to ignore the advice of men who lived only for themselves. He chose to avoid the life of intentional sin. He refused to mock God or those around him. Rather, he found joy thinking about and living according to the law of God. As a result, his impact on others yielded fruit of the spirit, finding success in the work God called him to do. Jabez was honorable.

The passage shows us that God blesses those who remain faithful through the pain life brings.

Did you catch the meaning of his name? In the Hebrew culture of the day, a male child received his name when he was circumcised eight days after he was born. It must have been an extraordinarily painful childbirth for his loving mother to give him a name that means “pain,” “grief,” of “suffering.”

The name evidently proved a predictor of the hardships experienced in his life. That his brothers were less honorable might tell us that Jabez suffered hardship at the hands of his family. Maybe he had to assume debt his brothers incurred. Maybe their dishonesty brought shame on the family name. Perhaps Jabez endured health issues that impacted his ability to live as he desired. I’m guessing he struggled and suffered in much the same way we do.

Whatever the cause of his suffering throughout his life, we see in vs. 10 Jabez prays that God would protect him from harm so he would finally be “free of pain.” He longs for a time when pain and hardship are behind him.

God has a way of blessing a life scarred with pain. The Rev. H. B. Charles, Jr., wrote that “Candles must be burned in order to give light. Wheat must be ground to make bread,” he added. “We must experience some pain to experience true blessedness.”

Turning to the Psalmist again we find these words.

It is good for me I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. (Psalm 119:71)

Charles wrote, “Pain is not the blessing, but it sets us up for blessing.” Puts us in position to be blessed. Opens our hearts to the lessons God can teach us through our experiences.

The final trait in the life of Jabez shows that God chooses also to bless the life of the one who talks to God regularly about the concerns of their hearts.

Jabez was a godly man with more than his share of pain throughout his life. In the middle of all of that, he prayed for God’s blessing. He talked to the source of all blessing.

Can’t you relate to Jabez? Scripture does not praise him for the things the world values. Things like wisdom, strength or wealth. Jabez is not celebrated for being gifted or accomplished. We’re not even told what made him honorable or the depth of pain he experienced. Scripture singles him out simply as a man who prayed for that which God laid on his heart.

You see, Jabez learned what we all need to learn. God answers prayer. Prayer is our connection to God who wants nothing more than to bless his people.

The famed pastor Charles Spurgeon said, “Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the hand of omnipotence.” We receive our greatest blessings after we pray within his will. For his blessing in my life, not my blessing.

This obscure snippet about Jabez teaches us a little about the life God chooses to bless. It also tells us that God’s blessings come in the form of his provision, his presence and his protection.

Look at what Jabez asked of God.

Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory. Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so I will be free of pain.

Jabez asked that God’s favor would fall on him (bless me) and his situation (enlarge my borders). God knows what we’re going through. God cares about our struggles, needs, dreams and fears. Just as Jabez prayed believing that God was ready, willing and able to answer his heart’s cry, we, too, need to pray for God’s provision with expectation of his blessing.

I initially read the passage and thought Jabez was praying for greater territory and wealth. One commentary suggested his honor would have precluded that. The writer suggested that the enlarged border would strengthen the influence of Jabez to share of his relationship to God.

That makes some sense to me. As God continues to bless us, we ought to be using all he provides to extend our influence with others as a way of testifying to the world of God’s love for them through Jesus Christ. To ask him to give us a platform to share the grace of a loving God.

Jabez asked also for the blessing of God’s presence.

Let your hand be with me…

It is a sentence that speaks to the powerful presence of God in his life. As such it complements the previous request for his expanded influence. Jabez wisely knew that God’s provision and his presence presents a problem. Incapable of managing God’s provision on our own, we need his presence and power.

It’s the Psalmist again who reinforces this truth.

Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. (Psalm 119:173)

Finally, God’s blessing is found in his protection.

…keep me from harm so I will be free of pain.

One commentary suggest that a more apt translation of the Hebrew is to “Keep me from doing wrong so I might not cause suffering in my life and the life of others.” In other words, protect me, God, from me. My own bad choices. My own hardheadedness. My own ego. Keep me from hurting myself and those you love.

What a blessing of protection that would be?

Every little segment of Antiques Road Show ends with the appraiser sharing with the owner what his “find” is worth. More often than not, during the show, the owner is overwhelmed by the moment when the throw-away item becomes treasure.

We may attempt to live an honorable life. Not perfect, but over the course of life walking in the general direction God desires for us. We may remain faithful through the inevitable suffering. We may even engage in the kind of deep conversations with God concerning the desires of our heart. Those things open the doors to God’s blessings.

The real treasure I needed to discover this week is found in vs. 10. Look at it.

And God granted his request.

You see, the point is not so much that Jabez was honorable, that he experienced the same kind of pain we experience or even that he prayed. The real treasure is that God answered his prayer…just as he will answer ours.

I’m grateful for a man pulled from the pages of obscurity to remind me that God is a God who looks for every chance he can to bless me with is provision, presence and protection.

I find rest in that thought and the words of God to the prophet Jeremiah.

Call to me and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. (Jeremiah 33:3)

Way to go, Jabez!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Life After Birth

Background Passages: 2 Corinthians 5:16-20: John 3:1-21

Fifty years ago, while a student a Texas Tech University, I worked as a salesclerk at the Baptist Bookstore in Lubbock. It didn’t pay great, but the flexible hours allowed me to work around my class schedule.

For an avid reader, the downside of working in a place filled with books is that it is a place filled with books, all of which were offered to employees at a sizable discount. found myself spending a good portion of my paycheck each month building my personal library.

I still have many of those books on my library shelf. While straightening one of those shelves this week, I came across a book called Dancing at My Funeral, written by Maxie Dunnam. I probably haven’t read anything from this book in 30 years. With my Dad’s memorial service fresh on my mind, I thumbed through the pages, drawn to a chapter entitled, “I Believe in Life After Birth.”

Because a funeral draws our attention to life after death, I found the title of the chapter intriguing enough to sit and read. Dunnam talked about the danger of sleepwalking through life after making our commitment to Christ. To cut a long chapter short, he wanted his reader to understand that Christians miss the joy of our promised “life abundant” when we don’t let our faith really challenge and change us.

One of the passages of scripture he referenced in 2 Corinthians was a passage I had considered as the basis of my writing this week. It may be coincidence, but I like to think it was a God thing. Here’s the verse.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ; the new creation has come; the old is gone and the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

In one sense, what Paul is saying is clear. Once we put our faith and trust in Jesus as savior and boss of our lives, we get to start again. We get to change the patterns of our old life that do not reflect the character and image of Christ to become a new creation…a new person intent upon living for him. The old way of life must pass, letting God lay out a new path before us.

A new creation has come…

Paul’s choice of words here is intentional. It’s like waking up in the morning to a new world. Look at what he wrote earlier in his letter to the church in Corinth.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

Can you see the connection Paul tries to make? The God of creation found in Genesis is the same God of our salvation. Just as God spoke all of creation into existence by the power of his word, God speaks in us a new creation through the powerful words of his gospel…through the saving work of Christ, his gospel of truth and the indwelling presence in our hearts of his spirit.

This new person that God creates in us is a light that shines in the darkness of a sinful world. A testimony to the saving and transforming power of Jesus, but only if we allow him to change us from the inside out.

It is here that Dunnam makes a connection I’ve never considered. He equates this “new creation” in 2 Corinthians with “new birth.” Not so much a do-over as a new start. A change. It’s what Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus in John 3.

You probably know Nicodemus. He’s the Pharisee who came to Jesus late at night to discuss theology and got a lesson in faith. While we often paint the Pharisees dressed in black, hypocrites whose faces look like they bit into a sour lemon, there were some sincere folks among their ranks. Nicodemus stood as one of the good ones. Faithful. Devout. Open. Curious.

That’s why he could not discount the teachings of this Galilean rabbi who said some unsettling things. There was something in Jesus’ words that bore a ring of truth that Nicodemus could set aside.

You see Nicodemus bound his life to the law…every jot and tittle. Obedience to the law and doing good was his path to salvation. Yet, he must have found it stifling. Dull. Drab. Jesus taught differently, challenging everything Nicodemus held dear and promising life in its fullest.

It is somewhat surprising that a man who regarded faith as a measure of obedience to the law and had given his life completely to it would seek out Jesus at all. Though the Bible doesn’t tell us how many times Nicodemus had listened from the edge of the crowd as Jesus taught in the temple or synagogues, he surely heard. What he heard made the religion he practiced pale in comparison to the promises that Jesus taught.

This is what prompted the Pharisee to seek out the teacher. Careful, though, of his standing among the group, Nicodemus wanted a private audience with Jesus, covered by the veil of darkness.

When he arrived at Jesus’ camp, he engaged in a little polite small talk. Nicodemus, impressed with Jesus’ teaching and the miracles he performed, made a point to tell him so. It was his opening statement in what he presumed might become a lively debate. Jesus responded with a statement that led Nicodemus down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of confusion.

Hear the conversation that pushed Nicodemus over the edge.

“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

“How can a man be born when he is old?” asked Nicodemus. “Surely, he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born.”

Jesus answered, “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless his is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirt. You should not be surprised at my saying, “you must be born again.” The wind blows wherever it pleases. You can hear the sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So, it is with everyone born of the spirit.” (John 3:3-8)

As Jesus drew Nicodemus deeper into the truth, Nicodemus struggled to keep up. It was a lot to take in.

“…Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 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. (John 3:15-16)

Jesus told him that no matter how hard you try to obey Moses law, you will fail. The only hope of eternal life is to be born again…to be changed through the unmerited grace and love of God

The truth that Jesus taught Nicodemus is the same truth Paul taught the Corinthians. You must be born again. We must set aside the old us in favor of the new us that is found in Christ.

So, I ask the question again. A question each of us must answer for ourselves.

Is there life after birth?

Jesus says there is life abundant.

I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. (John 10:9-10)

Paul said there this life is alive.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. (Col 2:13)

Think about the life Christ offers. Abundant. Alive.

It is the life we’ve been promised when we put our faith and trust in Christ. It will never happen, though unless we decide to be open to the possibilities. When we’re ready to surrender the control to which we so desperately cling. To say “Yes.”

Swiss psychologist Paul Tournier said that the “willingness to surrender is the pivotal point for becoming a whole person.” Being born again…becoming a new creation…is a plunge into the unknown. Faith let’s go. Faith surrenders.

Faith surrenders to a new perspective.

In the verse immediately preceding Paul’s thoughts about being a new creation, he calls upon all believers to look at the world differently.

So, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way we do so no longer. (2 Corinthians 5:16)

Paul talks about this new creation we become, this life after new birth, so we can look at ourselves differently, though that’s certain a part of it. He also suggests that the new creation we become will enable us to see those around us with new eyes.

From now on, Paul says, we no longer see the world around us, the people around us, from a selfish perspective, but rather through the eyes of a loving father. To be a new creation is to see others…and even ourselves… as worthy of God’s love. That perspective matters. That perspective changes us. If we’re able to make that leap, how much would it change who we are and our perspective of the world around us? How much would it drive or temper our actions?

Faith surrenders to a new purpose.

As a new creation, Paul understood that our purpose changes as we change. Our new outlook propels us into a new purpose, one Paul calls the “ministry of reconciliation.” Look again at what he says in 2 Corinthians.

All of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God has reconciled the world to himself through Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed us to the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God was making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

Christ died so he might fix the broken relationship between us and God. To bring us into a reconciled relationship with our Creator. To be his representative in this alien world. As this new creation, he called us so we might help others be reconciled to God. Through the words we say to others. Through the things we do for others. Through the life we live for others.

Is there life after birth?

I answer with a resounding yes! It comes with a changed perspective and a challenging purpose. When we act accordingly, it is a life that is abundant and alive with possibilities, not just for you, but for all we encounter.

I’ve failed at the task far more often than I care to admit. I expect you have, too. Let’s together pledge to celebrate our life after birth, by committing to our calling in the ministry of reconciliation with a fresh perspective and purpose.

My Dad

Background Passages: Psalm 73:26; Galatians 5:22-23; John 1: 45-51; Psalm 23

I seldom use this space to get personal, I generally prefer to stay with the lessons God is teaching me each week. Today seems an exception.

My Dad passed away on October 5, just five days short of his 98th birthday. In the days since, we’ve been busy arranging the memorial service he planned years ago, pulling all the pieces together to reflect on a life lived so well for so long.

On one hand, it’s hard to grieve deeply when he lived independently every day of his life except for the last week before he died, even if his ability to do everything he wanted to do was somewhat restricted by the ordinary frailties caused by almost a century of living. He lived in the moments God gave him, knowing others had it much worse than he did.

On the other hand, the grief I feel runs deep, measured by the tightness in my chest caused by this new hole in a heart already riddled with the scarred holes of those loved ones lost over time.

The last time Robin and I visited with my 97-year-old Dad in Amarillo and the last two times we spoke on the phone he talked about being tired. While there may have been real physical manifestations of fatigue, I suspect he meant something much different. I think he was ready to go whenever God was ready for him.

The doctors could not give us a medical reason for Dad’s death. In language that Dad would probably enjoy, I think his tractor just ran out of butane.

David, the Psalmist, might have diagnosed Dad’s situation more eloquently.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26)

Dad’s flesh and his heart failed. I’m confident, however, that he knew God as his portion and strength for eternity.

I believe it is God’s desire for us to live our lives as Christ lived his. To be Christlike in the things we say and do. To me and to many he touched through his life, Dad was a mirror image of Jesus. Paul described what being a reflection of Jesus looks like in his letter to the Galatians.

“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

In all I read in scripture, those words describe my Jesus. I look at that list and know my Dad exhibited that same fruit like he was working a spiritual farmer’s market. Those traits were on display in his life for all to see and share, offered without cost or expectation.

If you needed love, he gave it. Peace, he shared it. Patience, he extended it. Kindness, he showed it. Goodness, he breathed it. Faithfulness, he lived it. Gentleness, he exuded it. Self-control, he modeled a bushel of it.

I wrote an article about my Dad on Father’s Day a few years ago. Dad never liked being the center of attention and fussed at me lightheartedly for “writing his eulogy” before he was gone. It wasn’t intended as a eulogy, but under today’s circumstances, it seems to fit.

What follows below is an excerpt from that article. I’m cutting out the things that tell you what Dad did and leaving the part that tells you who he was. For that, I’ll simply remind you of the story Nathaniel, of one of Jesus’ disciples.

Nathaniel, born and raised in Cana in lower Galilee just a few miles from Nazareth, worked as a part-time fisherman and a full-time seeker of God’s truth. As Jesus began his ministry, Nathaniel followed the new rabbi for several weeks, listening to his teaching, probably sitting in the back row or on the edge of the crowd, getting his own measure of his teaching. He found Jesus’ conversations in the synagogue rich with meaning and purpose. The stories told to the multitudes penetrating…challenging the listener to think more deeply about God’s word. Nathaniel was intrigued by this carpenter from Nazareth.

On one particular day, Phillip, one of Jesus’ new disciples, grabbed Nathaniel’s arm with a sense of urgency and excitement. “Come and see,” he said. “We have found the one whom Moses wrote about and about whom the prophets also wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

Knowing the scripture as he did, Nathaniel had trouble believing that the promised one would come from Nazareth. Not yet knowing that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he states as fact, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

It was not a putdown as we have been made to believe through the years. He questioned because this “fact” didn’t align with scripture. When Phillip and Nathaniel approached, Jesus stood to greet him. With a smile and comment that conveyed immense respect, Jesus said, “Here is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false.”

Whenever I think of that story and the high praise Jesus rained upon Nathaniel, I think of my Dad…My Dad is a true child of God in whom there is nothing false. While certainly not infallible, he lives his life with the utmost integrity. What you see is what you get. And you get a whole lot of good.

As a child growing up and an adult trying to find my own way in the world, Dad’s lifestyle laid out a set of undeclared expectations I still try to meet. He loved my Mom completely and with full devotion. That was a gift to his three children that he modeled each day. They endured good-natured ribbing, with a healthy dose of sarcasm, and laughed freely. Dad was her biggest supporter and she was his. His ability to love his wife and family openly was, and is, one of my greatest blessings in life.

Farming was not the easiest life to live. Dad would have supported any career path we chose, but we all knew his preference was for us to find another line of work. As a result, he raised a lawyer, a doctor and me. Dad instilled in all of us a serious work ethic, an attitude I see reflected in my brother and sister in the work they do. He worked hard and did what was necessary to support his family.

While we may not have had a lot of material things, we were never poor…in reality nor in spirit.

Dad spent long hours in the field, but he also knew how to rest. He understood that there was a time and place for everything. He learned how to leave the worries of work on the tractor and come home focused on his family. He could also put things beyond his control in proper perspective. If the crop was hailed out, he spent little time moaning about his bad luck and more time thinking about his next steps. This attitude toward life impacted me greatly.

Dad continues to teach me a great deal about our relationship to others. I don’t think I ever heard a prejudiced word escape my father’s lips. Given the time period in which he grew up, that’s pretty amazing. He taught all of us that a person’s worth is measured by who he is and not by what he looks lie. Worth, to Dad, is not measured by political preferences, religious beliefs or immigrant status. A person should be measured by how he lives each day, how he treats others, the value he adds to the world. To treat anyone differently is just wrong.

I watched Dad as I grew up. If he found himself in a fractured relationship for any reason, he did his best to set it right, even if it meant having difficult conversations. Most of the time, those conversations led to a deeper friendship or, at least a mutual, respectful understanding of the other’s position.

These things and so many others make my Dad a great man in my eyes. However, if you know my Dad or ever met him, it would not take long to understand that his relationship with God is his greatest gift to his family and friends.

If you look back to Nathaniel’s encounter with Jesus, you find Nathaniel stunned that Jesus used such kind words to describe him. “How do you know me?” asked Nathaniel. Jesus replied, “I saw you under the fig tree.” Sounds rather cryptic to us, but Bible scholars say it was not an uncommon occurrence for students of scripture to congregate under the trees, unroll a scroll to study and discuss God’s word. I like to think that Jesus was so aware of his surrounding that Nathaniel’s desire to know God more intimately did not go unnoticed by the savior.

After a long day at work, it was not uncommon to see Dad sitting in his recliner, studying his Sunday School lesson…His discussions and debates with my Mom about scripture were often lively and always deep. Just reading the words of the Bible at face value is not enough for Dad. He wants to find its core meaning and its common sense application. The Bible for Dad is not spiritual pabulum or an outline of denominational theology, it is a blueprint for practical daily living. Its message drives the way he lives and loves.

I read back through that study and see it written in present tense. It’s difficult to shift into past tense. Because his memory lives on, he will always be.

I could regale you with stories about my Dad in hopes that you could know him as I did, but I can think of nothing better than this. Dad was Nathaniel in my eyes…a man in whom there was nothing false. He was and will always be that man. Though it is probably a pale shadow, I sure hope you can see a little of him in me.

My uncle, Les, Dad’s brother, is a retired pastor and chaplain. He has a gift for words. In his recent blog about his grief at Dad’s death, he paraphrased Psalm 23. Maybe the language isn’t as poetic as David’s, but it’s written in the practical language of West Texas. I think Dad would have liked it. May it bring you the same comfort it brings me.

The Lord is like my shepherd; I really don’t need a thing. It’s like I’m walking in these green pastures among rippling streams. Maybe I should be afraid, but I’m not; God and I seem the same, and everything’s great. I am comfortable here. They’re setting a huge table and there’s a ceremony to welcome me: Me! Warts and all. I think I’m going to be just fine here. I feel only goodness and love in my soul. I live in the Lord’s house, and besides, I have an eternal contract. (Psalm 23)

That about sums it up. As Les added, “Resurrection boasts nothing good ever dies.”

I will rejoice for a life well lived.

I Can Do All This

Background Passages: Philippians 4:4-13

Richard Swenson, author of Contentment: The Secret to Lasting Calm, tells a story about his seven-year-old granddaughter who accidentally stepped in a pile of dog droppings with both tennis shoes. Together, she and her dad found a suitable stick, sat down on the curb and began scraping the mess from the treads of her shoes.

After a few minutes the little girl stopped. She looked at her Dad and then at the brown stuff now piled in the gutter. “You know, Dad,” she said. “This would be a very good meal for a dung beetle.”

Swenson pointed out that the contentment range of little children is a mile wide from end to end. He uses the term “joy beacons” to describe a child’s ability to always see the silver lining. He said, “The laughter from just one child is enough to lift a crowd of fifty. Where do they get this capacity…to make happy connections between a shoe full and the disgusting culinary habits of ugly beetles?”

Psychologists tell us that four-year-olds laugh 26 times a day more than adults. That fact alone makes it clear why Jesus would occasionally spent time with children in his lap and arms. I think the human side of him needed, at times, to be reminded that God gave our hearts an amazing capacity for delight and contentment, even in the most difficult of times. Children, God’s ambassadors to the cynic, find equal contentment, according to Swenson, “in a puddle or a pigeon, a worm or a waffle.”

It’s this idea of contentment that has been on my heart lately. When did we lose that sense of delight and contentment? More importantly, why do we lose it?

Richard Carlson, author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, suggested that our discontent comes from external circumstances. “We tend to believe that if we were somewhere else—on vacation, with another partner, in a different career, a different home, a different circumstance, or if we could somehow go back to the good ol’ days—somehow we would be happier and more content.” Simply put, Carlson said, “We wouldn’t.”

Psychologists will gladly tell us how to find contentment. Some of their thoughts are helpful. Some are not. I think to find the truth about contentment requires a trip to a first century house prison in the middle of Rome.

As first century prisons go, this one wasn’t all that bad. Paul had certainly experienced worse. Acts 28 tells us the apostle found himself under house arrest, chained at times to a bored Roman guard. Because the judicial system of the time did not provide three square meals a day, the prisoner was forced to provide his own housing and support. Limited in his ability to ply his trade as a tentmaker, he had little to sustain his daily life. Most of what he had on which to survive came from money and supplies shared by his friends and followers.

The worst part of his confinement for Paul must have been the restrictions on his ability to share his faith. To do the work God had called him to do. He could have visitors and speak freely about his savior within the walls. He could not spend time in the synagogue or the local market talking about his favorite subject…Jesus. Though his reach was limited, God’s was not. Paul continued to open the hearts of those who heard his message.

Given all he had experienced that brought him to this place and all he experienced while locked behind four walls, one might think Paul struggled to find contentment. Apparently not.

While imprisoned, Paul wrote several letters to the churches he helped establish. One of those churches was in Philippi, a Roman city in Macedonia. It was a letter thanking them for their contribution of provisions and money to support him in his time under house arrest.

He wrote a couple of things in this letter that I have read all my life, but only connected when I read them again this week. (That’s the funny thing about scripture, the Holy Spirit will reveal truth you need to hear when you need to hear it.)

Read his words as one under house arrest.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice!. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-8)

That sounds more like a man sitting on the porch of his mountain cabin, sipping a nice diet coke, with his feet up on the rail, watching the squirrels jump around in the trees. It doesn’t sound like a man chained to a surly and sweating Roman guard.

Rejoice. Don’t be anxious about anything. In every situation and in all you need, pray with thankfulness. Find peace beyond the understanding of men…the kind of peace that sets at ease your troubled heart and worried mind.

You see, despite all he had been through that brought him to Rome…the unjust accusations of Jewish leadership back in Judea and the cowardice of the Roman authorities who knew his innocence…Paul still found himself waiting for a trial that could either set him free or hand him over to be killed. Yet, he says, rejoice. Don’t worry. Be at peace. Be content.

Easy to say, difficult to do, right? It seems counterintuitive when faced with an impending divorce. Life-altering injury or illness. Decisions over aging parents. Rebellious children. Financial loss. Angry neighbors. Death of a spouse. Social unrest.

How does one keep from shrinking into dark depression when encountering any single one of these conditions, much less when several seem to hit at once.

Paul gives us a clue, I think.

“Finally, dear brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me—put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8-9)

Perhaps the first step in finding contentment amid the garbage of life is to scrap it into the gutter and find the silver lining by concentrating on the noble, the right, the pure and admirable. To get our hearts and minds pointed at the things of God rather than the things that seem to be slapping us around. To find his presence and his peace in the blessings he lavishly provides to those who love him.

Paul found the blessing in the gifts sent by the Philippians. He felt it as he welcomed Epaphroditus as the bearer of the gifts and unwrapped the supplies that they sent to help sustain him. Like a care package of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies sent to a hungry soldier mired in an inhospitable foxhole. It was just what he needed to lift his spirits and remind him that he was not alone.

“I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is like to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (Philippians 4:10-12)

Paul truly understood the ups and downs of life. His life as a Pharisee elevated his social standing and financial condition. He lived a life of relative luxury provided by his position as an up-and-coming religious leader. It all changed on the road to Damascus when he encountered the living Christ in a blinding blaze of light.

For the sake of Christ, Paul walked away from a life most others would envy to give himself to the work God called him to do. It was never easy. Paul once wrote the Christians in Corinth about all he had endured since committing his life to Christ.

If you read 2 Corinthians 11:22-29, you’ll find that Paul spent multiple times in prison and not always the house arrest kind. Five times he was given 39 lashes with a whip. He was beaten with sticks, pelted with stones, shipwrecked three times, and constantly on the move. He crossed raging rivers, faced bandits along the roads and the murderous threats from Jew and Gentile alike.

Paul faced danger in the city and in the country. On sea and on land. He had gone without sleep and known days of hunger and thirst. He was cold and naked. And amid the physical distress, he felt the daily pressure of his concern for the people in the churches he had founded…an overwhelming burden.

When you understand all Paul endured, it makes his words to the Philippians even more forceful. “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstance.”

Paul didn’t find contentment by trying to fix his circumstances, he found it by fixing his eyes on Jesus. By concentrating on living the life God had called him to do. By focusing on the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely and the admirable. In other words, by living a Christ-like life in all he did and all he said.

That’s difficult to do under the pressures and burdens we bear. Paul had a “secret” though. A secret he shared openly with the Philippians and with those of us for whom life has bound us to house arrest, limiting our ability to do the things we want to do.

“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13)

I’ve read this verse a thousand times, I bet. As I learned in the school business, though, first learning is hard to overcome. When I first learned this passage, it was in the language of King James.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

The message I heard from well-intentioned youth ministers and pastors was that God would empower me through his strength to do everything and anything I wanted to do. That’s the lesson that stuck for that verse. While there is a measure of truth in that thought, it has not been my experience. If that were so, I would have walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong like that childhood dream promised.

No. I don’t think that’s what Paul intended. When Paul says he can concentrate on the noble, the right and the pure; he can find contentment when he has plenty and when he has nothing; he can overcome every adverse circumstance of life. “I can do all of this,” Paul says, “through him who gives me strength.”

There is a difference in “I can do all things…” and “I can do all this…,” especially within the context of Paul’s life and most decidedly in the context of ours. The first seems more of a promise that our wildest dreams will be ours. The latter suggests that my ability to live well through the good and bad times of life depends on my ability to tap in and trust in the strength Christ provides.

We are incapable of dealing with everything that sticks to the bottom or our shoes within our restricted power and limited strength. However, we can fix our eyes on Jesus. Think like Jesus thought. Live like Jesus lived, facing every circumstance with the same grace with which Jesus faced the sin of the world.

Through the strength Christ provides through his word and his spirit, we will find that silver lining. We’ll find we can be content in all of this tough stuff with which we are dealing.

I truly don’t know how you define contentment. I only hope you find it in Christ. All other definitions are severely lacking.

Maybe the best starting point is to be thankful for the eternal presence of Jesus in your life. Dr. Toyin Omofoye is an author and clinical pharmacist. She said, “Contentment is realized when gratitude becomes a lifestyle.”

So, when you’re facing what you can’t fix on your own, be grateful that you can do all this…all that is required to make it through…because of the strength of Christ in you.

Amen?

Amen!

Don’t Look Back

Background Passages: Luke 9:57-62 and Philippians 3:12-14

The big day had finally come. To a young boy growing up in the 1960s on a cotton farm, each day brought a series of chores to be done. Most were routine and boring. Those I deemed “exciting,” like jumping on the tractor and plowing the field, were the privileges of age and responsibility.

When deemed old enough and responsible enough, my Dad entrusted me with an old, yellow Case 400 tractor and a plow called the “lister.” We used the lister to prepare the fields for planting. By tilling the soil in this way, we cleared the field of weeds and old stalks and built the furrows and ridges, or “beds,” necessary for planting.

Hoeing the field, slopping the hogs, moving the irrigation pipe were mind-numbing work. Driving the tractor stood as a rite of passage…at least it was to this 12-year-old boy. Listing was one of the first “real jobs” my Dad assigned me as I was growing up. “Real” being defined as anything involving a tractor and plow. I remember burying my excitement in a cover of feigned indifference, but inside, I was pumped.

As I drove the tractor to my assigned field, Dad followed in his dusty Dodge pick-up. When we arrived, he jumped from the truck and showed me where he wanted me to begin. He explained the hydraulics and showed me how to drop the disk to mark the next row. Dad set the disk and drove the first few rows, straight as an arrow, with me riding along watching…a “do as I do” moment.

Listing was one of the first steps in the annual farming process. The planter followed the rows created by the lister. The cultivator followed the planter as the cotton grew to remove weeds and mix and incorporate the soil to ensure the growing crop had enough water and nutrients to grow well. So, if the rows created by the lister were not straight, it made the field difficult to work.

I should note that the rows my Dad plowed as my template looked as if they were drawn by a ruler. Straight as an arrow stretching a quarter mile across our West Texas farm. He had a knack for it.

The task appeared simple to me. Align the front wheel of the tractor with the line drawn by the disk and my rows would be as straight as Dad’s. As he climbed off the tractor and bounded toward his truck before leaving me alone to my work, he told me to concentrate on the line ahead of me and “don’t look back.”

Looking behind you as you plowed was the surest way of getting off the desired line. I scoffed inwardly at Dad’s advice. How hard could it be to drive in a straight line?

It turns out that laying that perfect row requires concentration a 12-year-old boy finds difficult to maintain. I remember spending a great deal of time looking behind me, checking on my progress. Every wiggle I saw heightened my anxiety about the quality of work, compelling me to look time and time again where I had travelled.

The more I worried with it, the worse it looked. My quarter mile rows meandered through that red soil like a copperhead snake. Dad laughed when he saw it. I eventually learned the lesson he taught though I was never quite as good as he was.

God reminded me of that moment in my childhood as I read a passage in the Gospel of Luke. It seems Dad’s lesson about farming was as old as the Bible and applies just as neatly to life.

The crowd that followed Jesus generally included his closest disciples and others whose hearts were captured by Jesus’ message and ministry. They professed a faith in him and a desire to follow wherever he led them. As the 12 disciples discovered, the requirements of discipleship must be wholeheartedly embraced if we are to live to the fullest the life he wills for us.

One day as Jesus journeyed down the road followed by an interested crowd. A man came to Jesus pledging to follow him. Jesus needed him to think seriously about the commitment he was making. Jesus had “no home, no place to lay his head.”

Following him meant a life of sacrifice and uncertainty. Jesus wanted more from the man than an ill-considered impulse decision that circumstance made hard to sustain. Count the cost, Jesus suggested, before you make a snap decision.

Jesus called out to a second man in whom he saw great promise. “Follow me.” Though willing, the man felt torn by the needs of his family and the responsibilities of discipleship. Jesus told him to get his priorities straight. God’s call required complete devotion to God.

The third man provoked a harsher response from Jesus. The man promised to follow Jesus but asked for time to say goodbye to those he loved, his heart divided between his desire to do as God asked and his love for his family and friends. He said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

The Greek words translated for “looks back” paint a picture of one constantly and continuously looking back at what he left behind. A picture of someone reluctant to let go of the things of the world rather than to fully commit life to God. The more we look back, the more likely we are to walk a wavering line of faith life that constantly strays from the path God intends for us.

The lesson for those of us who follow Christ emerges clearly in the conversation Jesus had with the three would-be followers. We must give ourselves completely to the call of Christ by counting and embracing the cost of discipleship and making God’s work the most important thing in our life.

Following Christ has never been easy, but doing so in a fractured world that demeans and diminishes faith grows even more difficult. It is made harder when important things of life pull and tug at us from every direction. We must follow Christ despite the hardships, heavy hearts and home ties that block us from giving ourselves completely to him.

God calls us to put our hands on the plow and get on with the work of faith, creating a straight row that makes it easier for him to accomplish his future work. Human nature and the subtle work of a tempter compel us to look back upon the mistakes we’ve made, those sins in our lives that seek to convince us that God cannot possibly use such a flawed vessel.

Certainly, it may be good to glance behind us on occasion, to revisit our mistakes, as a reminder of how easy it is to fail God. Yet, to dwell in the misery of our past failures inhibits our ability to be useful in service and ministry, makes us feel unworthy of the purpose to which we have been called.

Just as troubling are those times when we think wistfully of the “good ol’ days” when life and faith were easier. Today is the time we have been given. Looking back and wishing the world were different prohibits us from seeing in front of us the God-directed opportunities that allow us to demonstrate his love for a world that can no longer plow a straight row.

Don’t look back, Christ says. Give yourself wholly to your call and count the cost. Christ cannot accept our conditional or half-hearted service. Nor can we spend more time looking back at our past, reveling in a simpler time or lamenting our failures. He asks us instead to look forward; to press on. To open ourselves to the possibilities of service and ministry.

Paul captured the same message in his letter to the Philippian church as he declared that he could not fully grasp all that God called him to be. “Brothers, I do not consider myself to have embraced it yet. But this one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on…”

Experience is a great teacher. I eventually learned to rely upon that handy, pivoting disk on the plow that I raised and lowered as I traversed the field. If I kept my eyes fixed on the line as it ran into the distance, put my tractor wheel in its furrow and followed it to the end, my rows rarely wavered.

For those committed to Christ, Jesus drew the line in the sand with his life as the perfect example to follow. Most of us recognize that our line drifts away from the line Jesus walked. Our mistakes compound when we spend too much time looking behind us.

Let’s keep our eyes focused constantly on him and the path of righteousness he walked as an example to all of us.

I promise it will make life that much easier to plow.

Author’s note: This is a reprint of a study published January 28, 2017.

All Who Labor

Background Passages: Genesis 2:15; Ecclesiastes 3:9-13; Colossians 3:23-24; Matthew 11:38

From the time we are children, we eagerly anticipate holidays. Thanksgiving brings us a parade and a feast of turkey and dressing as it reminds us to express gratitude for all God has provided in life. Christmas excites us with its time of gifts and giving, of family and the celebration of Christ’s birth.

New Year’s Day brings its new beginnings and more than its share of doomed resolutions. Easter is a time for hunting eggs with the kids and wearing our Sunday best to church as we remember all Jesus did as his gift of salvation. July 4th is all about picnics and fireworks as it instills its sense of patriotism and love for country.

Then, comes Labor Day…with its day off and the certain knowledge that proper women can no longer wear white.

Labor Day, enacted as a national holiday by President Grover Cleveland in 1882, commemorates the labor rights established to protect workers from the exploitation of way too powerful corporations and greedy industrial moguls concerned only with profit. It recognizes the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength and prosperity. I’m often reminded on Labor Day to express my gratitude for those who do the dirty and necessary work to keeps our society functioning.

I’m grateful for those men and women in my life who taught me the value of hard work. My first examples were my Dad and every other farmer I ever knew in that small West Texas community where I grew up. Hard work was an expectation. A life commitment.

My Mom spent the early years of my life as an equally hard-working farmer’s wife. No one who hasn’t lived that life should scoff at that. It was never easy. Her later years were spent as a medical director of a retirement community where her skill and compassion brought comfort to her elderly patients.

My thoughts this Labor Day weekend are less about the holiday and more about the work we are called to do and how we are called to do it.

Work is hard. Whether we work at home, at school, on a factory floor, in a petrochemical plant, on a farm or in a nice, air-conditioned office, work can be difficult.

Unreasonable deadlines. Computer crashes. Difficult customers. Demanding bosses. Baffling regulations. The list of challenges faced in the workplace is endless. From labor shortages to the difficult decisions to let employees go, it never seems to get easier. Even at home there is always another dinner to cook, another pile of clothes to wash and a lawn that needs mowing.

Despite the fact that we may be doing work that we typically enjoy, there are days when you wonder if it’s worth the effort.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In the perfect world God created, work would have been, well, perfect because the workplace was perfect.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it…” (Genesis 2:15)

The life God planned for us went quickly off the rails because of sin’s devastating folly. The nature of work changed.

“Cursed is the ground because of you, in painful toil you shall eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return. (Genesis 3:17-19)

Brutal!

The wisdom of Ecclesiastes describes the writer’s work experiences…the disillusionment that comes when his work leaves him unfulfilled.

I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil in which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. (Ecclesiastes 2:17-18)

If that wasn’t sad enough, the writer continued to share his heart’s despair.

What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless. (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23)

His lament begins to sound like the gospel of the Rolling Stones, “I can’t get no satisfaction…but I try, and it try, and I try…

Let me stop there or we’ll be too depressed to get out of bed Tuesday morning. The writer of Ecclesiastes doesn’t completely despair. He doesn’t hit the snooze button on his alarm, refusing to get up for work the next morning. He tells us in Chapter 3 that there is a time for every activity under heaven.

What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has set eternity in the human heart; yet, no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil…this is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 3:9-13)

What changed in the writer’s heart?

It was the certain understanding that everything God created, even work, had its time, place and purpose. As we learn to trust him in all things, even work, we start seeing the work he has given us through our talent and skills as his work…doing good while we live.

So natural was this idea of work in God’s plan for us that when God sent his son to live and dwell among us, he toiled beside his father and brothers in the family business long before he began his ministry.

While the scripture tells us nothing about the 18 years between Jesus’ appearance in the temple as a 12-year-old and the beginning of his ministry as a man of thirty years, Jewish culture expected boys to begin working as apprentices in their father’s business. Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father was a carpenter, a worker in wood and stone.

It takes little imagination to feel the callouses on Jesus’ hands and see the muscles bulging as a result of many years wielding a hammer. You can see the tiny scars that represent every time the chisel slipped and cut his fingers. It takes little imagination to see the joy on his face as his friends and neighbors delighted in the house or table Jesus built for them with his own hands. It was a good work. A work God called him for when he sent him to Mary and Joseph. A work as much about his Father’s business at that time in his life as the redemptive work he would do later on the cross.

As he preached the gospel, Paul worked as a tentmaker to help pay his way. As someone who took pride in his work, Paul saw his vocation as an extension of his ministry. His way of setting himself apart from others as a witness for Christ. It was a word he extended even to the slaves of his day. This is what he told his brothers and sisters in Christ in the church at Colossae.

“Whatever you do work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24)

We spent easily one-third of our adult lives working. Paul tells us to pour our hearts into our work. Give it our absolute best, even when we might feel mistreated. Work each day as if the Lord himself was your boss because, he says, “It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

It is the apostle’s way of reminding us that in a broken world, work will never be what it was intended. The good news is that Jesus changes everything. When we begin to see that our work, whatever it may be, is an extension of our ministry and mission given to us by God, then we’ll see the true value of every hour spent in his service.

• Farmers feed and clothe.
• Teachers develop and teach.
• Doctors and nurses heal.
• Industry workers create and build.
• Homemakers love and comfort.
• Police offers and firefighters protect and serve.

I don’t care what you do for a living. Your work is rife with opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus, touching the lives of all you encounter. What we do on Monday through Friday cannot be separated from the one we worship on Sunday.

It is the Lord Christ we are serving.

I don’t think I fully appreciated that truth as a young man. Work was work. Ministry was ministry. It didn’t often occur to me that those worlds should exist in the same space. God opened my eyes during a Halloween poster contest at one of the schools in our district.

I had been invited to judge a Halloween mask contest at one of the elementary campuses in my school district where I served in a low administrative role. Most of the masks hanging on the wall were decorated elaborately with obvious parental help.

Standing with the principal who was also judging, we came across one mask that was little more than a Kroger paper shopping bag with a crudely painted face upon it. Holes were raggedly cut for the eyes and mouth.

Thinking nothing of it, I sarcastically told the principal that it was obvious the parents didn’t help on this mask. She gave me a wry smile and told me that the father of the little girl who made this mask was in prison. The girl had been removed from her home because the mother had a severe drug addiction.

That timid, third grade girl had been sent to live with two elderly grandparents. Shortly after her arrival the grandmother died, leaving the little girl in the care of a grandfather who lived his life confined to a wheelchair and a bottle of oxygen.

By the time she finished the story, I fought back the tears of my insensitivity and heard clearly God’s gentle reminder that I was in this business to serve him. That I was to be about his business while doing my business.

I spent a few minutes that morning, my heart broken, but at the same time buoyed, sitting and talking with a smiling little third grade girl whose only refuge in life was the classroom. Whose only stability was her teachers.

God rocked my world that day, opening my eyes to the possibility that every minute of my work was my field…and the field was ripe for harvest. He reminded me that every day presented chances to show his love and grace to people who needed to feel his touch through me.

I hope you’ve had that moment in your career when you began to understand that it is the Lord Christ you are serving no matter what your job or profession might be.

It’s easy to do just enough work to get by. I watched a few people do exactly that during my 40-year career. However, God asks something different of those who he calls his children. As you start your work each day, be reminded that the writer of Ecclesiastes said to recognize our work is a “gift of God and to “do good while we live.”

When the alarm goes off each day, remember that Paul said that “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,” as if you’re really “working for the Lord.” Find ways to express his love through the work you do.

If you’re doing it right, I’m convinced work will always be difficult, but it will never be drudgery. There will be times when “Thank God It’s Friday” will be less in anticipation of a weekend of celebration and more a prayer of praise that you survived another week. However, if we work each day as if we’re working for God, then the burden will not be all that heavy. There will be joy in the labor.

As a carpenter and stonemason, Jesus knew what it meant to work long, back-breaking hours in the blistering sun. He knew the burden of responsibility would take its toll some days…especially if we remember that it is the Lord Christ we’re serving. I think that’s one reason he told those who would listen…

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

So as we enter this Labor Day holiday weekend, I pray you find the deserved rest and peace of Christ that will recharge your batteries and enable you to punch the clock on Tuesday with the resolve of one who knows for whom he is working.

Happy Labor Day!

I Must Become Less

Background Passages: John 1:29-31; John 3:23-30; Matthew 16:24-26

The classical music world generally considers Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini as the greatest and most influential musician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known for his intensity and his quest for musical perfection, he had an ear for orchestral detail, He was, at various times, the orchestra director for La Scala in Milan, Italy, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

One evening after a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the audience gave Toscanini and the orchestra a prolonged standing ovation. Filled with great emotion, Toscanini turned to his musicians and whispered, “I am nothing. You are nothing.” Then, in a reverent tone, the conductor said, “But Beethoven…Beethoven is everything!”

For the gifted conductor, he and the amazingly talented musicians of the orchestra shined only as instruments through which the genius of Beethoven could be heard. Their presence and performance were subordinate to the music so brilliantly put together by the famed composer.

It’s a humility that John the Baptist understood in his relationship to Jesus.

In his Bible dictionary compiled in 1901, Dr. William Smith calls John the Baptist “the most theologically significant individual in the Bible” apart from Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, his birth is meticulously recorded in scripture and carried with it a miraculous conception reminiscent of Abraham and Sarah with its divine proclamation and intervention.

John is the only person recorded in scripture, other than Jesus as the fully divine expression of the Holy Trinity, to experience the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit from conception. Luke told us so as he described the angel’s message to John’s frightened father.

He will be a joy and delight to you and many people will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is to never take wine or other fermented drink and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. (Luke 1:14-16)

Prior to Pentecost, God’s spirit came to specific people for a specific time and a specific purpose. When that time and purpose had been accomplished or when the person turned away from God’s calling as Saul did, the Spirit left them. In John’s case, he lived his life from birth to death with God’s spirit ever present in his life.

Born into a priest’s home in Jerusalem, John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin. Separated by the distance between Jerusalem and Nazareth, I doubt that the cousins saw each other much more than once a year when Jesus’ parents brought him to the holy city for Passover. Though they had much in common, they were intensely different people.

If Jesus’ mother Mary was like my mom, she would have lovingly called John an “weird onion” as she hugged his neck. He lived life differently from most boys. John might have teased Jesus about his studious love of scripture and Jesus might have joked with John about his camel-haired sense of style and his penchant for snacking on honeyed locusts. (Matthew 2:4) It would have been a fun relationship to watch develop over the years.

John began his public ministry before Jesus as a “voice crying out in the wilderness” preparing the way for the coming Messiah. He preached repentance to the Jewish people, telling them that the days in which they were living marked the culmination of the law and the prophets and heralded the dawn of God’s kingdom.

As a result of his ministry, people flocked to John’s side, listening and responding to his message. Hundreds, if not thousands, sincerely turned back to God and were baptized by John in the Jordan River. His was a simple, but powerful message. Someone asked him one day if he was the promised Messiah. In his response, you get a sense of John’s understanding of his role in God’s plan.

After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. (Mark 1:7-8)

Now, imagine this day. John stood waist deep in the river, water dripping from his camel-hair shirt, as he baptized one person after another who confessed their sin and asked for God’s forgiveness. As he looked up to welcome the next person into the water, he saw the crowd part as Jesus walked carefully down the slippery riverbank.

In the booming voice of a wilderness evangelist, John declaresdto all who can hear…

Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Reminding them of his earlier proclamation, John said, “This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'” I did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. (John 1: 29-31)

Jesus smiled as he stepped into the water in front of John and asked to be baptized. Dumbfounded, John couldn’t imagine any way that Jesus’ request made sense. Drenched in unworthiness. John refused.

“I need to be baptized by you, and yet, do you come to me?

I can see Jesus taking his cousin by the shoulders, staring intently but gently into his eyes.

“Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:14-16)

Afterward, John continued his ministry in the wilderness, calling the people to repentance and pointing the way to Jesus. At the same time, Jesus began to teach and preach. His teaching and his miracles drew crowds equal to and sometimes greater than John’s.

While John was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, along the Jordan River, about midway between Judea and Galilee, an argument developed between John’s disciples and a Jew over ceremonial washing. The Jewish man came to John and indicated that Jesus, whom John baptized, had been baptizing also and seemed to be drawing people away from John’s following.

It’s hard to tell whether the man was genuinely curious about what he felt like were competing ministries or whether he was trying to sew discord between John and Jesus. It could be that he was trying to pit one against the other for the benefit of the Jewish religious leaders who perceived both men as threats to their standing with the people.

John’s response caught my attention this week despite having read the passage many times. Listen to it.

A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, “I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.” The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must be greater: I must become less. (John 3:23-30)

Because of God’s spirit within him, John the Baptist knew he played the role of best man in this story. Jesus was the bridegroom and those who believe in him his bride. That Jesus had now burst on the scene brought joy to John’s heart. Then, he said a few words you and I need to say every day.

He must be greater; I must become less.

Those eight words are easy for us to say, but so incredibly hard for us to live. Yet they need to be a constant refrain in our hearts.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we want Jesus to increase in importance to the world, but we kind of want to increase along with him. To decrease, to become less, makes us feel unimportant or forgotten. John took none of that into consideration. He wanted to live in such a way that people didn’t think of him at all. He wanted to live so people would think only of Jesus.

In those words, he challenged us to make Jesus greater in our lives, to take a back seat and let the light shine on Jesus. To let others see Jesus in and through us. Subordinating our will to his. Then, as John expressed, to find joy when we hear his voice louder than we hear our own.

John the Baptist expressed words of humility and I don’t always do humility well. Yet, the way of decrease is deeply engrained in scripture.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. (Romans 12:3)

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who, being the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

Paul recognized his need to decrease in his life committed to Christ, telling the people of Galatia…

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I lie in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

If I am to put Christ first in my life, let him increase, that means surrendering my will to the will of God. Becoming more like Jesus as I follow him. Living my life in complete and absolute faith in him.

You hear Paul’s words stemming from Jesus’ own words to his disciples as he explained the life God requires of all believers. It resonates just as clearly today.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. For what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

When I am willing to share the cross with Christ and follow his lead; when I am willing to lose myself in Christ’s shadow, only then will I find the abundant life he promised.

The praise of this world means little absent the presence of God in our lives. Putting him first. “Magnifying his name,” as Paul says when he sent his letter to the Philippian church.

When we use the word “magnify” today, we talk about making something bigger or larger like with a telescope or microscope. It was Paul’s desire that Christ would be magnified (made larger than Paul), so Christ would be honored, exalted and lifted up before all people.

Had he lived long enough to know Paul as the mighty missionary he came to be, John the Baptist would have agreed with him. To magnify Jesus means we must decrease while he must increase.

It is a sobering thought when I realize I’ve not always lived that way. With every temptation to exalt myself, I need to paraphrase the words of Toscanini. “I am nothing. You are nothing. But, Jesus…Jesus is everything.”

Let’s pray that God might help us live with the echo of John’s words in our hearts. “I must decrease; he must increase.”

Amen?

Amen.

Words of Godly Wisdom

Background Passages: Proverbs 2:3-6; Proverbs 3:3-6

Have you ever wondered who is the most often quoted American?

If you think about that question, you might respond with Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Dr. Martin Luther King

It might or might not surprise you that the most quoted American is actually Lawrence Peter Berra, “Yogi” to his friends. Yogi was a professional baseball catcher, coach and manager. He spent most of his Hall of Fame career with the New York Yankees. People consider him one of the greatest catchers in the game.

If Shakespeare wowed us with “the most unkindest cut of all,” Yogi mesmerized us with “We made too many wrong mistakes.” The catcher turn philosopher also gave us these gems of wisdom.

“No one goes there nowadays. It’s too crowded.”

“It’s like deja vu all over again.”

“Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.”

“Always go to other people’s funerals otherwise they won’t go to yours.”

And, my personal favorite,

“I’m not buying my kids an encyclopedia. They can walk to school like I did.”

I guess I’m just a sucker for a good quote. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to Proverbs this week as I read through my Bible. When looking for a word of practical truth, it’s a good place to start.

One survey I read said that Proverbs 3:5-6 is the most often read and quoted Proverb. It says…

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

The verse’s strength rests in its simplicity. Put your faith in God’s divine guidance. Trust him as he leads you through life. Walk in humility and do not rest solely on your judgment and your grasp of the situation. Lean on God and your direction in life will be a lot clearer.

Simple to say yet so difficult to do.

You can glean a lot about life throughout the Proverbs. In fact, Solomon, the accepted author of most of these morsels of wisdom, states clearly why he wrote these down under the inspiration of God. Read what he says in Chapter 2.

…if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (Proverbs 2:3-6)

The simple truths the writer shares are answers to our call for insight and understanding. Proverbs is written to help us discern God’s truth and his will. Our diligent quest for the wisdom that comes from our Father in heaven. As the old children’s show on television said, “The more we know, the more we grow.”

Here are a few of my favorite Proverbs and a few thoughts on each.

A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand. (Proverbs 27:15-16)

Okay, that one just makes me laugh and was written by a man who, in sync with the kingly culture of the day, had many wives. I’m guessing one of those women wasn’t his favorite.

I’ll just counter it with my personal experience found in Proverbs 31.

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good all the days of her life. (Proverbs 31:10-12)

Sticking with the family theme…

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he shall not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

I think what this verse tells us is that we should create in our children a desire to know God, to whet their appetite for the things of God. If we do that well enough, the probability of them straying from that path is small. It stresses the importance of the role parents play in guiding their children through the formative years of life.

I like how the Proverbs also speak to our relationships outside the family.

If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse. (Proverbs 27:14)

It may not be a favorite, but it’s a good reminder to not call a retired person before 9 a.m. and disturb his “easing into the day” time.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)

People are shaped by their relationships with other people close to them. I think this proverb speaks to the importance of companionship and friendship in our growth as a person of God. So many men and women, young and old, molded my life over the years through the friendships we developed. I continually learn from others how God desires me to live. I live in gratitude to so many.

That thought leads to another great proverb that teaches me that a humble spirit is the heart of those relationships that help us grow as people of faith.

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)

Others cannot mold and shape us if we are too proud to listen to their sound advice. Humility, the essence of the spirit of Jesus, the one which we should follow as we walk “humbly before God” and our fellow man.

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1)

Regarding relationships, this proverb really tells us that our words and our tone matter as we try to help each other grow in Christ, resolve conflicts and mitigate anger. Being temperate and tactful keeps issues from growing out of proportion.

These represent just a few of my favorite words of wisdom shared in Proverbs. I’m drawn to Proverbs because of the practical advice wrapped in the endless metaphors strung together in catchy phrases.

In serious study, I find the Proverbs far more than that, however. The Book of Proverbs communicates a distinct world view or set of values to which most of us can easily relate. They speak to what it means to be godly in a fallen world.

Because the book of Proverbs succeeds in giving us an idea of how God designed the world to work, abiding by these pearls of wisdom sure makes life easier. Don’t mistake the Proverbs as simply sound advice. If we use the Proverbs as a source of godly wisdom rather than human advice, they begin to speak to the heart in ways that change the way we live and relate to others.

In the general course of a life lived for the Lord, the words of Proverbs 3:3-4 seem most relevant.

Let love and faithfulness never leave you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and men.

What’s your favorite proverb? Share it in the comment section below.

Deep Roots

Background Passages: Matthew 13:1-23

Reading through the Bible gives us a marvelous glimpse into the teachings of Christ. The truth revealed remains as universally true today as it was then. However, I can’t help but feel that every conversation recorded in the Bible that Jesus has with the people who followed him from place to place is a concisely edited synopsis of what was actually discussed.

I enjoy reading between the lines and imaging the scene unfold. Jesus spent some time one day telling a parable about how differently God’s truth is received by those who hear it. As the day closed, his disciples struggled to understand so Jesus took the time to explain the truth they needed to know.

I sometimes like to put myself around the campfire, listening in on the conversations Jesus had with others. Read the passage in Matthew 13. Then, read the story below. Don’t worry about the format. I promise it’s not poetry. It’s just style. I certainly don’t know if it happened this way, but it seems to be in keeping with my image of my Lord.

“Like locusts,”
Peter marveled,
“descending on a field of grain.”
The disciple commented on the crowd
gathering for the Master’s teaching.
Another day.
Another multitude.

James.
A disciple of Christ.
The son of Alphaeus.
Not the fisherman.
Raised his head.
Glanced back at the mass of humanity
spreading out across the mountain.
Muttered his agreement.
“Give them credit,” said James.
“They’ve come a long way in this heat
just to hear his words of wisdom.”

James watched Jesus working his way
among the crowd.
So full of energy.
Eager to engage each person on a personal level.

Stretching almost as far as he could see,
hundreds of men, women and children
congregated on the dusty hillside.
Turned its landscape into a
blossoming field of flowing robes.
Stretching their necks to catch a glimpse of the man who…
Worked miracles.
Fed thousands.
Healed the infirmed.
Spoke more clearly than any rabbi.

James shook his head in wonder.
Leaning hard against the prow of the boat,
He and Peter
pushed the small fishing vessel
into the warm waters of the Sea of Galilee.
Gave their Master a platform from which to speak.

The multitude settled at last to understand more about
the carpenter turned rabbi.
Many shouted out.
Sought answers to their most pressing questions.
“Who are you exactly?”
“Why are you here?”
“What must we do?”

Questions James heard since the
Jewish leaders began their disinformation campaign
accusing Jesus of every type of heresy under the Law.

James watched.
Jesus waited.
The tide of questions ebbed.
Amid the silence of anticipation,
Jesus pointed to the distant hillside.
“See that farmer?”

The crowd turned to look.
James chuckled under his breath
at the sound of rustling robes turning in unison.

A Farmer.
Stood straight against the weight of the
heavy seed bag tied around his waist.
Every two or three steps he stopped.
Dipped his hand into the sack.
With a casual and practiced flick of his wrist,
he cast seeds across his small plot of land.

“My work is much like his,” said Jesus,
“Sowing seeds of God’s truth to those who will hear.”
As the crowd turned back, he asked,
“Will you listen?”

“A farmer went out to sow his seed…”

James sat at Jesus’ feet as he always did.
Mesmerized
by every word.
Marveled
that the simplest illustration held such elaborate truth.
Awestruck that Jesus could pull a lesson of
immortal value from the
most mundane acts of life.

Sermon ended.
Service began.
Jesus and the disciples moved through the crowd.
Helping in any and every way they could.

James thought about the parable
throughout the day as he worked.
Unsettled.
Uncertain.
Uneasy.
He missed something.
He was sure of it.

At last,
the crowd dispersed.
Jesus sat around the campfire surrounded by
his most trusted followers.
Exhausted from the day’s ministry.
As was their habit,
they sat around the campfire…
Talking quietly.
Reflecting privately.
Discussing intimately.
Debating meaning and intent of the words they heard.

Jesus.
Rested against a fig tree.
Arms across his chest.
Head back.
Eyes closed.
Listening, but not looking.

James.
Shuffled from group to group.
Listened intently to the conversations.
Contributed little as he processed what he heard.
He found himself standing beside the tree where Jesus sat.
More nervous than usual when alone with Jesus.
Kicked the toe of his sandal against a root,
hoping that Jesus would notice his presence.

Finally, he cleared his voice.
“Jesus.
Are you asleep?”

Jesus.
Didn’t move a muscle though
a rueful grin broke across his face.
One weary eye opened.
One eyebrow raised.
“I wish!” He groaned.
Glancing up at the young disciple,
“What do you need,
my friend?”
.
James looked sheepishly at the others around the fire,
feeling inside that they knew things he did not know.
“That parable you told today…
about the farmer…
What exactly did it mean?”

Jesus arched his back.
Pushed away from the trunk of the tree.
Grasp his knees and pulled them to his chest.
Speaking in a voice loud enough for all the disciples to hear,
“Among all men, you are fortunate.
The secrets of the Kingdom of God have been revealed to you.”
James chuckled again as the rustle of their robes
reminded him of the crowd on the hillside.

Closing his eyes as if thinking of the multitude,
Jesus shook his head.
“The others…the people…
I speak in parables to help them understand.
So they can see what they may not see.
Hear what they may not understand.”

He paused for a moment.
Searched their eyes.
Sensed their uncertainty.

“This is what the parable means…”

The explanation.
Lengthy and to the point.
The disciples listened.
Some nodded in agreement.
Some probed with further questions.
James sat silently.
Getting the point,
but still sensing a gap in his understanding.
Innate shyness prevented him from pushing for clarity.

Later.
Jesus leaned again,
alone against his tree.
The others congregated in small clusters around the camp.
Again in quiet conversation.

James.
Paced the edge of darkness.
Hands behind his back.
Deep in thought.
He found himself once again
standing beside the tree.
Silent.
Still.

Jesus again wearily opened one eye.
Raised one eyebrow.
Smiled slightly at the timid intrusion.
Spoke in a quiet, reassuring voice.
“Something bothering you, James?”

The young disciple
leaned against the tree.
Facing east to Jesus’ south.
Slid quietly to the ground,
letting the course bark scratch his back.
He settled in silence into a comfortable spot.

Always patient,
Jesus waited for his friend to speak.
After a moment, James said,
“I get most of it, I think.
You’re the farmer…at work in your world.
The seed…God’s truth. His word.
The different kinds of soil…hearers of His word.
Hard.
Rocky.
Thorny.
Fertile.”
James paused again,
unsure of his next thought.

James pressed Jesus for clearer understanding.
Deeper insight.
About the soil…the listeners.
“How can they hear the same word so differently?”

“What do you think?” Jesus asked,
“always answering a question with a question.”

“The hard soil.
On the surface, no pun intended,” he smiled.
“it seems to talk about the…
Determined opponent of God.
Disinterested in godly things.
Hard. Bitter. Beaten down by life.
Refusing to let any ounce of truth penetrate the surface.
Hardened to any possibility of faith.
Clearly, an unbeliever.”

“But, I think there’s more to it than that.”
Turning to Jesus he said,
“Isn’t it possible a person could be so wrapped up in doing good,
that he may no longer hear a new word from God?
So focused on his ministry that he misses other opportunities to serve?

Jesus.
Eyes still closed.
He said,
“True enough.
Look at the Pharisees.
So busy with ritual they never get to know God intimately.
So involved in ‘worship’ they never practice what they preach.
Worship must be personal.
Must breech the hardness of our hearts
or it’s meaningless.”

Encouraged,
James pressed on.
“The soil on top of rocky ground…
Enough sustenance to sprout.
Not enough to grow.
Some listeners,
excited about the work of God,
try to live it daily.
Yet when crisis comes,
when they fall upon hard times,
they fall away.
Faith withers and dies.”

Jesus nodded.
“We must be grounded,
rooted in our faith,
if we are to withstand the difficulties
we will inevitably face.
Life is not easy.
A true life of faith even more difficult.
Setting our roots means we must be so grounded
in our study of God’s word
that we never lack for spiritual nourishment that sustains.”

James quietly quoted something Jesus said
in another time,
another place.
“If I say I love God and don’t evidence it in my life,
I’m a liar.”

Jesus laughed,
“You have been listening.”

The two men sat in silence for a while as James thought
deeply about what Jesus said.
The disciple took another deep breath.
“Let’s talk about the third soil…
Full of weeds and thorns.
Choking the life out of the good grain.
Bad attitudes and actions strangle life.
Good intentions get choked out by disbelief.”

James.
Energized.
Engaged.
Eager.
Sat cross legged now facing Jesus.
Hands gesturing to punctuate his excitement.
“Lives get smothered by things that ultimately don’t matter.
We nit-pick each other over inconsequential things.
Kill our own spirit and the
spirits of those around us.”

Jesus.
Fully awake and animated
mirrored James’ posture.
Cross legged and leaning toward his friend.
He reached across the distance between them.
Slapped him on the knees.
“Now, you’re getting it!”

Jesus added,
“There is a tendency to lose the joy of salvation.
The dogs of life nip at our heels.
We let bias and prejudice get in the way of loving relationships.
Arguments over things…
great or small…
just don’t matter in the end.
It chokes our relationships.
Get in the way of our ability to love one another.”

Jesus’s eyes danced.
“Go on, James,” he urged,
“What about the good soil?”

James sat for a minute.
Stunned that he was enmeshed in this conversation.

“The good soil…
Fertile.
Rich.
Bountiful.

“Represents those of us who get it.
Those who understand what God desires of us.
Understand more clearly who you are.”
Those who take part in the harvest.
Bringing people to know you.
To accept your truth.”

Jesus.
Shook his head.
“The kingdom needs more people
connected to the vine and
producing fruit.”

James sat back,
basking in Jesus’ praise.
It was a good feeling.

Jesus stared at him with an intensity
he had never sensed from his master.
“Think, James.
“It’s deeper than that. There’s more.
Keep digging.”

James found himself…
Prodded.
Probed.
Propelled beyond
convenience and conventional wisdom.
His mind raced.
Vaguely aware that other disciples had gathered around.
Listening intently to the dialogue.

His finger punched in frustration at the ground beneath him.
“I don’t understand.
You’re not making sen…”
James stopped in mid-sentence.
Sat back.
Mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
His mind processing a new thought.

Quietly.
Thinking aloud.

“The farmer broadcast his seed in the field.
The field…
The field…
It’s the same field…
All of the soils.
Hard packed.
Shallow.
Thorny.
Fertile.
They’re all in the same field!”

Jesus leaned in…
Broad smile on his face…

“Sooooo…”

James looked at Jesus.
Tears of understanding welled in his eyes.
“They’re all me.
Every soil is me.
It’s not about how the multitude responds to the gospel,
it’s about how I respond.

I can be at times too hard…
too busy even in service to be of service.
I can be shallow and artificial in faith…
fainting at the first sign of adversity.
I can be overly concerned with things
that don’t matter in God’s grand scheme.
Hypercritical of others.
Or,
I can be productive, fertile…
fully responsive to the will of God in my life.

Jesus looked at James.
Eyes sympathetic and understanding.
“Knowing our capacity for failure is the
first step in avoiding the pitfalls.
Like I said before,
‘All have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God.”

James wiped away tears with the sleeve of his tunic.
Embarrassed by his display of emotion.

Jesus.
Grasp the hand of his disciple.
Firm and reassuring.
“Don’t worry about the tears, James.
You’re in the good soil now.
You’re just watering your roots.”

I’m not sure about you. This parable speaks to my faith…crisply and clearly. Identifying my life, at best, as a spasmodic attempt to respond to the call of God.

Any honest evaluation of my life shows that I am sometimes…self-absorbed. Too busy acting good, rather than doing good. Sometimes…false and artificial. Exhibiting a show of faith, without the substance of faith. Sometimes…Nit-picky and hypocritical. Judging the speck of sawdust in the eyes of others, while ignoring the plank in my own.

Sometimes…fertile and productive. Stretching my roots into the deep, loamy soil of God’s truth. Fully responsive to his will.

My prayer for me and for you is simply this. That we find time to listen to the voice that tells us we’re missing something important in God’s word. To find the courage to sit at the tree where Jesus sits, asking for clarity and understanding. To dig deeper into familiar scripture. To sink our roots into the fertile soil of truth.

May our tears of understanding water the roots of our faith.

Author’s note: Life intervened this week. While I studied God’s word as I normally do, I could not find the time to write a new word. So, this is a slightly edited version of a study I wrote back in 2016. It served as a great reminder to me to keep digging for God’s truth.

We the People…

Background Passages: I Peter 2:11-17; Titus 3:1-2; Matthew 22:37-40 and Micah 6:8

“We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”

Mr. Watts, my history teacher back in Ropes High School, required us to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution. Despite it being over 50 years since I committed those words to memory, most of them came easily during this 4th of July week as I prepared to lead a discussion with a group of young adults from my church on the topic of politics, government and Christian citizenship.

The opening words to the Constitution seemed a good place to start since they pretty much establish government’s responsibility to its citizens. This curious group of men and women who gathered at my house had questions about our responsibility as Christians in a world that does not often reflect Christian values. Given the divisive tone echoing in most political debates today, it seems a good question.

The early history of the church was a tangled mess of politics and religion. Once the Roman emperor Constantine gave Christianity legal status in 313 AD and Theodosius declared the Christian faith the official religion of Rome, the next 1400 years found the political leaders across the centuries engaged in a constant battle for power with the Church, each dominating the other at various times through history.

As European culture expanded into the New World, ostensibly searching for religious freedom, each British colony established an official church and restricted religious freedom to that specific denomination or sect while ostracizing or persecuting those who believed or worshipped differently.

When the founding fathers drafted the Constitution, there was only one reference to religion in Article VI that prohibited any religious test as a requirement for public service. Those early colonies with their official church limited public service to members of the official church.

Interestingly, it was a couple of Baptist pastors who pushed Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to include a statement on religious liberty in the Bill of Rights which were later amended into the Constitution.

The First Amendment, known as the Establishment Clause, declared that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

In its strictest interpretation, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prevents the federal government from establishing a national church or religion and more broadly says that the federal government cannot adopt a stance in favor of or against any religion. Nor can the federal government prohibit the free exercise or expression of religion. It gives everyone the right to believe and practice one’s religion or to have no faith at all.

It wasn’t until the late 19th century that the 14th Amendment placed similar restrictions on state governments. Until that time some states still provided public support to the state’s officially recognized church.

Jefferson wrote that the First Amendment “built a wall of separation between church and state.” As he introduced the First Amendment, Madison said the amendment would make it possible for “each individual to decide for himself whether or not he wants to be religious, and if he does, what religion best suits his conscience.”

We could engage in very real conversations about whether the government is making it harder to practice one’s faith, but that conversation ultimately leads to a discussion about what Christian citizenship should look like. The biblical writers provide a glimpse into what God desires of his people as they wrestle with the balance between politics and faith.

Jeremiah certainly understood this tension between government and religion. He proclaimed God’s word in a time when the people of Israel had been conquered and taken into exile by Babylon. He wrote a letter to the elders, the priests and the people carried away by Nebuchadnezzar telling them how to live as God’s people while in exile.

He encouraged them to settle down, build houses, plant gardens and have families. He told them to live life to its fullest even under these extraordinarily difficult circumstances. He wrote,

“Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. (Jeremiah 28:7)

God’s people found themselves in a foreign land, one that lived and believed differently than they did. Yet, God put them there for a purpose. (…I have carried you into exile…) He told them to pray for the peace and prosperity of the city that took them from their homes because in its welfare they would find their own welfare.

It seems then that the first order of business for a Christian citizen is to pray for those in power and for the welfare of the nation because if it prospers, we too will prosper. The writer of 2 Chronicles added to that element a need to make sure our hearts are right when we pray.

…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Given that we aren’t always privy to God’s purpose and plan and that we need to be acting within God’s purpose and plan, it seems proper to pray and trust his providence no matter how long it takes for that to be realized. God’s timing is not always our timing.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 28:11)

Christian citizenship also requires us to put a little trust in our leaders…to a point. If you believe that God is in control, then no one rises to power without his allowing it. Living under authority of Rome, Paul urged the people of the early church to be subject to the governing rulers for there is “no authority except that God has established.” (Romans 13:1)

It was an idea echoed by Peter in one of his letters to believers, many of whom were facing some level of persecution at the hands of the Roman authorities.

Dear brothers, I urge you as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority, whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. (I Peter 2:11-17)

That doesn’t mean that Christians give blind obedience to those in authority. There may be times when obedience to Christ calls us to put our lives at risk as we oppose evil. I’m thinking about necessary Christian opposition to all that Hitler and a host of tyrants like him represented.

I also don’t believe that Peter suggests that we should not question and even speak against policies and laws that we believe run counter to what is morally and spiritually right. However, I think both Paul and Peter would agree that there is a Christ-like way of dissenting against those who rule over us.

When Paul tells the Roman believers to submit to authority, he does so within the context of words spoken in Romans 12. He talks about “blessing those who persecute you,” “living in harmony” with those outside the faith, “repaying no one with evil for evil,” but give thought in what is “noble in the sight of all.” He urged them, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Both Paul and Peter teach that a Christians response to government ought to advance the cause of Christ. That cannot be done if we behave like someone who doesn’t know him.

Peter’s idea of good Christian citizenship was to live such good lives that those in authority would see a difference in how they lived compared to the rest of the empire. He wanted their lives to serve as a guiding testimony that might lead others to know Christ. They could do that by showing proper respect to all, loving each other, revering God and honoring the emperor. It was a tall order.

Lest you think it was just Peter’s opinion, Paul wrote a similar thought to Titus.

Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always be gentle toward everyone. (Titus 3:1-2)

It’s a Christ-like attitude he describes when he talks about obedience, doing good for others, and talking badly about anyone. He wanted them to live in peace, being considerate and gentle in their dealings and their disagreements with their fellow man and the authorities. Expressing our opinions and beliefs in ways that advance the cause of Christ rather than diminish it.

In his book Back to Bedrock: Messages on Historic Baptist Faith, Dr. Paul Powell, dean of Truett Seminary at Baylor University, suggests that if we truly believe in religious liberty, that everyone is free to receive or reject the gospel, our opposition to laws we believe run counter to God’s law must be expressed, as Paul suggested to Titus, in love and gentleness, peaceably and with respect and consideration for the beliefs of others.

Powell wrote, “This was Jesus’ style. He never coerced, bribed, deceived or threatened people. He made his position known and respected their freedom of choice.” He said, “We are to share the gospel, not shove it.”

In a time when many Christians feel the government is shoving new laws down their throats, the natural human reaction is to shove back. Ramp up the rhetoric, vilifying the laws and those who support it. The conversations become rancid and rancorous…wholly un-holy.

That’s not to say Christians should not oppose issues that go against what we believe. However, there is a Christ-like way of doing so. One that glorifies God. One that keeps the door open for healing and redemption. One that expresses love for others.

In our group Bible study this week, we talked about some of those pressing cultural issues like abortion, sexuality and gender issues, gay marriage, race relations and divorce. A whole host of societal questions. They wondered why the church does not speak out more about things many Christians might think of as issues that definitively run counter to Christian teaching.

I don’t know if I had the right answers. The older I get the more I struggle with things I once thought of as black and white issues. The shades of gray become more prominent with each passing year. Most issues seem more nuanced now than the simple right or wrong of my younger years.

I know Christian people who have had an abortion. I know Christian people who live an alternate lifestyle to my own. I know Christian people whose views of many of these critical issues of the day are tempered by their own personal experiences. Judging those perspectives is not my call.

Every individual is God’s creation, one who the father in heaven loves. Someone with whom God desires a relationship. If my opposition to a lifestyle or issue gets in the way of God’s redemptive work, I’ve probably failed in my responsibility to love. I’ve failed to leave the door open for God to be at work in my life and the one who believes differently than I.

What I know with certainty, if my words and actions amid the debate over these critical issues push people away from Christ, my sin is more egregious. Jesus embraced those who would not embrace him. He never pushed them away. He loved them anyway. He ate dinner with them. He offered his friendship.

He talked to them gently about the living water he offered while encouraging them to be set apart and different than the world around them. That ought to be my model for every relationship and on every topic up for debate.

George MacDonald, a Scottish poet and pastor, called Christianity a “two-handed religion.” He said Christians are to “hold fast to God with one hand and open wide the other to your neighbor.”

Think of what Jesus taught in his parable of the Good Samaritan. Life is like the Jericho road. It is a place where people get wounded. We, as Christians, play the role of the Samaritan, people who help others in need, whether they find themselves tossed into a ditch or have fallen into it by their own choices. No accusations. No name-calling. Just a willingness to open wide a hand to a neighbor.

The church ought to be like the inn in Jesus’ story. A welcoming place where the lonely, confused and hurting can be accepted, helped and healed.

I believe Christians ought to be knowledgeable and involved in government, politics and social action. There is a clear call in the Bible for Christian citizenship. It’s how we approach these things that makes the difference. Will we be reactionary or redemptive? I think God calls us to be the latter.

In Matthew’s gospel he tells of a time when a Pharisee tried to get the best of Jesus by asking him to name the greatest commandment.

Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

If all of God’s law hangs on these two commands from God, including those Christians use to support our arguments against various laws of our land, then my response to those issues needs to be tempered first and foremost by my love for God and my love for my neighbor. These commandments will change the way I talk about these issues and change the way I relate to those who think differently than I do.

Then, I fall back on one of my favorite verses in the Bible that outlines clearly what God demands of me as a Christian citizen.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
.
If nothing else, it’s something to think about during this Fourth of July week.