Posts in Category: down to earth believer

“How to Avoid Breaking Your Neck”

On December 29, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck,

will suddenly be broken beyond healing.” (Proverbs 29:1, English Standard Version)

I don’t want to have a broken neck, but I think I am in imminent danger. No, I’m not taking up skiing. I am not trying skateboarding, even though I would like to. It is much more serious than that.

And I’ve been warned—many times. I am seventy years old, and I keep getting rebuked for the same things, so a broken neck shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Here is a very partial list of things for which I am often rebuked:

  • Talking too much and unhelpfully.
  • Eating too much junk food.
  • Trying to pack too much into too little time.
  • Negative self-talk (a.k.a. being too full of self-doubt).
  • Scratching my head until it bleeds.
  • Making impulsive and wrong decisions and acting on those decisions.
  • Not paying attention.

Now I (and you) need to be careful at this point. Sometimes, people criticize us for things that are really their problems. Psychologists call this “projection”. And lets face it: For some people, such projection is their life’s project. You and I can safely and steadfastly refuse to take very seriously such criticism.

What I’m talking about is the attempts of good friends and significant others to point out things we really really need to work on. And often, it is our own conscience, or our better selves, or the Holy Spirit that is trying to get out attention.

So, if I/we want to avoid a broken neck, then I/we need to be better listeners. Being open to correction can head off kinds of problems, including broken necks.

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“Agathism”

On December 27, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

The English language has hundreds of thousands of words. These words have work to do. They take their places in the dictionary, ready to serve, wherever and whenever you need them. Some are deployed often. Others only stand and wait.

This week we’ve summoned some of the words who have been patiently waiting for their turn in the dusty pages of the dictionary. Say hello to them. Put them to work. They are handy. They are happy to serve. They will do whatever you ask them to do, but please use them only for the good.

agathism

PRONUNCIATION:

(A-guh-thiz-uhm) 

MEANING:

noun: The doctrine that, in the end, all things tend toward good.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek agathos (good), which also gave us agathokakological and the name Agatha. Earliest documented use: 1830.

NOTES:

An optimist would say that everything is for the best. An agathist, on the other hand, would say that what’s happening right now may be unfortunate or evil, but, ultimately, it will all end well. For optimists (and pessimists) from fiction who became words, see here and here.

USAGE:

“His stubbornness and agathism have been an inspiration to me. I don’t naturally have his persistence. So I often ask my mother to put him on the phone when I am struggling with something. It doesn’t matter what the issue is or that he can’t possibly know the future. I just want to hear his standard line, the only setting he has: Everything will be OK in the end.”
Mieke Eerkens; All Ships Follow Me; Picador; 2019.” (From the website, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/2/#inbox/FMfcgzGmtDxFfZMbTTpplrbbLqfDBfDr, accessed 12-27-2021.)

I love Anu Garg! Never met the man, but I still love him! Why? Because, like me, he is a lover and cherisher of words.

Take the word for today, for example: “agathism”. What a wonderful word! Believing that things will turn out for the good in the end.

In a time of a deadly pandemic, widespread political vitriol and oppression, racism, greed, climate change and various other deadly goings-on, it may or may not be true that all things will ultimately work out for the good. But even if it’s just a myth, it might be a good one to believe. If we simply give in and marinate in the sludge of our current real and serious problems, we will simply become part of the problems.

I’ve been struggling here of late with depression that borders on despair. No more! I will practice agathism.

Agathism is biblical, too. The Bible does not sugarcoat the human situation. One of the things I really hate about the Bible is its in-your-face realism about human nature.

Yet the Bible also has this crazy—and seemingly contradictory—idea that everything is going to turn out well after all.

No, not for everyone. That’s true. But there is some good news even with regard to that. In the second letter of Peter, he writes, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9, English Standard Version)

What?! God wants everybody to be saved?!

Yep. If we choose not to be saved, that is our decision. And God will respect our decision. He won’t like it, but he will respect it.

The last of the book of the Christian Bible is called Revelation. In it, there is a lot of evil and violence, most of it caused by human beings. Yes, some of the violence is attributed to God, but God’s violence is a response to human violence.

But the book ends with a vision of a heavenly city that is full of peace, beauty, and joy. This is because the city is full of God’s presence. And it is full of many people, too.

The story goes that Billy Graham was once asked by a gaggle of reporters if he was an optimist or a pessimist. “I am an optimist,” Graham replied. There were lots of bad things going on the world right then. Imagine that! So, one of the reporters asked a follow-up question: “How can you be an optimist, considering all the horrible things that are going on right now.”

Graham’s answer is a classic. “I’ve read the last page of the Bible, and I know how it all turns out.”

How about closing out this horrible year and beginning the next with an agathistic attitude? I think I’ll make a stab at it. Who knows? Perhaps my attempts will turn out well in the end?

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“But You Ain’t Even Got a Bucket!”

On December 26, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” (John 4:11, English Standard Version)

I grew up on a farm. We didn’t have running water. We had two wells: one near the house and the other next to the barn. In the winter, when the cows and pigs were couped up in the barn, we had to draw water out of the well by the barn. Dad wasn’t into expensive, modern pumps. All we had was some boards over the well and a bucket on a chain. On a few occasions the chain slipped through my cold fingers and the bucket went to the bottom of the well. It’s hard to water the livestock when you ain’t even got a bucket.

The verse that leads off this missive is from the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Samaritans and Jews got along together about as well as two pit bulldogs—or as well as Democrats and Republicans these days. At best, Jews and Samaritans had no contact. When they did have contact, it often got ugly in a hurry.

So, Jesus engages this Samaritan woman in a conversation. He begins by asking a favor. “Can I have a drink of water?” But this gambit is designed to draw her into even deeper waters than Jacob’s well contained.

Here is the story in its entirety:

“3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

John 4:7   A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

John 4:16   Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

John 4:27   Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

John 4:31   Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

John 4:39   Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” (English Standard Version)

Listening to this story this morning on my smartphone YouVersion, I was struck by the woman’s comment that Jesus didn’t even have a bucket. The Bible in general, and John in particular, has a tendency to make these seemingly throwaway comments that may mean a great deal more than they seem to be saying. While it was literally true that Jesus didn’t have a bucket, John may have been hinting at something much more profound. Jesus did not have a bucket to draw the living water of life. In fact, Jesus was the water, according to John’s Gospel.

Jesus didn’t and doesn’t need a bucket because he was and is the water of life.

I don’t understand this at all, but I am intrigued. And maybe intrigue is the first step toward understanding. Perhaps being intrigued is as muchunderstanding as I can pull off most of the time. Maybe Jesus is drawing me and you into his conversation with this outcast, “otherly” woman.

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“MATURITY: THE ART OF RECOGNIZING THE CONSEQUENCES”

On December 16, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

For several years now, I have been taking a word or a short phrase to set the tone for my year. The word for 2022 is “maturity”. I figured that I would start the year a little early. So, here goes!

But first an important question: What is maturity? There are probably many aspects to the understanding and living out of maturity. A friend and I were talking about what maturity is, and he came up with a simply wonderful and wonderfully simple definition: Maturity is recognizing that there are consequences to all our actions, words, and thoughts, good and bad.

Perhaps the opposite of maturity is not immaturity, but insanity. Insanity has been defined as “doing the same thing over and over—and expecting different results.

When I was little, I thought that I could get by with things. I rarely succeeded. I still sometimes fall into that thought. However, it simply isn’t so. Nobody gets by with anything. When I say or do something unkind, there is an immediate wound to another person. There is also an immediate self-inflicted wound on my heart and mind and soul. Even my thinking (which usually precedes my speaking and acting) leaves a wound. The wound may seem small to me, but it is big to the victim. It will not heal quickly. It may get infected and never heal

 When I say or do or something kind, good comes into being for others and for myself. There are immediate consequences for good thoughts and words and deeds. These consequences are often even less perceptible than the effect of harmful thoughts and words and deeds. But imperceptible doesn’t mean insignificant.

So, today, I am going to think and speak and act in a mature, consequential manner. Today, I am choosing to be mature. And I am determined to be mature in good ways. Living consequentially beats living inconsequentially every time.

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“Beyond the Same Old”

On December 14, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, English Standard Version)

Do you feel like the same old so-and-so you’ve always been? I was feeling that way this morning. However, a phone call with a friend, some coffee, and Scripture helped me to realize that I am moving beyond the same old. (The coffee just helped me to wake up.)

You see, I often wonder if I’ve been forgiven. A lot of people think that the things I’ve done in the past are unforgivable. Sometimes, I’m afraid they are right. And sometimes, I don’t think that I have changed as much as I think I’ve changed. I have engaged in so much self-doubt over the decades that I have become self-doubt.

But then, there was this call from a friend. He is struggling with some anxiety over a good (but very demanding) change that is coming up in his life in the new year. I said to him that I would be excited for him. “Sometimes, we need to live vicariously, so I will be joyful for you.”

It occurred to me that perhaps I should practice this truth in my own life. There are people who know all my stuff who are quite sure I’ve been forgiven by God. They are also sure that I’ve changed and am changing for the better. I may have to be vicariously assured of my forgiveness through my friends.

And then, there is the Scripture. I felt the Holy Spirit (or my own subconscious?) guiding me to 2 Corinthians 5:17, the Scripture that leads off this post. I was especially struck by two things.

First, the word “all” caused my heart to stop beating—and then set it to beating again. “All things have become new”?! Really?!? So, I looked up the verse in the Greek, and sure enough, there was the word pan, as big as life and twice as beautiful! All! No exceptions!

And then there was the Greek word that is translated “have become”. It is in the perfect tense in the Greek. The perfect tense suggests two things at the same time: an action completed in the past with o  n  g  o  i  n  g  results.

Yes! So, no matter how much I may feel that I am still the same old person with the same old unforgiveable flaws, it is not so. I need to move beyond the same old, since, in the mind of the Almighty and Compassionate One, I have been transformed with ongoing results.

So are you, dear friends! It’s time to wake up, with or without coffee.

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“On Resigning from Being a Professional Advice-Giver”

On December 11, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I was giving my sweetheart unsolicited advice about her driving yesterday. Fortunately, she called me on this practice. Instead of getting defensive, I got quiet and thought about the matter, and I decided that she is absolutely right. That is something I do, especially with her, but not exclusively with her. And it is something that I do a lot.

So, I have decided that just for today, I am not giving anyone any advice. Will I survive? Will they? Maybe. I don’t know.

One thing I know for sure: I don’t like receiving unsolicited advice! Sometimes, I don’t even like the advice for which I’ve asked. This is the case especially when their advice is spot on. Perhaps I should entertain the radical notion that other people don’t like it when I treat them to my amateur “wisdom” either.

In a sense, refusing to be an advice-giver is just one application of Jesus’ broad-spectrum prescription for how to treat other people: “Therefore whatever you want others to do for you, do so for them . . . .” (Matthew 7:12, New American Standard Bible) What I don’t like receiving, I probably shouldn’t be giving.

For some good, simple advice on the giving of advice, you might want to look at some good thoughts from Sarah Koontz at https://livingbydesign.org/biblical-advice-giving/. (And yes, I do see the double-irony in advising you to go to a website that gives you advice about giving—or rather, not giving—advice!)

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“Running the Course with Even Joy”

On December 10, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I was reading Psalm 16 this morning, and I ran into a comment by Derek Kidner in his commentary on Psalms for the old Tyndale series. Kidner pointed out that parts of this psalm were seeds for a Charles Wesley hymn. First, the Psalm and then the hymn!

“Psa. 16:1       Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

2           I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;

                        I have no good apart from you.”

Psa. 16:3         As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,

                        in whom is all my delight.

Psa. 16:4         The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;

                        their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out

                        or take their names on my lips.

Psa. 16:5         The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;

                        you hold my lot.

6           The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

                        indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

Psa. 16:7         I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;

                        in the night also my heart instructs me.

8           I have set the LORD always before me;

                        because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Psa. 16:9         Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

                        my flesh also dwells secure.

10         For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

                        or let your holy one see corruption.

Psa. 16:11       You make known to me the path of life;

                        in your presence there is fullness of joy;

                        at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (English Standard Version)

And here is the hymns:

“Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go,
my daily labour to pursue;
thee, only thee, resolved to know,
in all I think or speak or do.

The task thy wisdom hath assigned
O let me cheerfully fulfil;
in all my works thy presence find,
and prove thy good and perfect will.

Preserve me from my calling’s snare,
and hide my simple heart above,
above the thorns of choking care,
the gilded baits of worldly love.

Thee may I set at my right hand,
whose eyes my inmost substance see,
and labour on at thy command,
and offer all my works to thee.

Give me to bear thy easy yoke,
and every moment watch and pray,
and still to things eternal look,
and hasten to thy glorious day;

For thee delightfully employ
whate’er thy bounteous grace hath given,
and run my course with even joy,
and closely walk with thee to heaven.”

I am going to memorize this psalm and this hymn! It will take me a while. I am not good at memorizing, but this is all too good to trust to my faulty memory. Memorization is the way to go, not general memory.

I was struck—as, indeed, I am always struck whenever I read this psalm—by the words

“. . . in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Apparently, the psalmist did not think that the LORD was a celestial kill-joy. Rather, if anything, God liked/likes to enjoy and give enjoyment.

But then the Wesley hymn made me think about pacing myself in joy. In the next-to-last line, Wesley prays to “. . . run his [literally “my”] course with even joy”.

I am a morning person. I wake up with the birds, and along with the birds, I wake up singing. However, I frequently fail to pace myself. My joy has a nasty habit of evaporating even before the morning dew. My song falls silent before lunch time on most days.

Today, however, I decided to try to pace myself, to run my course with even joy. And guess what?! I did. I am posting these musings as the night is coming on. And I am still running and with morning joy. It would seem that this really is possible! (However, I will admit that I had an afternoon nap, which didn’t hurt.)

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“Sympathy and Responsibility”

On December 1, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Here is part of a good reading from Hazelden:

“Meditation for the Day

Having sympathy and compassion for all who are in temptation, a condition which we are sometimes in, we have a responsibility towards them. Sympathy always includes responsibility. Pity is useless because it does not have a remedy for the need. But wherever our sympathy goes, our responsibility goes too. When we are moved with compassion, we should go to the one in need and bind up his wounds as best we can.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may have sympathy for those in temptation. I pray that I may have compassion for others’ trials.” (From Twenty-Four Hours a Day © 1975 by Hazelden Foundation.)

I was especially brought to a meditative halt by the sentence, “Sympathy always includes responsibility.”

The Bible (both the Old and the New Testaments) makes much the same point. Here is one example of many:

“1John 3:16   By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

John is saying that loving and giving practical help go together. Love is not a feeling. Love is an action verb.

I have a good twelve-step friend (we’ll call him “Dick”, although that is not his real name) who picks up the phone when I’m having a rough day. Before long, he will ask, “What can I do to be of service to you?” Actually, he has already done it by picking up the phone and listening.

God, how can I practice responsible sympathy today?

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“The ‘If-Only-I-Had’ Game”

On November 24, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Do you ever play the “If-Only-I-Had (or Hadn’t)” game? I was starting to do that this morning. I caught myself and decided to redirect my thinking by doing some twelve-step readings. Here is one of them.

“”If onlys” are lonely.
  —Morgan Jennings

The circumstances of our lives seldom live up to our expectations or desires. However, in each circumstance we are offered an opportunity for growth or change, a chance for greater understanding of life’s heights and pitfalls. Each time we choose to lament what isn’t, we close the door on the invitation to a better existence.

We simply don’t know just what’s best for us. Our vision is limited. Less so today than yesterday, but limited still. The experiences we are offered will fail to satisfy our expectations because we expect so much less than God has planned for us in the days ahead.

We get what we need, in the way of relationships, adventures, joys and sorrows, today and every day. Celebrating what we get and knowing there is good in it eases whatever trial we are undergoing. We are cared for, right now. We need not lament what we think we need. We do have what we need. We will always get what we need, when we need it.

I will breathe deeply and relax. At this moment my every need is being attended to. My life is unfolding exactly as it should.” (From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.)

“If onlys are lonely.” Yes indeed! The past is haunted for all of us. Some of the ghosts are good memories. Others are not. But all these ghosts are just that—ghosts. And who wants to hang around with things that were once alive but are so no longer? The best thing to do with the past is to learn from it and give it a decent burial.

Yet, I often play the “If only” game, and I always lose. How do I quit playing this losing game of “If-only”? I don’t know. I often write these posts, not to share my insights, but to confess my ignorance. However, even though I am not sure how to handle these “if-only” moments, I do have some suspicions.

Suspicion # 1: Just noticing that I’m tempted to play the game is useful. If I don’t notice that I am about to play a losing game that’s not fun, I will play the game—and lose.

Suspicion # 2: I need to remember that, when I’m playing this losing game, I am not playing a game that might be more useful. And what is that game? Well, it goes by many names. My mom or my wife might call it the “How-Can-I-Bless-Someone-Else-Today” game. That’s a much better game. Everybody wins in that game.

Suspicion # 3: I need to recognize that I am playing the if-only game out of laziness. Preoccupation with the past, whether that preoccupation is nostalgia or regret, is one way of avoiding doing productive work right now. I don’t like lazy people, especially when the lazy people is/are me.

I have that you have a good non-if-only day!

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“The Bible and Sibling Rivalry”

On November 22, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

The Bible talks a lot about sibling rivalry. Sometimes, such rivalry becomes “sibyl war”!

I was at a virtual scholarly meeting this morning in which a very thought-provoking paper was presented on sibling rivalry. The presenter said that the book of Genesis is shot through with brothers (and sisters) who don’t get along. The Bible can be incredibly frank about human nature and family dynamics.

And yet, the book of Genesis ends on a somewhat hopeful note. Joseph had been horribly treated by his brothers. They had planned to kill him outright, then threw him into a well to starve to death, but then had a change of plans if not of heart. No, they would not kill their brother. (“After all, he is our brother,” they had said to one another.) Instead, they would sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt. It was a more compassionate (and lucrative) action.

Some compassion, right?

However, Joseph rose from being a slave to being second in command to Pharaoh. He was in charge of grain distribution during a severe food shortage. His brothers came to Egypt to buy food and did not recognize that they were dealing with their brother. But they were.

Eventually, Joseph revealed himself to them. They were justifiably shocked and eaten up with guilt and fear.

Yet, the story ends with Joseph saying that what his brothers had meant for evil, God had worked for their good. Joseph promised them that he was not going to treat them as they deserved, but rather, as they needed to be treated. He would not kill them. Rather, he would help keep them alive.

A lot of us—probably most of us—have serious problems with at least part of our families. Estrangement is no stranger to many of us. Perhaps we would do well to remember the ending of Genesis. Perhaps we could show mercy, rather than harboring resentment or exacting revenge. Perhaps the ending of Genesis could be where we end up in our own lives.

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