Monthly Archives: November 2018
“WATCH OUT FOR PRIDE!”
My wife is not a prideful person. As evidence of her humility, she gave me permission to tell you this story about her.
And yet, even she has her struggles. During our prayer time the other day, she was asking for me to pray for her. She had felt left out recently in regard to a certain matter, and was feeling a bit resentful. “I guess I’m struggling with pride,” she said.
After we had prayed, she turned to a devotional that we are working our way through (Bread for Each Day), and read it out loud. It was titled “THE FIRST SIN”). The Scripture reading at the beginning of the one-page meditation was Proverbs16:18. My sweetheart read the first word of this verse, her eyes got very large, and she burst out laughing. The first word was “Pride”!
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18, italics theirs).
We laughed together about the appropriateness of this reading. I said to God, “Hey! Lay off! She already admitted her pride!”
It was a good reading. The author pointed out that pride was involved in the sin of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:5). Perhaps there is an element of pride in every sin.
For example, I am frequently guilty of radical frustration. “Why haven’t I read all the books ever written about the Old Testament?” I ask myself. Sometimes, frustration boils over, and scalds me and everyone around me with resentment, envy, and self-loathing.
But why on earth do I think that I can or should have read everything written about the Old Testament? The failure—or refusal—to recognize my own limitations is the essence of pride.
I’m not convinced that any of us can ever be entirely humble. If we were, we would probably become proud of the fact that we were entirely humble. We are like dogs chasing our own tails. Seeking to be completely humble is the most subtle and most serious version of pride.
But, at least, we can be aware. We can be aware of how many events in life (and mostly our feelings about those events) trigger our pride. Perhaps such awareness is as close as we can ever come to humility on this side of Heaven.
DTEB, “SITTIN’ AROUND, WAITIN’ FOR SOMETHING GOOD TO HAPPEN”
Don’t!
Sit around and wait for something good to happen, that is. Make it happen!
We all want good things, but I’ve noticed something about myself: I don’t want to actually have to do anything for those good things to come to me. I want to be zapped with goodness.
This may or may not be a common human reality. You decide. But I am beginning to suspect that there is no goodness zapper.
The problem with knowing even a little bit about biblical languages is that you sometimes discover more than you wanted to discover. For example . . .
I receive a verse of the day from the You Version folks on my smart phone. Today’s verse was Psalm 37:4:
“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your hearts’ desires.”
So, I decided to take a look at the Hebrew, just for giggles. I ended up not giggling.
The Hebrew verb that is used for “take delight” is a Hebrew form (stem is the technical term) that refers to “something you do to yourself.” Think, in terms of “I hit myself with a hammer.” The first three words of that sentence could be said in one word in Hebrew. So, the first part of this verse is saying, “Delight yourself in the Lord.”
So what? So this!
What this verse is saying is that God is not going to delight us. No! Instead, we are responsible for delighting ourselves in God.
This is, at first blush, unspeakably dismal. Do you mean to tell me that God isn’t going to just drop delight on me from the Heavens? Do you mean that I have to be active in my following of Jesus. I’m afraid that I only want to follow Jesus, if I’m allowed to ride in a comfy limousine. However, the last time I read the gospels, I noticed that the only time Jesus is recorded as riding anything, it was a donkey. And he was riding it triumphantly (??) into Jerusalem in order to be crucified.
Here is the bottom line: The Christian faith is not for sissies of either sex. Delight there is. But it is a delight that I must pursue myself.
And then, I came to another equally dismal insight. What if God granting the desires of my heart doesn’t mean what I want it to mean? What if it means that God will give me proper, healthy desires in my heart? Andy Stanley says that our problem is that we want what we want, and we want it right now! What if God gives me wants and desires that I don’t want or desire?
So, perhaps I have looked at this verse completely wrongly. Perhaps it is cold comfort or no comfort at all. Perhaps it is a most unwelcome truth.
But Truth doesn’t come to us to comfort us. Truth comes to us to wake us up.
And yet, I do feel strangely comforted by this Truth. There’s something I can actually do to know God better. If God’s Word says that I must delight myself in God, then there must be a way that I can. I just need to figure that out. And, by God’s grace, I will!
And as for the desires of my heart, I’ve often actually gotten what I wanted, only to find out that it left me feeling hollow inside, less alive, a billion light years away from God, from other people, even from the man I wanted to be.
Maybe it’s time for me to do it God’s way.
“BEYOND NEGATIVE GOODNESS”
16 “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
Is. 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:16-20)
I wonder sometimes if I don’t have a merely negative goodness. There are times when I am so focused on not doing certain things that I have a difficult time doing anything good. And if I avoid the negative, harmful, evil things (as I do upon occasion), I pat myself on the back as if I had accomplished something. I am like a home builder who has merely done the dirt work, but hasn’t even poured the footer for the building.
And that is perhaps a pretty good metaphor for a merely negative goodness. Avoiding evil is like the dirt work that needs to be done before a building goes up. The ground needs to be cleared of trees and stones. A footer is dug, so that the building will rest on bedrock. Yes, it is all so time-consuming, but also essential.
Isaiah challenges Judah to do the necessary work of clearing the ground of their evil behavior.
“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight,
Cease to do evil.” (Isaiah 1:16)
But Isaiah doesn’t stop there. Vers 17 is overflowing with verbs, positive things that Judah needs to do.
“Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless;
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.”
Apparently, Isaiah, speaking on behalf of God, says to ancient Judah that they are to learn to do what is good. Goodness is apparently not an innately human trait. But it can be learned.
And what is goodness? Apparently, it isn’t looking out after themselves. They had apparently been doing pretty well at that. Rather, learning to do good was a matter of seeking justice for the most vulnerable—orphans and widows.
Of course, it is easy to recognize the mess-ups of ancient Judah. However, for those of us who believe that the Bible is the Word of God for all time, all places, and all people, things get very personal and very ugly very fast. The word of God shines a spotlight on our own individual selves and our own society.
Do we cease to do evil and learn to do good? Do I? Do we seek justice, not for ourselves, but for the most vulnerable in our society? Do I?
I can’t be content with a merely negative goodness. The dirty dirt work is essential, but not sufficient. I need to move on to positive. So do we all.
May God forgive us for merely negative goodness. And may God teach us to do what is right. Today would be a great day to begin.
“The God Who Knows Me”
I want to know God, but I don’t really. At least, I don’t know God very well.
I suppose that this is only to be expected. After all, God is infinite and I have lots of limits. God is holy, I am not. God is all-knowing. I don’t know much about much, and it is quite likely that much of what I know for sure is just plain wrong. The list goes on and on, but I won’t.
In Galatians 4:9, the Apostle Paul says that the believers know God, but then immediately adds that it would be better to say that they are known by God.
Alan Cole, in the Tyndale Commentary on the book of Galatians, comments on 4:9,
In the Bible to know has a far deeper meaning than the superficial concept of intellectual knowledge alone. That is why it can be used of the relation of God and humanity, and also of the peculiarly intimate relation of husband and wife. But it is typical of Paul’s strong theological position that he is reluctant to speak of humans ‘knowing’ God; at once, he corrects it to the passive to be known by God. This transfers salvation altogether out of the possibly subjective and possibly illusory into the great objective reality of the will of God.
We all long to be completely known. We are also deathly afraid of it. If anyone knew us completely, knew all our fears, selfishnesses, lusts, and hang-ups, would they love us? Love us?!? Would they even be able to stay in the same room with us, or would they run for the exit?
But the same Bible that tells us that God knows us completely also tells us that God loves us totally. How on earth can that be!
I don’t know, but I do believe it to be true.
What I am trying to say here has been much better said and sung by Tauren Wells. Here are the lyrics to a wonderful song that he wrote titled “Known”:
“It’s so unusual it’s frightening
You see right through the mess inside me
And you call me out to pull me in
You tell me I can start again
And I don’t need to keep on hiding
I’m fully known and loved by You
You won’t let go no matter what I do
And it’s not one or the other
It’s hard truth and ridiculous grace
To be known fully known and loved by You
I’m fully known and loved by You
It’s so like You to keep pursuing
It’s so like me to go astray
But You guard my heart with Your truth
A kind of love that’s bullet proof
And I surrender to Your kindness
I’m fully known and loved by You
You won’t let go no matter what I do
And it’s not one or the other
It’s hard truth and ridiculous grace
To be known fully known and loved by You
I’m fully known and loved by You
How real, how wide
How rich, how high is Your heart
I cannot find the reasons why
You give me so much
How real, how wide
How rich, how high is Your heart
I cannot find the reasons why
You give me so much
I’m fully known and loved by You
You won’t let go no matter what I do
And it’s not one or the other
It’s hard truth and ridiculous grace
To be known fully known and loved by You
I’m fully known and loved by You
It’s so unusual it’s frightening
I’m fully known and loved by You”
“ON NOT WANTING TO KEEP STRICT RECORDS”
I hate math! I don’t like numbers. I never have. But sometimes, it is a good idea to make your hatred work for you.
So, true confession time: I have a runaway mind. I tend to think inappropriate thoughts—lust, self-pity, judgmental thoughts, worry, regrets, you name it. And once I start down that rabbit hole, I am like Alice. I keep falling.
So, I’ve tried an experiment today. I am trying to keep a strict record of all my inappropriate thoughts. I haven’t had a lot of them.
Why? I think because I hate quantification so much. You might say that I have a case of “quantiphobia.” (I thought that I was the first to identify this sort of irrational fear. However, my illusion of creativity was punctured almost immediately by googling “the fear of numbers.” Numerophobia and arithmophobia are fairly common. Oh well!)
So, here is how I’ve been handling inappropriate thoughts today. I have been trying to quantify them. Trying to keep a strict account of my unhealthy thoughts is so intimidating that it is easier simply not to have them.
In a sense, this might be a variation on the tenth step of twelve-step groups: “Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.” Sometimes, just being aware of my tendency to go wrong is a helpful thing. Admissions of truth to oneself are never easy. It is much easier to inflict truth on other people.
Furthermore, I have such an easily distracted mind, and such a contrarian mind, that trying to focus on any unhealthy thoughts for more than a second or two leaves me desiring to distract myself with healthy thoughts. And I am so contrary that if I decide to concentrate on unhealthy thoughts, my mind is prone to rebel, and go to healthy thoughts. (The same is true for me concerning healthy thoughts. If I set out to think only healthy thoughts, I know it’s going to be a long and frustrating day.)
Now, I realize that this is exceedingly strange. I don’t think that this approach would work for most people. I don’t know if it will work for me over the long haul. However, I’m going to try to make it a habitual discipline, and see if it will work. One thing is for sure: It has helped me today!
“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.” (Psalm 139:14, English Standard Version)
I have so many good relationships, good work that I get to do, and good things. And yet, I continually struggle with regret and resentment. I really need an attitude adjustment.
I just reached out, took my coffee cup by the handle, and had a sip. Then, I put the cup back on the mug rug. . . . There! I did it again!
These are amazing and complex actions. They involve all kinds of muscles, the names of which I don’t even know. These actions took forethought. In addition, there is hand and eye coordination.
To be able to do these things without anyone helping me is an amazing grace. I have been doing these wondrous things for decades. Why am just now noticing their wonder?
When I am inclined to be a willing prisoner to my own feelings of incompetence, when I am gripped by regrets and resentments, I need to meditate on some small, but wonderful thing. I may soon realize that this “small” thing isn’t small at all, just wonderful.
“LITTLE STUPIDITIES AND GOD’S WELCOMING GRACE”
Have you ever made a stupid mistake (are there smart mistakes?) that was small and insignificant, and yet that mistake made you wonder about yourself? A stupid, small, insignificant mistake that made you wonder if you were stupid and small and insignificant?
Welcome to my world.
We were having some plumbing work done in our utility room, so I decided to clean the utility room up, so that the plumbers would have room to work. That was a good decision.
I picked up a bottle of bleach from the floor, and placed it on the shelf above the dryer. That was not such a good decision.
I felt a little check in my mind when I placed the bleach on this already over-crowded shelf. As I generally do with these little warnings, I ignored it. And, as it generally works out, I ended up regretting ignoring that little warning.
Isn’t it interesting that the word “ignorance” is related to the verb form “to ignore? Perhaps ignorance is more a matter of refusing to know, rather than simply not knowing. Hummmm.
A few hours after the plumbing work was finished, I heard a loud thump, and went downstairs to check it out. Yes, my wife had heard it too. We didn’t find out the source of the thump until I went into the utility room later that evening. (You already know where this is going, don’t you?)
The bottle of bleach was lying on its side on the dryer with the lid off. A large quantity of the bleach had spilled on the top of the dryer and on the floor. Some of the bleach had splashed onto some of the clothes in the clothes basket. Two of my shirts were ruined.
I spent some time cleaning up the mess as best I could. I decided to multitask and also have a talk with myself while I was cleaning things up. I will not tell you some of the things I called myself. I think I’ve come up with some new phrases for various levels of incompetency.
I spent hours the next day cleaning the utility room up more thoroughly. Of course, the smell of bleach lingers for a long time.
But no amount of castigating myself would get the bleach back into the bottle. No amount of name-calling could atone for ignoring that oh-so-little mental reservation when I put the bleach on the shelf in the first place.
I would like to tell you that this is the most serious instance of me ignoring a small reservation about a decision I was about to make. It most certainly isn’t the worst one. It isn’t even close to the worst one. It is just one of the most recent ones.
But there is still grace for willfully ignorant people like me—grace for the big stupidities and for the little ones. There is grace for the mistakes that are obvious to everyone, as well as for those that are known only to us. There is grace enough to welcome us all. God is indeed that sort of God.
However, I’m not putting the bleach back on the shelf any more. Perhaps these little checks in my mind are also God’s welcoming grace.
“NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS AT THE CRACK OF DAWN”?
“Nothing good ever happens at the crack of dawn.” (The worship leader at our church.)
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark [even before the crack of dawn, DTEB], Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.” (John 20:1, NIV. Words enclosed in square brackets are my addition.)
Our worship leader at church, in response to a comment made by someone else, said, “Nothing good ever happens at the crack of dawn.” It is fairly obvious that Jay is not a morning person.
My wife (who is not a morning person either) leaned over to me and whispered, “I don’t know about that. What about the resurrection of Jesus?”
I am not sure that the worship leader had thought through the theological implications of his generalization. Apparently, there are some good things that happen at the crack of dawn, or even before.
How about you? Are you cold and in the dark? Do you feel like it isn’t even the crack of dawn yet, and that nothing good could possibly come to you? That the dawn may come for others, but not for you?
I have often felt that way in the past myself. Not so much anymore.
My youngest son, who hasn’t had much to do with either his mom or me in the past six years, called last night, and is planning to come down to see us today. Will he follow through on that? I don’t know. He has a good, kind heart. I am completely responsible for the alienation that he and his brother and sisters feel toward me. I suspect that our youngest is very conflicted.
But the dawn came today anyway. And though the sky is overcast, and the future uncertain, I have hope and peace and joy and gratitude in my heart. Why? Not because my son is coming to see us. He may or may not. I have hope and peace and joy and gratitude—and they have me—because of Jesus and his resurrection. Because my sins, which were many are all washed away (as the old hymn says). Because my hope and peace and joy and gratitude are in the God who is with me right here, right now.
And because of this God, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, I can face anything and any time—even the darkness before the dawn.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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