Monthly Archives: August 2024
“Judgmentalism”
“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” (Romans 2:1, English Standard Version)
“You spot it, you got it.” (Twelve-step saying.)
In the verse from Romans that starts off this post, Paul is continuing a thought that he had begun in the preceding chapter. There, he had begun to speak of the stunning love and grace of God, but Paul begins his discussion of God’s love and grace with a list of the sins that God’s love and grace have to deal with. It’s not a pretty list.
When a person gets to the end of that list, he/she might be inclined to say, “Boy, I’m sure glad that I am not like that!” If so, Paul immediately pulls the rug out from under us by saying, point-blank, that when you judge others, you judge yourself.
Now, here is my problem: Judgmental people are the worst, in my opinion. I really believe that people who are judgmental are destined to live forever in the downtown heart of hell.
See what I did there? I just pulled the rug out from under myself! I like to think of myself as a very non-judgmental person. Why then do judgmental people bother me so much? Because I’m a judgmental person, of course.
In fact, there are a lot of other sins that I judge. Am I enmeshed in them too? Yep!
I read an interesting saying in a 12-step book this morning. “You spot it, you got it.” The fact that I am so good at spotting the character defects of others means that I have a massive amount of work to do.
How about you, valued reader?
“People Matter—A Lot!”
“Love God and love people.” (The words are from a Danny Gokey song, but are based on Jesus putting together loving God and loving people.)
I just received two emails from two different college alums. The first informed me that my fellow-student’s nephew had lost his battle with cancer. Here was my reply to my classmate, Zac’s Uncle Bill:
“Dear Bill,
Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. Life is such a fragile business. We need I need, to cherish every moment and live flat-out for Jesus.”
Shortly after I had sent this email to Bill and the rest of the Asbury Patriot Class prayer group, I received the following email from Colleen, another Asbury alum. She invited me to sign up for the prayer newsletter and said that she doubted that I remembered her. She was right; I didn’t. Probably should have.
“Dear Colleen,
I would be delighted to receive the newsletter.
I’m afraid that I didn’t get to know very many people well when I attended Asbury. I transferred my junior year, was too focused on my studies, and was dating a girl (now my wife of fifty-one years) who lived about 90 miles away. We were married my senior year and living off campus.
I now regret that I did not get to know more of the exceedingly fine people who were at Asbury when I was there. Knowing “stuff” is important, but knowing people is crucial.
There is an old saying that “We get too soon old, and too late smart.” Amen to that!
Thank you, Colleen, for your vision for the prayer group. Perhaps it’s never too late to connect with people you ought to have known and loved better a long time ago.”
What people is it not too late for you to get to know better and love more, dear reader? Why not start today?
“All the Alls of God”
“Psa. 145:1 I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
2 Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.
3 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
Psa. 145:4 One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
6 They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
and I will declare your greatness.
7 They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
Psa. 145:8 The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 The LORD is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.
Psa. 145:10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD,
and all your saints shall bless you!
11 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom
and tell of your power,
12 to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
[The LORD is faithful in all his words
and kind in all his works.]
14 The LORD upholds all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.
16 You open your hand;
you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and kind in all his works.
18 The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
he also hears their cry and saves them.
20 The LORD preserves all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.
Psa. 145:21 My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD,
and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.”
In Psalm 145, there are a lot of “alls” and “everys”. There are also some “forevers” thrown in for good measure. Here is, I think, what it all boils down to: God is always good to all, with only one exception: the chronically wicked (verse 20b).
I was in a foul mood this morning, but I made several good decisions. I read Psalm 145, I tried to pray, I attended a virtual 12-step meeting, I admitted I was in a foul mood to people who care about me, especially my wife. (No doubt she was already aware.) I worked on some worthwhile tasks, got some exercise, and took a nap. Guess what! I am going to bed soon, after a wonderful day that did not start out well at all. Well, truth to tell, it was I who did not start out well. Psalm 145, the kindness of a lot of good people—and yes, even my own efforts—turned the day around.
God is good and kind and merciful all the time, even when I am in a foul mood. I need to remember that.
“Good News! God is Watching Me!”
I asked God for a proverb to live by today. I believed that God guided me to Proverbs 15:3.
“The eyes of the LORD are in every place,
keeping watch on the evil and the good.” (Proverbs 15:3, English Standard Version)
When I was a young boy, I used to think that God was watching every bad thing I did. What I did not realize was that he was watching every good thing I did as well.
There was another problem. I thought that God was just waiting for me to screw up, so that God could yell at me. I am still struggling to recover from this bad-theology addiction.
What if I have it mostly wrong? What if God is watching both the good and the bad that I do today? What if God is rooting for me? What if God is pleased when I do even some very small thing that is good? What if God is not so much angry as sad when I do something bad?
Jesus said that God notices and commends even things that seem tiny to us (Matthew 25:31-40). In fact, when we do these very small things for others, Jesus considers it to be done for him. What if I lived today as if that is true? What if you lived that way today, too?
“A Weeping God”
“Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
When I was growing up in church, at the beginning of our worship service the children’s Sunday School classes would have to stand and recite a Bible verse. I never figured out why the adults didn’t have to do that. I always thought that they needed to pay more attention to Bible verses than we kids did, but . . .
One of the most often-recited verses was John 11:35. Since it is the shortest verse in the Bible at two words, if we hadn’t memorized something else, John 11:35 was easily popped in the microwave, even if microwaves weren’t really a thing when I was little.
I’ve decided that John 11:35 actually is a wonderful verse to memorize. The context is that Jesus’ good friend Lazarus has died, but even though it seems crazy way too late to do anything but mourn, Jesus shows up for the express purpose of raising his friend from the dead. And yet, just before Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave and back into mortal life, Jesus wept. Why? Why weep when Jesus knew that within a few minutes, Lazarus would be alive again?
The Scripture is very cagey. It doesn’t often answer all our questions. More often, the Bible questions all our answers.
Could it be that Jesus cried because this whole thing of dying and death was a problem that we humans created back in the Garden of Eden? Was Jesus crying because of how painful and unnecessary this whole business was?
Or was Jesus crying because life is difficult and now, Lazarus had to get back to the tough, frustrating business of living? Lazarus had to come back to the same problems that death had temporarily allowed him to escape.
Perhaps Jesus was crying because that is what Lazarus’ family and friends were doing? Yes, Jesus was going to raise Lazarus, but grief was the present reality, and Jesus entered into that reality with absolute abandon.
We are not told why Jesus wept. We are simply informed that he did. We can’t help asking why, and perhaps it is wise to simply live with the whys, and allow these whys to make us wiser still. But when I read about Jesus’ tears, I also think of John’s overall way of portraying Jesus. For the writer of the Gospel of John, Jesus is God in the flesh. To see Jesus is to see God. And to see Jesus cry is to realize that God also cries when we lose someone we love. We have a weeping God.
“You are Heard”
“Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name.
“They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.
Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.” (Malachi 3:16-18, English Standard Version)
A friend of mine who is greatly loved by his wife and who greatly loves his wife sometimes feels “unheard”. That is a common feeling in marriages and everywhere else, I suspect. Especially with folks we are with for a long time, we tend to think we’ve heard it all before or that we know what people are thinking even before they speak. Being unheard—or even feeling unheard—makes us feel less than human.
On the other hand, knowing that we are heard makes us feel treasured. In the passage from Malachi that leads off this post, I am struck by the fact that the LORD paid attention and heard those who spoke of him. Apparently, God keeps record of the conversations we have about God. And he treasures us for thinking of him. Why? Perhaps because God feels treasured by us.
Another friend pointed out to me the Tri-Health slogan: “Be seen, be heard, be healed.”
We are healed by being seen and heard. We become healers for others by seeing and hearing them. Whom will you see and hear today, and every other today?
“One Story Is Not Enough!”
I am preparing to teach a course on Jesus and the Gospels. One of the key issues with which the course deals is the way in which we approach these four very different portraits of Jesus. Do we try to harmonize these different accounts, or do we understand each of them as unique accounts of this one Man, Jesus? This course encourages us not to try to harmonize the Gospels, but rather, to take each of them seriously on its own terms. I agree with this approach for several reasons.
First, if God inspired all the Gospels, does it really honor any of them to make them one story? Trying to make everything fit with our modern ideas of consistency is a time-consuming and time-wasting practice.
Second, even regular people are worthy of more than one portrayal. If four different people wrote my story or yours, they would not include the same things or tell the story in the same way. One story would not necessarily be more accurate than another. They might all be very accurate but include (or leave out) different things, or they might be emphasizing different things. Jesus is worthy of many ways of telling his story.
Third, different ways of telling the Jesus story appeals to different people. I have a friend who tends to live in the Gospel according to Mark. And why wouldn’t he? Tim is a man of action, and that is the way Jesus is portrayed in Mark.
Sometimes combining things is a helpful approach. I’m glad that Reece’s Cups combines chocolate and peanut butter. But too much combination is not always so delicious. Sometimes, combining things just leads to a mess.
“Everyone Welcome! Well, Maybe”
I was trying to download the Spotify App this morning. I had spent more than a little time typing in my email address and a password. My brain and my fingers are fat and slow when it comes to typing on the teeny, tiny keyboard on my phone. But I wanted Spotify for a couple of podcasts that I enjoy.
However, after spending about ten minutes on my phone, I hit a roadblock. When I typed in my birthdate (including the year I was born), I was greeted with a message that said something to the effect that, because of my age, I did not qualify for this app. It would appear that I am too young for Spotify.
I felt very hurt and frustrated. Being excluded from anything makes me feel rather sad.
However, it is so much more fun to get revenge than it is to be sad, so I said to myself, “Humph! I’ll give Spotify some really bad publicity with the ten people who regularly read my blog posts! That’ll show them!”
In addition to plotting revenge, I also thought about the church. Many churches proclaim that “Everyone is Welcome!’ I have my doubts, though. Many of my twelve-step friends would be open to attending a church, but they are not at all sure they would be welcomed. I hate to say it, but I’m not sure either. A few years ago, in the Atlanta, Georgia area, I encountered a billboard along I-75 that proclaimed, “God loves everybody, even Democrats.” As a Democrat, I was a little uncertain as to whether the purchaser of that billboard message meant what they said.
Jesus invited all kinds of scumbags to follow him. In fact, he said that anyone who was tired could come to him, learn, and find rest.
“Matt. 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Matt. 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Matt. 11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
And near the very end of the New Testament are the following words:
“Rev. 22:17 ¶ The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”
According to God’s Word, everyone really is welcome.
“Everyone Above Average?”
“Eccl. 4:4 ¶ Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”
“. . . “where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average” (Garrison Keillor’s tagline for his Lake Wobegone “news” monologs).
My wife and I like to do online trivia quizzes. Well, “like” may be a bit of exaggeration. We like doing the quizzes when they don’t ask questions that are too hard. (Come on now! Who knows or cares who Warren G. Harding’s secretary of defense was?)
And then, there is the matter of the scores we get on these quizzes. We usually get somewhere in the 70% range. If we only get 50%, we are not happy. And if we get below 50%? You don’t want to be around us at those moments!
I was listening to an episode of “Hidden Brain” that deals with the science of humility the other day. The guest on the program was a teacher who frequently asked his students to rate themselves in terms of their humility. Were they humbler than most folks? Almost always, they were more humble than 70% of the general population.
Can anyone say, “blind spot!”?
Perhaps the problem isn’t where we are on the scale of humility or any other scale. Maybe the problem is that we have these scales at all. We all know different things. Some of them are trivial. Some of them are important. Perhaps the world would be a better, saner, more peaceful place if we quit comparing ourselves to one another and started pooling our knowledge, instead of mourning our ignorance. We could be extraordinary together.
“At Least Two Sentences”
A good friend of mine loves to read my posts. Says he is always disappointed when I don’t post. He challenged me to write and post something at least once a month.
I have decided to do something less demanding and more permitting. I am not demanding one post per month. Instead, I am permitting myself to post a minimum of two sentences per day. Since I have already vastly exceeded my two sentences, I can quit now. However, I will go a bit further.
Here is the thing: Consistency is much more important than quantity. Perhaps consistency is even more important than quality. Maybe two sentences are enough.
I read a book titled Tiny Habits . . . by BJ Fogg. In it, Fogg encouraged his readers to do two pushups right after they went to the bathroom. I am not committing to that, but two sentences a day seem doable to me.
My dad worked hard, but sometimes he made projects so big in his mind by thinking about the whole project that he ended up not even starting the project. I vowed I would never be that way. Guess what? I am exactly like that. You had already guessed that hadn’t you?
So, here is my challenge to you, dear reader. What two things will you do today (and every day??)? The possibilities are endless, but here are a few possibilities, just to get your juices flowing:
- Walk at least two blocks.
- Dust at least two pieces of furniture.
- Notice at least two different species of bird.
- Text at least two friends.
- Read at least two chapters of the Bible. (Warning: You might not want to start with Psalm 119!)
- Pray at least two times a day.
- Read at least two paragraphs of a book you’ve never read before.
The list goes on, but I will not. If you get a chance, let me know what you decided and how it is going.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- “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 […]
- “A Pastor or a Teacher?” September 8, 2024I went to the Asbury University President’s Brunch yesterday morning with Sharon. It was billed as a non-fundraiser. I have learned to be skeptical of such claims. However, it really wasn’t a fundraiser! It was a wonderful time. The university paid for everything, including valet parking. It was good to meet new people, all of […]
- “Even When We Mess Up” September 8, 2024One of my students in the Luke-Acts course I’m teaching right now online made a very perceptive comment in a post to another student’s work. She and the other student, Mackenzie, agreed on an excellent point: God can even use our mess-ups for his purposes and glory. Here is Victoria’s comment: “Mackenzie, your perspective on […]
- “On Playing Chimes and Being Jesus” September 6, 2024“John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. John 13:35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (English Standard Version) One of my students did […]
- “A Confrontation in a Kroger Parking Lot” September 4, 2024My wife was waiting for a lady to pull out from a parking spot in a Kroger parking lot. She had waited for quite a while, but when the lady finally pulled out, another “lady” who had just come around the corner from the other direction whipped into the parking space. My wife is not […]
- “The Crushing Debt I Owe to God” September 3, 2024“A Sinful Woman Forgiven Luke 7:36 ¶ One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. Luke 7:37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought […]
- “Only Two Kinds of People?” September 1, 2024“Psa. 5:1 ¶ Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning. Psa. 5:2 Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray. Psa. 5:3 O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning […]
- “On Being a Good Ad” September 1, 2024I was buying candy corn for a friend at Ollie’s the other day when I eavesdropped on an interesting conversation. The lady behind me said to the cashier, “This is a really good store with good prices, but I didn’t even know it was here. You should advertise more!” The young cashier replied, “If we […]
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