“Keeping your Heel Behind You”
“What a title! What on earth does it mean?!?”
I was hoping that you would ask that. Let me explain.
“The reward for humility and fear of the LORD
is riches and honor and life.” (Proverbs 22:4, English Standard Version)
The word translated “reward” here is the Hebrew word that may be transliterated “ʿēqeḇ”. As Christine Roy Yoder points out, “‘Reward’ is related to the Hebrew word for ‘heel’ or ‘hind quarters’ and, like the English expression ‘on the heels of,’ it refers to the ends or consequences of something . . . .”[1]
So, here’s the deal: the verse is not primarily about riches, honor, and life. Those are the consequences of humility and reverence for the LORD. In fact, they are biproducts. What is the really important product and process are humility and fear of the LORD.
We all get out of sync sometimes. We all, at least occasionally, get focused on results to the exclusion (or, to say the least, to detriment) of the process. We all forget that good things usually come at the heels of good character. We all want to “get results.” Our society is very outcome driven. But outcome doesn’t come out of nothing. It comes from good processes and good character.
Of course, we can all think of bad things that happen to good people. The biblical proverbs, like all proverbs, speak of general truths. They are wonderful rules of thumb, not iron-clad promises. The human authors who wrote these proverbs down (as well as the God who is their ultimate Author) were well aware that things did not always work out well for the person with good, godly character. Such proverbs as the one recorded in Proverbs 16:8 reveal that much:
“Better is a little with righteousness
than great revenues with injustice.”
This proverb suggests that there are times and situations where righteousness does not lead to having a lot, and where injustice leads to great wealth. Nevertheless, it is better to have a little along with a godly character.
So, the process is not a mechanical do-this-and-you’ll-get-that approach to spirituality. Rather, humility and fear of the LORD are about character, about who we are. I am inclined to say that a person’s character is the process.
The question that I need to ask myself is this: Am I focused on the results or on the character that can produce, and generally does produce, the results? Turning this around and concentrating on the second half of the proverb—the riches, honor and life—is like turning around your foot 180 degrees and trying to walk straight.
I asked my wife, who is a nurse, what the medical term was for a person whose ankle is turned all the way around, so that the heel is facing forward. She did not hesitate with her reply. “You call that a broken ankle.”
[1] Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs, Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), 223.
“Whom Am I Imitating?”
“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.” (Ephesians 5:1, (New Living Translation)
I am a chameleon. In order to please others, I try to blend in.
No, that’s not true. I am not trying to please others. I am trying to get them to please me.
But it is true that I am a chameleon. I try to fit in so well that I will stand out.
Contradictory? Yes. But unfortunately, it is true.
But I need to be careful as to whom I am imitating and in what ways I am imitating them.
Above all, since I am a Christ-follower—or at least, aspire to be one—I need to imitate Christ, who came to show us what God was like with human skin on. “Following Jesus” doesn’t simply mean hanging out with Him. Following means imitating him.
So, what was Jesus like? Well, he seems to have loved all kinds of people, he modeled humble service, he put God first, he taught wonderful things about the Kingdom of God. He also did miracles, howbeit often with great reluctance.
I don’t think that I have the gift of doing miracles, but who knows? However, those other things that Jesus did are things that I could do, at least, in theory. They are not easy, but they are possible.
One thing that Jesus did that I often refuse to notice is that Jesus noticed. He noticed when his disciples were arguing about who was the greatest. He noticed when his disciples were shooing away parents who were bringing their little ones to Jesus. (Jesus didn’t like that, even a little!) Jesus noticed a poor widow who had put a small coin in the offering box. (Jesus was very impressed with that!) Jesus noticed when his disciples needed their stinky feet washed.
Jesus noticed? He noticed that we were all lost and didn’t even have the sense to ask for directions. He noticed that we had all messed up our own lives and the lives of others. His ministry of noticing eventually took him to the cross.
Where is my imitative noticing taking me, I wonder?
DTEB, “Playing with God”
Recently, my daily affirmation was about working with God. “Today, by God’s grace, I am working with my Heavenly Father on myself, my relationships, and other assorted little tasks. I am enjoying working with God. It is the best way to get better acquainted.”
One of my twelve-step sponsors made a provocative comment (as he often does about my reports and affirmations) about my idea that working “. . . is the best way to get acquainted with God.” My sponsor replied, “So is playing with God.”
I had never really thought about playing with God. Playing at being God—yes. Unfortunately, I have often been unclear about the distinction between me and deity. But playing with God? Hummm . . .
However, I have to admit that playfulness is part of any good human intimate relationship. Whether it’s married couples or good friends, there is a playfulness about relationships. Why not in our relationship with God?
I suppose that there are at least two reasons (in addition to my sad attempts to act like God) why I was reluctant to think in terms of playing with God.
First, the expression “playing with” can be used pejoratively. It can be used for everything from teasing someone (“He’s just playing with you”) to having intimate physical relations with someone without any real love or commitment (“He’s just playing with you”).
Of course, if we are merely teasing God or wanting “benefits” (Christians often call them “blessings”) without any real commitment to God, that is not a good way to “play” with God. The expression “playing with fire” comes to mind. Not a good idea!
The second reason why I wasn’t too sure about the idea of playing with God is that I couldn’t think of any portion of Scripture that spoke of us playing with God. At least, I couldn’t think of anything initially. And then it hit me: Proverbs 8:30-31!
These verses are part of an extended praise of personified wisdom.
“then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing (playing) before him always,
rejoicing (playing) in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man.”
(English Standard Version. The parts of the verses that are placed in parentheses and italicized represent another possible translation of the Hebrew word.)
Did you notice that wisdom plays with God and also with human beings? And if Wisdom plays with both God and us humans, then guess what? We are the playmates of both Wisdom and God!
Do not misunderstand what I am saying. We have a serious God. And God most definitely deserves to be taken with ultimate seriousness.
But perhaps we need to balance taking God seriously with the idea of a playful God. After all, who would want to spend all of eternity with a God who was never playful? That would be my idea of hell.[1]
[1] Carew and Price have some wonderful observations about the word “play” (or “delight”) in Proverbs 30:30-31. They note that, in these verses, the Hebrew word for “play” or “delight” is in the middle of a chiasm (i.e., an A-B-Bʹ-Aʹ arrangement. (Think of the Dr. Seuss’ book that starts off with the chiasm,
“I am Sam
Sam I am”.
See! Understanding these technical, literary terms is easy-peasy!)
More importantly, Carew and Price point out, “This chiastic arrangement serves to emphasize wisdom’s exuberant joy. . . . As the instrument of and witness to creation, wisdom personified takes exuberant joy in God’s creation.” (New International Dictionary of Old Testament Exegesis and Theology, volume 4, p. 207.) Exuberant joy: yes!
“THE MATTER OF WORDS MATTERING”
A few days ago, I did a post on gratitude. In it, I used the word “supernature” (https://www.downtoearthbeliever.com/?p=2157). A friend of mine, who is a loyal reader of these posts, asked a really great question about this word “supernature”. Her question and my attempt to answer it is the basis for this post. (I mention, in a positive way, Buddhists in this post. No, I am not a Buddhist, but I do value certain things that some of them say.)
Dianna wrote,
“Good morning,
It’s good to have an attitude of gratitude. What do you mean by supernature? Tried looking it up, but only found a weird song.
Thanks,
Dianna”
My reply was as follows:
“Dear Dianna,
Thanks for reading and thanks for being a close reader!
Sometimes, I just use the wrong word. At other times, I am using a noun intentionally where an adjective should be used. (It jolts me and hopefully readers out of my/their verbal lethargy.) At other times, I just make up a word.
In this case, I was thinking to myself, “Well, we have the adjectives “natural” and “supernatural”. Why not have the word “supernature” to balance “nature”? I had never heard the word “supernature” before, but I decided to use it anyway.
Sometimes, I also use an all-embracing noun where a more specific one might seem more appropriate. For example, I will say/write that I am anger instead of angry. I learned this from some of the Buddhists I hang out with. Some of them hold that you are whatever you are thinking or feeling at any given moment. So, if I am angry, I am at that moment anger. This helps me to take ownership of whatever I am thinking or feeling in the moment and to realize the importance of whatever I am thinking or feeling in the moment.
Good catch and good question! What we say and how we say it matters. And it is good to be held accountable for how we use our words.
With your permission, may I use your good question and my response as tomorrow’s post?
Daryl”
And permission was graciously granted! But, of course, I was too busy piddling around to write the post right away.
I really do believe that our words—my words—matter. My mom (like most moms, quite likely) used to quote the old saying,
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words will never hurt me.”
My mom was an honest person, but I think she was not speaking the whole truth on this one. I tend to change one word in the saying. I think that it better reflects reality.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words will really hurt me.”
Jesus said that we would give an account of every idle or useless word (Matthew 12:36). How much more so, words that are harmful!
If it were not for Jesus Christ, for his redemptive death on behalf of all humanity, and the forgiveness of sins, my words alone would send me to hell. I’ve said a lot of useless and harmful words across my lifetime.
So, my intention is to be careful with my words today. Care to join me?
“Our Forty-Eighth Wedding Anniversary”
Today is a very special day for my sweetheart and me. We were married on this day in 1973. I love her so much more than I did the day we married.
I wish that I could tell you how wonderful it is being married to this smart, funny, creative, thoughtful woman, but I can’t. I am a person of words. I love words. I cherish them. But, for some things, there simply are no words.
As love grows, so does joy. We enjoy such little things together these days. For example, last night we had a lot of fun with cherry tomatoes. She was tossing them to me, and I was trying to catch them in my mouth. Between her lousy pitching and my equally lousy catching, one poor tomato had been thrown and missed and washed and thrown again so many times that it was practically tomato juice when my love gently put it in my mouth.
There is a proverb in the Bible that says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD” (Proverbs 18:22) Yes indeed!
I love you babe. I have a lot of friends who read my posts, and I appreciate them all. But you . . ., you are the best! When I struggle to believe in the grace and goodness of God or my own worth as a human being, I think of you. The dark doubts melt away and the sun throws both legs over the horizon. And I know it’s going to be a good day.
“Being Gratitude”
Here is a prayer that I just prayed by recording it in my journal:
“Today, my God, I am not making a list, but instead I am simply speaking my gratitude to you.
For the coming dawn, I thank you. Thank you for nature in all its convenient and inconvenient manifestations. Thanks for supernature as well. Thank you for all the blessings of life and for the blessing of life, too. Thank you for giving me life and for giving me new life in Christ. Thank you for recovering me from this terrible addiction. Thank you for Sharon and our dog, for children and grandchildren, for extended family, for friends. In short, thanks for everything!
Now, help me to live a life today that reflects my gratitude, a life that is attractive to others, a life that is pleasing to you. Whether that means scholarly work or weeding the flower beds and garden or taking care of my wife who isn’t feeling well, may I enjoy your presence, and may you enjoy my presence.
May I not simply be grateful today, LORD. May I be gratitude.”
I hope that you too, dear reader, will find a way to be grateful today. Even if you’re having a really difficult time, you might find something for which to give thanks if you look hard enough. If nothing else, you can come over to my place and help me weeding the flower beds and garden!
“Making People Walk the Plank or Loving People as They Are?”
You gotta love people as they are, not as they aren’t. If you love people as they aren’t, you aren’t. That is, you aren’t loving them.
I read a story today as part of my addiction recovery work. The story compared recovery to sailing. People were setting sail for the Island of Serenity onboard a ship named “Recovery.”
It was a good analogy, but I got off-course—of course. I said to myself, being cooped up on a small ship with a bunch of selfish, obsessive, compulsive people—yep! That sounds like recovery!
In fact, it sounds like the church, family, my softball league, my new chess club, and every other group of which I’ve ever been a member. If you put two or more people together in anything for any reason, then you have two or more selfish people. The closer the proximity the more that selfishness will wear on everyone.
There is only one person on the ship that I can do much about, and that is me. The others, I have to learn to put up with. Putting up with others isn’t the same as loving them, but putting up with them is a necessary precondition for loving them.
So, before you and I make anyone walk the plank, we might want to remember that we need all the crew members if we are to reach our common destination. It might help also to reflect on the fact that there are many times when others have wanted us to walk the plank.
“But I Will Recognize You.”
“I probably won’t recognize you,” she said, looking me squarely in the eyes.
I returned her steady gaze and said, “But I will recognize you.”
Rewind the story by about forty-five minutes.
I was sitting outside a small coffee shop near my home. I had taken a book along to read, just in case my friend was late. He was more than late; he forgot completely. But it was a nice day, cool with a gentle rain. The coffee was good and the Danish pastry was delicious. I was content.
It was Lynne’s book that I noticed as she walked toward the door of the coffee shop. “Watcha reading?” I asked.
“Still Alice,” she replied. “It’s about dying and Alzheimer’s,” she said, staring at me with a steady gaze. “A fun read,” she added.
“Regular beach reading,” I commented.
“Yes,” she said.
While she was getting her coffee inside, I decided to hazard a serious and personal question. The lady and I appeared to be about the same age. I am genuinely interested in the stories that are people. Also, at my age, I don’t have time for chit-chat. Serious questions are the order of the day.
So, when she came out, I asked the lady my ultra-serious question. “So, are you dying, or do you have Alzheimer’s or both?”
She stopped and looked at me to see if I was being cruel or just trying to be funny. She saw that the question was a serious and compassionate one. “Both,” she said.
Her name was Lynne, and she had been dealing with her diagnoses for several years. The forgetting was getting worse. She had given up her volunteer work because she was afraid that she might harm someone. She was still driving, but only locally where she was familiar with the streets.
She had been a librarian. Now, she had to read the same page over several times. If she did that, she might remember something.
We sat and talked for a good while. Her life sounded as if it was worth several books. When we left, I said, “I’ll probably see you here again.”
“I probably won’t recognize you,” she said, looking me squarely in the eyes.
I returned her steady gaze and said, “But I will recognize you.”
In a letter to a church which the Apostle Paul had founded (and which was, in Paul’s opinion, drifting into serious error), Paul reminds them of their past when they were ignorant of God (Galatians 4:9). Paul also reminds them that they now do know God. At least, they know God in some measure.
However, right after saying that the Galatians now know God, Paul corrects himself. “Now that you know God, or rather, are known by God . . . .” (emphasis mine)
Knowing God is important. However, according to Paul, the thing that really matters is that God knows us.
Whether we have Alzheimer’s or are simply forgetful, it is a wonderful thing that God looks us in the eyes and in the heart and says, “But I will recognize you.”
“Wake Up and Be Awesome!”
Public restrooms are not usually the sort of place where you find wisdom scrawled on the walls. However, the other day I saw something that woke me up better than two cups of strong coffee. It was an admonition on a plastic block:
“Wake up and be awesome!”
Appropriately enough, it was in the restroom of a local coffee shop.
I don’t find it easy to be awesome, but then I don’t find waking up a walk in the park either. I’m not talking about waking up physically. That I can do. But living an awake life—well, that is a different matter.
Henry David Thoreau said that very few people live lives that are truly awake. I am just awake enough to remember that Thoreau said that. However, having one eye open (or remembering that someone said that we ought to be awake) is not being fully awake.
The Scriptures speak of being awake too. Here are a few of these wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee verses:
Isaiah 52:1
“Awake, awake,
Clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion;
Clothe yourself in your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city;
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Will no longer come into you.”
Ephesians 5:14
“For this reason it says,
‘Awake, sleeper,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you.’”
Revelation 3:2
“Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God.”
Romans 13:11
“Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.”
Psalm 57:8
“Awake, my glory!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.”
May you and I have an awake day!
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