Under God, Indivisible?

A co-worker who knows I’m a Christian asked what I thought about the news story of the pastor planning to fly the Christian flag over the American flag this Independence Day.

I’d not heard about that story so I had not formed an opinion about it except to ask, him, “There's a Christian flag?  What does it look like?”

"Christian" and American flags.

Later I looked up the story to find this matter is hardly a new one.  While I doubt few Christians would argue that God’s authority supersedes that of every nation, my initial thought is that flag positioning is essentially symbolic although it takes on special significance in certain situations.

I recall reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while facing the flag with my hand on my heart at the beginning of each school day as a child. As to the last time I recited the pledge, I don’t recall.

I never did locate the particular story my colleague was referencing but did run across some older stories about lawsuits filed to remove the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance.  The pledge we Americans have recited since 1954 is:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

— American Pledge of Allegiance since 1954

Interesting to learn that the original pledge was written in August 1892 by a socialist minister,  Francis Bellamy (1855-1931).  Then it read:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Bellamy intended that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.

In 1923, the word “my” was replaced by "the Flag of the United States of America" and in 1954, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God" to counter the atheistic communist threat of that time in the form of Russia.

While the current pledge has stood for 63 years, it has indeed been nuanced since originally penned by Bellamy 125 years ago. Good to note that while reciting the pledge is a rich American tradition, reciting it is not a requirement or law.  Due to the liberty promoted by this pledge, the citizens covered by it may freely skip any and all words they find offensive.

Interesting how our very freedoms allow us to individually stand against anyone and everyone that we choose.  However, as we decide to employ courts to force choices that increasingly segment and divide, don't we place "indivisible" in serious jeopardy?  And all I have to say right now about trends to expel all references of God in our laws and infrastructures is "implosion." 

In my mind the flag and the pledge go together and I do and will always hold our country, its government and all its patriotic traditions as “under God” even if the legal and governing authorities rule otherwise.  

My first allegiance is, after all, to Christ’s kingdom that Jesus himself noted is not of this world. (See John 18:36)

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Strange history of the pledge of allegiance

Soil the Foil

Grass resistant soil?

"Soil the foil" - my clever title for a new takeaway from Jesus’ very familiar “Parable of the Sower” in Mark 4 that I read this week.

Foil, not the aluminum kind but the “prevent something from succeeding” version. If something won’t grow, the soil is a good place to start looking for solutions.

I’m having difficulty growing new grass on a particular area of our lawn.  Even though I raked some new topsoil into the spot and planted brand new seed, growth is not happening despite new grass growing robustly in immediately adjoining areas.

Jesus would probably advise, “Your soil needs an upgrade.”

I’m going to buy some compost today and start over.  With some babying of the area over the next few weeks, perhaps I'll be rewarded with better results.  Stay tuned. 

Meanwhile, we participate in Grace's Acre, a community vegetable garden hosted by our church.  Thanks to nutrient-rich soil, lush, robust growth is already yielding lettuce, spinach and herbs with many other vegetables well on the way.

Thanks to fertile soil, Grace's Acre is growing robustly in late June.  These raised beds adjoin a large area of ground rows that supply our food pantry and market program.

Wish I knew more about the underlying “soil” conditions of people I’ve shared the gospel with over the years but who are reluctant about, or clearly resist accepting Jesus’ invitation to let him take the lead in their lives.

Could it really be as simple as Jesus claims? That new life flourishes in good soil but falters in soil that lacks essential makeup and/or conditions?

I recently met a guy who was raised in a good church lead by a rather renowned pastor who happened to live next door. His mother is a ministry leader of a large evangelical church.  

He is a good guy as far as I can tell - married, respected at work but despite having been raised in apparently “good soil,” he admits to lapsed church attendance.  By way of explanation, he dismissively recalls the church experiences of his youth as boring.

Each morning, his radio listening features personalities who specialize in being offensive, lewd and shocking.  When I tried to engage with him about it, he pushed back with, “It’s no big deal, just harmless humor.  People who object should change the channel.”

Hard to be too judgmental here since I’ve given a similar answer to questionable influences I allow into my life that I have also defended as no big deal - influences that "foil my soil," so to speak - Like Jesus’ warning about sowing seed in rocky or thorny places. (Mark 4: 16-19)

Don’t know for sure but it seems he’s received good “Gospel seed” that failed to flourish.  Conversely, I marvel and am constantly grateful for the Gospel taking root in my life.  

Like my new friend, I believe I had good soil conditioning as well but was particularly blessed with good timing - having a memorable encounter with the Lord when I was particularly receptive. Still, nothing obvious about me makes me a better candidate than others who resist the Gospel.

Continuing with the soil analogy, I attribute some of the best ingredients of my faith now to the nutrient-rich soil where I am planted and live - a believing wife and life partner, a vibrant church family, excellent teaching and leadership, relationships with strong believers who invest time, transparency, prayer and practical support in our lives as we likewise invest in theirs…

Unlike the composition of actual good soil, a person’s “soil conditions” for Gospel rooting is discernible only the Lord himself. We as believers are to simply assist in the sowing while resisting judgment because soil conditions known only to the Lord may become just right at any moment for the gospel to take root and flourish.

So I will keep planting as opportunities to do so present to me.   Meanwhile, are you flourishing in your faith?  If not, how would you assess your soil conditions?  

Might be time for a soil upgrade.

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Grace's Acre Vegetable Garden

Blessing our Workplaces

My friend, Mike insists my presence made a noticeable, "spiritual" difference in my former workplace, a hardware store.

“When I go there during your shift, I can tell the difference just by walking in,” Mike recently shared. “That store is blessed due to you.”

Image source: see notes

I've enjoyed this job the most of all the jobs I’ve had in the last nine years.  In seven months there as a sales associate, I slowly learned the store layout, how to cut keys and mix paint and grew more confident and comfortable greeting, helping and relating to our customers. I credit the people-focused culture to the owner, Tim and his hiring practices. He employs people like me - with some to considerable hardware know-how and good with people.

To affirm Mike’s claim would seem immodest but I mention it to explore a perspective in Scripture that seems ignored or overlooked in Christian circles - that God can and does work through certain "chosen" people to bless the places they occupy. Let me be clear though that the source of blessing is God, not me or you.

I desire to be engaged with God and I faithfully observe certain routines to develop and maintain a relationship with him.  On good days, I am tuned into God's channel while at work, alert to bringing him into encounters with other people when an opening to do so occurs. 

How it sometimes seems for us "rookie" employees :)

Likewise with the jobs I've sought and secured. I can make a case for God having something to do with me landing each one of them.  Would that be the same as God "choosing" me for these positions?

As to God blessing my workplaces through me, well I can only say that Mike’s view merits consideration due to plenty of Biblical evidence of blessing attributed to God working through one person. The Bible also offers warnings of peril and vulnerability for people and places due to the apparent ABSENCE of “righteous” people, according to God.

Notable examples of God blessing others or nations due a person chosen by God are Abraham, Daniel, Joseph, and David.

• Abraham - Through him, God established the Messianic line to bless all the families of earth (see Genesis 12:1-20)
• Daniel - Able, due to God, to interpret the king’s dreams, exile Daniel was elevated to leadership in the government of his captor, Babylon (see Daniel 2: 46-49)
• Joseph - Like Daniel, God granted Joseph interpretations to Pharaoh’s dreams that resulted in Joseph becoming one of Egypt’s highest officials.  (See Genesis 39: 2-5)
• David - Through David, God established an everlasting kingdom (See 2 Samuel 7: 12-17)

Conversely, Biblical places imperiled due to the lack of righteous people according to God include Sodom and, possibly, Canaan.

• Sodom - But for the presence of just ten righteous people, the Lord would have spared Sodom from destruction. (See Genesis 18: 16-33)
• Canaan - Israel was ordered to completely destroy the nations occupying their “promised lands” due to longstanding societal patterns that were detestable in God’s eyes (see Deuteronomy 18: 9, 12)

Mike isn’t the only person who claims I’ve made a noticeable difference in a place I worked. Furthermore, even though I’ve not been part of any workplace longer than 18 months during the last nine years, many of the companies have thrived during my time there. Also, I’m aware that some faltered a bit after I left.

Did God "choose" me for any of these workplaces?  Is any of this supposed blessing or prosperity due to God dwelling in me as I dwelt in the work I did there? Was my leaving in any way associated with God withdrawing blessing?

Given God’s nature and manner and the evidence of Scripture, all of the above are certainly possible even if logically far-fetched. So imagine with me for a moment that little old you and me are conduits for Godly goodness in the workplaces we occupy, whether big or small. Author Samuel Williamson says God is always speaking and acting through his creation and people and wants to speak to and through us in every moment.

“God invites us to walk with him even in--maybe especially in--our ordinary moments.”  (from “Hearing God in Conversation,” page 33)

Even at work or, if you are retired, whatever you are doing wherever you are doing it.

I pray that what Mike claims is true, that God blessed that store because I brought my relationship with the Lord to work with me. Ditto with my new job, a manufacturing company.

How about you?

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Notes:

1. Canaanites: Genocide or Judgment?
2. Trailer for movie, War Room (2015)
3. Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash

To my children: a Father's Day wish

Image source: see notes

Our daughter texted to ask what I wanted for Father’s Day.  I replied, “A conversation with my beloved daughter.”

“Your conversation wish will be granted,” she answered, “but what ELSE do you want?”

I sent her a few items pending on my Amazon wish list. However, my greatest wish as a father is to be assured beyond reasonable doubt that she and her brother follow and love the Lord Jesus Christ.

Of course they already know that wish.  Years ago when they were in late high school or early college, I sat them down together and asked if they knew that my relationship with Jesus was what in life I cherish most.  They readily affirmed that I’d gotten that across to them along with my second-most important life priority - that both of them also follow and love the Lord.

They are grown now and doing very well by societal standards - liked and respected, healthy, career success and earnings, living independently, close with friends and family, regularly engaged with us... One is married, new house, etc. and the other still single, career-focused and enjoying the “good life.”

Our passion for their spiritual well-being was behind my wife and I moving to a new church over 20 years ago - to surround them with the Jesus-loving people attending there.  They both made faith commitments there and we are grateful to our church family for lovingly tending the faith seeds that we as parents planted in them.  

I credit the strong faith I now enjoy to seeds planted in me by my parents that were tended by the churches of my youth. Even so, those seeds didn’t fully germinate in me until I was nearly 30 - the age milestone both our children are nearing now.  That’s when I finally accepted Jesus’ invitation to truly become one of his own - Definitely the highpoint of my life.

Anyone who's ever done planting knows that the space between sowing and reaping is crowded with significant challenge. Jesus-loving parents need all the help we can get.  Success-seekers in our world level can easily surround themselves with ready encouragement, supportive friends and family, and resources that faith seekers often lack.

The Christian faith that influenced and guided the founding of our American republic 200 plus years ago is now openly shunned.  America has polluted its once faith-nurturing soil.  As Jesus illustrated in his parable of the sower in Matthew 13, poor soil weakens faith.

While I try as a father to live the kind of life that would draw my children to the Lord, I often wonder what they see in me along that line. Does my trust in the Lord come through as I now struggle to earn a living while they both thrive with career success?  How badly do my shortcomings and sinfulness tarnish my faith witness?  

Thankfully, whatever faith influence I have with my children, positively or negatively, ONLY Jesus saves!  Into our messiness, he fearlessly arrives.

I believe God pursues and attempts to draw every human being who ever lived to himself.  At whatever level we experience him, we all have an opportunity to receive or reject him.  Some of us have more opportunities than others to choose.

He is a just and most gracious God to allow us to make and live with our choices, only coming to our rescue if we call out to him.  Sounds good on the surface but, truthfully, to grant us such free will is a frightening matter.

You see, even if we manage to commit to following the Lord, life’s messiness resumes.  Although God’s Spirit empowers us to live our faith, following Jesus does not assure a life of ease, well-being or prosperity, although God may permit us some or much of all the above.

Noted Sam Williamson in his superb book, “Hearing God in Conversation,”

“We seek God with the hopes of experiencing some sunlit plain of starry night; we look for peace and comfort. In my experience of God, though, he almost always afflicts my comfort before comforting my affliction.”

In recent years, has our children’s front row seat to the affliction of our comfort negatively or positively impacted their own faith?  I don’t know.  I don’t have those answers but even if I did, my prayer is not that they look to me but to God himself for everything.

Solomon’s prosperity ruined him and Job’s prosperity was lost in a wager that he had no part in.  Ultimately Job decided that the many challenges and questions he directed to God during the worst of his struggles could be left unanswered when God himself showed up.  For Job, God was enough.

So, my dear, beloved children, my Father’s Day wish is that you will become convinced more and more as your lives unfold that not only is God enough for you, he is all you need.  Meanwhile, I will love you to the extent of my mortal powers and, God willing, we will also spend eternity together as well. 

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Image by Forrest Cavale via Unsplash:

Competing Ways: Gurus vs. God

The Guru track to career success.  Whose missing?

In the rather convoluted job/career track I’ve been on since 2008, 16 positions in nine years, my current job has by far been the most enjoyable.  It seems I found something new I flourish at - customer service!  

Might have something to do with the workplace -  a hardware store - essentially a toy store for a Do-It-Yourself guy like me.

It’s a great work environment - a knowledgeable, patient boss, supportive and friendly co-workers and a growing and appreciative customer base. I also love the part-time schedule that has allowed me to work a little more on some long latent creative longings like this blog, writing in general, maybe doing something more with my ornaments...

Unfortunately, the variable schedule pushes against the rhythms my creativity thrives best in and then there’s the compensation issue.  Retail pay is notoriously poor and I’m at the lowest rung possible.  Although we gave this a go, we’ve been tapping into our modest savings to cover our bills.

We already live frugally but we managed to find a couple small costs to cut back on while keeping a closer eye on spending.  Meanwhile we lean heavily into what has become our primary life strategy - to trust in, abide with and wait on the Lord.

Me as a True Value, "Customer Service Associate"

This "Trust-Abide-Wait" focus finally locked in with me in 2016, a few months after I was “downsized” from position #15.  During eight or so years of career-searching, I basically vacillated between following the “Guru” career-search track and seeking/depending on the Lord.

“Guru” is my term for the generally advised career-search strategy that involves crafting a plan with tailored materials and pitches that feed a relentless campaign to aggressively promote yourself to hiring managers who make the call about who gets the job and who does not.

Some of the Guru mantras are: “Go big or go home… Just do it… If you want it, you gotta go get it;” and,  “Don’t turn back until you hit your mark.”

In stark contrast is God’s way along the line of Jesus’ striking teaching in Matthew’s gospel:

““Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! ”

— Matthew 7: 7-12, ESV

Notice how individualized God’s advice is.  “EveryONE who asks receives, and the ONE who seeks finds, and to the ONE who knocks it will be opened.”  

So how does God work out what happens when each of us ask, seek and knock along different lines?  EXACTLY!

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps...Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. ”

— Proverbs 16:9 and 19:21, ESV

When I finally peeled myself away from Guru to give myself over to trust-abide-wait, I was able to hear God’s voice a lot better.  This hardware job surfaced during that time and I accepted it with full knowledge of its variable hours and meager pay.  While our bank account dwindled a bit, my wounded spirit was restored.  

In the last three weeks, two job opportunities were made known to me, both bearing God’s fingerprints. While neither were perfect fits, I applied for both.  The second one resulted in my next job that offers stable hours, better pay and a growth track I can pursue if I want to.

Now I have to break the news to my current boss and colleagues.  Store staffing is delicately balanced and my departure is going to upset that balance during our busiest season. After I accepted the offer for the new job, I decided to also trust-abide and wait for a couple days to seek God’s guidance about the conversation with my boss.  

I’m glad I did because God reminded me that my duty is to listen for and follow only him and let him take care of everything else.  

“He is before all things, and in him ALL THINGS hold together,” wrote Paul in his letter to the Colossians  (1:17, NIV).

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27, ESV)

God holding ALL THINGS together includes my boss and colleagues, all our customers as well as everyone at my new workplace.  Such “holding” as only God can do is behind Paul’s bold, “no stress” statement in his letter to the Philippians:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ”

— Philippians 4: 6-7, NIV

Ideally, obedient believers have no stress whatsoever when we follow the path the Lord opens no matter how unusual or irrational it may initially seem.  Even so, God recognizes that this life is far from ideal and we all are stuck in it to varying degrees. For our "stuck" moments," Jesus offered these words of comfort:

““I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.””

— John 16:33, NIV

No matter how stressed we feel about what we know we have to do, "Trust-Abide-Wait" is generally a great course to take.

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Take the adventure that comes

Aslan and Lucy from "The Last Battle," Chronicles of Narnia. (see notes for image source)

I write this for myself but feel free to read along.  This is a reminder for now and to have here to come back to again and again.  Because these feelings repeat.

I’m discouraged and I don’t feel like writing.  What do I have to say that anyone would want to read?  But here I am, writing anyway.

I find myself lacking a sense of call or purpose to wake up to today; or a future or dream to give the day some perspective.  But another day awaits that needs to be lived out.  

This awful, foreboding sense of failure washes over me, a strong sense of having fallen short but not knowing what hand I had in it or how to get back to generally succeeding again except to just live into this new day, do my best and lean into the Lord; And not take myself too seriously.

Today’s to-dos seem more than can be done in a day.  Some are in my sweet spots but some will stretch me.  Lately, more stretchy ones are in the mix than I prefer but I’m kinder on myself as I get older, more O.K. with good enough being good enough than when I was younger.  I’ve learned a thing or two about imagined perfection and excellence and their associated costs.  May I invoke that learning when today’s hour is late and some unchecked items remain.

“We must go and take the adventure that comes to us,” said a character in C.S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle,” the seventh of seven books of his Chronicles of Narnia.  The remark was offered as our heroes faced a daunting situation.  What to do or how to proceed was not at all clear while peril was certain and the odds were heavily stacked against the good guys.

In the case of these stories, the adventure-takers were all believers in and followers of Aslan,  the lion Lord of Narnia that Lewis modeled after Jesus Christ.  The adventure was viewed as one that Aslan had a hand (or in this case, paw) in allowing or causing to come to them. They knew he expected them to go forward despite their uncertainty.

So must I.  You too.  To go forward, live today.  

As we take on our to-do lists, keep the story God wrote, just for us, at hand.  Its guidance and wisdom is strong.  Filling its pages are the stories of other’s journeys very much like mine and yours.  

Whether you see yourself taking on the grand or the mundane, God levels every task and adventure, somehow rendering the grand mundane and the mundane grand.

Speaking to the sense of call or purpose, Os Guiness wrote,

““We are not primarily called to do something or go somewhere; we are called to Someone. We are not called first to special work but to God. The key to answering the call is to be devoted to no one and to nothing above God Himself.” ”

— Os Guiness, “The Call - Finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life”

So here is the new day, brought directly from God, the author and source of all life and every moment of every day. We believers in him enjoy relationship with him through his son Jesus.  

Therefore, thanks to his mercy and grace, the burden of my past can be shed so I start this day with a clean slate, wholly forgiven and new.

O.K….(deep breath).  Ready now to “go and take the adventure that comes.”

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Image source: Just us ... "The Roddens"

Well-worn paths *

"Pathlike" road in Iowa, 1997

I have a fondness for certain kinds of roads - windy, hilly, black-topped ones that thread through countrysides.  Roads like these exude the character of the places they traverse.  Still, roads are not paths. Paths are different.

Agrarian author Wendell Berry offers a lush perspective about paths vs. roads that remains stuck in my mind since the moment I read it.

“The difference between a road and a path is not only the obvious one. A path is little more than a habit the comes with knowledge of a place.  It is a sort of ritual of familiarity.  As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape….

A road, on the other hand, even the most primitive road, embodies resistance against the landscape. Its reason is not simply the necessity of movement, but haste. Its wish is to avoid contact with the landscape; it seeks so far as possible to go over the country, rather than through it;”

By Berry’s definition these roads I like are not paths at all so I exercise my writer’s license to declare my roads that snake “respectfully” through their countrysides as well-worn paths that pavement was applied to. I certainly experience considerable relaxation when turning onto a road like this from a highway or freeway that I have no fondness for at all.

Rural northern Michigan features my best encounters of these path-like roads. The Road Report Journal banner is one of those, a stretch of M-88 in Antrim County.

I have enjoyed 27 northern Michigan encounters during an annual “Boys Weekend” with my brothers.  These weekends harken to Berry’s description of a path as “little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place.” Our Boys Weekend is a convening of brothers that has become a habit, a ritual of encountering each other in a certain place.

The rituals of my relationship with the Lord define perhaps the most-worn path in my life, so heavily tread that pavement could certainly be applied to it.  Its place is more a setting where practices occur such as dedicated time with God, reading Scripture, journaling, and prayer.

“I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning. ”

— Psalm 130:6, NIV

From this well-worn path go many trails into my days. This writing is one of those trails, exploratory offerings of learnings gleaned on the path.  My hope and prayer is to convey the sense of God’s intentional caring, his merciful, graceful presence encountered here on my path that speaks to you on your path.

Well-worn paths may yield extraordinary benefits from the mere frequency and persistence of traveling occurring on them.

“You were tired out by the length of your road
Yet you did not say, ‘ It is hopeless.’
You found renewed strength,
Therefore you did not faint.”

— Isaiah 57:10, NASB

I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope. (Psalm 130:5, NASB)

It seems that the wisest people I know travel many well-worn paths with God.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge ”

— Proverbs 1:7a, NIV

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Notes

1) * Edited re-post of "Well-worn paths" originally published as a Road Report at FarmingtonGlenn.net on January 27, 2015

2) Wendell Berry quote from his book, “The Art of the Commonplace” page 12

Room for Evelyn

Evelyn VanTassel and her poodle Sara Lee

While I think of myself a loner, the gospel nudges me toward to others.  Sometimes I even obey.

Last week, I was moved by a study I’m doing about hospitality to “make room” for Evelyn.  Mother of our friend, Marilyn, Evelyn was admitted to a nearby hospital several days earlier.  I could have visited during her first couple days there but I resisted the urge to do so.

Why?  Well you see, I am involved in a house project and you know hospitals make me uncomfortable.  Besides, Evelyn is 98 and has difficulty speaking. How would we converse and what could I say or do to make her feel any better?

Excuses that sound as lame as they are, especially since I had no difficulty spending an entire day in a car with Evelyn five years earlier.  That was 2012 when Marilyn asked if I would drive Evelyn back to her home in Marquette after wintering in Marilyn’s Farmington Hills home.

Evelyn was 93 then and I was in-between jobs, so available to help. Marilyn insisted I take her car so she could pack it with all Evelyn’s stuff before I arrived.

Conversation was not a problem during the eight or so hour trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula although I only recall tidbits of what we talked about.  We arrived late-afternoon at her house a block south of the Northern Michigan University campus where her deceased husband and Marilyn’s dad, Leo was former Vice President of Business and Finance.

View from a Marquette park, 2012

I unpacked the car and heeded all her specific instructions for putting everything back in its place among the many treasures lining every room of her house.  Later, she suggested we drive around town so she could show me the sights. Before dropping her back home, she treated me to dinner in a little restaurant in town where many greeted her by name, staff and patrons alike. After staying the night in a local motel, I headed home the next morning.

Although I did that drive only the one time, the cycle of Evelyn spending winters in Farmington Hills with Marilyn continued. Connected by that drive, I made a point to spend a little time with Evelyn whenever she came with Marilyn to church, and our small group meetings.

Last winter Evelyn was weaker, mostly wheelchair bound and virtually unable to speak.  Then news came on the church prayer list that Evelyn was admitted to a local hospital.   

One of my study’s scriptures was Romans 12:3-8 that includes something about using our gifts for our fellow Christians.  What gifts do I have for Evelyn?

I could almost hear God whispering “you” into my brain. As in me, being present and doing my best to let Evelyn know that I cared about her, as did God - to be God’s hands and feet and voice.

Turns out she “spoke” quite well without uttering any words - with nods and squeezing my hand that I offered her when I arrived.  Her breathing was labored and her body really warm. Despite that our clasped hands got sweaty, she did not want me to let go.

That evening, “Our Daily Bread” reading was Matthew 8:1-4 about Jesus healing a leper.  I keyed on the story part when the man pleaded with Jesus,

““Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” (Then) Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.”

— Matthew 8: 2-3 (NIV)

Picking up on Jesus’ unhesitant response to touch this man everyone else gave a wide berth, the devotion shared a story about Kiley who jumped at a chance to join a medical mission in East Africa despite having no medical experience.

Despite being repulsed by the distorted leg of a woman there with a horrible but treatable disease, “Kiley knew she had to do something. As she cleaned and bandaged the leg, her patient began crying. Concerned, Kiley asked if she was hurting her. “No,” she replied. “It’s the first time anyone has touched me in nine years.”’

Me holding Evelyn’s hand was the part of my visit that I think she liked the most.

Evelyn died the morning after I visited her, finally heading to her “real” up north home in heaven with our Lord after 98 venerable years walking among us.  When I heard news of her passing, I whispered a little “Thanks!” to the Lord for nudging me to make room one last time for Evelyn.

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Notes:

1. Evelyn's picture: from Marilyn VanTassel
2. Our Daily Bread, May 2, 2017: Just a Touch
3. Hospitality Study by "He Reads Truth:" Making Room

Nature: Listening or Suppressing?

For lawn-loving Do-It-Yourselfers, Scotts 4-Step program

If we are paying attention, seasonal transitions bear powerful messages.  Take note as spring finally arrives to Michigan.  

Winter 2016-17 was light on snow but featured many stretches of cold, damp, sun-starved days. Notwithstanding the plethora of Michiganders who complain about snow, at least snow can be played in.  Snowless winter along with damp cold essentially renders the out of doors uninhabitable.

Impotent winter also makes for long, SLOW shifts at the hardware store where I work.  Pallets of salt and rows of snow shovels and ice scrapers and aisles clogged with snow blowers intended to tame and suppress winter are bypassed by customers heading to consider paint colors instead.  

While some form of each season is assured every year, we humans devote more attention to suppressing nature than tuning to its voice.  Despite our considerable knowledge and wherewithal, nature puts up formidable resistance to our best attempts to tame and suppress it.

In spring and summer, nature suppression shifts from reducing ice and snow impact to eliminating impediments to growing desirable foliage. Here in suburbia, the surest money bet regards growing great grass and controlling invasive weeds.

In the hardware business, Scott’s 4-Step program is a popular lawn fertilizing program for the DIY crowd.  Step 1 is a crabgrass preventer and lawn food that works best if warmer temps arrive in early April. If winter’s cool lingers a little too long, customers skip to the second weed and feed step.

This year spring held back so crabgrass preventer sales lagged after initially surging.  Even though May just arrived, everyone is already onto weed and feed with store supply barely meeting demand.

Untamed nature features varieties of plants indigenous to climate and countryside. Lawn-loving people on the other hand prefer graded ground, lush, weedless turf and plantings of trees and cultivated bushes and flowers arranged in fanciful contours.  Nature manifests fine as the elements dictate, but humanity’s taming requires considerable earth-rearranging, chemical combos and inordinate amounts of water.  

Recommended water consumption for a person is about a half gallon a day.  That's 3.5 gallons each week.  A healthy lawn needs about an inch of water a week, 3,100 gallons for a 5,000 square foot lawn - enough to sustain 885 people!

Having a sparse budget for landscaping, I fertilize sparingly and water almost never.  However, I can toil for free!  Thanks to my part-time job, I have more time available to be outside during the day to experience and observe spring’s arrival and manner.

I'm slowly coming around to thanking the Lord for clearing this space in my life to simply abide by what he brings.  Where I live, the peacefulness of our sedate neighborhood while everyone else is off at their day jobs is violated by the busy M5 highway nearby imposing its considerable din on all the nature it cuts through on its way to wherever.

Yes, God charged his first people to steward his creation, but rebellious humanity inclines more toward manipulation and suppression of nature than listening for the rhythms and revelation nature prefers we tune our lives to. Meanwhile, nature seems to allow our imposition to recast it into something other than what God had in mind for us to do with it. However, its true power is really his, hiding just beneath its seemingly sedate surface, far surpassing ours.  

Meanwhile, nature most often presents as kindly, winsomely inviting us with its refreshment, wonder and inspiration.  As you pause to listen, be mindful that nature is created, not Creator. Nature draws us beyond, not to, itself to its Gardener ... and ours.  

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

— Romans 1:20, NLT

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1. Image source site: http://www.utahpristinelawncare.com/fertilisers/

2. Nature declaring the Lord in Scripture

No shame, imagined

Wearing a cross: shame redeemed?

I cling to pride even though I never would have thought myself very prideful.

Shame is pride’s offspring.  We know we are proud whenever we feel shame. Shame cannot exist without pride.

Was reading Psalm 26 by David when the phrase in the NIV “be put to shame” caught my attention.  I was particularly struck by verse 3 when David claims:

““No one who hopes in you (God) will ever be put to shame” ”

— Psalm 25:3a, NIV

Ever?  As in never?

What about verse 2 when David wrote, “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me?” (Psalm 25:2)“

Is David wishy-washy or is he simply admonishing himself to always resolve to trust in the Lord so that, among other benefits, he will not be put to shame?  He concludes the Psalm with another reminder:

““Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.” ”

— Psalm 25:20

I relate to David’s struggle. I revere God too but sometimes shame weighs heavy on me.

While David had much to be proud about - warrior, hero, musician, king, author, he is also open about his weakness and sinfulness.  Note verses 7 and 11 where he asks to be judged by God’s character not his own.   Really proud people would rarely say anything like that.

BibleGateway produced 147 uses of the word “shame” in the NIV including 52 variations on the phrase “put to shame.”  While the very first mention occurs before the first sin, when “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25), most of those mentions regard the shame of those who have little or no regard for God.

How long will you people turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? (Psalm 4:2)

Even a cursory study of shame in the Bible clearly shows shame presented as a primary  language and manner of the world.  

“Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.

To answer before listening— that is folly and shame. ”

— Jeremiah 6:15a and Proverbs 18:13

Modern life holds this to be as true as ever.  In stark contrast is God’s assurance as echoed above by David and elsewhere:

““As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him (the Lord) will never be put to shame.”’ ”

— Romans 10:11 referencing Isaiah 28:16

Never?  Imagine never experiencing shame, especially in 2017?

Here’s another never to bank on - that God doesn’t leave us to depend on imagining what never/ever experiencing shame looks like.  In answer, he sent his son Jesus to model life that drew completely from God and completely disregarded every other influence. (See Philippians 2:7, ESV)

Every person and being who came against Jesus failed to put him to shame.  Jesus’ ultimate triumph over shame was when...

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

— Hebrews 12:2, NIV

While the cross was for a moment in history associated with one of the most diabolical execution methods ever conceived by humanity, today it is a symbol of redemption, not to mention an adornment,.

Imagine forsaking pride and never again suffering shame?  Imagine drawing life only from the Lord and giving no other person or being or idea a foothold for pride or shame to take root?

Thanks to Jesus, we don’t have to imagine.

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Image source: wearing a cross

Passion Week Tribute to Rufus and my Parents

Station V of the Stations of the Cross

While meandering along the roads of life, anything can happen to instantly change everything.  In honor of Passion Week, I offer this story about such a thing happening to a man named Simon whose son, Rufus became a small part of my story of faith.

A couple thousand years ago while traveling along a Jerusalem road during Passover week, Simon from Cyrene found himself unexpectedly enveloped by a raucous crowd. Perhaps as he strained to get a look at what all the commotion was about, he was noticed by a Roman soldier who pressed him into an unwanted duty – to help the condemned man the crowd was following to carry the cross upon which he would soon be crucified. 

That moment catapulted Simon from Cyrene from obscurity because that condemned man he unwittingly helped was Jesus Christ.

Simon from Cyrene is mentioned in three of the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ road to Calvary. His role is memorialized in the fifth of the 14 stations of the cross that adorn most Catholic churches. A great depiction of Simon’s service was captured in Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ.”

The account in Mark notes that Simon is the father of Alexander and Rufus who Christian scholars believe were known in Rome where Mark wrote his gospel. In his letter to the Romans, Paul thanks a man named Rufus and his mother for their support of him (Romans 16:13).  Many scholars say this Rufus is Simon from Cyrene’s son.

Rufus became part of my story when my parents urged me to take his name for receiving the sacrament of Confirmation in 1967. Catholic parents often choose first and/or middle names for their children after the names of canonized saints or people in the Bible, like Joshua or David or Matthew.  My brothers have middle names like Patrick and Daniel.  Then these saintly/Biblical names are also reused for their Confirmation name.

My first and middle names are Glenn Roy. Glenn was a favorite name of my mom and Roy is my dad’s first name.  However when it came to choosing a name for my Confirmation, we knew of no Glenn's or Roy's in the Bible or among saints.  However, my parents claimed that Rufus was an origin for the name Roy.  Despite that Rufus was not a cool-sounding name to me, I let my parents talk me into using it for my Confirmation name.

While taking on a Confirmation name is a significant marker of taking a major step in faith, I didn’t actually receive Christ as my Lord and Savior until many years later. Nevertheless, I participated in the Confirmation ceremony with the name “Rufus.”

I vividly recall regretting the choice during the ceremony. When my turn came, I knelt before the bishop who laid his hand on my head and loudly declared me “Rufus!” I imagined everyone looking oddly in my direction at the unusual name I’d chosen.  Confirmation is often a memorable ceremony for young Catholics.  However, all I really remember was the Rufus part – being embarrassed to be connected with that name.

I feel differently now.  Today, I am a Christian and know about this Rufus, son of Simon who helped Jesus with his cross.  If I could redo that ceremony, I would be honored to claim the name of Rufus.

Also, I hold a special place in my heart for my parents’ role in my choice thanks to perspective and that I have since become a believer.  This part of the story greatly increases my love for my parents and for God who knew I would come to him long before I did.

Interesting how for both me and Rufus, our parents factored significantly in our stories of faith. Possibly, Rufus and his brother were there when their dad carried Jesus’ cross.

When I first took the name of Rufus for my Confirmation, it signified little more than embarrassment and possible parental conspiracy.  But it has since emerged to take on a significance well beyond what my parents probably hoped to achieve - me taking a next small step in my faith.

As a parent now, I pray that one or two of the little things I’ve done to nurture faith in my own children blossom in a similar manner.

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Notes:

1)  This post is an edited version of a Road Report entitled “My Rufus Story: Hope for Conspiring Parents” posted September 3, 2012 at FarmingtonGlenn.net

2) Gospel mentions of Simon from Cyrene in BibleGateway: Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21 and Luke 23:26

3) 14 Stations of the Cross

1. Jesus Is Condemned To Death
2. Jesus Is Made To Carry His Cross
3. Jesus Falls The First Time
4. Jesus Meets His Sorrowful Mother
5. Simon Of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry His Cross***
6. Veronica Wipes The Face Of Jesus
7. Jesus Falls The Second Time
8. The Women Of Jerusalem Weep Over Jesus
9. Jesus Falls The Third Time
10. Jesus Is Stripped Of His Garments
11. Jesus Is Nailed To The Cross
12. Jesus Is Raised Upon The Cross And Dies
13. Jesus Taken Down From The Cross And Placed In The Arms Of His Mother
14. Jesus Is Laid In The Sepulcher

4) Here is an article about Simon from Cyrene.  It offers some interesting conjecture about this man – maybe a Jewish convert or a Gentile, maybe a black man, and whose his wife and sons were well-known in the Christian church in Rome.

5)  The seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church: 1. Baptism (Birth); 2. Confirmation (Adulthood); 3. Eucharist (“Communion”), 4. Penance (Reconciliation); 5. Matrimony (Marriage); 6. Holy Orders (Priesthood); 7. Extreme Unction (Sickness, Death).

Growing Underneath

Aspens in Colorado

Have you seen the recent story about the earth’s biggest living thing?  According to Public Radio International,

“The largest organism on Earth probably isn't a whale or a giant octopus or anything else you might naturally think of first. It's a tree — or a group of genetically identical trees that stretches across more than 100 acres of Utah's Fishlake National Forest.” 

Aspen trees, specifically. The U.S. Forest Service calls the massive, “single-tree” aspen grove “Pando,” Latin for “I spread.”

Found coast to coast across North America, aspens grow in groups called stands. Within these stands, a single tree will spread by sprouting new stems from its roots that either sprout into new trees or live underground, sharing nutrients with each other for a long time.

Aspens are a favorite of my wife, Cindy. She likes how the leaves "waver" in the wind due to their triangular-shaped stems. An Our Daily Bread devotional we read together last week offered another aspen feature - how their underground root system plays a vital, re-foresting role after a natural disaster.  

Apparently, aspen root systems sleep underground for hundreds, even thousands of years, whether or not they produce trees.  After a fire, flood, or avalanche clears a space for them in the otherwise shady forest, aspen roots can sense the sun at last, sending up saplings that become trees.

“Just as natural disaster clears a forest to make new aspen growth possible, our growth in faith is also made possible by difficulties,” wrote ODB contributor Amy Peterson. 

“Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds,” wrote the apostle James, “because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2–4).                 

According to James, not lacking anything is what a mature and complete faith looks. That’s problematic for me.  While I can claim occasional moments of not lacking anything, I generally lack something that I want or convinced myself I need.

Pride is my struggle.  As a guy, I want to support my family and be competent and capable in my responsibilities especially in my work/career. Unable to secure or retain positions that sync with my competencies, I've accepted other work where I struggle through learning processes that inevitably include embarrassing rookie mistakes.

Each new position presents a new learning curve to work through.  I try to handle the inevitable rookie errors with grace but often I'm shrinking inside, my self-confidence taking another hit. Are these tests of my faith, of God coaxing me, ever reluctantly, to trust more in him and less in myself?

While I do find being a rookie again for the sixteenth time in nine years a little frustrating, I am better about not letting the next mistake "get to me" or define me.  As I gradually learn new duties, I remind myself to thank the Lord for another opportunity to “let perseverance finish its work” in me. 

Like the aspen roots grow underground for a chance to re-forest a devastated region in the distant future, God allows and uses devastation in our lives for his own, re-foresting-type purpose.

Jesus himself established this "organism" that he invited me into, where my maturing faith feeds yours and ours melds with other believers.  Collectively, we are "growing underneath" but seen and approved by God, nurtured into a formidable, reckoning force .

“upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

— Jesus, Matthew 16:18b, KJV

We are what St. Paul metaphorically called “the body of Christ.”

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church...to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ ”

— Ephesians 4:11, NLT

May I suggest that the largest organism on Earth isn’t a tree after all?

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Notes:

1) Pando story

2) Our Daily Bread, 2/29/2017

Sinking at Lent?

Jesus rescuing Peter

Hearkening to my Catholic roots, I observe Lent most years.  March 24 marked Lent’s halfway point with 20 days of observance ahead before Easter (23 calendar days).

O.K. so I’ve taken my eyes off Jesus with regard to my Lent resolutions.  At the halfway point, I’m essentially like Peter in Matthew’s account of Jesus walking on water - sinking!

That’s the story our pastor chose to open our monthly church board meeting last week, from Matthew 14:22-32. The disciples ran into a storm while crossing the Sea of Galilee when Jesus approached their boat, walking on the water.  Peter asks the Lord to command him to come, also atop the raging sea. When Jesus agrees, Peter climbs from the boat and heads Jesus’ way.

““But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (v 30)”

Our conversation generally regarded how Peter sank when he allowed the storm all around and underfoot to draw his attention away from Jesus. Hard not to empathize with Peter because we do that too in our own lives as believers.  

Me? I’m not bold like Peter.  Pretty sure I would have remained in the boat, I am most drawn to how Jesus rescued Peter as he sank.

““Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.” (v 31a)”

“Immediately,” sounds good to me, as in without hesitation or any qualifying questions or cross examination. Sure, Jesus chided Peter for doubting but only after he rescued him.  

Rescue first, lesson later.  That’s God’s pattern.  Generally, if not always, God leads, initiates, calls something into being, invites, appears, reveals, or rescues before making any requests or demands or commands.  

No problem finding other stories like this in the Bible - Adam, Abraham, Job, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Jonah, and on into Jesus’ time with Peter, Zacchaeus, and Paul.  Invariably, God establishes himself with whoever he draws into his story before he makes his “requirements” known - to honor, respect and acknowledge him.

Too often we anchor faith on what we do while the key to faith is what God does before he asks us to do anything.  Painstakingly, patiently God is showing me how my doing is actually responding to him, his presence, what he has done for me - drawing, restoring, redeeming.

At the board meeting, fellow Elders offered several thoughts about how walking the often rough waters of life while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus plays out practically. Someone offered that  Jesus often counsels us to relax, be quick to repent, and to not be so hard on ourselves.  Didn’t he also readily acknowledge that we would have trouble in this life but to take heart because he has overcome the world?  (see Matthew 11: 28-30; John 3:17 and 16:33)

For the balance of Lent, I’m taking Peter’s lead, following him out of the boat, challenging myself to do better in the next 20 days before Easter. Not so much to satisfy a Lenten duty or requirement for holy living or prove anything to myself but in response to what the Lord has done for me and to honor who he is.

I’m not planning to falter but if I do, I am assured that Jesus’ hand will be there to rescue me.

Back to even

               Hanley Lake sunrise - back to even

Just after punching in at the hardware store, my boss beckoned me over for a “Key Academy” refresher lesson.  “Customers returned ten of your keys for re-dos,” he explained.

In nearly six months working there, I’ve cut a lot of keys and thought I was doing well. Although he was not the least critical but patient in reviewing key-cutting basics with me, I felt a little down about it. As I headed out to the sales floor, I prayed briefly along the line of James 1:4 “Let perseverance finish its work….” (NIV)

Back to even

A family party conversation turns to praises for life and work achievements of siblings, children, grandchildren and people present.  “Someone” loves to use these work identity conversations to re-ignite my self-doubts. Hours later, unable to pull out of the sadness, I find a verse to remind me Whose I am.  “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they ("I") may have life and have it abundantly."  (John 10:10)

Back to even

With two other couples, Cindy and I help set up a room for a reception that weekend. After the work is done, we hang out with these friends, three pairs of catching-up conversations. My conversation with Robin about writing and life and how God’s leading is so real and refreshing.

Back to even

Two responses to two inquiries about how and what I’m doing now that I want to re-do. Despite having pre-thought and even written draft responses, I answered weakly both times. All I can do now is pray. “Lord, transform my feeble words into a life-giving word by the power of your Holy Spirit" (Romans 8:26, ESV)

Back to even

At the reception, I reconnect with Susan and learn about her own career search. “Difficult,” she admitted but she just found something new after a year of little promise. Then she recounted times in the new job when she appealed God to show up to overcome a seeming dead-end - and how he always did.

Back to even

Disclosing my struggles and faltering with the guys at Saturday morning prayer lead to reflecting about the kind of joy Jesus had in mind to endure the cross so we would not grow weary and lose heart. (See Hebrews 12:1-3, ESV)

Back to even

Judges 2 covers Joshua’s death and foresees the next phase of Israel’s shaky history with God. Here in the “promised land” that God delivered to them, Israel will initially honor him and prosper.  Then gradually they forget his redemptive role. Cozying up with their neighbors, they set God aside who let them drift into deep trouble.

At their bottom is where they “remember” God and beg for rescue. The only reason God ever gives for why he listens is simply to assert who he is, “I AM.”  He raises a rescuer (judge) who delivers them.  And then Israel repeats their weary cycle.

Judges 2 is a snapshot of the entire Old Testament and also of my life as a one who claims to also believe and follow God. A casual reader might wonder why a story like Israel’s or mine would be written or read. For that matter, who would write such a story?

Knowing that God would write such a story and did makes me smile.  What first appears as a miserably repeating cycle of human failure is really God’s own story as he tells it, as Creator and Redeemer.

Only by the grace of the most gracious Author of life am I in the story at all. "You did not choose me, but I chose you..." (John 15:16a, NIV)

Back to even

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Notes:

A great post along this line: God, Are You Enough? - Melissa Taylor, 5/31/2013

I abide, God provides

Firewood yield from unexpected tree-trimmer visit

I just happened to be home when a company contracted by our electricity provider pulled up to trim trees growing under electrical wires running along the back of our property.

“Would you mind leaving larger hardwood branches behind for our firewood?” I asked one of the crew members.

And just like that, my dwindling firewood reserve was replenished!  Several large branches trimmed from two large trees in ours and our neighbor’s yards produced two-plus face cords of hardwood.  Like ‘wood manna’ from above!

The sense of God providing rose in me as I marveled at the daring worker climbing high into the branches of our towering silver maple. After strategically fastening ropes to secure his safety harness, he tied off one of the large branches for safe cutting and transport to the ground with help from his crew below.

We burn wood for enjoyment, so God’s provision in this case was more along the line of fulfilling a desire of my heart.  (See Psalm 37:4, NASB).  Nevertheless, a caption popped into my mind for this moment, “I abide, God provides.”

Abide, as from John 15 where Jesus tapped into the agricultural mindset of his followers to paint a picture of how God’s kingdom operates.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4, NASB)

A few sentences later, Jesus describes the destiny of cut off, no longer abiding branches - thrown aside to dry, be gathered and burned.  Except here I will gleefully re-purpose these dead branches for fire fuel to warm our home on a winter evening in the future.

No feature of creation is beyond the reach of our all-providing God, even death.  A fire’s ashes rejoin earth’s humus to spawn new plants and trees.  Jesus restored Lazarus to life after four days in the tomb and shortly after Jesus shared his abide principle, his own death would achieve the ultimate, providing event of all time - restored relationship with God!

Note the order and roles.  1) I abide. 2) God provides.

In 2011, I themed a Christmas ornament with this same “abide” message.  God has since worked abiding into my life. After drawing me through a season of waiting and learning to trust more in him, a “next phase” opened where I saw possibilities in developments I never would have considered before. I am still in that phase now, more accepting, even appreciative that the ways forward don’t often unfold as I plan or envision.

Linking my abiding with God providing also presumes that failing to abide dims my sense of God’s nearness.  “Abide-failure” tends to cause pride and urgency toward self-preservation to rear up in me. Counseled Jesus, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33, NIV)

“These things” include anything we ask God to provide. (See Matthew 6: 28-32, NIV).

Seeking and abiding is not standing still.  God’s first work for humanity was to tend creation as his image-bearers.  Working, serving and tending is often where God shows us new possibilities.

In God’s provision is also a caution not to allow our abide to descend to pride, especially when life is going well.  Unless I’m missing something, the Bible only sparsely connects our efforts with God’s provision.  More frequent is how poorly most of us handle bounty.

Abide elevates our thankfulness to the Lord whereas pride turns us inward, attributing provision more to our own efforts, intelligence, entitlement and ingenuity than to God’s shaping of situations that yield benefit for us.  Think about some of your greatest achievements and honestly consider how much you can truly attribute to yourself after discounting for other contributing factors over which you had little or no control.

Honestly acknowledging our lack of control over most of life can sink us to anxiety or draw us to giving Jesus’ abide invitation a try.  Abiding prepares us to recognize and give thanks when the “Provide” trucks arrive unexpectedly to replenish our firewood reserve!

Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good. His faithful love continues forever. (Psalm 136:1, NIRV)

See: 2011 "Abide in me" ornament

Witness against yourself?

Something about my manner caused a new co-worker to suspect I was a believer. After determining that I was, he explained mentioning to his wife after his first day at work, “There’s something about Glenn that makes me think he’s a believer.”

While I’m certainly not guarded with people about my Christian faith, I also don’t feel lead to advertise I follow Christ.  Still, when my co-worker asked if I was “saved,” I responded without hesitation.

“Yes indeed, a sinner saved by grace,” I answered, offering my hand.

“Amen brother,” he replied as we warmly shook hands.

To be known as a Christian can be both affirming and sobering – affirming when our manner honors our Lord but when our conduct or attitude falls short of how a Christian is “supposed” to be, our faith claim essentially witnesses against us.

Near the end of the book of Joshua, the people of Israel tried to convince Joshua they will carry on fine after he was gone.  During his farewell speech, Joshua recounted how God made good to the people of Israel by bringing them to the land he promised to give them.  Then Joshua reminded everyone that God would not tolerate any unfaithfulness.  While the people insisted they would remain faithful to God, Joshua answered,

““You are not able to serve the Lord,” he cautioned. “He is a holy God; he is a jealous God….If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will … bring disaster on you…” ”

— Joshua 24:19, NIV

Joshua had good reason to doubt his fellow Israelites.  After all, he was one of only two of those rescued from Egypt allowed to enter the promised land. All the rest of his contemporaries, except Caleb, died in the desert because they doubted the Lord.  Joshua’s audience now were the doubters’ children who insisted they would succeed where their parents failed.  Unconvinced, Joshua warned,

““You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.’” ”

— Joshua 24:22, NIV

Did he really say they were ‘witnesses against themselves?’ Doesn’t the Lord want his people to openly proclaim allegiance to him?

If we walk our talk, then yes.  But we tend to fall short.  O.K. we always fall short.

Of course God knows that Israel will mess up even though he is pulling for them not to. Since we read this story as history, we too know they failed, lost the promised land and were carried into exile by their enemies.

Fortunately, God’s plan wasn’t dependent on his chosen people holding up their end.  Back up a few sentences and note that Joshua’s prefaces the warnings part of his message by recounting what the Lord has already done for Israel in spite of their mess-ups!

“Speaking through Moses, God notes, “I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.” ”

— Joshua 24:13, NIV

Get that Israel received a promised land not of their own making not because they were good, but because God was.  Same with us.  Just as God gave his committed, though faltering, chosen people cities they didn’t build and food they didn’t grow, he can and does make things happen in our lives that are in no way attributed to our own efforts.  Why? Because he has a plan for people who follow him as their Lord that somehow works out for their (our) good AND his glory.

Our pledge of allegiance to the Lord may, on one hand, be a witness against when we falter in our faith despite that we intend to be faithful.  But because we are aligned with the only One able to make all our wrongs right, God’s plan works out for us. (See Romans 8:28)

While claiming to belong to the Lord puts us at risk of essentially witnessing against ourselves, in our faltering and dealing with repercussions failure often involves, we often reset with God who restores us and urges us to resume the work he has for us to do.

Seems a little backward, right? Welcome to the Kingdom of God.

Amazing how God has all this figured out down to the most intricate detail.  Do we really matter to him THAT MUCH?

May I Never Tire of This

My morning spot at Laura's place

Here I am again.  A new morning, pre-dawn, hot cup of coffee, journal, Bible, laptop…

This morning finds me in a guest spot specifically set up by our daughter, Laura at her house for me –  because I do this.  Because I’ve being doing this for years and years and everyone I know knows I do this, especially anyone who has ever put me up for a night.

May I never tire of it.

This morning I pray for Laura and her husband Michael along the line of these verses I selected for them….

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God. (Psalm 92: 12-13, NIV)

Later we will visit a church they want to check out.  I pray they find a “house of the Lord” to root into, belong to, flourish with. Perhaps a family church like Grace Chapel where Cindy and I belong and where Laura particularly synced with the Lord during middle school where dear friends Tony and Heidi Cece lead “Breakaway,” our middle-school ministry then?

Cindy and I are still firmly rooted there, like a palm tree, like the cedars of Lebanon. May we never tire of Grace Chapel. Sundays there are the high point of every week along with other Grace Chapel moments between Sundays.

I flipped back through my journal to revisit what the Lord spoke to me about last week. God always has a lot to say and this week, I captured several thoughts in my journal…..

• Friday – An impression I drew from God’s declaration about Israel in Isaiah 22:14, “Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,” after which I jotted, “then Jesus came and did it.”
• Thursday – Notes that fed into a message to a Facebook friend about a quote he shared from Bruce Springsteen’s new autobiography, Born to Run.  While Springsteen credits family, faith, work and being Italian as under-girding his life and work, he’s a self-avowed agnostic so maybe faith isn’t so much a factor even though God’s grace is essential for him or any of us to endure and triumph. However, when God gets no credit, personal toil and dogged determination takes most of the bows.
• Wednesday – “Everyone Invited” is how I titled notes for 1 Timothy 4:10 “we put our hope in the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe” – more layers for a thought theme developing in me.  I agree to the “all” but how does it fit with election? Lately I arrive at God sovereignly knowing how we choose. Return to this later.
• Tuesday – Notes from pastor Doug’s Sunday message from 1 John 2: 3-11 that I titled “Obedience/love litmus test.  I underlined “if you know, you show” than jotted James 2: 14-26 in the margin.  Well done, Doug.  Again.

Another week of listening and drawing near to God. May I never tire of this.

Road Report rose directly from the fertile soil of this field I pray I never tire of – intentional time each morning with the Lord.  Expressions I’ve shared out of this hour over the years – poems, prayers, ornaments, articles, essays, and letters prompted some recipients to encourage I try my hand at blogging.

Friends Todd Waller and Dan Rose set me up and I launched in April 2012 with more than a little trepidation about whether I could consistently generate content.  Turns out content isn’t a problem but finding time to write and then getting myself out there is.

I’ve continuously written something somewhere since I was 15.  Although I have shared some writing and other creative work over the years, Road Report is the first attempt to put ideas out that are accessible to anyone.  Even so, faithful readers are few so Road Report is presently more like playing guitar in a room with the door open.  Visitors are welcome but most don’t stop by for a listen.

Faithful Road Report followers, thanks for looking in each week.  For now, it’s just us few and the Lord, a kind of message practice perhaps?

     I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning. (Psalm 130:6, NIV)

May I never tire of this.

Dual Citizenship Dilemma?

Image source: Preacher Study Blog

Despite that I devote little attention to news and political matters, I’ve ventured into a few social media exchanges during the just-concluded presidential campaign and since President Trump took office. I’ve also deleted or edited some comments here and there that didn’t feel right later on.

Immigration is one of those issues on everyone’s radar.  For all the problems in America, plenty of people desire to live in the freedom that United States citizenship affords.

Freedom of speech may be one of the most valued freedom American citizens enjoy.  While America allows expression with minimal risk of repercussion, freedom of speech can easily get us into serious trouble with anyone in the range of our voice especially when our speaking platform is social media.

As someone who writes into this media, I know firsthand that some of the views expressed here have riled up a few people.  My intention with Road Report is draw from personal experiences to share what I hear God is saying in and through me.

I am grateful to be able to share my perspective this way thanks to the freedom afforded me as a citizen of the United States of America. However, by drawing God into the center of these messages, my citizenship in his kingdom is also very much in play.  Lately I notice more contention between these kingdoms of my dual citizenship.

Perhaps the dilemma is due to that the manner and conduct of the kingdom of God is often not in concert with the manner and conduct of the kingdom of America that is part of the greater kingdom of the world. Read Jesus’ beatitudes to see how people of God’s kingdom are.

Besides the beatitudes, the Bible has much to say about this dual citizenship believers in God and Christ.  Here’s how St. Peter frames this dilemma believers face:

“Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. ”

— 1 Peter 2: 11, NLT

Jesus claimed to be king of a kingdom not of this world. (see John 18:36, NIV).  People gain citizenship in the kingdom of God when they are “born again” – adopted into a new family and citizenship that is ruled by God.

It sounds simple enough but unlike towns and neighborhoods where we live out our mortal lives, God’s kingdom is invisible and we Christians have no visual features or language that readily identifies us as “temporary residents and foreigners.” So how should Christians approach this dual citizenship?

Peter continues with some practical guidance: Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. (1 Peter 2: 11b-12, NLT)

1. keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very soul (v11b)
2. live properly among unbelieving neighbors (v12a)
3. behavior honorably (v12b)
4. don’t judge (v12c)

The big question regards whether our citizenship in God’s kingdom is as noticeable as (say) an immigrant’s native accent reflects his/her Spanish-ness or Middle Eastern-ness or Asian-ness? What should an accent resonating the kingdom of God sound like?

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Notes

1. Referring to believers as “temporary residents” is noted elsewhere in Scripture (such as Genesis 23:4, Leviticus 25:23, Philippians 3:20 and Hebrews 11:13).  (Biblegateway link in NIV)
2. What does ‘Born Again Christian’ mean?

When All the Saying is Said – Cling

(Reviewing Road Reports archives, I came across this post of 8/13/2013. Three-plus years later, it still hits the spot so share it again along with a few tweaks learned since then…)

        "Forgiven" by Thomas Blackshear

We were in our 30’s when some of the guys in our family started an annual“Boys” winter weekend in northern Michigan. Now the oldest of us are in our 60’s.  

During those weekends when we were younger, we imagined what the years we are now living might look like, something like:

• careers on cruise control
• money for retirement
• children grown and on their way
• plans for our senior years nearly complete

Things didn’t play out like that for me. As I was turning in my mid-50’s toward a last push of accumulating for retirement, my life ship hit an iceberg.  I didn’t sink but a lot of our cargo jettisoned into the cold, dark waters called “Detour! Change of plans.”  As I tread water to keep my face on the air side, my faith in Christ became a lifesaver.  A Bible story that resonated with me was Job.

The premise of the story is disturbing – a debate between Satan and God that turns into a bet, like roulette.  After God singles Job out as a righteous man, Satan protests that Job’s faithfulness is all due to the favor God has bestowed on him – prosperity, health, family, and status.

Retorted Satan, ”But (if you) reach out and take away everything he has, he will surely curse you to your face!” (Job 1:11, NLT)

So God permits Satan to stack the deck against Job by devastating his livelihood, family and health.  Then God puts all his chips on Job and spins the wheel.

The rest of the story is a series of monologues by Job reacting to his plight and by three of his friends who weighed in with their own views about Job’s situation.

Some friends, right?  They lead off well with comfort and empathy but soon get frustrated as Job’s situation drags on.  Their monologues bounce between offering hollow answers and blaming Job for bringing this plight upon himself.

In my early readings of Job, I used to camp on Job’s speeches more than of his friends. Knowing how God favored Job at the beginning of the story, I surmised that Job’s discourse would be the most right on. Also, I KNEW the other guys’ reasoning about what caused Job’s plight was off.  

Now I realize Job didn’t have the corner on wise speak. In each man’s reasoning is shades of truth, speculation and error.  In these discourses I was reminded that we all sin, all fall short and that none of us can make much sense of life sometimes.  

Although God attributed righteousness to Job, his friends also followed God even though their judgment about Job’s plight were completely off base.  In the end, they each admitted their error by dutifully paying the penance God demanded of them.  

I see my own story in Job’s.  A detour interrupted my plan and as I dealt with it, I groped for answers that don’t exist.  In Job’s story, we see a victim dealing with trial while he and his friends conjecture about what happened..

When all the saying is said, Job clings to God so God wins the wager but Job also recovers to a new normal. Best of all, Job’s relationship with and awe of God moves to a more enlightened and practical place.

Clearly Job’s “rightness” with God is more about God than Job.  Because God had Job, Job had God. Don’t you love the end of the story when Job realized he only needed God, not God’s answers?

““I had only heard about you before,
but now I have seen you with my own eyes.
I take back everything I said,
and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” ”

— Job 42:5-6, NLT

Trial has a way of helping us to really “see” the God we only heard about before, and to truly get that God is always for us and never against us.  When we respond by aligning with God, we win and the next detour is a little easier to navigate.

Job’s story illustrates this principle well.  I hope my story does that too.

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Here’s a good book offering insights from the experiences of the prophet Elijah: “I didn’t sign up for this” by Aaron Sharp

Messianic Merchandiser

Section 4 of 16 at Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, MI

Even though we generally take Christmas down on New Year’s day, I am often reluctant to leave the  Christmas mode.  This year, we decided to extend Christmas with an outing to Bronner’s Christmas store in Frankenmuth, Michigan during the week between Christmas and New Years.

Established by Wally Bronner in 1945, Bronner’s is ayear-round Christmas store.  An American success story, Bronner started modestly than steadily grew to a mega-successful enterprise touted as the world’s largest Christmas store, drawing over 2 million visitors annually to the Frankenmuth area.

Bronner’s opened its current 320,000 square foot store in 1977

Our primary intent was to enjoy a Christmas outing together but I was also on the lookout for an angel figurine for our outside Christmas decorations. My inspiration is two grapevine angel figures that are part of our church’s Christmas display.  My idea is to buy or make a similar angel and wrap it with lights to herald the Savior during both day and night-time.

Angels like this at Grace Chapel Church

Not only does Bronner’s offer an extensive array of Christmas merchandise, it also designs and manufactures Christmas materials, displays and ornaments. As a Christmas ornament-hobbyist, I am particularly drawn to Christmas ornaments in general and gospel-themed ornaments in particular.

Notably Wally Bronner, a devout believer in Christ, pulled off a merchandising miracle to achieve mega commercial success with Bronner’s while also keeping Christ front and center in his prolific advertising and throughout the store itself.  Greeting visitors near each store entrance is a prominent wall sign picturing Santa Claus kneeling at Jesus’ manger captioned with the “at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow” Philippians 2:10.

Wall sign near Bronner’s entrance

While Bronner’s commitment to the Lord inspires, his commercial success is most due to keying on customer’s desires for celebrating Christmas.  Christmas today is most about what each celebrating family decides to make Christmas most about.  

Credit Bronner for zeroing so effectively on the “most abouts” of its vast customer base. Shoppers with no interest whatsoever in the messianic “back story” of Christmas can find everything they need at Bronner’s.  Truly, the business of Christmas can flourish apart from the greater mission the holiday’s namesake came to planet earth to share and do.

While for Wally Bronner, Christmas is most about his Savior, he fashioned a Christmas business that also catered to people preferring a Christmas without Christ.  Not only did he seem O.K. with doing that but he achieved significant commercial success that way.  While Bronner’s both/and approach may seem like a watering down of his faith, I offer him as an exemplary “Messianic Merchandiser.”

I never met the man but its clear to me he viewed Christmas and Christ as inseparable. To promote Christmas in any way is to also promote Christ.  Note the company’s signage and motto since 1977, “BRONNER’S CHRISTmas WONDERLAND.”

His company name merely capitalizes on “Christ” comprising the first six letters of the word, “Christmas.” A coincidence or something else?

Bronner’s brand and motto since 1977

After 63 years at his company’s helm during which he became fondly known as “Mr. Christmas,” Wally Bronner handed the business off to his son Wayne in 1998.  He remained chairman of the company’s board of directors until his death in 2008 at age 81.

I found a few angel candidates at Bronner’s but the ones I liked most were a bit over my budget. I was only mildly surprised to also not find much merchandise with what I would call a “gospel-theme” regarding Jesus’ underlying mission to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10).  “Religious-themed” decorations were generally creche scenes, stars, angels, some bulbs with Bible verses, and a sprinkling of crosses and country church figures.

I did however find something very valuable at Bronner’s – inspiration for living out the gospel in any manner that can draw unbelieving people near to me and other believers. While Christians, like Christmas itself, may not always act or seem Christlike, we and our Savior are in fact inseparable (See Romans 8:38-39).  By virtue of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, others in our vicinity are susceptible to being exposed to Christ and his life-restoring gospel.

I am no Wally Bronner but his Christlikeness can be an example for me in this new year as I give myself over to the Spirit at work in me in the hope that someone near me may “catch” some of God’s goodness from me.

Notes: History of Bronner’s; Bronner’s store directory