Bringing Faith to Life
Archive for December, 2015
Use it or Lose It, It’s Biblical!
09 years
Use it or lose it! We didn’t invent the phrase. It’s been around for generations, maybe for millenia.
My Grandfather, though I never knew him to lift a weight or go for a jog, applies the adage to a quite familiar, but hard to swallow, parable which concludes…
I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence. (Luke 19:26-27)
This is Luke’s version of the parable of the talents. A nobleman (who is disliked) has gone away to gain a Kingship, leaving his slaves to trade with the ten pounds he’s provided during his absence. Upon his return he finds that some have made more with their pound. To them, he gives more. Some have made a bit less, so they get less. But at least one poor timid soul has hidden the pound away. He gets his reward, and it’s ugly.
“Struggle with it as we will,” Dr. Rilling offers, “Jesus here states a law of life that is as unbreakable as the law of gravity: “Use it or lose it!” There is no third possibility.”
I’m even hearing echos of Yoda: ‘Do or don’t do. There is no try.’
But wait a minute! Let’s not be so hasty and rush to the what we’ll get if we squander a bit here and there part. Surely, at the end of the day, all will be forgiven and the Master will relent and pay everyone the same. But no. Use it or lose it, apparently, applied even back then.
And this, I’ll admit, rings very true with my experience now. We use our muscles or they atrophy; we use our brain cells or they self-select away; we use our gifts or they rust. The human condition itself speaks ‘use it or lose it.’
Thus, for our good, the Father says, “This that I press into the palm of your hand is meant to be used. No need to compare with others because what I have given them is meant for them. This is for you. Go and be fruitful with it.
When I come back, you can tell me all about your exploits. Just you and me, a little Daddy-daughter time. Okay?”
So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
(Isaiah 55:11)
One little thing stands in your way
09 years
Really, again?
When Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” what Peter really wanted to know was not how long he ought to keep forgiving, but how soon he could stop forgiving!*
Jesus, of course, knowing what Peter is up to, comes in with the high bid: seventy times seven. In other words, keep at it until I tell you to stop.
What if the one we’re tired of forgiving is ourselves? We try and we fail. We up our efforts and still fall short. We rededicate ourselves, plan for success, rearrange our schedules, purchase all the ingredients, engage all the helpers, invest in the best equipment and still…we fall flat on our faces. What then?
Jesus says, “Forgive yourself, again, just as I have forgiven you, again and again.”
Because He knows something we don’t know; the road we’re on is the one he’s paving. It’s not about making the right turn, following the map, or allowing for traffic. It’s not even about where the road leads. It’s about making forward progress. And nothing halts progress faster than looking around to see if anyone just saw that.
We didn’t. And if you still do, Jesus says, forgive yourself that. And while you’re at it, forgive others theirs. Expand the circumference of your forgiveness and see how far that takes you. But start with your own. And stop counting how many you’re up to. God’s not. Seventy times seven means always and forever.
Clean slate. Nothing holding you back. You got this.
I’m there if you need me
19 years
Even the least of us must do our part…
How often do you run into an Einstein, Beethoven or Karl Barth? Someone has said such people are like four-leaf clovers, but what really keeps the pastures green, the cows fed, and the bees happy is the vastly more numerous ordinary, run-of-the-mill, three-leaf variety.*
I’ve got my “skill set,” but no one would tell me I’m gonna be one of the greats. Not gonna cure cancer, not gonna save the children, not gonna win the Nobel prize, walk the red carpet, or sit at the head table. No, I’m more of a background color, the beige to your bronze, the pale pink to your magenta, the salmon to your cherry red.
I’m what makes you stand out, what fills you up, what grounds your lift off. I’m there if you need me. That’s what I was made for.
I’m nothing by myself, but together, we’re everything.
Keeping Christmas Real
1What if Christmas isn’t the “most wonderful time of the year”?
A Charlie Brown Christmas Tree
What if it’s lonely?
I’m sick,
I’m lost
It’s terminal?
What if I’m missing someone?
She’s gone away,
He’s gone to heaven
They’ve passed to I don’t know where?
What if it’s smothering?
They don’t understand
Won’t accept me back
This is as good as it’s ever gonna get?
What if I’m waiting?
I’m drumming,
I’m pacing
It’s not looking good?
Christmas isn’t wonderful then.
Not like they promised
Not like they sing
Not like the song says
Let NOT the bells ring.
Christmas is not wonderful.
But Christ still is.
Born again in us, this day.
The spirit of life,
That overcomes sickness,
finds us in our losing,
breathes life into our suffocation,
understands, accepts, keeps,
and never leaves.
Even when Christmas is not wonderful,
It’s essential.
Not what we want,
but what we so dearly,
dearly, need.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Getting it Straight from the Source
0We live in a world where new and improved is always better than old and decrepit. Of course. New has the benefit of advanced methods, complete research, and dedicated study applied liberally over all that has come before it. Old, well that was just a starting point. Those were the blocks we stood in to give us leverage when the race began.
One of the things that new has ushered in is statistical…accuracy. We can fact check, provide proof, cite our sources, justify our positions. We can qualify, and oh boy, can we quantify! We know exactly how many people would vote thus and so, believe this and that, trust him or her. We know. We are new and improved people. We are reasonable.
So, it’s a bit alarming to read in the morning paper that “Recent polls show that 29 percent of Americans and nearly 45 percent of Republicans say he (President Obama) is a Muslim.”
How do we say this? We tell a pollster who reports it, I guess. Do we know this when we say it? Have we asked Mr. Obama about his faith? Have we read deeply concerning his opinions, positions, actions and responses? This would seem reasonable before we say anything.
What we report in the media is, perhaps, what we believe to be true. Given what we think we know, this is what we conclude. Perhaps those numbers reflect what people believe about President Obama, but that doesn’t make it so. (The article actually goes on to debunk this belief.) Just because we think it, doesn’t make it so. Any more than thinking I am President makes that so.
If we think we can do make something true, right, happen, reasonable, or real, just because we think it, we are mistaken. That isn’t ours; that’s God’s. God thinking something actually does make it so. When we think something, we move in its direction, but we’d do well not to presume that our thinking it actuates it. That would presume we are God, which has very grave consequences, indeed.
Fleming Rutledge, an Episcopal preacher that a friend has me reading, writes concerning what she calls the battle of the billboards. “Upon entering the Lincoln Tunnel you stare at a billboard showing a Nativity scene and the words ‘You know it’s a myth.’ When you come out of the tunnel you see a billboard with a Nativity scene and the words ‘You know it’s real.'”
She goes on, “The atheist billboard says, “This season, celebrate reason.” I revere reason as much as the atheists do—up to a point. But what faith knows is that although reason is a gift, it is not a god. Reason cannot explain everything. Certainly it cannot explain the purposes and promises of God.”
Our believing, remembering, repeating or tallying does not make something so. But setting our minds on the things of God may bring them nearer.
“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil 4:8)
When God remembers His mercy, He is not calling it again to mind. He is taking action on our behalf. As Rutledge puts it, “God’s mercy is not static. It goes forth from God as a promise already becoming a reality.”
We can pray to be like-minded. That’s as old and original as it gets.
It’s a Wonder We Ever Forgive
09 years
Why are we not more grateful? That’s the million dollar question, or actually the $140 million question (adjusted for inflation) posed to us in the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, who, once he’s been forgiven his huge debt, refuses to extend the same kindness to his own debtor.
Why does this central message of the New Testament not evoke a greater response in our hearts? When we’ve been forgiven such a great debt, why are we so stingy in releasing our debtors? Dr. Rilling wonders, “Can it be that we treat forgiveness so lightly because we fail to see that forgiveness is costly – even for God Himself?”
Do I really believe that? What does it cost God to forgive me? I mean, He’s God. God’s loaded, right? What’s a few million? I’m worth it. He’ll never miss it.
But wait. This isn’t just a business write-off. When God forgives, he doesn’t just take up his heavenly pen and X-out that obligation. He can’t. He’s God. There are rules, checks and balances. He’s full of Mercy AND Justice. Keeping the books straight demands that He assume the debt Himself. Whoa. I’m not sure I ever fully considered this.
Redeemed is redeemed. I may be debt free but not exactly scot free. God doesn’t want to leave me with an obligation I can’t possibly re-pay, so He has assumed my debt. How great is that?! He doesn’t hold it against me, doesn’t bring it up on the balance sheet, doesn’t wave it in my face and say, “You know, since I …” Nope. None of that.
And pretty soon, that big old debt is teency weency in my rear view mirror as I speed away. Not a care in the world out on the open road. And that’s exactly the way God wants it, so I am free to pay it forward. And there’s the rub. Because, while doing something nice for someone – when it’s convenient and I think of it and I have the resources and spare time – is pretty darn easy, forgiving someone for a BIG wrong can be nearly impossible. How can God possibly expect that from little old me?
BIG wrongs set aright makes me think of Eva. She and I became writing friends several years ago, meeting at a local coffee shop where we traded stories about life and kids and work and worries. Over time I learned that Eva was in the midst of a terrible, true story. For years she had suffered domestic abuse as I had never heard it described. Beatings and things thrown at her, emotional lashings and mental attacks. Immobilized by fear, she had endured the torment for years. Until one day, she took the kids and ran for dear life. Here, with new names in a new state many miles from her torment, she prayed he wouldn’t find them.
Oh, how she had suffered. How God must have suffered with her. If anyone ever had the right to withhold forgiveness, it was Eva. She should demand that he acknowledge the pain he had caused, admit his fault, and make amends before she even considered an ounce of forgiveness. Yet, over time, she extended it to him without condition. Not because he deserved it, but because she did. Insisting he do the first forgiving left her at his mercy. She couldn’t have life that way. Once she released him, she was completely free to navigate her whole world differently.*
I am so thankful for Eva’s example. Today, she and her boys have moved back to her hometown and found a healthy life amid family and friends. She is living the grateful life, but it nearly cost her everything.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
While forgiveness-received is a blessing, forgiveness-delivered is freedom. It allows us to step into our God-designed future. Apparently, that’s worth everything to God.
*Eva and her children returned to their home town of Anchorage, Alaska where she established the Eva Foundation whose mission it is “to help survivors of abuse regain their self-confidence and independence and… to secure an abuse-free future for themselves and their loved ones.” Visit her website to read more.
**Author’s note of thanks. This post was approved, sight-unseen, by Eva Welch, who says “you can use my name anytime.” Ah, the sweet, sweet sound of Freedom. Thanks be to God.
Who’s Stealing Your Good Day?
09 years
“We must be prepared to have certain things done to us.”
Well, you don’t have to tell me that twice. Have you seen the way people drive around here? Cutting you off, swerving in and out of your lane, passing you on the right… And don’t get me started on the pushing and shoving at the mall. Christmas is coming, you know?
Oh, but the worst is that person who comes after you in the self check-out line and sends his purchases along the conveyor belt before you have packed your things up. And his stuff starts bump, bumping into your stuff. And you look up at said person, incredulous that he doesn’t notice what he’s doing, and he’s happily scanning away.
‘Put your bananas on the belt’…and so he does. Really? Can anyone be more annoying? But, it’s to be expected, right?
And for just such an occasion, Peter advises, “Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but, on the contrary, bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain (inherit) a blessing.” (I Peter 3:9)
Be prepared … so that what I do next does not disqualify me from the family inheritance. It’s not that I don’t have a right to be annoyed by self-checker, or drive-and-texter, or Humbug-hurrier, it’s that Love must look different from the rest of the world. On all these occasions.
Honestly, most Christians I know are generous. They volunteer their time, donate their money, serve the needy, feed the poor and hungry. Some even travel to far away places where poverty is great and resources are few to build churches and schools. These people are amazing.
But, I also know people who would not call themselves Christians but are exceedingly generous just the same. They donate their money. They volunteer time and resources. They give to the less fortunate and they may even travel long distances to do it. I am amazed by these people, perhaps even more amazed than I am by the Christians, because Christians have marching orders; these folks are just doing what’s right.
So what’s the difference, if good is getting done? Perhaps it is this very self checkout thing. Christ calls us to act differently from the world, especially when we are wronged. When we have something done to us, an injury or ailment befalls us, or we are the victim of unfairness or prejudice, we are prepared. We don’t return evil for evil.
But wait. No one in their right mind would just let that guy’s groceries barrel into hers without giving him a piece of her mind! I mean, he needs to know better so that he doesn’t do it to someone else. Or maybe I’ll teach him a lesson and put his granola bars into MY bag. Or casually smash the incoming eggs with my hefty orange juice. Ah, this could get ugly.
And that’s the thing. When we are unprepared, ugly wins. And I don’t mean his ugly: I mean my ugly. I can defeat that foe only when I recognize it before it’s unleashed and send it away. If I want to have a good day, I need to be prepared, for people and occasions like this.
Not just grin and bear it so it has a happy ending. Not just grit my teeth so I can “earn” that blessing I “deserve” because I showed amazing restraint. No, I can adopt a frame of mind that will address the problem calmly and satisfactorily, solely because I haven’t let ugly take it from me.
Hey – did you know that there is a plastic bar folded to the side of the conveyor belt that you can extend in order to separate your order from that guy’s behind you? Me neither, until, after grinning and gritting, I got so irritated I went to complain to the manager.
It’s not my job to teach that guy a lesson, but I don’t need to let him steal my good day today. Tomorrow, of course, is another day.
When Words Undo Us, Silence Speaks
19 years
“To have a good day, one must be willing not only to do things, but to let other things go undone.”
During our ramp up to the holidays that’s an oft used expression. Don’t DO so much. When opportunities become obligations, our energy is sapped and the glow goes right out of the season. Simplify, we say. Moderate, we admonish. Let it go, we advise.
Usually we are talking about keeping the house clean or decorating every last inch, making another batch of cookies or planning that over-the-top celebration for the kindergarten party.
But Dr. Rilling is not talking decorating or cookies. In fact, I am pretty sure he never had a hand in either. He’s talking silence. Let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile. “God’s greatest works are done in silence. So, often, are man’s.”
Why do I feel the need to speak, email, emote, evoke, criticize, chastise and rebuke what’s going on around me? Could I do more in silence? If I withheld my comment and sat with my thoughts for a moment, could I be better? If I took a deep breath and counted the 10 commandments, would the importance of what I was waiting to say have been said? If, in the silence, I prayed that prayer that Jesus taught us, ‘lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’, would I have answered my own prayer?
Today, as I write, I am nothing. I have nothing to show for a lifetime of study, several degrees, accolades, certificates and even a published book. But I am something. The something I am is a source of encouragement, the voice of hope, the means to move forward, and the place of connection. What I am is the sum total of all I have been, and then some. The ‘then some’ is more than I’ll ever be, and yet it is somehow there. Completely invisible and yet surely completed along the way.
Silence is golden, they used to say. Today, thanks to inflation (and the whole supply and demand thing) it might have gone platinum.
If I had a CD that played nothing but silence, would I listen?
If I did, what would I hear?
Two forces are at work in the world
09 years
“If we are to have a good day, there are certain things that we must do as Christians, and certain things that we must be content to leave undone. Further, there are certain things that we must be prepared to have done to us just because we are Christians.
Our text opens with a kind of five-pronged reminder of things we must do if we are to have a good day, and the five fingers grow out of the hand of constructiveness. Listen to Peter, “…have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind.” (I Peter 3:8)
Two forces are at work in the world; the centrifugal, which tends to alienate, to separate, to drive apart; and the centripetal, that which binds together, creates fellowship. Is there any doubt which is the Christian force?
Listen to our Lord in his high-priestly prayer praying, “…that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.” (John 17: 21, 23)
It is the will of God that there be perfect unity on Earth. There is no better time than the present to work for it.”
JWR’s text, pg 2-3.
***
As I live in a world increasingly divided, with voices and actions increasingly divisive, and with candidates for president of the United States sniping at each other via Twitter and Instagram, I find my Grandfather’s words prophetic.
There are two forces at work: centrifugal and centripetal. Can there be any doubt which is the Christian force?
photo credit to www.livescience.com
This is the day to have a good day
59 years
Have a Good Day. Such a hackneyed phrase we use upon parting, offered limply to someone we don’t know well. Why title your book this way?
Apparently because Dr. Rilling knew he had something to say in the sermon he chose for the first chapter, its namesake (with added exclamation!). But truth be told, it’s probably also why it took me so long to take this book off the shelf and open it up. Ah, so many Bibles out there, sitting on bookshelves waiting to be opened up. But then…
The chapter begins with a story featuring Eugenia, a character sketched by William Law, some two hundred years before Grandpa wrote (and preached). “Like most of us,” Law wrote, “Eugenia has a picture of herself not as she is, but as she is some day going to be.”
Someday Eugenia intends to be mistress of a considerable household where she will live in strict devotion, raise her children in practice of piety, and spend her time living in a very different manner from the rest of the world.
But, Law points out, though Eugenia may intend all this with sincerity, she is not yet head of a family, and perhaps never may be. But the person nearest her now, she leaves behind as she goes about her ‘faithful living.’ She doesn’t teach, invite or even get to know well, the woman in her service. Eugenia is not availing herself of the opportunity she has now to live in the manner she proposes, so how real are Eugenia’s intentions?
How like Eugenia we are, laments Dr. Rilling. How we intend to live differently when the conditions are more favorable, when that big deal comes through, when the economy improves, and if my circumstances permit it. And we all would be so much nicer people if the people we have to live with weren’t so difficult.
“We shall do nothing of the sort!” Dr. Rilling contends, preaching from First Peter.
He that would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile; let him turn away from evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it.” ~ I Peter 3:10-11.
“The time to do right is now. This is the day that the Lord has made. Every day is a little life; and our whole life is but a day repeated.”
From the distance of years this comes clear, it seems to me, especially to those who have done some misspending. I smile remembering the early morning sessions I worked in the cardiac rehab lab. There I met dozens of balding and grey-haired wonders who, recovering from surgery or a cardiac event or living in the face of severe cardiac disease, sought to turn back time. They changed their diets, adjusted their stressors and disciplined themselves to regular exercise. They were dedicated to making each day count.
I so wished my twenty- and thirty-year-old friends, who were stressed and sedentary in their days and practicing risky behaviors on the rebound could see my cardiac rehabbing friends.
These elders had started smoking because it was cool, well before we knew it caused cancer. They had three martini lunches because it made for more productive business meetings, before we knew it would send many into alcoholism and health compromise. They had fortified their Type A behavior, before we knew that stress had physical consequences. Now, these guys were doing all they could to turn back the clock, while the younger generation paid them no mind. They spent their days as they pleased, come what may.
Today, I think of a dear friend who has recently been diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. She has lead an exemplary life as wife, mother and grandmother. She has taken care of her health and cared for the health of others. She doesn’t deserve what has befallen her, and yet she endures.
And, remarkably, that endurance is a daily occurrence she is shaping into an all out sprint. Thanksgiving, gobble up every minute! Grand kids are over, hug ’em tight and saturate them with full-tilt fun! Sons and daughters-in-law visit, speak what can’t wait!
On visiting her, I am greeted at the front door by a hand-colored sign in green and red crayola: Merry Christmas! And so it is. Each day, completely full of itself. Exclamation point!
It is odd how our preponderance of days can make us spendthrifts and our limit of days can make us conscientious. Indeed from the vantage point of what-really-matters, my friend distances herself from what sucks the life out of the rest of us as she completely embraces the life that is truly life. Day, by everlasting day.
“He that would love life and see good days — this is the day,” Dr. Rilling concludes. “Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is only a vision, but today well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore to this day.
And have a good day today!”