Life in the New Year

I heard this somewhere and I think it is perfect for the beginning of a New Year: Life is not a series of problems to be solved but a series of mysteries to be unraveled!

As you look to this new coming year what do you see? Do you see problems ahead or do you see mysteries that are going to be revealed to you?

Obviously I am going to try to convince you that seeing the mysteries of life is the better option. All of us know people who only see problems. When they look to the future there is nothing but gloom and doom, more depression, more moping because all that is ahead is one problem after another.

I want to scream from the hilltops that you HAVE TO look at life as a mystery! I have a good friend who says to me (after his latest problem pops up) “I can’t wait to see what God has planned now because things sure aren’t going the way I want them to…” What a great attitude toward problem and setbacks! When a problem pops up can you say: “Whoa, God must be working on something in my life!” I pray that you can and will this year.

My overall theme for this year in my personal and professional life is “Get busy with God!” That means I must get busy loving people, I must get busy serving people, I must get busy learning more about my God and Savior, I must get busy showing my faith and my life as a GIFT from God, and I must look at my problems as a mystery that God is slowly revealing to me about myself and my life.

Some believe they can just sit back and let life happen to them. I don’t believe that is possible. In the immortal words of Stephen King through the mouth of Andy Dufraine in Shawshank Redemption “it all comes down to a choice really: get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’” THAT is our choice. We don’t have the choice of staying right where we are. You must get busy living or you WILL be getting busy dying. Your choice this New Year.

Never let this be on your tombstone: “He/She had potential.”

I pray this is on your tombstone: “He/She really LIVED!”

Get busy this new year and unravel all those mysteries!

Christmas Games

My best Christmas memories really have nothing to do with opening presents. I think most people, if they really think about it, would agree.

We spend thousands of dollars on gifts every year. We give people who cannot afford those thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts. Black Friday and Christmas sales fill our airwaves and newspapers; all of this to get us to spend thousands more. But what did all that money buy us?

We love to receive but we love more to give, which is part of the image of God in us. But that feeling has been lost in the expectation of gifts. When you EXPECT to receive something, is it truly a gift when given to you? Somewhere, somehow Christmas has switched from a time of “giving” to a time of fulfilling an “obligation”.

My best Christmas memories are of the family getting together and having fun. Usually this had nothing to do with the gifts, they were incidental. My best Christmas memories are from my mom buying the latest board game as a “family gift” and all of us sitting down around the table and playing it for hours. We played it WITH each other, we laughed, we competed, we learned, and we loved it. The rest of the gifts were nice, useful like socks and underwear but the best gift with the game and family time.

As my kids grew up there were many times we could not afford gifts. We would shop garage sales and thrift stores for gifts and sometimes we would simply make them. I would shop with the kids and give them ten $1 bills that they were to spend at the dollar store and buy gifts for their siblings, parents and grandparents with that. Sometimes we got an erasure and a pencil and thought it was the BEST THING EVER!

A few words of advice for this Christmas:

Spend more time than you spend money.

Buy gifts that will encourage family time (Board games, Dance and sing video games, etc.) and not pull away from family (headphones, etc.).

Make a BIG meal, meaning one that lasts a long time and not just a lot of food.

Christmas is a time to remember Christ coming on this earth but it was never a big holiday until the last hundred years. (Easter was the BIG one!) So give in a way that God gives: love, time, family, and sacrifice. Don’t give in the way the world gives: money, obligation, and expectation.

Have a Merry Christmas.

I Was Here

One of my issues with the museums around the world is that they don’t allow you to take pictures within them. Why don’t they?

Originally the flash was so intense that it would actually damage colors of paintings. But that excuse did not last too long especially with digital photography and flash-less capabilities. THEN the excuse for not letting you take pictures was that it would bother the other customers. THEN the excuse was a simple economic one, you could BUY photo books or postcards of all the things in the museum in the bookshop at the end of the tour. But, somehow, looking at a picture book is not as satisfying as looking at your own photos (AND forcing friends and family to look at all your photos!)

Why do we want to take the pictures ourselves when better ones are just a few clicks away on our computer?

I think the reason is that we want to be able to say: “I Was THERE!” A picture book doesn’t do that. Postcards don’t say anything about you being there. We take pictures to, hopefully, prolong the experience of being there. We take vacations and go places NOT to get the pictures but to get the experience. The experience is why we take pictures. When we look back at the pictures we can, in just a small way, experience the place again. We can say, “I was here.”

Capturing moments of an experience is what cameras are good at. Even more moments can be captured now that cameras have been included with phones and the concept of a “selfie” has become dictionary-a-tized (a word I just made up since “selfie” is now in the dictionary). “I was here!” “I existed in this time and in this place!”

If I were the curator of a famous museum I would take advantage of this trend. I would make taking a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa a trending topic on twitter or attempting to capture the smile of King Tut’s mask a hashtag. Sometimes magic happens. I call it the “money shot” where after a thousand of so-so pictures on my digital camera I take that PERFECT picture. Wouldn’t you, as the curator of the museum, LOVE to have that money shot on your website? Or in your latest coffee-table book? I would, so let us take pictures, let us take selfies, and let us spread the joy, the “I was here” moments. Let us live the experience again and again.

Recently I have seen some pictures of me preaching and teaching show up on Facebook. 

Interesting. I don’t know if it is because I am an old relic, or if I am a fascinating freak; either way I have no problem with it. You can take as many pictures of church as you want … easy on the flash though. Let’s see if someone can capture the Holy Spirit.

An Irritated Oyster

I felt the anger welling up in me the other day.

Normally I am a pretty calm and mild mannered guy. I have the kind of temperament where I need a few seconds to process internally before I speak. I don’t just say the first thing that comes to my mind … I usually say the 15^th thing that comes to my mind. 

Sometimes I opt to say nothing at all as I run through all the options.

Also, I am a forgetful kind of person. So anger with me is unusual because I tend to forget the heat of the moment and even what I was going to be angry about by the time I get done with the processing.

But I could feel the anger welling up in me the other day and I could not even explain why. There was no situation immediately confronting me that would have caused this anger. 

There was no call, email, or interaction of any kind. It was just random anger welling up that felt almost the same as that moment before you are going to be sick that you get that weird taste in your mouth. Anger was coming.

I took a walk. I thought, I analyzed, and I experienced one of my MOST CREATIVE moments of clear thinking I have ever had. So I researched anger to see what just happened.

What I found was that anger can be a motivating force when you RESPOND to it without REACTING to it. That means stepping back and analyzing it, and not just lashing out. Anger causes people to be more optimistic, no really; there are studies to prove this. The difference is that our reaction must be one of anger and not one of fear. Fear causes pessimism about the future, anger causes optimism about the future. Anger can also give you insight about yourself. You should understand yourself a little better every time you get angry. What did you learn about yourself the last time you go angry? There are some studies that say anger REDUCES violence. Not that seems counter-intuitive but most studies show that violence comes from fear, not anger. Unfortunately we have trouble discerning the difference in the heat of the moment and fear looks an awful lot like anger.

There is nothing wrong with anger. Jesus showed anger repeatedly. The question is what are you going to do with the anger when it presents itself? Will you turn it into a constructive clarity? Will you use it to change injustice? Will you use it to make your point forcefully?

As I walked off my anger a phrase kept coming into my mind from something I read somewhere: “A pearl is the result of an irritated oyster.”

Are you making pearls?

Facing your Thrasymachus

I know, I know, you don’t want to hear about philosophy again from me. I know you don’t really care what Plato’s Republic is all about and what Socrates said to this crazy Thrasymachus character. But journey with me just a little.

Have you ever been bullied in school? Or work? Or even at home?

The bully is Thrasymachus, in fact his name in Greek means “fierce fighter”.

But, according to Plato, Thrasymachus never grew out of his bullying ways. Plato says he made a philosophy about it; a philosophy that says simply “Might makes RIGHT!” Here is a quote from him “I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.” (338c)

Plato tells of the dialogue between Socrates and Thrasymachus. Socrates carefully dismantles his argument through his gentle questioning of his ideas yet even when backed into a corner he refused to change his way of thinking. No manner of logic, no manner of persuasion could get him to change. The insinuation is that even when he KNEW he was wrong he refused to change his position.

Have you ever had those kind of people in your life? Have you ever had to deal with someone who was, what I call, a “true believer” and no matter what the argument, logic, or evidence to the contrary they will never budge off their position. I have run into those kind of people in the political arena: Republican and Democrat AND Libertarian. I have run into those kind of people in the truck arena: Ford, Dodge, GM, or only Toyota. But I have never run into more “true believers” than in the religious arena.

What do you do with people who are “true believers” and refuse to listen to any evidence to the contrary?

In the Bible Paul gives them up to their beliefs and hands them over to “satan” (1 Cor. 5:5, 1 Tim. 1:20). That is really all you can do. Some people HAVE to hit bottom before they give up their wrong “beliefs” and stubbornness. Some never will. It is difficult, especially when they are members of your close circle of friends or family. It is even more difficult when they seek to “pollute the water” with their ideas and run over others simply because “might makes right”. If I say it longer, harder, and louder … it must be truer.

The best offense is a GREAT defense. Can you defend your faith? Can you reasonably deal with your Thrasymachus. Whatever form he takes, can you face your Thrasymachus? 

Thanksgiving

In September of 1620, on a small ship called the Mayflower, 102 passengers left Plymouth, England for the new world. They were persecuted for their faith in England and wanted to practice freely in the new world. They were lured by the promise of land ownership and the freedom that comes from controlling your own destiny. The crossing lasted 66 days and then they dropped anchor near Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later the Pilgrims made it to their destination and started to build a village.

Throughout the rest of the brutal winter most remained on ship where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and other contagious diseases. Only half the original 102 lived to see the new world. In March the survivors moved ashore where they received a visit from the local inhabitants. One of them even greeted them in English. This unique Native American returned a few days later with Squanto who began to teach these Pilgrims how to cultivate the land, catch fish and avoid poisonous plants. Squanto also helped forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and was one of the few examples of the Europeans living in harmony with Native Americans.

In November of 1621, after the first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited the locals to join with them. Even the chief of the Wampanoag joined them for the first Thanksgiving. They welcomed the Native Americans and gave them a prize seat at the tables but the “thanks” was not to them, they were there to give thanks together to God. (That is a detail that most history books will leave out now-a-days.)

From our first President Washington up until President Lincoln there would be an official proclamation of thanksgiving to GOD for the blessings of America. It was President Lincoln, in 1863, in the middle of a Civil War, who made the final Thursday of each November to be an official holiday to give thanks to GOD for the blessings given to America.

Somehow over time, these official “Giving Thanks to God” proclamations and actions of congress have turned into a secular holiday where we just have a “thankful attitude” for a few days, watch football, and eat a LOT of food. Somehow, over time, the reason for the thanksgiving of the Pilgrims and for life in general was no longer to GOD but to each other and some nebulous politically correct deity.

Let me say it as clearly as possible: Thanksgiving must be to GOD or it is really not Thanksgiving. Just like Christmas is about Christ or it is really not Christmas. We can give a nebulous thanks to whatever and call it Thanksgiving, but what really are you doing? You are simply thanking yourself, your strengths, your abilities, and your goodness and not something outside yourself. The whole key to Thanksgiving is to recognize that it is something OUTSIDE of YOU! YOU did not provide these blessings, God did. Once you realize that then you can really and truly Give Thanks. Otherwise you are just patting yourself on the back and calling it Thanksgiving.