Lonely? Psalm 25 day four

 Today I want to finish our exploration of loneliness and how David overcame it in Psalm 25. 

Let’s start with  verse 21: “May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you.”  This integrity and uprightness can refer either to the character of God or to the things that God has built into David’s life.

Either would be right.  There’s no question about it – we can rely on the utter integrity and uprightness of our God.  He will never do that which is wrong.  We can be absolutely confident that he will always treat us in utter righteousness.  Therein lies our protection.  As God instills a sense of integrity and righteousness in our hearts, they become the greatest possible defense for us in our times of extremity.  So David has great hope.

 The basis of David’s hope and of ours is this: The cure for loneliness and inner turmoil is to look to the Lord, reaffirm our trust and confidence in Him, and begin to live in obedience.

And as we live in obedience, it is inevitable that we begin having a heart for people outside ourselves.

 Everybody knows that sooner or later the cure for loneliness is people!

 And the cure for the inner turmoil of the heart is to become less absorbed with our problems and more concerned with those of others.

An old Chinese proverb says, “I grumbled when I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.” I think somebody who doesn’t have shoes has cause to grumble. But I think the person who sees the man with no feet will stop grumbling and begin to recognize how fortunate he is to have feet.

Do you find yourself lonely? Do you have a troubled heart?

Do you know where to turn?  Do you know the Lord?  Are you convinced that He is trustworthy?  Do you believe that He’ll deal with you in mercy?  Are you absolutely rock-bottom certain that He knows what is best for you?  Do you take the time to reflect on Him and what it means humbly to come before Him, discover His righteousness, trust Him, and obey Him?  And even in the midst of the maelstrom of your feelings, is there that UNDERGIRDING sense that God is bedrock there, and that one of these days the feelings will be better but the thing that won’t change is who God is?

 When you can answer those queries positively you’ll discover that He is helping you to look out to other people.

You’ll be on the same tentative note of triumph and of concern as David: “O Lord, do something about the people around me as well. Don’t let me become totally absorbed with me.”

The point to ponder is very simple: When I experience a troubled heart, to whom do I turn first? Notice the word first?  I phrased it that way for one very simple reason.  A lot of people turn to the Lord last with their troubled heart.  What’s the difference?  The nature of our relationship with God!

When something is really bothering you who do you call first: an expert on whatever is bothering you or a friend?  Get the point?  Is God someone with whom you are intimate and therefore someone you let inside your pain or is God that impersonal expert that you go to when you’ve exhausted all other options?  He won’t turn you down when you go to him last, but how sad and how unnecessary that we stay alone in our pain so long.

With David and all the saints since let us affirm today: “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God.

 

In that affirmation is found the answer to overcoming loneliness: knowing that the Father is always with us, always loves us, always desires us, and is always ready to embrace us when we run to him!

Lonely? Psalm 25 day 3

The humble man acknowledges he has no claim on God but that God has a total claim on him.

Sometimes in our pride, we come before God and demand our rights. The humble person knows he has no claim on God at all, that God would be perfectly within his right and perfectly consistent with his nature if he brought judgment to bear upon us and gave us no grace at all. The humble person knows he exists only because God initiated him and continues to perpetuate him.

How God relates to the humble person, we read in Psalm 25:9,10: “He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.”

The covenant was simply this: God takes the initiative and says to Abraham and his followers and his progeny, “I will be your God. I invite you to be My people. The only two things I ask of you is to love Me with all your heart and all your soul and all your might and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” To amplify that, He gave them ten commandments.

Those are the demands that God puts upon His people.

They are designed to show that we love God and that we are prepared to humbly serve him.

The essence of our spiritual walk with the Lord is obedience.

David in his dark night of the soul comes before the Lord and reflects upon the fact that God has called him into covenant and is leading him into a life of obedience. There’s always the possibility that when we’re in the dark moments, we will slip into disobedience; there’s always the possibility that we will seek no longer to walk in the path he’s chosen for us – which, of course, is the next thing that David talks about.

Look in verse 12: “Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.” To fear the Lord is to reverence Him, to have an aspect of awe that is transformed into a lifestyle fitting the way chosen for you.

Do we believe that? I wonder about myself sometimes. Do you believe that if you’ve come into a relationship with the living God through Jesus; that you’ve been saved by grace through faith, in order that you might fit into the pattern of good works that God has planned for you?  Even in your loneliness, even in the dark night of the soul, when your troubles are multiplied, do you honestly believe that you’re actually walking through a path the Lord has chosen for you with good intentions?  Believe it!

David knows what to do in this time of intense disappointment and discouragement.  He knows he will spend his days in prosperity and his descendants will inherit the land.

That means that he will begin to know in the practical aspects of life the blessing of God. In verse 14 he says, “The LORD confides in those who fear him.” That means literally that they’re invited into God’s inner circle.

Think of that – at the time of our loneliness, at the time when we’re in total turmoil, we can turn from our solitude and commune with the Lord.  We discover the secrets of the Lord.

We discover access to his inner circle.

If we are able to practice solitude that allows us to reflect on the Lord and what He says, and if we make that a prime factor in our day, we will begin to discover the communion of the inner circle of the Lord. That’s how we handle the inner turmoil of the soul.

David reveals his troubled feelings. I’m sure many of us will relate to his feelings of great need. “Turn to me and be gracious to me.” In other words, “Lord, I feel so inadequate. Help me turn this to good.”

St. John of the Cross said that grief and loneliness are “the knocks and rappings at the door of your soul in order that it might love more, for they cause more prayer and spiritual sighs to God.”

I read once about a man whose father encouraged him to pray.

He said, ” I am so discouraged and depressed. I can’t pray.”

His father said, “Just groan. Just groan.”

The Spirit of God can take these inner groanings and translate them in the mind of God, and he will be gracious to us. At the moment of our deepest need,we need to recognize the knocking and rapping on the door of our soul inviting us into a deeper communion with the living God.

David reveals feelings of tension in verse 17 & 18: “The troubles of my heart have multiplied.” So much is going on in his heart that he feels it’s going to burst.  Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.”

That’s the third time David talk about his sin in Psalm 25.  Maybe there is sin we’re harboring. Maybe there is sin that we have not admitted. Maybe there is sin that we’re intent on continuing.

David is saying we need to deal with the sin to overcome loneliness. Sin is the blockage. Sin is the hindrance to enjoying communion with God. Sin is why we don’t  find our souls filled at the moments of extremity.

Maybe David is onto something here. Maybe he needed to say it 3 times before he would get around to admitting the real problem: “There’s stuff going on that has gone on for a long, long time; and I’ve known it shouldn’t, and I know it should stop. I’ve grumbled that my spiritual life wasn’t what it might be. I have felt deprived. I have felt that these things were far inferior to what I might long for, but I’ve hung on to this cherished sin.”  I can relate. Can you?

Here is a good prayer for us to pray when we are depressed and lonely: “… take away all my sins. See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me! Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.”

Lonely? Psalm 25 day 2

I’m blogging about beating lonliness by paying attention to David’s experience recorded in Psalm 25.

Even though he is feeling desperately alone the psalmist reaffirms his faith. He believes the Lord is worthy of his trust: “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God.”  This lonely man reaffirms one fundamental thing.  He is unequivocally convinced that the Lord is worthy of his trust.

“Do not let me be put to shame,” says the psalmist.

To paraphrase: “Don’t let me be embarrassed, Lord, by the fact that I trust you. Plenty of people look at my circumstances and say, ‘Where is your God?’. They’re going to delight in the opportunity to increase my loneliness, Lord. Do not let me be embarrassed. Don’t let me down.”

He goes on to say, “Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me our paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”

He believes the Lord shows the way to those who are willing to follow.  He firmly believes that the Lord guides into truth all those who are willing to learn.  He is absolutely convinced that the Lord delivers from trouble all those who trust him.

Yet in this dark night of the soul, as St. John of the Cross would describe it, he has to remind himself of these things because the darkness comes flooding in.  Maybe if he’s not careful, he’ll lose sight of what he truly believes.

He also believes that the Lord is merciful: ” Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD.”  He believes the Lord is merciful because he’s proven himself over and over and over again in the past.

David is a member of the covenant people which means he understands that God has chosen Israel to be his unique people.  God chose Abraham.  God chose that out of Abraham would come a people for himself through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed.  He took an initiative and established a covenant with these people, and he had been merciful to them.  They had gone down into Egypt, but he led them out.  They had wandered in the wilderness, but he provided for them.  He had taken them into the Promised Land and defeated all their enemies.  He had given them riches they didn’t earn.  He had given them bountiful crops they couldn’t grow.  The Lord had proven himself merciful over and over again.

In the dark night of his soul, in his loneliness, in the intense inner turmoil of his heart, David reflects on the fact that God has proven himself merciful.  This is what we have to do.

He also remembers that the Lord is merciful to forgive the repentant.

Isn’t it interesting that when he’s concerned about his loneliness, when he’s distraught, he is concerned about the sins of his youth: “Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways.” I have no doubt that he’s confessed these things many times and realizes the damage they have done to his own life.  He’s come before the Lord and sought the Lord’s forgiveness in them.  But in the dark night of his soul, the Evil One is reminding him of these things.  And he says, “Lord, remember not those things. As far as the east is from the west, remove my sins from me.”

When you’re down, the devil is no gentleman.  He’ll kick you.

One of the ways he’ll kick you is to remind you of all the things you impulsively do while you’re young.  Even if you’ve confessed and been forgiven for them all, he’ll go on dragging them up.  He’ll say, “The reason you’re in this fix is because of all the bad stuff you did in the past.”

Jill Briscoe, a Christian speaker and writer, recounted this imaginary conversation with the Lord: “Lord, do you remember that awful thing I did?”

God said, “No.”

She said, “Lord, you absolutely must remember this.”

The Lord said, “Listen, you are perfectly free to go on remembering that. I have chosen to remember it no more.”

And that, of course, is what forgiveness is all about.

The psalmist is being convicted again.  He’s been reminded.

He needs to ask the Lord to be merciful again. He says, in effect, “Please assure me at this time of my intense inner turmoil, of my loneliness, of my affliction. Assure me that I still matter; I’m still significant; you still have something in mind for me.” It’s a healthy thing to know where to turn to reaffirm our faith.

Let me tell you one of the most important truths about overcoming lonliness.  In the midst of loneliness and turmoil we need to hold to these three beliefs:

1. The Lord is worthy of trust.
2. The Lord knows what is best and is working what is good in our lives.
3. The Lord is merciful.

Ignore evidence to the contrary and hold to these affirmations during the dark night of the soul!

In verses 8-15, the psalmist takes time to reflect on the Lord in two ways:  He reflects on how the Lord interacts with sinners and how he interacts with those he calls “the humble.”

“{8} Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.” 

How does the Lord relate to sinners?  The two words used to describe the Lord gives us the key here: “Good and upright is the LORD.”

Because the Lord is upright, because he is righteous, because He is pure and holy, He is separate from sin and cannot look upon iniquity.  Because He is upright, he cannot ignore sin.  Because He is good, He can forgive sin.  We must always hold those two truths in tension. 

David imagines that his sin may have brought on this dark time, but he also reflects on how the Lord relates to the humble.  The humble knows that he has no claim on God but that God has a total claim on him!

We’ll start with that principle tomorrow.  In the meanwhile, don’t let Satan trick you into thinking that God doesn’t care about you because nothing could be farther from the truth.

Lonely? Psalm 25 day 1

For many Christmas and the “Holiday Season” from Thanksgiving to New Years is the loneliest time of the year.  I was thinking about that and, to be honest, feeling a little lonely myself, so I read Psalm 25 again and decided to write a little about loneliness from a Shadowlander perspective. 

Dring World War II the allies had planned Operation Overlord, the code name for D-Day, for years with vast armies gathered, an incredible navy collected, and enough arms stored to release Europe from the tyranny of the Nazi regime.

In charge of this massive war effort was an American, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. As the logistics expert, he envisioned the whole thing. He pulled everybody together. He got the fractious allies moving in the same direction. He even tamed the British generals, which was no mean feat. The day was set; the moon was right; the tides were right; the weather was all wrong. Eisenhower was the only person who could make the decision.

Then a royal Air Force meteorologist came in to say he predicted a break in the weather. Eisenhower said, “Okay, Let’s go!”

All the generals, the admirals, and the air vice-marshals who had been with him in the room, promptly left Eisenhower alone.

Suddenly, he had nothing to do. He sat down to write two news releases. In one he explained why the operation had failed and accepted full responsibility himself. The other announced that the operation had succeeded and thanked everyone who had participated.

Can you imagine the loneliness and inner turmoil of Gen. Eisenhower at that moment? Casualties of 75 percent were predicted in some areas of the attack. I hope that none of us will ever be in the position of Dwight D. Eisenhower on D-Day. I hope we never know that kind of loneliness.

But we all have felt loneliness and inner turmoil.  I have a friend who worked at a company for several years and returned from Christmas vacation to find a note asking him to come to the boss’s office.  He thinks he’s going to get a raise, but he’s unceremoniously fired. Suddenly the rug is pulled from under his feet. Have you ever felt that kind of inner turmoil of the soul?

Some of you know what it is to await surgery. I do.  You’ve gone through a whole succession of tests and heard all kinds of promises. One by one, your hopes have disappeared. It’s obvious that you must have the surgery. You think you’re prepared. In a quiet moment when you’re totally alone, your heart is in turmoil.  Have you ever experienced that emotional rollercoaster?

Have you experienced the horror of seeing your family split apart by divorce? You knew things weren’t what they should be; you knew your marriage was struggling. Out of the blue, the divorce comes and you are alone.

Or maybe you have experienced the searing pain of seeing your parents snipe at each other until there is nothing left of either and then they divorce. The people you most depended upon all your life have suddenly decided to go their separate ways, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your loneliness is palpable.

This is where the psalmist finds himself as he writes Psalm 25.  He is quite open about his condition:   “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.  The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish.” (vs. 16,17) 

The psalmist admits his need, but he has somewhere to turn.

He turns to the Lord. We’d expect that, but it’s easier said than done.

Do you know the Lord well enough to turn to Him?  We need to be clear who this Lord is to whom we turn.

We need to be sure we have the kind of relationship that allows us to turn to him. Some Christians would say we should never be lonely. Some Christians would say we should never have inner turmoil. Some Christians would say we should always be rejoicing – everything should be great, and we shouldn’t be concerned.   To them I say, lovingly, “What planet are you from?”.

When I hear malarky like that I figure those Christians must not have yet faced any of the experiences I’ve just enumerated. When they do, they’ll soon change their minds (or eliminate themselves as Christians because they experience negative emotions).

Let me give it to you straight, from a Shadowlander who has been a Christian most of his life: Christians go through the same trauma as other people.  The difference is that if our spiritual life is together, we know where to turn.  The psalmist does that in Psalm 25.

Psalm 25 is a acrostic psalm.  Each verse begins with the succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. If it was in English, the first verse would begin with the letter A, the second with the letter B, the third with C, and so on. There is artistry and literary genius here. This is a psalm of David.

David has a roller-coaster experience. He starts out by reaffirming his faith. Then, it’s almost as if some of the doubts come back; some of the inner turmoil begins to bubble to the surface again. Then he gets back on track.

David is very open about his feelings: he feels alone and abandoned. But then, interestingly enough, notice that the very last verse of this Psalm says, “Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles!” The fascinating thing about it is that here’s a psalm dealing with his troubles, but at the close he’s concerned about everybody else’s troubles.  I believe that speaks volumes about the answer to loneliness.

 I am going to be blogging about the answer to loneliness shown in Psalm 25 over the next couple of days.  I invite you to join me on the journey.  I would love to hear your thoughts along the way.   If you want a blessing read Psalm 25 each day while I am blogging about it.

Thank God for True Freedom

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”  Gal 5:1 NIV

Everyone wants to be free.  The oppressed want to be free from their oppressors.  Employees what freedom from unfair employers. Employers what freedom from unfair employees.  Jesus followers don’t have to want freedom – we have already been set free!

This morning for this verse set me to pondering the question “What does it really mean to be free?”.

A woman was once married to a man she did not love.  He made her get up every morning at five, cook his breakfast, serve it at six o’clock sharp, and then wait on him hand and foot.  He was so exacting that her life was a miserable one of  trying to satisfy his his every wish. He died and eventually she married again.  This marriage was to a man she truly loved.  One day she was cleaning out some old papers from a desk and came across one of the many lists of strict rules her first husband had given her.  Sitting down, she began to read them.  Gradually it dawned on her that the list of things she hated doing for her first husband she was still doing  for her new husband.  But she no longer hated doing them because she was no longer doing it out of fear of  her husband but instead out of her love for him.

She had been set free.  Jesus followers have been saved and the fear of the ”letter of the law” has been nullified.  In its place is the peace and power of freedom which generates within our hearts a burning love for Jesus.  We  joyfully serve Him by serving others. We have true freedom.

To be truly set free is to have your orientation changed from “What do I have to do?” to “Really, I get to do that!”   The freedom that Jesus gives to His followers is not so much freedom ”from” as it is freedom ”to” … Freedom to be ourselves … Freedom to serve others … Freedom to be like Jesus … Feedom to live life without the fear of death … Freedom to truly live!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

Thank God for Meaningful Love

Following up on yesterday’s blog theme of  Thanksgiving.  Another great gift from God for which we should be thankful is meaningful love.  Especially when we consider the confused self-defeating meaningless love that is popularized in the media today. J udging by most movies and TV characterizations love has become just a synonym for pleasure. But pleasure is fleeting and love is permanent.  Meaningful love is permanent, self-sacrificing and active.   

Stephen Moore, in his poem entitled “The Second Mile,” states it this way:

Stern Duty said, “Go walk a mile
And help thy brother bear his load.
I walked reluctant, but meanwhile,
My heart grew soft with help bestowed.
Then Love said, “Go another mile.”
I went, and Duty spoke no more,
But Love arose and with a smile
Took all the burden that I bore.
‘Tis ever thus when Duty calls;
If we spring quickly to obey,
Love comes, and whatsoever befalls,
We’re glad to help another day.
The second mile we walk with joy;
Heaven’s peace goes with us on the road,
So let us all our powers employ
To help our brother bear life’s load.”

Paul says it best in GAL. 5:6 “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Jesus  is the ultimate expression of love because he is the ultimate expression of self-sacrifice. 

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote,

“Do not waste your time bothering whether you `love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”

“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”  That really says it all.  Love is not just sentiment, it is action.  Love is not just loving those like us or those we like, it is also loving those who are unlike us and even those that disgust us.  Love is faith expressing itself in acts of love.  Meaningful love, though often pleasurable, is not for our pleasure but is a way of actively expressing our faith.  Actively expressing our faith by being loving and unselfish has a wonderful by product: happiness.  That’s right happiness is a by-product of loving actively and unselfishly. 

In a world where love means less and less we should be very thankful that Jesus showed us meaningful love.

Thank God for a Meaningful Life

“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”  Galatians 4:4-7

 Thanksgiving is the time of the year when we thank God for external blessings. The problem with that focus is that it is constantly changing, giving us an excuse for comparing our situation to others and as often as not feeling justified in our ingratitude. Thankfulness should not be based on an inventory list.

True thanksgiving is opening our eyes to the internal blessings that God gives us. Thankfulness then becomes a window through which God’s love shines through.  By contrast to exterior blessing, internal blessings are constant, unchanging. Of course the obvious internal blessing Jesus followers have received is eternal life. But that great blessing has several by-products of which we need to be aware and for which we need to be thankful: Jesus followers have received a most precious internal blessing that is often taken for granted: a meaningful life!

I saw a bumper sticker that said “THE ONE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS WINS.”  Even though glib it is a goal for many in our comsumerist society.  But is acquiring more ultimately meaningful?

A Gallop Poll survey was distributed to people of various ages and occupations. The key question was this: What are you looking for most in life? When the results were compiled, the analysts were surprised.  Most of them had expected answers that would suggest materialistic goals, but the top three things that people wanted in life were love, joy, and peace–the first three fruit of the Spirit!

Purpose or meaning is important to human beings because we are created in the image of God  Though fallen we still retain the intuiton that we are created for something.  We can fill that  something’ with many things but all except the truth will ultimately fail us.

Peter Sellers, the noted British actor who died in 1980, was troubled throughout much of his adult life. Although he had gained wealth and fame, he was restless and dissatisfied. In his later years he revealed a loss of personal identity by resorting to using the voice and accent of Inspector Clouseau, a fictitious character he had played. Then too, his multiple marriages were symptomatic of the fact that his mind was, as one of his wives put it, “in a constant state of turmoil about his purpose on this planet.”

Stories like this make me sad because the something we are created for is to be found by turning our lives over to Jesus!  The problem is that the struggle of life often obscures the truth about life. Why can’t people see the obvious? Because it is obvious only to those who have a proper perspective: life is Jesus!  “I am the way, the truth, and the Life”

I once saw a reproduction of the Constitution of the United States which had been skillfully engraved on a copper plate. At first glance it seemed to be nothing more than a piece of noble writing. When I looked at it from the proper perspective, however, I could discern the portrait of America’s first President George Washington artistically etched in minute detail. His face was revealed in the shading of the letters and I saw his person, not just a flow of words or lofty principles.

To understand the deeper meaning to life we must look at it from the right perspective.  We must see in it not merely activities, goals, ideas, family, friends or even Biblical doctrines, but Jesus Himself – sufficient for all our needs.

Even Jesus followers are often guilty of not seeing life as Jesus. Instead we often see Jesus as one of the many compartments of our lives.  When we fall into this error we diminish the meaning and purpose of life and boredom or anxiety sets in.  When Jesus becomes our life only then do we begin to live an exciting, adventurous life.  To live life on the edge start living out the paradoxes of our faith!

A paradox is an apparent contradiction which in reality may conceal a profound truth. The paradoxes of our Faith are a great proof that Christianity was not devised by men.  Our Faith contains many unpopular doctrines and mind-baffling concepts which would not exist if it had been composed by men and had not been uniquely inspired by God.  The fact that these do appear shows me that “God’s ways are not our ways.”

Just look at these paradoxes:

• Faith is seeing unseen things;
• We conquer by yielding;
• We find rest under a yoke;
• We reign by serving;
• We are made great by becoming little;
• We are exalted by being humble;
• We become wise by being fools for Christ’s sake;
• We are made free by becoming His bond servants;
• We possess all things by having nothing;
• We become strong by being weak;
• We find victory by glorying in our infirmities; and
• We live by dying.

To  live a rich full purposeful life don’t be afraid to do many things that the world will consider really strange, even weird!  Living out our paradoxical faith is exciting because it never allows us to just drift with the tide.  So, get used to swimming upstream … but remember that the one swimming by you is the giver of of a meaningful life.  Jesus gives life purpose.

Parents and Children

          I have been travelling lately.  Rejuvenate Conference in Birmingham, AL (delightful visit with CCF alums Russell and Brooke Wall and their twins!).  Weekend with my brother Scott and his wife Kathy [host of the year nominees!] in Cincinnati, OH (got to teach Sunday School at White Oak Christian Church). Association of College Ministries executive planning meeting also in Cincinnati (reunion with Rick and Betty Lee that we lived in community with almost 30 years ago!) In every one of these meetings we looked at pictures of kids or grandkids. It was a real blessing to be around such good parents. It got me thinking about parents and children.

          Children are God’s gifts to parents.  Parents are God’s gifts to children.  Children totally change your life.  When you pick up that little baby and cradle him or her in your arms for the very first time – a journey begins – a journey that lasts a life time.  It begins with phone calls to proud grandparents announcing the new arrival followed by baby pictures on Facebook and then actual real photographs for showing off.

          Then comes midnight feedings, ear aches, diapers – lots of diapers! Then comes the thrill of your child’s first words.  What parent cannot remember the joy they felt when their child first said:  “mommy …daddy” (or anything faintly resembling those syllables!).  Pretty soon each day they learn a new word, a new question to ask.  The days of peace and quiet are gone forever replaced with the probing mind of an inquisitive blessing from the Lord who can’t ask “Why?” enough. 

          You care for your child.  Your life becomes that child.  You instill dreams and hopes in your child.  Each night, you pray to God that your son or daughter will grow up and make a difference in the world.

          Mothers cry when their daughter opens the car door and enters the world of kindergarten.  Fathers beam with pride when their son finally hits the ball in little league even though he closed his eyes when he swung the bat that weighed more than he did…even though the ball barely made it in front of the plate.

          The hours become days, the days become years and in what seems only a second – your child is in high school learning to think, learning to lie, learning to laugh, learning to cry.  Your days and evenings are filled with football games, and scout trips, swimming meets and late night coffee waiting at the kitchen table for your child to return from a date to the Prom.

          And as you lay in bed – you discover that the child you had rocked to sleep only days before has now become a young man or a young woman.  And as you pull the curtains back on the future – questions invade your peace of mind.

• What will become of my child?
• Will the child whose cuts I bandaged – find love, find purpose, find God?
• Will he make it when mom and dad are no longer there to keep him fed or tuck him in at night?
• Will she find someone who will cherish and love her?
• What will become of my child?

          The day comes when you pack up the SUV with clothes, computers, pictures, and travel to a college campus to say goodbye to your young son or daughter. 

          And as you leave them that evening — you remind them that their cell phone is there for them to call home on…and you say goodbye to a child and know that the next time you embrace this child – this child will be an adult.

          I am a parent. I am a grandparent. But first I was a son. Since the day of my birth I have depended on my mother and daddy for love and support and somehow they have always been there.

• Maybe it was a word of encouragement
• Maybe it was a swift kick in the backside
• Sometimes it was a simple hug that said what words cannot

I LOVE YOU AND I BELIEVE IN YOU

         We always need our parent’s love and encouragement no matter how old we become or how far from home we live.   That is because the bond between a child and a parent is unique — though it changes in style or influence all through our life – it is the lifeline that we cling to as we become adults and parents and even grandparents ourselves.

          To every parent who reads this I want to say “Thanks for all the sacrifices and all the prayers you have offered on the behalf of your children.”  I want to say, not only to my wonderful parents, but to all good parents:  Thank You! 

          Thank God for good parents!  Thank you Melissa and David for Jonathan, Andrew and Michael.  Thank you J.J. and Eric for Hudson, Cooper, Maddox and Miller.. I love being “Papa” and Sheila loves being “Mimi.”  Their love for one another and their child’s faith in God blesses me. 

          I have had the privilege of working with college age young people for 37 years and I want to say to all the good parents out there that your labor of love is not in vain. 

          Your children will make a difference in the world.  I am tired of the pessimism for tomorrow that I see and I read.  The future is here among us and young people brought up by their parents to love God with all their heart, all their soul and all their mind will make a difference in the world!

          I look forward to the future with joyful anticipation for I am confident that children raised by Christian parents make an impact on their world to the glory of God.

“Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.” Prov. 17:5

Attitude Adjustment

It was probably 10 years ago that I was in Kansas City the last weekend in October.  I remember the date so well because I went there directly from CCF’s Fall Retreat at the North GA Christian Camp, where we had about 50 students in attendance.   They were everywhere – on the stage, on the floor,  in the kitchen – for the weekend.   I slept little, left after lunch, and finally made it onto the plane.   As I sat there I thought, “O Lord,  why do I have to go to Kansas City this weekend, I’d rather be at the Retreat.”   I was pouting, actually!   I didn’t want to be bothered with anyone so I used my Bible as a desperate defense.   I pulled it up around my face.   When you’re on a plane and you have your Bible around your face, everybody will leave you alone.   It’s a frightening spectre.   Even the flight attendent won’t ask you if you want peanuts  I said to the Lord, “Lord, please, since I can’t get out of this trip I just want to be alone for 2 or 3 hours before I get there.”

It worked.  NOBODY spoke to me.  So I arrived feeling alone, abused, and forlorn.  No one was at the airport to meet me.   So I sat there seething that I was being treated like this, after all THEY asked me to come.   When the Pastor arrived I was cold and aloof.   He took me to the Hotel where I was to stay.  Again I was alone.  So now the scene was set.  I had all kinds of attitudes in me, I was of several minds, if you will.  The attitude I didn’t have was the attitude of a servant.  The mind I didn’t have was the mind of Christ.

Sunday morning came.  The Pastor picked me up and we went to the church building, along with 2500 others.  I spoke to the 100+ teenagers during Sunday School and then preached during the Morning Worship.  I still was on auto-pilot at the end of the sermon when the Minister of Involvement got up and said, “We have a couple who have just arrived in town.  They are deaf.  They have a 5 year old boy and a 3 year old girl.  Their house burned down in St. Louis and they are looking for work.  If you have clothes for their children or would like to donate money to help them get started over we’ll be at the main entrance to receive them from you.” 

That afternoon I ate lunch with that couple.  As we talked via a deaf interpreter I BECAME AWARE of their pain.  How petty it made me feel!  I repented of my selfish arrogance and thanked God for putting me in Kansas City at that particular time.  I shared with them my story of our theft when we moved to Athens in 1982 and told them I really did know what it was like to have to literally start over.  I said, “I don’t know what you must be feeling, and I don’t know why this happened to you.  I suspect you’ll have to learn to live with an unanswered “WHY?”  Just as I have learned to LIVE WITH THE MYSTERY of the why of our theft, but I know that the only thing that sustained my family and I was clinging to the One who understands it perfectly.”  There at the KC Masterpiece Restaurant I took my Bible and for the first time on that trip used it as God intended, not as a sheild, not as a textbook, but as a means to show these suffering people, the Suffering Servant, Jesus.

But it didn’t end there.  The church responded to this family, who had yet to accept Christ, with an unbelievable outpouring of clothes, money and even a job. 

That night as I began my presentation it was with a different attitude, a different mind.  The mind of Christ was mine.  He spoke through me.  God hadn’t changed, but I had.  Gone was the self-pity.  Gone was the celebrity syndrome.  Present was the mind of Christ.

At the conclusion of my seminar, this lovely couple accepted Jesus as Lord and were baptized along with a family who decided that night to leave the path of Witchcraft to follow Jesus.  I got to be a part of that, I’m convinced, because of a small, significant change in my attitude!  From ME to HIM!

I wish I could say that I never went back to the ME attitude but of course I did.  But I like to think that as I have grown in Jesus He has helped me to make the switch from ME to HIM more quickly.  How about you?

The Mind of a Servant

Phil. 2:3:  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit (twin killers of the cause of God), but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 

What I love about our Lord Jesus is that being Very God of Very God, he felt no need to exalt himself or live in arrogance.  Surely if our Lord has modeled this for us, then part of having the mind of Christ means that Jesus is going to move in a mind where we’ve already made place for him.  We have heard Jesus say, “No servant is greater than his Lord.”  and we have thought “If my Lord can die upon a cross, not claiming His prerogatives, maybe I, too, can learn to live in simplicity of spirit and give up selfish ambition and vain conceit. ”

I don’t know about you, but I have always found that when I get conceited, God usually has a way of reducing me.  I don’t usually have to live with that very long.  He forcibly reminds me that I’m not as much as I think I am.  

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 

I know our day is riddled with the philosophy of  Narcissism.  I know it is a me-first proposition culture we live in.  I know it is a time when Stallone in the movie Cobra says to the bad guy, “You’re the disease, and I’m the cure,” and we applaud.  Contrast that to St. Francis saying, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”   Consider others better than yourselves  But we say, “What if I am better than the person I’m considering?”  And Jesus says, in effect, “So what?  No servant is greater than his Lord and I considered you better than myself, didn’t I”  For the Jesus follower this is where it begins or ends. We must see ourselves as the servants of the world.  Collectively it is our world and it’s our calling to care. 

I walked through Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati long ago, and I saw a little baby boy there, below 2 years of age, with tubes running in and out of his body – clearly very, very sick.  I asked the nurse about him, and she said, “I want to thank you for asking about him.  He will die before he is 2 years of age, but the worst part is that his mother died in childbirth and his father’s in the penitentiary.  Nobody comes; nobody asks about him much, and he lays there.  You’re one of the first to even ask about him.”  I walked out of the hospital that day thanking God that my two daughters were well and that it wasn’t MY baby.  Then it seemed like out of the very atmosphere around me, God said, “Yeah, that IS your baby.”  And I was ashamed of my selfishness.

If we’re servants, the world we see and touch is ours.  How often do the Scriptures say of Jesus, “He was moved with compassion”?  The mind of the servant becomes our mind when we take following Jesus seriously. 

Is this as hard for you as it is for me?  I’d like to hear from you.