The Man In The Mirror

How do you see yourself? They say that how you view yourself will ultimately determine how you live your life. I think I believe that. I’ve been reading lately in 2Samuel. In the events recorded in 2Samuel 7, David tells the prophet Nathan that he wants to build God a house (a temple). God’s message back to David, again through Nathan, includes God’s promise to build David a ‘house’. The reference is to David’s linage which of course becomes a promise of the Messiah who was, you will recall, of the ‘house’ of David.

But in David’s prayer to God in response to this amazing announcement back from the Lord to him (2Sam 7:18-29) David refers to himself no less than 10 times in these 12 verses as ‘your servant’. By this time of course, God has taken David from following sheep to leading the nation but, even as king, David exalts in his role as God’s servant.

And David isn’t alone. Throughout the Old Testament and into the New, we see patriarchs, prophets, priests, kings, disciples and apostles all alike relishing the role of servant of God. This isn’t just a few references. Go ahead and check it out. There are hundreds.

And the same is true coming from the other direction as God seems to share in the delight of calling those He chooses to be ‘His servants’. Again, check it out … “… My servant Abraham… My servant Moses… My servant Caleb…"

God also took the phrase ‘my servant’ and by the lips of Isaiah made it into a messianic title…. “Here is my Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen One in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on Him and He will bring justice to the nations…. See, my Servant will act wisely; He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at Him – His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness…”

To be a servant is one thing but to be God’s servant, well, that is something else. What an exalted title it is when you put God’s name with it. We are not just servants. We are called to be His servants.

Now honestly, if you take that title, really believing it to be your own, honestly, how do you see yourself? And how do you then live your life?

Water Under The Bridge

Do you know how many phrases and expressions we commonly use in our English language that actually have their origin in the Bible? I bet you don’t. I don’t either, but I know there are a whole lot of them. And every time I come across one, I am reminded again of how integral the Bible is to the fabric of our society even when we don’t realize it. The troubling part about this is that when we thoughtlessly dismiss our Christian heritage and walk away from it we have really no idea what all we are leaving behind! No idea.

Anyway, I came across this passage a while back.

“You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by.” Job 11:16

Isn’t that beautiful? I immediately thought of the expression ‘water under the bridge’.

I live beside a river and when the weather is warm we sometimes have the opportunity to spend some time in and around the water. The river is mesmerizing. The way it moves can be almost hypnotic. I can remember as a kid often finding a piece of wood or something to throw into the water just to watch it pass out of sight… gone!

[Remember the fascination of that ½ hour show about the little wooden Indian in his canoe that the CBC did back in 1966 called ‘Paddle To The Sea’?]

Time is like water. It flows. It never stops. It is unstoppable. And sometimes we lament that. There is a certain melancholy sense one gets deep in your heart when you just simply stand and watch the water flow on. There is a feeling of loss just like we feel about time as it is passing … passing … passing…

But then, as this passage from Job reminds us, there is also something very good about that too. Because all of us have things in our lives that we want to see pass away.

You may have had someone say to you that when you think of your troubles you should remember ‘this too shall pass’. There is a lot of comfort in that.


This Too Shall Pass

If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be-

If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me-

If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too-

Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains

That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear-
For there is no night without dawning
And I know that my morning is near.

...Helen Steiner Rice

Charity

Charity is the old English word for loving kindness. We commonly use the word ‘love’ now instead but, unfortunately when we do, we normally mean something less.

I was working outside one day this past week and the radio was on. You know how sometimes you’re listening, not really paying close attention, but then something just catches you and causes you to really think. This was one of those times.

An ad came on promoting a golf tournament; an ‘all inclusive’ 4 days and 3 nights at a beautiful resort and spa complete with numerous celebrity appearances and amazing live entertainment. As I kind of listened, not thinking too much of it, they continued to sell the excellent features of this entertainment extravaganza. You know how that goes… nothing but the best of everything… And then they added, “… and you can help the underprivileged at the same time!”

Now, up to this point I was not particularly paying a whole lot of attention but that last statement suddenly struck me as odd. There’s nothing odd about golf (though it may appear so to some) and charity shouldn’t seem odd to us. But putting the two together is just … odd! I’m not much of a golfer but I think it’s called the ‘East Coast Classic’. It’s a ‘fund raising’ tournament. In fact, they call it ‘a charitable golf experience like no other’.

Call me cynical, but isn’t there something somewhat disturbing about this? I know that this type of fund raising is extremely common. So much so, that it seems to be the preferred method. Everybody is doing it. I know of a Bible College that has a golf tournament to raise funds for their school. And it seems like every time I turn around someone is selling tickets on something to raise money for some worthy cause.

Don’t get me wrong. I applaud the organizers of these events for the most part (except when it comes to lotteries and such which I have some real issues with, but that’s another story). These people, often volunteers, do a really good job of raising a real lot of money for some really good causes. But I have to wonder about the people who are being targeted for these types of events. In my mind, I can just picture someone who has more money than the average person paying out a significant amount in order to personally benefit from the enjoyment of the very best his money can buy and somehow managing at the same time to give himself a pat on the back, his conscience eased for another year.

What do you call that? Maybe it’s a really good thing, but it is hardly charity; not when you get everything you pay for. What have you really given? At the most, maybe the crumbs off of your table. What place have we come to when a good cause must be sustained almost entirely by appealing to the self-interest of the rich? I guess I am cynical.

Social Networking

Social Networking - It’s not new. Even if the phrase is trendy, the concept is older than the human race. But, what IS continually new is the technology we use to do it. This blog is an example of social networking, but hardly compared to things like facebook, twitter and texting. And with the ongoing advent of extremely innovative and powerful technology, there is a growing problem, not unlike the problem we are seeing with the increased potency of various medications available today.

A new study out this past week indicates that American college students may be ‘addicted’ to instant connections. According to researchers at the University of Maryland, the words commonly associated with drug and alcohol addictions are the same words used by students to describe how they feel when they are forced to go without these connections for any length of time. They speak of withdrawal, craving, anxiety … and they say they get frantic, antsy, miserable, jittery and even crazy.

The researchers who did the study, asking students to go without the use of social media for one 24 hour period, concluded that most college students seem practically unable to function without these connections.

There is a question as to whether this is about the social media itself, or about relationships? I’m thinking more the latter. One student wrote afterward how, “texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort.”

The old saying goes, the more things change, the more they become the same. I can remember passing notes in class and being reprimanded on an ongoing basis, along with pretty much everyone else, for ‘talking’ in class. And since when is it new for teens to spend hours talking on the phone with their friends?

People haven’t changed but there is a huge warning in all of this. If we fail to control the technology, the technology will end up controlling us. As we are being enabled to connect more often with more people in more ways, we are going to need more self-control.

That’s not really that comforting at a time when self-control seems to be at a premium. However, we can’t just give in to this. We need to challenge ourselves and our children to know their boundaries, set limits and seek to live balanced lives. As great and as wonderful as ‘social networking’ is, there are times when we need to be free from it so that we can give our full attention to the task (or the person!) at hand.

And there are times when we really need to be alone too. This allows us quality time with God focusing completely on our relationship with Him, meditating on what His Word says to us. God has left us a very large and critically important text message and prayer is the most important connection we have.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

Lessons From The Wood Pile

I was off on Tuesday so I decided after the rain let up to get a start on my wood pile. Although I get little time normally to do physical labour, and as a result am not in the best of shape for it, it still feels good, even though it hurts.

For one thing, it’s nice to be able to do something where you can actually see the ongoing progress of your effort and watch things come together. You can take a step back at anytime and, even though your back may ache a little, the satisfaction is there to soothe it. There’s nothing like that sense of accomplishment. Ah!

For a man, a good wood pile is a beautiful thing to behold. The last time my brother in law Doug was at our place he casually commented upon entering ‘nice wood pile’. Now, how many women do you know that would say that? Huh? And really mean it! It’s definitely a guy thing.

For the uninitiated, you need to realize that you don’t really pile fire wood anyway. You build a wood pile and it takes some skill to do it well. It is especially important to carefully select and skillfully place the pieces in the bottom section. I know it’s not rocket science. Anyone can tell you that the foundation of anything is always the most important part. However, with a wood pile you have the added factor that you are just going to tear the whole thing down in a couple of months anyway when it is time to put it in. So, you don’t want to spend inordinate amounts of time with it. But then again, the last thing you want is for the whole thing to blow over in a weeks time when the first good gust of wind hits it.

Working with firewood is not precision work. The shapes and sizes are awkward; never really symmetrical and no two pieces are the same. But then there’s that time factor again. And so it happens that as you build each rank there are times when you need to ‘sure it up’. Here comes the ‘technical’ part of it. Stay with me on this. It is at this point that you need to employ the use of some ‘stabilizers’. A ‘stabilizer’ is a specifically chosen piece inserted at a strategic location which serves to strengthen the entire rank. (No, you can’t buy them at the hardware store, you have to find them yourself by carefully searching through your wood pile.)

So as I’m working away on my wood pile (with the Bonanza theme music running through my head… where did that come from?) I’m thinking about life. And I find myself wondering, what are the ‘stabilizers’ that I need to have in place to prevent my life from becoming precarious? They may not be large because size is not the issue. Upon casual observance, they won’t even be noticeable to others. But what are those little things that we carefully choose and strategically place in our lives that give real stability to our living?

You’ll have to forgive me but this is just how my mind works and it never stops. I see a lesson in every rock, a precept in every task, a principle at work in every cranny of creation. So for what it’s worth here it is.

We can have all kinds of zeal and passion for life and all the energy to go with it, but if we are not consciously taking the time to carefully and continually insert key elements in strategic locations in the routine of our lives as we build from day to day, at some point the whole thing could just quite suddenly all fall over! In fact, isn’t this what we see happening every day all around us – people’s lives falling apart?

At this point (if you’re still reading!) you’re probably wondering what those elements are or should be. I hesitate to do that thinking for you, but for me they include things like these… being thankful… being accountable… being honest with my wife… regular Bible reading and prayer… doing things for others… being content … taking time to really listen…

Meeting People Where They’re At

At one time in our society the search for truth reigned supreme. If you could show that something was true, then you had won the day. But a strange thing has happened in our post modern situation. Not only is there a cynicism regarding the existence of any kind of absolute truth, there is also a complacency about the whole matter.

In his book ‘A Life That Matters’, Ron Hutchcraft talks about a story that Ravi Zacharias tells. Ravi had just addressed a large crowd at an Ivy League university where he had presented a powerful case for Christianity and one of his associates was debating with four students who had stayed behind. The four of them argued while Ravi’s friend skillfully answered every objection they raised. Finally, after about an hour had passed, one of the students, who seemed to speak for the others comes out with this – “To be honest with you, I think most of what that man had to say is true – And I don’t care.”!!!

What an incredible admission that is! It illustrates very profoundly where so many people are at in these days we live in. It isn’t just that people don’t believe. They don’t care!!!

So what should we do? Give up? I don’t think so. That’s where people are at but we need to meet them where they are at. Like Jesus did. People in this day and age are very pragmatic. They might not care about what is ‘true’, but they care very much about what works and what doesn’t. People don’t want to acknowledge that truth exists because they want be a law unto themselves. However, they can’t escape the consequences. They may not care about what is true but they want to be happy because everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants to have a good life or what they perceive to be a good life. And so, this must become our starting point with people. It is the crack in their armor that makes them vulnerable to the truth. For as they say, what works might not always be true, but what is true always works.

Of course we need to be careful with this line of approach. We don’t want to paint some kind of rosy gospel … “come to Jesus and all your problems will just go away and life will become easy”. But having said that, we do believe that living by the principles of the truth of God’s word does tend to make for a better life. There is a natural cause and effect. Sin is how life doesn’t work; how life wasn’t designed to work. There is an inherent reward in doing what is right. What is right and what is wise are inseparable.

The woman at the well (John 4) is just one example of how sin doesn’t work. We don’t know for sure the cause of all her relational failure but there is at least an intimation in the text that she was going about relationships all wrong. She was living life her way instead of God’s way which is what sin is. To quote Ron Hutchcraft, “every man was a well for her but she always came up thirsty… Thirsty again, that’s how every earth-relationship, earth-accomplishment and earth-possession leaves us in our souls.”

Yes, we need to be careful with this. Though I disagree with the criticisms often leveled against appealing to ‘felt needs’ they are not completely without merit. Most criticisms have some truth to them. We need to be careful. As Ron says in his book on page 157, “There is, however, a danger in beginning with a person’s felt need: you may skip the cancer and go right to the cure. ‘You’re lonely – and Jesus loves you. You’re searching – and Jesus is the answer.’ But Jesus did not die to rescue us from our loneliness or our depression or our emptiness. He died to rescue us from our sins…Jesus started with the Samaritan woman’s ‘felt need’ but He did use it to lead into a conversation that included the subject of sin.”

So, we need to proceed with caution. But we need to proceed. Because we need to meet people where they are at. Jesus met this woman at her point of need and then he used that ‘felt need’ to point to the greater issue – sin as the problem and Himself as the solution. Our goal should be to try and help people to the place where they are willing to consider the reason for the pain in their lives. This isn’t about just ‘treating the symptoms’. This is about using the symptoms to direct people to the cure. If people can get to the place where they are willing to consider that there is something really wrong then maybe they will be more willing to consider the one true Cure – a personal relationship with Christ that begins with His forgiveness.

This Is How Great God Is

This is how great God is – every child born is special. Now, you would think that an attempt to emphasize everything (or in this case, everyone) would result in the emphasizing of nothing (or no one). But, that’s how great God is! He can do that! You’d think, in making billions and billions of people that there would be no way for every single person to really be special. But they are. We are. You are. You are special to Him. Even before you were born, when God was knitting you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:15,16), God looked at you and said… “Now, this one is really special.”

We read through the Bible and we see men and women like Gideon and Esther and we readily see how they were special but here’s the thing - you are special. And that is NOT just sentimentality. God has a unique plan for every single person born into this world. Now, that doesn’t mean that all of us realize the plan or follow it. But that is our choice. As for God, He has a special plan, and therefore a special love, for every single person and that includes you.

Perhaps you know a mother who has six children. Do you think that they are each and all special to her? What if she had twenty?! Or what if … But that’s how great God is!

They say that no two snow flakes are exactly the same even though they are all alike. I guess if God can do it with snow, He can do it with people.

I think Max Lucado is right. God has your picture on His refrigerator. Because that is how great God is. And because God is so great, He made you special. And, yes, He wants you to feel that way. AND, He wants you to feel that way about everyone else too. Yes, everyone.