Kingdom of God

“The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field…” Matt. 13:31

Forty five years ago this Saturday, I walked out in front of a room full of people and pledged my life to a lovely young lady. It was a scary occasion where promises were made ‘til death do us part and all of that. A few minutes passed by, and then I was a married man. It didn’t take long at all to pass over that threshold of life alone to life together. Just a few minutes, some exchange of words, a pronouncement, and a piece of signed paper was all it took to redirect my whole life. I was in the club, complete with newly minted wedding band.

As I walked out and down the aisle, not a whole lot had really changed in my personal being. I still loathed broccoli, had my distinct ideas regarding wardrobe selections, and certainly did not like wearing a ring. I conceded that I would wear it for the honeymoon, but then, forget it. Little did I know that a wedding ceremony was just the beginning of a total make-over. Neither one of us suspected as much.

I soon learned that taking off the wedding band at night was just not the thing to do. In fact, I have worn it continually to this day. In fact, this thing called marriage just kept on growing and insinuating itself into every part of my personal life and business. It started affecting the way I dressed, the way I ate dinner (with manners), the way I spoke, and the way I thought about things like birthday cards and Mother’s Day cards. It introduced me to the joys of tacos, real Italian spaghetti, and deep fried okra. Indeed, my wardrobe changed, my manners changed, my music changed, my habits of where I dropped my clothes changed, and even the way I put the toothpaste cap on the toothpaste tube changed.

Then along came some children who changed my life even more drastically than I could ever have imagined. Instead of me being at the center of the universe or even sharing that center with another, now suddenly I only owned a minority share of it. I was willing to forego sleep, change a smelly diaper, and clean up after a knock down drag out fight with green beans and a one year old. How could something that small completely take over and trump my plans for the weekend let alone my finances and all my heart-felt priorities?

With each child, my world was stretched, and I was changed some more. Now that they are gone from the house, I have taken back the rooms where they had set up their separate kingdoms, places where they had freely established their own tastes and preferences independent of mine. But yet, if I were to lose any one of them now, I would be diminished as a person as painfully as if you had cut off an arm. Then there are the grandchildren whose insidious smiles and giggles have taken and stretched my heart to ever new extremes. This marriage thing just will not be contained and keeps on growing, keeps on investing itself like a virus into every portion of my life, and keeps on scaling new ramparts within the most private and selfish parts of my soul. How could I have imagined what an unstoppable flood those wedding vows would loose within me.

So too, the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, exceedingly small, yet finding root, it sprouts and grows and will not be denied its destiny to occupy a great space, larger than all the garden plants, becoming a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. How much like a marriage that begins with a simple oath and then starts its work to bring life where before was just raw soil and a little rain. It is an invasive species in both instances that takes over whatever it touches, reaching its tentacles into every corner, into places that we did not even know existed.

I am not the same man I was 45 years ago for which all of you need be grateful. It is due in large part to a very patient wife but also to the steadfast work of the Spirit of God that refuses to leave me as I am. My faith in marriage tells me that the changes I see are for my best. I can see that clearly now. It was not always so clear in the midst of the stretching. My faith in God says his pruning is also for my good. To have remained the same would have been to settle for a small pot of static plastic flowers, slowly gathering dust, instead of an ever expanding living plant that bears actual fruit. Be glad for life and growth, change and transformation, both mine and yours.

Mercy and Truth,
Mr. Moe

Mission

I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:” -Ex. 6:6

I have always been a junk collector. I still have an old plastic tire gauge vaguely in the shape of a pistol the size of which would fit in a child’s hand. It doesn’t work. It never did. I found it in the dirt walking to school one day when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Something drew me to it. My imagination enhanced its form and function into any number of uses: a secret tool, a mini-gun, a spy gadget. What one person had carelessly discarded, I had picked up and redeemed as a treasured collectible, a toy, a real find.

I still have a hard time passing up someone else’s throwaways. I can see uses for just about anything. Some are genuine treasures others have just overlooked and left to rust in neglect. I found a hand plane in a junk store in my early days of discovering the joys of such tools. It was covered in rust and dull as a brick. $8.00 redeemed it from the shelf and a life of benign neglect. A number of painstaking hours in the shop brought it back to life. The rust gone, the wood refurbished, and the blade brought to a razor’s sharpness, this tool now sits in a place of honor in my wood shop and is one of the sweetest cutting of all my planes. I can take off paper thin slices of wood with an effortless push while it makes this little “swwizz” sound that is music to the ears.

Redemption, as I see it, is God-work. It is the central, over-arching theme of history since the fall. God seeks to redeem man from the effects of that infernal disaster in the garden and convert his rebellious creatures into sons and daughters that will reign with Him in heaven once again. He promises not only to raise us up as new creatures in Christ and give us one day a heavenly body, He also promises a new heaven and a new earth. At best, all our environmental efforts will only slow down the steady decay of our planet. God is coming again to restore creation to its original intended form: lions lying down with lambs, children playing near the adder’s hole.

There is no greater mission in life than to participate in God’s mission. Only He can fully bring this work to completion, but it is given into our hand to play a significant part in this supreme work. There is no greater task, no greater challenge, but to join in this business of redeeming a fallen world wherever we touch it. Immediately, Christians think of redeeming lost souls, and that is undoubtedly the most exciting work of all. “He that winneth souls is wise,” we read in Proverbs. Yet we need also to see the bigger picture for it gives meaning and direction to even the most common of labors or the most exotic of the arts and sciences.

I cannot look at an overgrown lot or a patch of wild woodlands but see all the possibilities of quiet walkways, gardens, scenic overlooks, cleared picnic spots, and young trees that would produce lumber of value someday if only they were thinned, pruned, and given a modicum of tender care. Nature by itself is wasteful, producing both weeds and fruit. When we tend nature, we redeem it to stem its self destructive tendencies and greatly improve its productivity. When the scientist looks at a crippling disease, he sees nature gone awry and begins a search for a cure to end the reign of sin that would disfigure and destroy. The policeman seeks to restore order to a world that would end in chaos if left to its own devices. The housewife seeks to redeem each day’s confusion resulting from just meeting our daily needs. Dirt and dust spring up everywhere and the stains of daily living must be resisted at every turn. Parents train up children by spending much time and care in redeeming a future citizen and honored saint from the rough, self-centered lump of clay given into their midst.

The second secret of living a fulfilled life is getting a sense of mission, a vision of what we are to be about. There is no greater work than joining with God in the work of redemption. Enlist your children, now.

Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe

suicide

“Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.” 2 Cor. 4:1

Summer is all about fun in the sun and all that good stuff. I hate to spoil the mood, but I come to you with some good but somber reflections regarding suicide. It is the 11th most common cause of death in the U.S. and takes the life of an American on average every 17 minutes. The highest toll is among the elderly over the age of 60 who account for 40% of the statistics. Being in that age group, I speak to myself first of all. But the most disturbing trend is among our youth. It is the 2nd most common cause of death among teens.

I have been studying 2 Corinthians, chapters 3 &4, and I think I see an antidote and a way to suicide-proof our children and grandchildren. Paul writes at length about the indwelling power of the Spirit of God to transform a life and to empower it for the work of the ministry. Moses had a ministry that was glorious in his day yet it faded and only worked death through the Law. We have a much superior ministry of the Spirit that produces righteousness (3:9) and liberty (3:17). It is the same ministry of the Spirit that empowered our Lord to “…preach good tidings unto the meek; … to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.” (Isa. 61:1-3). Paul makes it quite clear that we are not adequate in ourselves for such things (2:16, 3:5) but that this is the work of the Lord; that our adequacy comes from God.

“THEREFORE, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.” (4:1) Suicide claims as its victims those who have totally lost heart. They have lost sight of any purpose for living and certainly of any role in God’s kingdom as His royal agents and ambassadors of Christ. We have this treasure, the ministry of the Spirit of the living God, in earthen vessels that brings purpose to life and hope to every circumstance. Those who have a clear understanding of the ministry and mission that they have been given by God may be afflicted but will not be crushed, may become perplexed but will not despair, may be persecuted but will not feel forsaken, and may even be struck down but cannot be destroyed (4:8-9). They are immune to the despair that breeds thoughts of self-destruction.

I am picturing three little boats in History that were built with very humble purposes in mind but ended up shaking the world. One was a small and simple sailboat that sat neglected for years in an old cabin in Russia. A young prince named Peter discovered it one day, retrieved it, and learned a love for sailing. His dreams escalated from there as Czar of all the Russias to seek for his country a warm-water port on the ocean that would bring Russia into the modern age and make her a world power. Another simple fishing boat sat on the shores of the island of Elba in the Mediterranean where it served no major purpose until Napoleon Bonaparte appropriated it one night and escaped his exile to return to the mainland where he went on to force the world to a bloody showdown at Waterloo. Another simple rowboat here in America went on to great fame as the boat that carried General George Washington across the Delaware, a critical and victorious turning point in the American Revolution. In each case, the boat was nothing, but the personage it carried was everything.

If we can instill in our children (as well as the aged) a sense of destiny as to the personage of the Holy Spirit they carry within them and the grand purposes He is about, we will not have to worry about them becoming another grim statistic. They will not lose heart. Nor will we.

the heart

“I will bring the blind by a way they did not know.” ~Isaiah 42:16

Mily Cyrus is portrayed on the cover of Parade magazine this week as an emerging teen who declares with new found certainty, “I know who I am.” We would only pray that this is as true as it is remarkable. I certainly had no idea of who I was at 17 and still struggle at age 65. Just who am I? I am afraid I have much more in common with the Apostle Paul than I do with Mily Cyrus. Paul, that mighty defender of the faith, openly admitted, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

I have a young friend who is one of those folks who has the appearance of polish and success written all over him. He is an educated professional with a wife and newborn child. Together they radiate the model young Christian family. Well-mannered, well-spoken, prosperous, athletic looks, and knowledgeable in all manner of Scriptural truth, he epitomizes for me any young man’s dream or ambition. He shared with me his story-book upbringing in a Christian home in the hills of West Virginia where he spent every Sunday in church and where he met his wife-to-be as a teenager in the church nursery. He says he was raised in “Mayberry” and was every bit the good son that would conform in such a setting. Yet he looks back and declares that as a young man he was every bit a rank sinner that was fully headed for and deserving of hell. It was his own secret self that was out of control that could also admit with Paul of being the chief of sinners. I sat a bit stunned at hearing this self-deprecating description. The disparity of image and truth jangled my sensibilities.

I am always intrigued by the spiritual journey stories when interviewing new families as they join with us here at school. Many of them indicate they have dull testimonies because of having accepted Christ at a young age in a Christian home. Indeed, a dull testimony is what you desire for your children as well. We would not wish the heartbreak of a prodigal-come-home testimony on anyone. The risk and pain is too great. Yet, I have come to understand that all of us who name the name of Christ, no matter of age or experience, have been fished out of the miry pit of sin by the grace of God. We were all standing in the cesspool of lost-ness, alone and covered in guilt, totally unworthy of any merit or favor. We may have been the elder brother who stayed at home, but we were as equally in need of a savior as any who have traveled to a distant land to waste our substance in riotous living “…for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

I think it is easy to become confused as to who we actually are. Those of us who have lived the straight life all these years can easily grow comfortable with our middle-class, respectable selves and assume a creeping smugness that belies our actual nature. Jeremiah laments that the human heart is desperately wicked, who can know it? Such a picture of who we actually are is not popular or cheerful. It kind of reminds us of Jonathon Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” a picture or message we do not necessarily enjoy. While I would dare suggest that Edwards rename his message, “Sinners in the hands of a just and holy God,” I think he had the rest quite right. We are all quite deserving of eternal damnation. This perspective should do two things for us. It should help us bear a posture of true humility as those who have “nothing in our hands to bring.” Secondly, it should renew within us a sense of profound joy that we, who were lost, have now been found. Though we were blind, we now can see.

It should also make us fully aware that our children, though good and pleasant and obedient on the outside, still need a new heart and a cleansing that only God can give. And when they blow it, we should not be shocked. They are, like we, emerging from the pit and the miry clay of sin into which they were born. That is the real truth of who we are and the most vital truth of all.

Completely Loved

“Henceforth I call you not servants; … but I have called you friends;” -John 15:15

A visit to Mrs. Miller’s 4^th gr. class was on my agenda the other week, and so I went to just observe and be as unobtrusive as possible. Before I could enter the room, however, a display of student work on the door arrested my attention and held me riveted by what I began to read. It was just one of those simple fill-in-the-blank exercises that elementary teachers use to get to know their students and elicit some creative expression. Under a photo of themselves, students filled in the blanks with statements about themselves that ranged from the humorous to the profound. A girl wrote: The important thing about me is that I love God. I love my family and my friends. I love my enemies but not working outside on a very hot day. Oh, that all of us found loving our enemies preferable over working outside on a very hot day. Wow! Another wrote: I like ice cream and vegetables but not mold! The most important think about me is I love Jesus, the Christ. Without a doubt, this most important thing is the most important thing. May we do as well to remember.

While these stabbed me to the heart (all the while standing there with a door half opened), one response brought tears to my soul that came close to seeping out the eyes. A girl wrote: The important thing about me is just being me! I like school so much! I like school because my teacher is fun, and my classmates are all great! I also like all the subjects – they are very fun but not English as much. I also like doing cartwheels (a lot) and playing with my sister! I think we play well together. But the most important thing about me is that I am completely loved, completely accepted, and completely significant!!!

I stood there stunned that any 4^th grader would be able to say that they were completely loved, completely accepted, and completely significant at that tender age. I wanted to file a letter of complaint against my upbringing and bring suit against all involved because I was never able to say any such thing let alone be able to even spell those words. How many of us could simply sit in wonder at how we might have matured, how different things might have been, and what results might have followed had we been able to say in 4^th grade, I am completely loved, completely accepted, and completely significant.

My first suspicion upon further reflection was that the parents had coached their daughter on what to say. And so I interviewed them over the phone trying to ascertain the source of these words that had so gripped my imagination. No, there was no dictation involved. The student had freely transcribed these stirring sentiments on her own. But there had been a conscious and deliberate pouring into this young heart a series of devotions taken from God’s word that underlined these very things. Though I am sure that these parents had invested much of their time in giving their children a sense of their own love and acceptance, in the end it is the Scriptures that brings the deepest and most satisfying answer to the child’s heart. For every child instinctively knows that there are secrets and closets within each of us that are known only to God. Parental love is important, but God’s love is even more important because he knows us, oh, so intimately. Once God’s love is grasped and accepted, we are free to love one another as witnessed by the positive words of affirmation towards all of life throughout this young girl’s responses.

It is my prayer that all our students may come to the full knowledge of our standing with God, the creator of heaven and earth, who stoops and deigns to call us, “friend.” Nothing shows the need more than a recent survey of Knox Co. middle school students which revealed that 17% of them had considered killing themselves, 12% had made a plan, and 7% had made an attempt. How desperate the need.

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!

“It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.They are new every morning” - Lamentations 3:22-23

(The following is a reflection penned the night my mother died after I found out how a nurse’s aide had stayed by her bedside in the final hour or so of her life. This unsung stranger talked calm words and read the Scripture to my mom who could neither hear nor respond except in some unknown way. And so I paused to think of how our lives are marked by mercy from beginning to end, how we are defined and molded by mercy, and how it flows from a thousand unacknowledged sources to fill the hours of our days. May we marvel at its mighty and majestic work and be the willing agents of its spread.)

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to each individual human soul,
God’s rain to quench the drought,
That stretches back to Adam’s folly,
Falling patchwork style,
Upon garden hearts that look to unseen skies,
And wait precariously on mystic clouds,
Grown dark with promises of grace,
While mercy drops kick up the dust of our loose-lived lives,
With the portent of showers and floods to come.

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to each human heart,
From birth’s first cry for human touch,
To childhood needs too plentiful to count,
Where mother’s love and father’s care,
Sustain the fine thin line between,
The fruitful life or blasted barrenness,
And even in the grown-up land,
Grace must do its daily work,
Pulling sap to dizzying heights,
To keep the hillsides green and winter in its place.

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to each human end,
When houses, lands lie fallen by the way,
And life is narrowed to a single bed,
One closet with a week’s apparel,
And one small board stuck with colored pins,
That hold some frames of a life gone by;
Grace descends three times a day,
Where crusts of bread become as prized,
As bags of gold or grandpa’s watch,
And a dear one’s voice is gift enough,To keep alive the will to live, if only one more day

Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!
How vital to all human-kind,
Where total strangers mingle in,
And leave their mark in gentle ways,
They stop by bedsides, filling gaps,
In final vigils, or with simple acts,
They guide the floating bark as it departs;
One wipes a brow, one changes sheets,
One for pay, another just because,
Grace compels which no logic can explain,
To speak soft words, to read the Book of Books,
And thereby spend, the final hour in dark of night, alone,To keep an appointment set 93 years before.

Revival 2

Here is the latest and greatest. It represents a departure from the norm as I engage one of our readers in a dialogue regarding the last issue. I received some feed-back last week from my friend Dr. Jesse --, a professor of music at Malone College, who prays and weeps regularly for revival. I thought his heart-felt fervor worth printing:

All that you write about how we as individuals affect the world around us is true, but I still think that a small impact is, nevertheless, still small and that we should be VERY uneasy about the impact question. But I don't think the answer lies in cleverly devised human programs. What would happen in our communities if even 2 or 3 believers met regularly, fasting, on their knees, desperate before God, openly saying, "Lord, we see so little impact, so few hungry for You. Is there nothing in us that makes them want to 'taste and see?' Does my flesh obscure your Spirit in me to such an extent that I am not reflecting your image? Lord, we hear about thousands getting saved every day in Uganda. Why not here? Lord, make us desperate. Wake us up. Draw others to join us in seeking you. We can't manufacture anything on our own. We need your Wind to blow life into these dry bones." I believe we are in a time when the only "programs" we need are intense, corporate worship and tearful intercession. Nothing polite, nothing dignified. Nothing running on a strict schedule. At church and in our homes, on our knees, weeping, noses running, a no-holds-barred, "I don't care who hears me" cry for mercy for ourselves and for our neighborhoods. Revival is not the end goal here, it is but step two. (Step one is to realize we are dying on the vine, a refusal to live in the town of Status Quo any longer.) Revival is God's Intensive Care for patients whose spiritual breath can hardly fog a mirror, and I fear that is a pretty accurate description of most churches and church members, including myself. How can we expect to impact our communities when we're as sick and poor and needy as the unsaved? Revival is God mercifully bringing the spiritual and emotional healing we can not possibly bring about ourselves. Like the defibrillator paddles, revival is a jump start to get our heart beating again. What we want is transformation; transformation of communities, schools, churches, commerce, and government, where in our towns the works of Christ are more evident than the works of the Enemy.

Mr. Moe responds:
Thanks for the response. You are, of course, admirably right in wanting more than just the average, the good, and, surely, just the mediocre impact on the world in which we live: a self-satisfied, sophisticated, prosperous, society that is super-saturated with entertainments at every hand (unlike Uganda). We pray, or should be praying, for the eruptions of Pentecost to once again break forth in our midst. Yet, in the meantime, we must not despair, because to remove the salt-of-the-earth people we rub shoulders with every day from this present society would surely bring chaos and collapse of unimaginable proportions. So, there are two truths here. We both inform and sustain society to a level of humanity and justice we presently see (which we should not underestimate and for which we should be thankful). But then we live with the knowledge that, in many ways, we could be doing that a whole lot better if we could only purify ourselves to live a more Christ-like life (What would happen if all Christians suddenly stopped doing commerce on Sunday? Or voted?). And, like you mention so clearly, we have no idea what effect we could have if we were to don some appropriate form of sack cloth and ashes in repentance for our communities. But the Spirit blows where it will, and we can do little to command it. Revival comes sometimes in the midst of chaos and seeming defeat and other times when good people seek it eagerly. I hope I can be a balanced servant who prays for revival on one hand and with the other reaches out for my lunch box and goes to work in the full faith and knowledge that simple faith and obedience goes a long way in steadying the societal ship.

Responses and dialogue welcome
How selfish of me to not invite and welcome a “letter to the editor” response from all faithful readers to Mercy and Truth. I hope this will inspire others to respond. No such response will be printed without your final permission. Address all inquiries, rebuttals, praise, and hate-mail to the comments section.

Here are some final tidbits from the Jesse – Moe exchange:

Mr. Moe writes: Many folks seem to stand at the brink of despair and doubt when faced with the question of what difference they are making in the world. When it is a plague of doubt and depression from the evil one, it is a bad thing. When that is a holy dissatisfaction with the status quo coming from the Holy Spirit, it is a good thing. We need to speak to both. I talked to the first last week. You are talking to the second.

Jesse responds: Thank you for reminding me of sack cloth. I should have had "heart-rending repentance" at the top of my list of "programs." To obey is better than sacrifice. No, in the meantime we must not despair, but we MUST become desperate for godly change, desperate enough to turn off the TV and gather our Christian friends to meet regularly to intercede for our city, with the understanding we will not let up until transformation is evident.

Savings and Loan

“As for the saints that are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.” –Ps.16:3NASV

I was privileged to participate in a very heartfelt discussion last week about the effectiveness of my church. We were several men given the gift of time to reflect upon who we were and where we were going. The question was raised with pointed effect, “Are we impacting our community where we live?” There was a considerable portion of skepticism attached to that inquiry for the life of our church was not attended by waves of the unsaved coming down the aisles or by an overflowing parking lot full of visitors trying to find a slot. Life is fairly routine on any Sunday morning or Wednesday night and attendees are predictable and typically stolid in outward appearance. It was not too difficult to understand the gravity of the question at hand. We all stumbled in attempting to answer the question and were tempted to come to all sorts of conclusions of where the fault and failure lay. Such introspection invariably leads to doubt and restlessness as we see little that is “majestic” in ourselves.

I slept uneasily turning over the question through the night. Then it came to me. Yes, we did impact our community, and I became more convinced of that with each new thought. Every time the hand-bell choir stepped up to ring a witness of truth and beauty into my soul, every time a soloist would sing God’s praise with sincerity and passion, every time the choir would hit a home run to a chorus of amens, and every time the pastor would make my spirit fly on wings of the eternal Word; all these things helped keep this poor boy on the straight and narrow for another week. That, in itself, was no small accomplishment. I am to be the salt of my community and my church is keenly doing its duty in attempting to keep that saltiness alive and well. I thought of a fellow member, Anthony, who pauses every morning in the parking lot of the paint store where he works. He stops to read the Word and pray and then proceeds to enter that store, armed and dangerous, a man who takes no prisoners when given a chance to speak for his Lord. Yes, we impact our community. I think of my friend, Jim, walking the halls of his work-place, a nursing home, where he is an amazing embodiment of our Lord in ministering to the old and feeble of our world. I have seen him talking softly with genuine care in his voice as he clips fingernails and lifts spirits. Yes, we touch the weak and worn of our community. I see young couples raising Godly children who respect authority and have eager eyes and hearts to learn truth wherever they find it. Then they spill them out into our community where they are eagerly received by beleaguered teachers and despondent employers. Yes, we are touching our world for good.

No, it is not flashy or headline-grabbing nor are folks lining up to take seminars to learn the secret of our success. It is the kind of thing pounded out in a life of daily living, routine righteousness, and habitual compassion. But it is that which builds nations and makes them strong. It is easy to despair of our churches with all their warts, our marriages and families with all their problems and quirks, and even our school with all its faults. But when we do, we need to stop and look at them from the other end of the telescope and see their power and beauty, giving thanks for the work of the Holy Spirit who brings forth growth through even the most humble of human agencies when it seeks to follow in the Lord’s steps.

And if we haven’t already, we need to pull out “It’s a Wonderful Life” and watch it one more time. We all struggle with our own “crummy old Savings and Loan” resentments against those institutions in our lives which appear drab, ordinary, and possessing. May we catch a glimpse of what God is doing through them, through us, over time, in quiet and wonderful ways we find hard to recognize or comprehend.

Beginnings

“Therefore having been justified by faith,…” Romans 5:1-5

It is hard to believe that another school year is upon us already. I, like you, wonder where the summer went. Looking at several students who are suddenly elevated inches in stature assures me that we had one. Some of you are suddenly looking eye to eye with your children. Most all are returning with bright eyes and excitement over a new beginning. I, too, rejoice that we serve a God of new beginnings.

For each student, there is a clean slate, new classmates, new teachers, new textbooks, new opportunities, and new challenges. Some, however, are laboring under the memories of past difficulties, old offenses, broken friendships, or even past failure. It is a common human condition. In spite of the memories of high points in the past year, many are nevertheless also haunted by the difficulties encountered, the mistakes, the doubts, the misunderstandings, and errors of judgment committed by ourselves or others along the way. Adults and students alike long for fresh starts but often find themselves nagged by bad memories. How we deal with the past is an important factor in determining success in the future.

It is a familiar story echoed in the lives of any church you have known this past year, any extended family relationships you have encountered, any marriage that continues to grow and thrive, and, yes, any life lived in the full scrutiny of God’s all-seeing eye. Failure and shortcoming are endemic to all humanity and every institution known to man, CFC among them. Being the chief manager of the complaint department is one of my many duties that I have learned to embrace with healthy respect.

Listening to difficulties teaches me about me. How do I live with failure and shortcoming? It is a question each of us has to answer to maintain our own sanity and well-being. In spite of mistakes, we must move forward. In spite of the flaws of our mate, we must remain loyal. In spite of the deficiencies of our children, we still must love and care deeply about them. In spite of our own moral failures, we must continue to run the race for the high calling of Christ Jesus. We have to learn to live with failure and error or we die, either of despair or bitterness.

How shall we then live? I get a picture of the resolution of this dilemma from Romans where Paul exults in “this grace in which we stand” enabling us to have “peace with God.” I love grace. It is blessed stuff. Preach it, brother. But then he goes on to “exult in our tribulations” knowing that it brings about “perseverance” and “proven character.” Ouch! That part I could just as soon do without.

I have stood with many of you last year that suffered through struggles and heartaches. I have interviewed many new families who bring with them stories of difficulties and distress. Every student at CFC brings with them memories of the past school year that contain elements of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Suggestion. At the beginning of every year, I believe it is good practice to (1) exult in the grace of God. Accordingly as I have received, so should I give; forgive as I have been forgiven. It is God’s preventive medicine against bitterness. (2) I need to exult in my tribulations. I must look upon all those difficult problems, discipline sessions, conflicts, protracted meetings, misunderstandings as things sown into my life from which good can result. I must not look back upon them with embarrassed resentment but as opportunities for growth.

Can you join me in rejoicing in the grace God has shown to us by bringing us thus far and giving us another new beginning? Romans 5 – good stuff.

Self Esteem

“For God so loved the world…” -John 3:16

There is a new public service announcement out. It features Mariska Hargitay who says “If you like you, everyone else will too.” One of my high school students went to the national motivational seminar in Knoxville last week and took home a message about not listening to anyone else’s viewpoint about ones’ self, especially if it is negative. My wife and I recently reminisced about how many of our own college days were absorbed by our own insecurities and how much more we could have accomplished if we had only felt less afraid about who we were. And how often have adult friends shared stories about how their own parents filled them with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy that still continue to plague them?

Out of this fertile ground of our insecurities and self-doubts sprung the self-esteem movement. It tried to reassure us that both you and I were okay. It spawned numerous seminars, books, and self-help classes to say nothing of the efforts at building self-esteem among our school-age population. From there, it just seemed to be a natural progression to eliminating the sources of negative self-esteem. Grades were suspect, tracking was denounced, testing was dethroned, and everyone was encouraged to think they could do anything they put into their minds to do. Never was heard a discouraging word and the skies were not cloudy all day.

Like any humanistic movement and lie, there lay a kernel of truth at the core. Yes, we are born into this world as a 7-pound bundle of fears. We bear a terrible burden that we were never intended to bear: free, moral autonomy. And because it is an impossible load to carry, we wrestle with very, real guilt along with all the cast off remnants of parental and societal failings. The insecurities we feel are quite real, and the most, deservedly so.

But there is no healing power in a blind mantra that keeps repeating, “I’m okay. I’m okay.” Those who actually come to believe that often morph into arrogant monsters that no one can live with. I find little in myself to love so how can I truly love myself? There is ultimately only one means of reconciling myself to myself, and that is to see myself as God sees me. He knows it all, the failings and the filth, and yet he places great value on me. He comes and deals with the moral guilt, buries it in the deepest sea, and adopts me as His son. I am worthy because He said so, and the price of my ransom was high.

Next to that, the love of friends and family pales by comparison in its redemptive power. But because we are God’s body in this world, we can be the instruments of communicating His grace; “God’s love with fingers and toes.” I have to have God’s love and forgiveness, but that which comes through human agency is powerfully reassuring as well. It takes the form of the good Samaritan who picks up my battered spirit and nurses it back to health, reflecting the grace of God at work in us all.

I say all this to encourage parents to love your children with all the love that God puts in you. Your arms are a welcome flesh and blood embodiment of God’s love, and I think He meant it to be that way. I knew no one in my life as a child who could extend that act of grace to me. Many of our parents never experienced it given to them. How many sons have gone off seeking the reassuring love of their mothers in the arms of strange women? How many daughters have sought the love of their fathers in the embrace of young men? Love your children. Not blindly, but purposely, redemptively, and passionately. It grounds the spirit of a child like nothing else.

Dear Jane

Dear Jane:

I am trying to imagine the bittersweet process with which you labored over the 40th anniversary cake you made for us last weekend. On the one hand, I know your love for us and how you would desire to rejoice with us in celebrating this milestone in our lives. That is just who you are. And you showed that through the skilled work of your hands and heart in crafting one of your signature cakes with all the flourishes. Our anniversary was one of those events we wished to celebrate with a “Jane ------” cake.

On the other hand, I know that this must have been painful to craft such a celebratory gift all the time knowing that you would never receive one. Your husband of many years has left and abandoned you. You will never experience the joy of a 40th anniversary. I hope you did not think it cruel of us to ask you to do this for us. I trust instead that you took this as a compliment of your craft and evidence of our belief that you still desire to rejoice with those who rejoice. Yet, I am searching for words to extend thanks, praise, and hope to a wounded soul.

Life comes with no guarantees other than the promises of God’s word. So I turn to that as you surely have done in these past dark days. I know you have asked hard questions. Was marriage worth the risk of such great pain? Did I make one great mistake or many small ones? How could I have known? All such questions are unanswerable, but they nag the soul like pestering flying insects that will not go away. These things we cannot know. But what can we know when standing in the midst of ruin and disaster?

First of all, we know that “a righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again (Pro. 24:16).” You will rise again if your heart is steadfast. Though this has been a grievous fall, you will once more become a strong tower of refuge for others. I believe this. I trust you can believe it as well. Secondly, we know that those who plant themselves by the rivers of living water will not wither and whatever they do shall prosper (Ps. 1:3). I cherish this promise more and more as I grow older for it says that whatever, yes, whatever turn I take in life or is forced upon me, I can still see fruit blossom forth and witness productivity flowing from my life. It is the miracle of a Moses fleeing a felony, an Abraham surviving his own fearful lies, or a Joshua succeeding in spite of being married to a rebellious and unbelieving people. Thirdly, I know that you have a special place in God’s heart for “He upholdeth the fatherless and widow (Ps. 146:9).” He will establish your borders (Pro. 15:25). And like the divorced daughter of the Levitical priest, you are entitled to return home and eat of your father’s bread (Lev. 22:13).

My prayer for you is that you will be able to tell your children that your journey was worth the pain, that lifetime marriage is still God’s perfect plan, and that love risks everything or is not love at all. To do so will require a heart of mercy on your part, but the promise is that the merciful shall obtain mercy. You are in line to obtain much.