Growing Up in a "Reverse Whack-A-Mole" Family

I was raised by crazy people.  Not the “wild and crazy” type.  The mentally ill type.  All the men in the family had significant issues.  My dad left our family when I was 12 and never provided either financial or emotional support.  Some divorced fathers become “Disney Dads” – showering their kids with gifts and fun events to make up for their physical absence.  Not mine.  He rejected virtually everything conventional, including even giving birthday and Christmas gifts.  

He was emotionally abusive and, according to my mom, seemed to relish picking on me.  Instead of reaching out to my brother and me in terms we could relate to, he would badger us for not having warm feelings toward him.  When I see Jesus ask in Matthew 7:9-11, “Which of you fathers would give a stone instead of bread?” I have someone I can nominate. 

My dad’s dad thought he had cancer when he was in his 60s, so one day he jumped in front of a speeding train at a railroad crossing about a mile from our house.  

My brother, who was a year older, suffered from schizophrenia and manic depression.  We never had any kind of relationship.  He spent most of the last 20 years of his life in and out of mental hospitals and eventually hanged himself. 

My other grandfather had an emotional breakdown and was also hospitalized for several months. 

And then there were the uncles and cousins.  Among them were at least one alcoholic, one who was unfaithful to his wife, a hoarder/hermit, and (allegedly) a small-time criminal.

In short, there were no healthy men anywhere in sight, and I always felt on the “outs” with all of them.  

You probably know the carnival game Whack-A-Mole where nine mechanical moles pop out of their holes in a random manner, and the player tries to whack them with a mallet before they retreat.  I have concluded that I grew up in a “reverse whack-a-mole” world where there were about nine whackers and one mole – me.  

Several years ago, I visited a counselor to try to piece all this together.  After hearing my story, he said – on at least four occasions: 

There is no explanation for you.  Someone with your background should be unemployable, divorced three times, abusive, an alcoholic, or some other kind of addict.  The fact that you’re none of these things is an incredible testimony to God’s grace.

Whenever my wife calls me out on something I’m doing wrong, I love reminding her that I “should” be a whole lot worse than I am  😊.

You may know that I wrote a book called That’s a Great Question, which is a critical thinking/apologetics book.  It’s aimed at the “intellectual” side of the faith.  I love discussing skeptics’ “head” problems with the Bible.  I can’t necessarily answer all their questions to their satisfaction, but I can hold my own in the discussion.  After we have tap-danced a bit and they realize I’m not brain-dead, I like to say something like this:

I’ve appreciated our conversation.  Even if we don’t agree, I respect your perspective and I hope you respect mine.  I don’t think I can convince you conclusively of the truth of the Bible at this point, and I have studied these issues enough to feel there is probably nothing you can say that will convince me to walk away from the faith.  So, we’re at something of a standstill.

However, I want to point out a totally different reason that I know that Jesus is real.  And that’s the fact that he absolutely changed my life.  

I then tell them my story, and they typically listen attentively.

So, yes, Jesus can even rescue someone brought up in a reverse whack-a-mole family.  Praise him!

A Down Side of Being Strong

In our household, we have rephrased the old saying about springtime to read, “Spring is the time when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of . . . planting shrubs.”  I thought we owned two or three of every tree and shrub that Pike Nursery has to sell, but each year, I rediscover that I was wrong.  We always seem be sprucing up a different part of the yard or replacing a dead bush that didn’t survive the winter.

A couple of years ago, we decided to swap out a dozen shrubs in the front of our house that just weren’t doing it.  The challenge was finding a single variety that could thrive in conditions ranging from full sunlight to full shade.  Very few are that adaptable, but we finally settled on a specific type of hawthorn that prefers sunlight but can do reasonably well in shade.  

Although all twelve plants were healthy, when it came time to plant them, I made sure to put the very best and strongest specimens in the least favorable (that is, most shady) conditions.  And that made me wonder if my approach was parallel to the life circumstances God allows in different people’s lives.   

Some people seem to have it made.  Everything consistently falls into place:  good health, great jobs, relatively smooth family lives, few financial problems, etc.   Others experience just the opposite.

One friend I’ve been meeting with monthly for several years seems to be a problem magnet.  His family of origin was nothing short of a nightmare.  His wife of two decades suddenly left him for another man, triggering a very expensive years-long custody fight.  He experienced other issues with his adult children.  And just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, he had a serious car accident that has left him with significant medical issues that threaten his ability to work.

I can only speculate as to why God has allowed this tough, tough series of circumstances.  But my experience with planting the hawthorns makes me wonder if perhaps God is paying my friend a very high compliment.  Just as I made sure to place the very strongest plants in the most demanding locations, could it be that God does the same and allows the most severe circumstances for those he knows can handle it?  This is consistent with the spirit of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:13 – God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.  But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.  

I’m sure there have been many times my friend has been tempted to despair, but God has been faithful to sustain him in his faith.  And he has endured and grown greatly.  In fact, he is almost unrecognizable as the same man I started meeting with a few years ago.  And it’s because of the adversity God has allowed in his life.  Others might have crumbled but my friend hasn’t.  Instead he has grown and thrived and serves as a powerful testimony to God’s grace.  

So, the next time you encounter a particularly rough spell, perhaps it’s God recognizing the inner strength he has built into your life.

A Lesson about God's Grace from Yogurt Trees

Well, actually, they’re not really called yogurt trees.  They’re redbuds – beautiful, slender trees that dot wooded areas and homeowners’ properties throughout the South and much of the East Coast.  Our daughter Stephanie started calling them “yogurt trees” in high school because their delicate blossoms are the same pinkish-purplish color as the boysenberry yogurt she loves.  And the name stuck – at least in our family.

Yogurt trees are small-to-medium sized and have attractive heart-shaped leaves.  What makes them really stand out,though, are the clusters of pinkish blossoms that pop right out of the trees’ bare branches even before the leaves do.   These blossoms signal the beginning of spring, and since they start sprouting while most other trees are still dormant, you can’t miss them.

We live right next to Kennesaw Mountain National Civil War Battlefield Park just outside Atlanta, and starting in mid-March, whenever we drive through the park, I’m delighted to see little pink bursts absolutely everywhere.  However, once the flowers fade and the other trees sprout their leaves, yogurt trees go virtually unnoticed for the rest of the year.  But they’re always there.

And they serve as a special reminder of God’s grace.  You see, even though yogurt trees/redbuds never go away, they’re easy to overlook most of the time.  In the same way, although God’s grace is always present, it’s easy for me to miss it.  

Absolutely everything I have reflects God’s goodness and grace:  every breath I take, my physical health, each crumb of food I put in my mouth, my family, my friends, my job, and – most of all – my relationship with God.  Which of these things can I claim is based on my own merit?  

Although I may be the one who earns money to pay for graceries and who cooks my meals, who created food in the first place, and who designed the human body to be able to enjoy the pleasure of eating?  Although I may work hard at my occupation, who gave me the intelligence and physical health that lets me hold down a job?  And although I may be doing my best to honor God in my actions and attitudes, who made a relationship with God possible in the first place?  Jesus is the one who died to take care of my sin problem, and he is the one who, through his sovereignty, touched my life and chose me for a relationship with him.  As Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9:

. . . it is by God’s grace you have been saved through faith.  It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it – (Good News Bible)

So just like it’s easy for me to not see yogurt trees for most of the year, it’s easy for me to look right past God’s grace for much of my life.

I should point out that there is one sense in which the analogy breaks down.  Since the trees’ blossoms are linked to the seasonal calendar, I am guaranteed to notice them every spring.  But I have the chance every single day to either notice – or miss seeing –  God’s grace.  

Saving a Life 3 Times

Some jobs are just plain cool.  Chad – one of my favorite people in the world – has one of the best.  Besides being a faithful follower of Jesus and a great guy, Chad is a helicopter paramedic.  We met when our family lived in Ann Arbor, and we have stayed friends ever since.

Chad recently told me an awesome story about one of his late-night rescues.  About 18 months ago, Chad and his team were called to a serious car wreck in rural Southeast Michigan.  Inside a car that had careened off the road was a seriously injured 18-year-old high school football player.     Paramedics do all they can to extricate patients without creating further damage, but this boy’s foot was so thoroughly entrapped in sheet metal that the paramedics finally realized what they had to do to save his life.

Last summer, Chad – who is a beast – was participating in a Spartan race, one of those insane athletic events that combines running with crazy obstacles.  As he was climbing a steep hill, he saw a fellow participant with a prosthetic leg struggling to make it to the top.  “I’m dying,” the younger man gasped.  Being a big-hearted soul, Chad said to him, “Put your arm around me and I’ll help you up.”  

On the way up the hill, Chad asked about his injury.  Based on the young guy’s age, he thought perhaps he was a soldier injured in overseas combat.  “No, I was actually in a real bad car wreck last summer,” he said.  As he started sharing the details, Chad realized that this was the young man he had helped airlift to the hospital.  Unfortunately, besides losing his foot, he ultimately lost his entire leg.  We they reached to summit of the hill, the young guy said with a big grin, “Thanks!  That’s twice now that that you saved my life.”  

When the boy’s dad, who was at the finish line, realized who Chad was, he had difficulty communicating to Chad the extent of his gratitude.  He told him that even though his son was a good kid, before the accident he was starting to make some poor choices.  Once, out of exasperation, he said to his son, “I don’t know what it’s going to take to get you back on track.”  

In the aftermath of the accident, both the son and his dad – both of whom are Christians – have grown much deeper in their walks with Jesus.  Of course, if the son hadn’t been physically rescued from the mangled car, he wouldn’t have been on that hill where Chad was able to “save” him, so to speak, the second time.  Nor would he have been around to experience a renewed commitment to Christ.  God used that tragedy in both the son’s and the father’s life, and their spiritual walks are far stronger because of the accident and the son’s subsequent survival.

So Chad had a hand in “saving” this young man’s three times:  once literally, once metaphorically, and once (in a sense) spiritually.  What a blessing for Chad and for everyone who hears how God can work through even the most tragic of circumstances. 

I hope this story provides major encouragement to you.

CONSCIOUS LIFE JOURNAL Article

This article appeared in the March/April 2018 issue.  If you have trouble reading it because of low contrast caused by blue ink on white, you can expand the image on your screen to make it easier to read.

The 3 Things All Kids Need

Among the many ministries God has used in my life, Focus on the Family ranks right at the top.  Back in 2003, I had the great pleasure of participating in two of their 225-mile fundraiser bike rides.  And Focus publications are top-notch.  But probably their most significant impact on me has been the daily radio broadcasts.

One program that particularly stands out addressed what children need emotionally.  Although this particular broadcast targeted dads and their sons, the principles apply to both parents and all kids.  But since this interview’s focus was on dads and sons, I will relay the lessons in those terms.

According to the psychiatrist being interviewed, sons need three things from their dads:

1.      Attention – They need to feel noticed and important.  This is communicated in many ways:  spending time together, entering the boy’s world, and being present for the important moments and events in his life.  Of course, these days, everyone is hyper-busy, and there are sometimes unavoidable schedule conflicts.  Nevertheless, when your son stands back from his day-to-day activities, does he know that you are there for him no matter what, and that if there is a genuine need, he won’t be left dangling to figure life out by himself?

2.      Acceptance (or Affirmation) – It’s one thing to be present in your son’s life, but another for him to feel you accept him.  One obvious example of giving attention but not acceptance is the ultra-competitive dad who never misses a basketball game but berates the kid for every little mistake on the court.  Yes, dad is giving him plenty of attention, but does the young man come away feeling affirmed or rejected?  And what about the All-American quarterback dad whose son shows more interest in drama and the arts than in chucking a football with dad in the back yard?  Does the son know that his dad loves him completely and is proud of his abilities and interests?

3.      Affection – It’s so cool to see parent-child interactions where they can playfully joke with each other and just enjoy being together.  Of course, it must be mutually respectful, and the objective is not for you to become your son’s “buddy.”  He probably has several of those, but he only has one dad.  Every boy should know that his dad both loves and likes him.

So there you have it:  the three things boys (and girls) needs from their dads (and moms).  

As someone who got none of these from my own dad, I can tell you how crippling these deficits can be.  But don’t beat yourself up too badly.  None of us is the perfect parent.  With the hindsight only experience can bring, I realize that, given a do-over, I would do some things better with my own kids.  

But at the same time, we must remember that God can make up for our parenting shortcomings.  He has done this in nearly miraculous ways for me.  However, rather than depending on God as our “backstop,” let’s do our best today to give our kids what they truly need.

The Absolute Best Bible Passage for Resolvoing an Age-Old Debate

God has blessed me with wonderful Christian friends from various faith traditions:  Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Charismatic, non-denominational, Wesleyan, and others.  Although we all agree on the central issues of the faith – what C. S. Lewis would call “mere Christianity” – we sometimes have different “takes” on certain principles of Christian living.  

A core issue for believers concerns how “demanding” we can be in prayer.  Jesus himself promised several times that we can ask anything of God and expect him to answer as long as these prayers are “claimed” in the context of God’s sovereignty.  After all, he is the God of the universe, and I’m not, so he may have outcomes I can’t see from my limited perspective.

But this raises a vexing problem.  How can I pray confidently, expecting an answer not knowing if what I’m asking is really God’s will?

Some Christians stress our unfettered access to our loving heavenly father and boldly ask for miraculous interventions.  If you extrapolate this position to the extreme, it can almost border on the “name it and claim it” false theology – insisting that God apply one of his promises exactly the way I want it to look.  

Other Christians are more reserved and, following Jesus’ example in the garden, stress prayer’s “nevertheless, not my will but yours” aspect.  Taken to an extreme, this position approaches “practical deism.”   That is, although I ask God to intervene on my behalf, I really don’t expect him to do anything, so he more or less becomes a non-entity in my daily life.

How do we resolve this tension between perhaps being presumptuous on the one hand and being “of little faith” on the other?  

There is no better Bible passage to address this than Daniel 3:17-18.  Enemies of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego ratted them out to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar for not worshipping the golden image the king had set up.  The penalty?  Incineration in a furnace hot enough to instantly kill the soldiers who threw the three into it.

Given one last chance to reconsider, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it . . . .  But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”   

That’s it!  The perfect blend of believing God’s power and a willingness to continue trusting him even if his will doesn’t match my personal agenda.  If God could make the Milky Way and the Grand Canyon, and if he could bring Jesus back from death, certainly he is able to suspend the laws of nature to preserve the three from the flames.  But will he?  I can and should ask for the miraculous, but God may be after other things.  That’s his business.  My job is to trust him even if my prayers are not answered precisely as I think they should be.  So ask away, and rejoice regardless of the outcome.  

Thank you for this transformational insight, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego!

Responding to Compliments: 2 Wrong Ways and 1 Right Way

“You’re an amazing musician!  I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone play harmonica like that before.  You have such a bluesy sound, and you make that thing sing!”

I often hear comments like this.  For five years, I performed with various internationally touring Cru music ministry bands and currently play professionally in a Christian bluegrass band and with various other musicians.  

How should I respond to such compliments?

Wrong Way #1 – Pay too much attention to them and start believing my own press clippings.  That’s a dangerous path towards inappropriate, destructive pride.

Wrong Way #2 – Dismiss the compliment in an attempt to show humility.  

Years ago, I heard a Christian psychologist confess that he used to employ Wrong Way #2 when people would thank him for his wonderful public talks.  “Oh no.  That wasn’t me.  It was all Jesus,” he would say.  In hindsight, he wished just one person would have called him out.  “Wait a minute!  Were my eyes and ears deceiving me?  Didn’t I see you behind that podium?  Wasn’t that your voice I heard?  I don’t know what Jesus sounded like, but the voice I heard sure seemed like yours.”

Of course, this well-meaning speaker was trying to avoid Mistake #1 and but overcorrected by communicating– rather ineptly – that he recognized God is the one who made it possible for him to succeed.  

And he’s right.  Ultimately, God is the one who blessed me with my natural abilities and gave me the discipline to put in the time required to achieve competence.  However, I do deserve some credit too.  If it truly is “all Jesus” and I don’t spend the hours required to hone my skill, the performance will be a mess.  I’m not sure Jesus wants to be blamed for my lack of preparation.

A Right Way to Respond – Now when I am complimented for my playing, I sincerely thank my conversation partner, saying I’m glad they enjoyed the music.  Sometimes I mention how blessed I feel that God gifted me in this way.  I might also briefly comment on one of the songs we played or mention how much I enjoy playing with such great fellow musicians. 

And then – and here is the key – after “basking” in their compliment for maybe 30 – 60 seconds, I ask if they play any instruments.  The typical response is something like, “Well, I used to play trumpet in high school,” or “I play a little guitar.”  If it’s the former, I ask if they ever get to play now.  If it’s the latter, I ask what style they like.  Either response usually starts an enjoyable conversation.  

My approach accomplishes two things:

·         It affirms the person’s compliment.  Instead of rebuffing them by essentially denying the validity of their comment, I receive it and graciously thank them.

·         It gets the attention off me and on to them

This practice can be adapted whether you’re an athlete, speaker, or faithful servant quietly going about your tasks.  Try it out!

Are You Chasing a Phantom?

During my first year on Cru staff, ministry leadership detected a troubling pattern.  They realized that many staff were pursuing phantoms.  Well, not multiple specters.  Only one they dubbed “The Phantom.”  This mythical creature was not the typical ghoul that populates horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street, but instead was a composite, idealized, nearly perfect Cru staff member.  Here’s how it worked.

Cru attracts some of the most committed, talented disciples in the Christian world – people willing to make vocational sacrifices and pursue the formidable task of support team development.  This determination typically carries over to other aspects of their spiritual lives:  prayer, Bible study, evangelism, etc. 

The Body of Christ concept teaches that God uniquely gifts believers and places them in various kingdom-furthering roles.  My responsibility is to faithfully fulfill that calling and rejoice as others do the same.

The problem Cru leadership detected was that some staff were gazing at their peers and, rather than celebrating their talents and faithfulness, felt convicted that they didn’t measure up.

·         Bill is one of the most outgoing people I know and takes every opportunity to share his faith.

·         Chelsea is a prayer warrior, typically rising at 5:00 a.m. to spend an hour praying.

·         Chad is a Bible scholar who studies diligently to bring fresh insights to his disciples.

·         Cheryl has the gift of hospitality and uses her apartment as an incredible ministry platform.

·         Jason dearly loves the people from his home area who support his ministry and somehow finds time almost every month to send each one a personal note.

What admirable, commendable traits!  The problem comes when I move from admiration to berating myself I don’t measure up in all these areas, a fairly wide-spread trend the Cru leadership detected.  

Essentially, these well-meaning rank-and-file staff were taking the best characteristics of various friends and created The Phantom – the idealized staff member who exists only in a mythical, over-spiritualized universe.  What they were missing was that even though Bill has the gift of evangelism, his apartment looks like a war zone, and he almost never communicates with his support team.  Chad may know the Bible inside-out but would be the first to admit that his prayer life suffers from extreme flab.   

We should always strive to up our ante spiritually and admire the best traits of others, but, rather than getting down on ourselves for our shortcomings, we need to do so in a way that embraces the path God has me on.  

So the take-aways are:

·         Admire other believers for their gifting

·         Stop short of becoming unduly self-critical

·         Seek was to appropriately serve as encouraging role models to others as we serve from our strength areas.

This reminder is especially apropos at this time of year when we pressure ourselves to orchestrate the “perfect Christmas.”   I recently commented to my wife that somehow the Magic of Christmas loses something when you are the magician.  Let’s do our best to keep this in mind during this holy season, remembering what Christmas is really about.

Try These 2 On Your Skeptical Friends - Part 2

In my book That’s a Great Question, I borrowed an analogy from author Philip Yancey that helps put the pins back into some of the grenades skeptics lob at Christianity.  Here’s how I described Yancey’s illustration:

Scientists have concluded that whales are among the most intelligent of all nonhuman creatures, and researchers know that they use a variety of clicks and squeals to communicate with each other.

Yancey ponders what might happen if someday we eventually “cracked” the whale language code and learned to communicate with them.  That would be a remarkable achievement.  But, asks Yancey, what would we “talk” about with them?  We would have to restrict our communication to things within their sphere, such as,

·         Water temperature,

·         Light and darkness of the water,

·         Ocean currents, and

·         The location of food.

How could I ever explain things like

·         The World Series

·         The Internet

·         Space travel, and

·         Why my teenage son’s hair keeps changing colors? (Victor Books, 2007, pp. 123-124).

Skeptics who reject the faith because Christians can’t fully explain all their questions are like the whale who rejects the existence of the World Series because it can’t comprehend it.  The point is that, even as the intellectual and experiential gap between whales and humans is huge, the intellectual and spiritual gap between people and God is almost infinite.  

Should we be surprised that we don’t understand everything about God or his ways?  If we did, God would be little more than an idealized human.  Many people strip him of his transcendence and omnipotence, requiring him to operate within the sphere of human reasoning.  If they can’t understand everything, they refuse to believe.

Contrast this puny version of God with the majestic, limitless self-portrait he paints of himself at the end of the Book of Job. 

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

            Tell me if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions?

            Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

Who shut up the seas behind doors   

            When it burst forth from the womb,

When I set the limits for it

            And set its doors and bars in place,

When I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;

            Here is where your proud waves halt’?

Have you ever given orders to the morning,

            Or shown the dawn its place?

Have the gates of death been shown to you?

Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?

            Tell me if you know all this.”  (Selected verses from Job 38:4-18)

I am the last person to suggest that asking tough questions is off limits, but in reality, there are many aspects of our world we don’t completely understand and many, many more things about God that exceed our reach.

I’m comfortable working as hard as possible to try to understand what I can about God but being willing to take him at his word for the things beyond human capacity to fully comprehend.

Try These 2 on Your Skeptical Friends - Part 1

In the modern Western world, many people have trouble believing things that can’t be adequately explained intellectually or scientifically.  The next time someone challenges your faith because you can’t describe to their satisfaction the nature of the Trinity – how there can be three persons, yet one God – how Jesus could be God and a man at the same time, or how predestination and our free will can co-exist, you might want to walk them through the following thoughts.

Let me relay a passage from my book That’s a Great Question:   What to Say When Your Faith is Challenged that offers some perspective on seemingly contradictory facts.

There are many things in life that we can’t explain.  One of the few useful tidbits I recall from my college physical chemistry class is that scientists have developed two descriptions of the nature of light.  One is that light is composed of waves.  The other is is that light is made up of packets of energy that behave like particles.  Light exhibits characteristics that are consistent with both these theories.  The only problem is that these two views seem mutually exclusive.  How can light be made up of both waves and packets of energy?  Yet it apparently is.

Does the fact that I can’t explain this conflict mean that I refuse to use the headlights on my car until someone reconciles this scientific anomaly?  I don’t think so.  Skeptics often camp on paradoxes in the Bible, turning them into contradictions and showcasing them as examples of how the Christian faith isn’t trustworthy (Victor Books, 2007, p. 216).

So even the almighty world of science can’t reconcile clashing factors of known realities.  And yet faith in science is seldom questioned, and no one “walks away” from science because it can’t adequately clarify everything about the universe.

You might keep this example in mind the next time someone tells you they can’t accept Christianity because the concept of the Trinity (or some other aspect of the faith) “makes no sense.”

In my next article, I will offer another perspective that may make it easier to relax intellectually, even if there are mysteries we can’t fully explain.  That example appeals to something we know about whales and dolphins.  Stay tuned.

A Flash Drive for Your Soul?

As I write this, my wife and I are winding our way across northern Spain visiting both larger cities and off-the-tourist-track smaller ones.  Since I have a college Spanish minor and have visited seven or eight Spanish-speaking countries, my fluency is pretty good.  However, it dwindles a bit between visits, so about two months before an anticipated trip, I begin firing up the brain synapses by listening to and reading Spanish language media.

It occurred to me before this current trip that learning and maintaining language fluency has been a lot of work over the years.  Some day when I die, all that knowledge goes with me.  What a shame that I can’t transfer it to others so they don’t have to slog through years of learning and relearning.  Wouldn’t it be great if there were a “flash drive for the brain” that would allow me to download and pass along this knowledge?

As awesome as that would be, it would be even better if I could transfer the spiritual lessons and life skills acquired from years of walking with Jesus.  Although there’s no instant flash drive model, there’s a deeper and ultimately more satisfying way:  intentionally getting involved in others’ lives over time.

Through a combination of inborn temperament, life experiences, and decisions – some good and some bad – that we’ve made, each of us represents a complex blend of insights and knowledge.  Over the last several years, the Lord has allowed me to individually connect with several men at various stages of life.  They often face either issues I have personally experienced or ones I have seen others go through. 

I don’t pretend to be the “font of all knowledge,” but one thing about getting old is that you’ve lived through a lot and seen a lot.  What I share with them falls into the “for what it’s worth, here’s what I’ve learned” category.  There is no agenda in these meetings beyond getting to know a brother in Christ and then, as things unfold, passing along how I’ve seen God work in parallel situations.

And I’ve had two or three of these guys tell me that God has used me to literally change their lives.  It doesn’t get much better than that! 

Of course, everyone is super-busy these days, and some of us have more flexible schedules than others.  But I ask you, are there people in your life to whom you are transferring God’s lessons?  It starts, if relevant, with our kids and other family members.  Or it could be through children’s church or Sunday School.  Or it might take the form of regular casual – but intentional – friendship relationships over coffee.  And don’t forget about looking for ways to help others take that first step toward getting to know Jesus in the first place.  That’s where it all begins.

I’m not trying to heap on another “must-do” task, but seeking opportunities to deploy the “flash drive for your soul” can be one of life’s incredible blessings.  Even though it’s not an instantaneous process, it can have an eternal impact.

2 Mistakes Christians Can Learn from MGM's Blunder

One of the great movie comedy series of all time was the Our Gang shorts produced by Hal Roach Studios from the 1920s through the late 1930s.  It featured such rough-and-tumble child actors as Spanky McFarland, Alfalfa Switzer, Darla Hood, Buckwheat, and many others.  These kids were charming, clever, and full of mischief.  And of all the comedy series from that era, Our Gang consistently ranks at the very top.

This franchise was so popular that it eventually caught the eye of the movie mega-studio MGM, which took over the series in 1938 – and proceeded to destroy it.  They made two mistakes.

The more serious one was that the new scriptwriters completely misunderstood the original incarnation’s ethos.  In the Hal Roach shorts, the kids often demonstrated more wisdom and insights than the stuffy adults, and in more than one episode, the adults learned important life lessons from the children.  MGM changed all this, however, and included many plot lines that were thinly disguised morality lessons for the kids.  Essentially, these stories were designed to “civilize” the children and turn them into well-behaved “little adults.”

The second mistake was that MGM greatly upped the production value.  Now, instead of having the kids romp through shots showing poor editing, uneven sound, and the occasional lousy overdub, the shorts now resembled the highly polished movies of MGM’s heyday.  And the series lost something.  Part of the charm of the original films was their production “rawness.”  Somehow the technical flaws reinforced the kids’ innocence.

So what can Christians learn from MGM’s mismanagement of the franchise?

First, we must remember that, although we know that ultimately Jesus provides the answers for life’s big questions, we are all in a lifelong process of figuring out just what that looks like, and none of us has our act together completely.  And we should stop pretending that we do.  I’m not suggesting that we avoid providing clear guidance and biblically-based advice to others, but it must be done in a spirit of humility.  Too often, just like the pompous adults in the failed MGM Our Gang movies, we can wag our fingers in condescension at people who fail to meet our standards.

The second lesson is a direct outgrowth of the first.  In an attempt to present a good “testimony for Jesus,” we can slather over our faults to try to produce a picture-perfect, air-brushed Hollywood characterization of what a good Christian looks like.  Again, I’m not suggesting that we wallow in our shortcomings or condone sin, but just as the imperfections in the original Our Gang films enhanced our appreciation for them, so a candid admission that God still has a long way to go in our lives can be very attractive.  How many people have turned away from the church because they were given the impression that only the exemplary people are welcomed.  Didn’t Jesus himself say that it’s not the well who need a physician, but the sick?

So, our message should be three-fold: 

1.      Jesus accepts us just as we are 

2.      He loves us too much to leave us that way

3.      We’re in this together, and we’re willing to let our rawness show as we figure out the Christian life together

So let’s not go MGM on the people we rub shoulders with every day.  Instead, let’s present an incredibly positive but honest picture of what it means to follow Christ.

Is Your Emotional Filter in Backwards?

“My counselor told me my emotional filter is in backwards.”

I was sitting across the table in IHOP from one of the guys I’ve been meeting with monthly for about five years.   Chris is a great guy who was brought up in a highly dysfunctional family and who, in recent years, was blindsided by his now-ex-wife leaving him for another man and turning his children against him.

“What do you mean, your emotional filter is in backwards?” I asked.

“Well, my counselor said that I dismiss anything positive someone says about me and let even the slightest negative comment drill down into my heart and immobilize me.”  Given his family history, I can understand that.  I can do the same thing. 

Let me give just one example.  Several years ago, I was elected by my 1,500 healthcare executive peers in Georgia to represent them as Regent for Georgia to the 40,000-member American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the premier personal membership society for healthcare leaders.  What a huge honor!  Part of what ACHE does is bestow the designation of Fellow on executives who excel in their profession and demonstrate their competence by reaching certain milestones, including passing a rigorous exam.  Besides being Regent, I have chaired and/or served on seven different ACHE committees, including the one that develops the exam that Fellows have to pass.  So I have some credibility when it comes to ACHE.

In order to help affiliates pass the exam, every year the local Georgia ACHE chapter hosts two-day exam preparation tutorials.  For several years, I have done the presentation on the overall healthcare industry.  As is common with educational programs, the organizers ask participants to rate the various sessions and speakers.

When the results came in for one of my presentations a few years ago, I was pleased to see that I received an overall rating of 4.3 on a 5-point scale.  Not bad, I thought.  But then I took a closer look and saw two things that bothered me.  First, I discovered that one of the other speakers received a 4.4 rating, beating me by a tenth of a point.  How could that be?  And second, when I looked at the individual members’ rating, I saw that one participant had only given me a 3. 

Now, mind you, 3 indicates an adequate job.  But the fact that one person considered me “adequate” instead of great really bugged me for a couple of days.  Never mind my overall outstanding rating and my ACHE credentials and track record.   All that was swallowed up by that 3 from one guy and validates that I sometimes have my emotional filter in backwards.

Chris’ comment reminded me that I need to refocus on the many blessings God has bestowed on me and learn from specific constructive criticism without obsessing on anything less than perfection.  Ultimately, continuing to allow my filter to operate in reverse betrays my statement that I am relying on Jesus for my acceptance.  It’s never appropriate to close the door to legitimate input, but neither Chris nor I need to worry about that.  In fact, we have the opposite problem.

Let me ask you, which way is your emotional filter positioned?

Responding Like a Brat

During my five years in the Cru music ministry, it was always a special treat to visit the home areas of someone in the ministry, and one time we happened to be playing for the Sunday morning service of the music ministry assistant director’s home church in Ohio.  And, it just happened that Fred and his family were in town that same weekend.  And, it also just happened to be his four-year-old daughter Ashley’s birthday that Sunday.

Admittedly, there might have been a slight “kiss-up” motive in doing this, but we decided to present Ashley with a birthday gift – a cute little kids’ china teapot with matching tea cups.  So right before the service, we told Fred we had a gift for Ashley.  Fred located her in the elementary kids’ play area where she was fully engaged in cooking a pretend meal – so engaged, in fact, that she didn’t want to stop, even after being asked repeatedly to do so.

“Ashley, can you come here?” Fred asked.

Nothing.

“Ashley, please stop playing and come see Daddy.”

Still nothing,

“Ashley, look at me.  Come here now.”

This time, she looked up and said, “I don’t want to.”

The scene escalated to the point of anger on Fred’s part, tears on Ashley’s, and embarrassment on ours to have to witness this scene.  She finally settled down to the point where we could present our gift to her, but the joy of the moment had clearly vanished for all of us.

Later that morning, out drummer Stuart connected the dots and wondered out loud how many times we react to God’s gifts the way Ashley did to ours.  Here we were, offering her a free gift of something we had picked out especially for her, something we thought she would particularly enjoy.  But she was so wrapped up in playing with borrowed toys that she wouldn’t stop long enough to receive a gift she would be able to keep forever if she liked.

In my last blogpost about praying expectantly to our loving God, I quoted Matthew 7:9-11.  That passage is equally relevant here:

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”       

In Ashley’s case, she wasn’t even asking for anything.  We were the ones initiating the gift-giving.  God gives me good gifts every single day:  life, health, food, clothing, relationships, the chance to help others, etc.  And then there are the times he blesses me with extra-special little reminders of his presence, things he’s orchestrated to bless me in a special way, tailored just for me. 

But I have to be willing to lay down my “borrowed toys” long enough to accept the unique gifts he’s selected just for me.

Two Ways Not to Pray, and One Way to Pray

“So let’s ask God to use this time in their lives in a special way.”  Every Sunday, someone from the stage leads us in prayer as the elementary age kids gleefully thunder out of the sanctuary for their classes.

Having brought two children through the teen-age years, watched many of our friends’ experiences, and read the dismal statistics surrounding Christian young people, I sometimes wondered which of these smiling faces would get caught up in drugs, teen pregnancy or total rejection of the faith in college. 

During one of my cynical moments, the Holy Spirit suddenly spoke to me.  Certainly, the statistics are accurate, and many young people do end up in unfortunate places.  But our kids are not statistically and fatalistically condemned to that future.  God has acted in miraculous ways over the millennia to do incredible and totally unexpected things. 

I remember learning in a church history class about a problem some coal mining companies encountered during the Welsh revival of 1904-1905.  So many men came to faith in Christ that work production nearly stopped because the mules no longer understood the men’s commands without the profanity.  Also, some of the coal mines posted signs asking the workers to stop returning the tools they had stolen because they had run out of places to store them.

If God could so change the hearts of crusty, hardened coal miners, could he not preserve the purity and faith of these particular nine-year-olds?  Of course he could, and I should lovingly ask him to do so.

I think my cynicism was driven in part by what I consider presumptuous prayer.  I’m all for claiming God’s promises, but I think we sometimes drift into demanding that he answer them in precisely the way we want him to.  It’s almost like we treat prayer as a magic spell where, if I say just the right words, sweat just the right amount, and throw enough Bible verses at God, he is compelled to do exactly what I think he should when I think he should do it.  I become the magician, forcing God’s hand to accomplish my version of what the future should look like.  Even Jesus himself prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will . . . .”

If we shouldn’t pray statistically or “magically,” how should we pray?  The best answer I know of is in Matthew 7:9-11 (The Message):

If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust?  If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?  As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. . . . So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?

So, we should pray expectantly to our loving, heavenly father, leaving both our cynicism and our demands behind and trusting that he will graciously hear and answer our prayers to maximize his glory and our greatest good.