Category Archives: Learning from our past

Kind of Kind

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My friend Carole was visiting me in the Chicago ‘burbs a few years ago, and we were grocery shopping together. As we urged our loaded cart toward the exit door, another woman maneuvered her cart in front of ours, slipping out first. I didn’t think much of it, but that move made a mark on Carole. She shook her head and said, “I’m glad I live in North Carolina. People are actually friendly there.”

On the way home we talked about the head-down, rushing-around mood of most big cities. People are overloaded with commitments, running late continually and thinking elsewhere while pushing shopping carts. Carole, originally from the Chicago area too, has never succumbed to such cold behavior. For example, she’s friendly with the check-out girls where she shops, and they love to see her coming. She remembers their names, asks about their lives, and lifts their spirits with her laughter.

Today I got a chance to be Carole but threw it away. Shopping for fuses at Home Depot, I turned into the electrical aisle and saw an elderly man planted exactly in front of what I needed to buy. He was studying the small fuse boxes through bifocals and looked like he’d been at it for a while. Leaning on his shopping cart with both elbows, he had one foot propped on the bottom bar and a box of fuses in each hand.

I lingered at the other end of the aisle to give him a chance to move, but he didn’t. Finally I rolled my cart up to his, hoping to quickly reach around him for my fuses and be gone. He smiled brightly and said, “Boy, this stuff is confusing. And the print is mighty small.”

I managed a mini-smile with an “un-huh” but zeroed in on the shelf.

“What are you looking for?” he said.

“30’s.”

“Well, here you go then,” he said, extending one of his boxes toward me. “These are the last 30’s. I’ll take one, and you can have the other.”

He was being Carole. I was being a jerk.

Scripture has a great deal to say about being kind, first by detailing God’s kindness toward us, and second by lauding people who are kind to each other. Kindness is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and ought to be pouring out of every Christian. If I dodge opportunities, I’m in trouble. As a matter of fact, it’s worse than that.

Because God has exhibited the ultimate kindness in extending salvation to me, I ought to be jumping at every chance to be kind to others. If I don’t, it’s bad news:

“…Hezekiah’s heart was proud, and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him.” (2 Chronicles 32:25)

Learning that it’s a bigger deal than I thought, I want to be more like Carole… and the man at Home Depot. After offering his box of fuses to me, a box he’d probably planned to buy himself, he said, “I’ve been to three other stores this morning, and this price is the best one. You won’t find a better deal.”

(…additional credit for his wanting to give one to me.)

I tried to refuse but ended up receiving his two-part gift: fuses and kindness. This stranger had shared what was rightfully his, had pleased God whether he knew it or not, and had taught me how to be Carole.

I wonder how many more tutoring sessions I’ll need before I finally get kind.

“ ‘I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:24)

Coming Up Short

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At my house we’re still working with an ancient fuse box and the glass screw-in fuses. Since we had circuit-breakers at our last house, moving to the cottage brought an electrical learning curve. At first I couldn’t tell if a fuse was blown or good, and it was a guessing game trying to link their power with the area of the house they controlled. But gradually our fuse box and I became friends… until last summer.

My electric water heater would work fine for a couple of weeks, then go cold. I’d head to the basement, replace a couple of fuses, and it would work again, until a few weeks later. One day while at the hardware store buying fuses, I presented the dilemma to the clerk. “Are you using the right number?” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “two of them.”

“No, I mean the number on the fuse. They have different strengths. Check your fuse box. Sometimes it says.”

And sure enough, I’d been using 20’s in two holes needing 30’s, shorting on power to the water heater. After I corrected my error, all was well. If only life’s other shortages were as easy to repair: shortages of sleep, money, patience, energy, wisdom, all kinds of things.

Each of us has felt pinched in specific ways from time to time. For example, every new parent knows about sleep shortages and later learns about patience shortages when their children test them.

Nate and I had financial shortages for many years. Families in other countries find themselves short of food or medicine. People in jobs that require creativity find themselves short of ideas, and those needing physical strength in their work become short of energy.

But the worst deficiency is when we feel shorted by God, that he hasn’t come through like he said he would. We claim his promise to provide for our needs and wonder why we’re short on cash. We put him first, believing he’ll direct us, then wonder why we’re unemployed.

I’ve found it helpful not to look at the current-day shortage but rather at a past provision. It’s the manna principle. God told the hungry Israelites to collect only enough for “today”. If they picked up extra (except before the Sabbath), it rotted.

That’s often how we define our shortages. We say, “I made it through today but know I won’t have enough for tomorrow.”

If we apply the manna principle, we’ll focus on the first half of that sentence rather than the last. Manna always came just before it was needed. Anxiety over “tomorrow’s” food was wasted worry.

Today Skylar asked me for some juice. I knew she’d only want half so filled her cup that much. As I handed it to her, she threw herself on the floor and cried, “No! All the way full!”

I filled it to the top, thinking she must be thirsty, and handed it to her. She said, “Thank you,” and skipped off to play. Later I found her cup. She’d drunk only half.

“The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.” (Ecclesiastes 1:8b)

Female Farmers

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How thankful I am for the ladies in my Tuesday morning Bible study. Although I can’t always be faithful in my attendance because of travel and out-of-town commitments, when I’m go, I’m blessed.

We’ve been studying Hebrews this year, and today’s lesson was chapter 12:1-3. I’d been looking forward to this week, because these were Nate’s favorite Scripture verses. This very month they’re being carved in stone on his grave marker as a testimony to Jesus being at the end of life’s race.

The Bible has many race-references, including one I’ve never heard coupled with a running analogy. It’s offered by Jesus himself who uses a farming picture to make his point. He’d just offered someone the opportunity to follow him full time, but the man had deferred, telling Jesus he’d rather head back home and put things in order there first.

Jesus snapped back with this line: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” His listeners were probably familiar with every farmer’s intention to plow a straight row. If he looked back, his plow would wobble and his furrow would wander. Jesus was highlighting the importance of purposefully moving forward without adding the confusion and delay of looking back… exactly as when running a race.

Today at Bible study, as we talked about persevering through life, plowing forward without getting bogged down in the past, we were each given a drawing of a lush maple tree. Near the roots were written the names of those mentioned in Hebrews 11, the Faith Hall of Fame. Those champions are the foundational examples of Scripture, and in Hebrews 12 they’re included in the “cloud of witnesses” cheering us on as we run our races or plow our rows.

Next to the maple tree were other blanks meant for us to fill as we thought about who else might be in our “cheering section.” Near the trunk we were encouraged to identify people of Christian influence in our childhood. As we edged up the branches, we wrote more recent influences, ending at the top with current “cheerleaders”, a thought-provoking process.

The remainder of our time was spent listening to stories of faith from among us, as women shared from their pasts. All of us took our hands from the plows so as not to wobble the furrows as we listened. What we saw behind us was God’s persistent call through neighbors, teachers, relatives, radio programs, funerals and friends as he faithfully placed his witnesses in our lives.

Every woman put people on her tree who may never have known of their powerful Christian influence on a child, a teen, a young adult. But the best part was realizing God had put each one in place to urge us toward himself and his kingdom at the end of our race or furrow.

As for my new women farmer-friends, we’ll just keep plowing through life together.

“Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God’.” (Luke 9:62)