Monthly Archives: November 2013

An Imitation

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Although our house is small, it has lots of windows. That’s mostly because of 12 across the back of the house, both downstairs and upstairs. Though I have no knowledge of decorating or styling a home, God is a pro at beautifying his world, and lots of windows lets us hitch onto what he’s done by inviting the outdoors in. But it’s a big job to keep 45 windows clean.

I’m grateful for Louisa, our chief window-washer in recent years, and now she’s got a mini-apprentice: little Emerald Louisa, someone else I’m very thankful for.

Receiving instructionThe other day I watched from a distance as Louisa patiently tutored her trainee, showing her how to use a squeegee and rag. Emerald watched her teacher once and immediately got down on the polishing part. As she wiped the glass, she’d occasionally glance back at her teacher to see if she was watching…. and approving. Once in a while she’d stop to pat her pudgy hands together in self-applause. She was proud of successfully imitating her Auntie Weezi.

Children are always watching, and much of their learning is accomplished through imitating. That’s why it’s critical to measure everything we do (and say) against a high standard. When babies comes along, most adults work overtime to clean up their examples, which ends up being good for both groups.

The question is, where do we find the right standard? Is there a way to appropriately measure what’s acceptable and what isn’t?

Gold measuring stickWhen my siblings and I were growing up, Mom steadily promoted the Bible as the Gold Standard of behavior. (Dad agreed, though was less “preachy” about it.) Mom would say, “The Bible is a measuring rod for life. Live by its principles and you’ll always do the right thing.”

It was a mouthful, especially that part about “living by its principles,” but her idea was sound, offering a gauge by which we could measure behavior, especially when we became parents modeling values in front of little ones.

As difficult as it might seem, God wants us to model our lives after the example of the “star” of the Bible, Jesus. It isn’t so we can win his approval but is for two other lofty purposes: (1) to lead satisfying, purposeful lives, and (2) to represent him well as his followers. We know we can’t be clones of Jesus, since he was sinless and we aren’t. But there are parts of his life we can imitate.

ImitatingCan we imitate him the same way Emerald imitated Louisa? Could it possibly be that simple?

Tomorrow we’ll find out.

“Be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Making the Connection

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Empty phone boothA while ago while running errands, I saw a gutted phone booth. Though the word “phone” still identified it, today’s kids probably have no personal experience with these structures or the coin-operated phones that were in them.

When I was a child, each home was lucky to have a telephone, just one, and unless you lived in a city, you had to talk to an operator to make a call. Since we lived in the country, phone lines were shared, and if we picked up the phone and heard a conversation going on, we were to quickly put the receiver back into its cradle and try again later.

1950 telephone

As a young teen I remember the first time we called our California cousins. Talking across 2000 miles was a phenomenon Dad wanted us to appreciate, and after the long distance operator had made the connection, Dad counted the seconds before we heard their “Hello?” on the other side of the country. It was remarkable!

Most humans have a need to communicate with others, which I believe is God-given. Some like lots of connections and others fewer, but everybody wants to link up somehow.

I recall reading about pioneers in this country who staked claims miles away from other folks, and with no one to talk to, they literally lost their minds. Similarly, prisons that have used solitary confinement as punishment find it causes serious mental and physical health problems and works against rehabilitation. As John Donne wrote, no man is an island, though God figured that out way before he did.

The Lord never intended we be without someone to talk to. After all, he physically entered the Garden of Eden each evening (after creating Adam) to converse directly with him. Surely these times were meaningful to both of them, but God also understood that his lone man needed another human to talk to, too. That’s what prompted him to make the beautiful Eve.

Of course God wants people to talk to him, too, but he also stresses the importance of communicating with each other, especially other Christians. He expounds at great length on why this is true, paralleling us to a human body with himself as the head.

He acknowledges that all of us are different, just like body parts are different, but says that together we make a wondrous, highly functional, effectively communicating whole. If one hurts, the others parts do, too. If another flourishes, the rest share in it. (1 Corinthians 12)

ReinventedAnd he instructs us never to stop getting together or communicating, since he wants us to have conversations that uplift and also challenge each other.

And as far as the old phone booths go? These days there are all kinds of ways to use them.

“ Let us… not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Failing and Falling

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In the last 48 hours wild winds and rains whipped through our neighborhood causing umbrellas to flip inside-out and autumn pumpkins to roll off porch steps. Inside the house we could hear Lake Michigan roaring, even though the windows were buttoned up tight.

Caught.Stray tree limbs flew everywhere, and in our back yard a tall, pole-like tree went down, though not all the way. It fell into the “arms” of a nearby tree instead.

The visual of this partially-fallen tree reminded me of a popular expression: “If you fall, I’ll be your soft place to land.” In other words, you’ll go down, but you won’t have a crash landing.

That’s what happened to the tree, and for those of us who are Christians, that’s what happens when God offers himself as our soft place to land.

Black JackA few months ago I turned around in a dark room and didn’t notice my big black dog Jack lying on the dark-colored carpet. As I stumbled over him, I felt myself going down, unable to catch myself. I hit the floor with such a loud crash that my children came running. It was a hard landing for sure, though no permanent damage was done. If only someone had caught me, even just a few inches above the hard landing, the result would have been quite different.

And that’s what God does for us.

We may be on a fast fall toward disaster and might even be the cause for the whole mess by our own bad decisions, but still he’s willing to catch us. It may not always feel that way as we’re going down, though. During a circumstantial fall, we look for his rescue and wonder where he is. “What’s keeping him?” we say. “Why doesn’t he do something?”

He’s well aware, but often lets us learn the hard way, because that’s when the lessons stick best. As Pastor Erwin Lutzer says, failure is frequently the back door to success. So we feel ourselves falling, failing, dreading the hard landing of horrendous circumstances, and we brace for impact. Then when it doesn’t come, at least not as severely as we thought it would, we wonder what happened.

That is God’s catch.

One of the big reasons he lets us fall/fail is so we’ll recognize our need for him. If we continually succeed at everything we try, we’re much less likely to reach out to a Savior. Recognizing our own need is an important prerequisite for being able to rest in the Lord after he catches us.

When I look out my window and see that partially-fallen tree, I wonder if spring will find it continuing to grow, despite resting on the other tree. After all, it didn’t crash all the way to the ground but found a soft place to land.

“I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness.” (1 Chronicles 29:17)