Yearly Archives: 2013

Out of the Blue

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LGLPPRecently I received a gift out of the blue from Tina, one of my blog readers. It was a high quality t-shirt of sky-blue, boasting a powerful one-liner:

Love God. Love People. Period.

Tina and her husband have similar shirts in their wardrobes, and she thought I would enjoy wearing the same simple but potent message. The t-shirts (and other gift products) originated from a man named Eddie, who was looking for an uncomplicated way to share his faith. The inspiration for his straightforward message was Matthew 22:37-39:

“When Jesus was asked by a lawyer which was the greatest of all the commandments, he replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’.” 

Eddie took Jesus’ words and distilled them down to a couple of short sentences along with a “period” for emphasis. His desire was that this not be just a clever slogan but a way to tell strangers of the hope that was within him.

Eddie passed away in 2012 at age 58, but his shirts continue to speak the Gospel in a clean, no-nonsense way. His prayer had been that the “LGLPP” products would continue reminding Christians what they stand for, while creating opportunities to share the love of Jesus Christ.

Tina wrote, “We appreciate the simplicity of the words and the direct but subtle responses we get in various airports and on planes from people thankful for the ‘short and sweet’ one liner message.”

She and her husband have discovered that along with those who are curious about the shirt’s message, there are others in anonymous crowds who readily agree with what it says. “Hey! I like your shirt,” some say. And others give a thumbs-up approval.

US Supreme CourtBelievers in Christ can feel muzzled these days. For example, last week’s news reported that the Supreme Court will determine whether or not prayer in public places (graduations, town hall meetings, board meetings) is ok, and if the content of those prayers ought to be monitored. One journalist said 80% of public prayer to this point has been Christian, but now that must change. The Court will rule in mid-2014.

So far, though, wearing the LGLPP shirts is still ok. As Tina put it, “We’re wearing outside of our hearts, what’s in them. Hopefully loving God and loving his people will never go out of style.”

LGLPP.Tina’s gift made me question how faithfully I’ve been a public witness to my personal belief in Christ. Have I done as well as Tina and her husband? Or as Eddie?

“In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)

When Nothing Fits Together

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Festive lightsThis morning in southwest Michigan, we awoke to an ongoing snowstorm and 8 inches of snow. Before the sun was up, my next door neighbors had turned on festive mini-lights above their deck, and the combination of snow and leaves falling together around them was magical. In my 68 years, I don’t ever remember such heavy snow coming so early in November.

As I cautiously made my way to our Tuesday prayer group, I couldn’t resist stopping repeatedly to take pictures of colorful leaves weighed down with snow, an impressive oxymoron. Was it a wintery-fall or a fallish-winter?

It isn’t unusual to encounter life-circumstances that don’t go together, a plus and a minus that are completely incompatible. This is especially true when we’ve asked God to be involved, and no matter how we try, we can never predict what he’s going to do.

MoneyLet’s say a poor man asks the Lord to strengthen his dependency on him, and then God answers by giving him great wealth. The man wasn’t asking for riches and is surprised (and delighted), but if ever there is a big-league test for personal dependency on God, that’s it.

 

Or maybe a wife prays for the Lord to influence her workaholic husband not to spend so much time at the office, and God answers by putting him in a hospital bed where he has plenty of time to think about his priorities.

Or a mother agonizes over her child’s drinking and asks God to take him off that slippery slope, but God allows him to drift into alcoholism. Years later, he finds Jesus Christ through Alcoholics Anonymous, and his life is revolutionized.

It’s important to ask ourselves if we can accept God’s interesting (and sometimes agonizing) answers to our requests. So often we rail against him for allowing things to get worse. And then, months (or years) down the road, he opens our understanding to the magnitude of change he had in mind. We learn his purposes for a life are always greater in scope than anything we prayed for.

But even more significant than accepting the incongruous connections between our prayers and God’s answers is the underlying principle that we must never pray with a mindset of telling God what to do. We can’t “put in an order” and expect him to follow our instructions.

Instead, after we’ve poured out our requests, if oxymoronic things start happening we should excitedly realize, “It’s God!” After all, the biggest oxymoron of all time was when he saved the whole world by crushing his only Son.

So, after we’ve prayed and nothing seems to fit together right, we should stop to recognize God and marvel at his work. In a small way it’s like stopping to take pictures of brightly colored leaves bowed low under the weight of an untimely snow.

Wintry Fall

“While Jesus was here on earth… God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.” (Hebrews 5:7)

Faking it.

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Nate and I never planned to have 7 kids. When we did, it was fine by us, but with children spread over 17 years, our large family brought a few surprises. One was that we would be dominated by school schedules for 31 years (not counting college).

For most of those years, I had no trouble getting up in the morning, since babies and toddlers make good alarm clocks. But when the babies quit coming, getting up by 5:50 AM became a problem. So I began playing a trick on myself.

TimingI hated the thought of such an early start each day, so I set my bedside clock 11 minutes ahead. When the alarm sounded, the first thing I saw was 6:01, which was world’s better that 5:50. Enlisting those digital clock numbers in my ruse seemed to solve my wake-up problem. But it also made me ask what other self-deceptions I had going for me.

All of us can talk ourselves into believing lies of our own making: “It’s such a little thing,” we say. “How much could it matter? It’s just a few… a few dollars… a few meetings… a few exaggerations… a few minutes. No one really cares.”

A just weightThe idea of fudging just a little was well depicted on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, October 3, 1936. An elderly lady paying for a chicken by its weight is pressing up on the scale from beneath, while the proprietor is pressing down from above. A little cheating wouldn’t matter. What’s a few ounces? But both had deceived themselves into thinking deceiving someone else was ok.

I confess I’ve struggled with “full disclosure” to myself on countless occasions. That’s because not telling the truth inside my head is sometimes easier and often works well in the short run. For example, I might think, “I’m going to start eating healthy any day now, but not yet. Eating what I want helps me cope with stress.” But is that the truth?

Most of the world has heard the statement, “The truth will set you free.” But as always, this promise is part of an “if – then”. Scripture says if we “hold to the teachings of Christ” (John 8:31-32), then his truth will set us free. Ultimately, truth is always linked to the Lord.

So, what is Jesus Christ’s teaching about self-deception? He says that if we consistently tell “little white lies” to ourselves, we’re at risk for three problems:

  1. small lies morph into bigger ones.
  2. deceiving ourselves morphs into deceiving others.
  3. regular lying morphs into trouble telling the truth.

As always, if we correct ourselves at the root of the problem (self-trickery), other more serious symptoms will fall into line. And eventually even our clocks can be set free to tell the truth.

“They all fool and defraud each other; no one tells the truth. With practiced tongues they tell lies…. They pile lie upon lie and utterly refuse to acknowledge me,” says the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:5-6)