Yearly Archives: 2013

A Busy Week

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IMG_5204During the final week before a wedding, responsibilities in- crease, especially for the bride and groom. But they aren’t the only ones. Extended family begins cleaning house and changing sheets to ready for company, and airport runs become frequent. Refrigerators are stocked, and wedding clothes are pressed. Excitement mounts, and at the end of it, God unites a man and woman in the amazing partnership of marriage.

Our family is 6 days away from Klaus and Brooke’s ceremony, close enough to be checking our iPhones every hour to see if the rain has been eliminated from Saturday’s forecast yet, since they plan an outdoor wedding. There’s much to do, and our out-of-towners begin arriving today.

“Happy chaos” will be the theme of the week, as it is for every family planning a wedding, but the joining of two individuals and also their families is the delightful reason beneath the hubbub.

All of my children will be on hand to celebrate, as well as son-in-law Adam and half of my grandchildren. Hans will be coming from England without his family, since his 4th child, little Andrew Kenneth, is only 2 weeks old. But I’m thankful he said “yes” to being his brother’s Best Man and that Katy said “yes” too!

Nate celebrates.

One other family member who will be missing this week is Nate. I know his absence will feel big, but I also know the Lord will provide many reasons for rejoicing throughout Klaus and Brooke’s special day, even if some of it might be done through a tear or two.

Knowing God will be present and active throughout that day will be my greatest joy. After all, marriage is his invention, and when a couple ties the knot, his Spirit is keenly involved in that process. I know the Lord already has some special wedding gifts of a spiritual nature prepared for that day, certainly for the bride and groom, but for the rest of us, too.

Since the week promises to be extra busy, I’m going to do something I haven’t done since starting this blog 4 years ago: I’m going to take the week off.

You readers are always on my mind and in my prayers (and will continue to be this week), and it’s pure pleasure to write these blog posts. But I know my place is with my family this week, particularly since we are rarely together across the many miles between us.

Engagement photo by Caroline and Jayden

So, thank you for your understanding, and I’ll get back to you in a week with a summary of all that happened, both spiritually and otherwise. As you go into your own busy week, know that I’ll be missing you.

”I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.” (Ecclesiastes 3:14)

We heard from the herd.

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A cliffWhen I was in high school, I complained to my parents that they “never let me do what the other kids did.” I wanted to wear shorter skirts, go to the movies, and attend school dances, all of which were prohibited. Dad’s retort was always the same. “Just because the other kids do it doesn’t make it right for you. If they all jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?”

Probably.

What I wanted more than anything was to fit in, and usually that translated to doing what everyone else was doing. I was following the “herd mentality” of the day; if it was good for my friends, it was good for me. It would be many years before I began thinking for myself.

Last weekend I visited a large farm in Iowa (yesterday’s blog) that was established in 1868 by my friend Fred’s great-grandfather. He began with 400 acres and a few head of cattle, but those 19th century animals probably acted exactly the same as the 21st century cattle I saw last weekend, despite the many generations between them. One of the things endemic to all of these animals is their “herd mentality.”

The herdsFor example, Fred and Becky explained how cattle are quickly trained to steer clear of electric wire fencing. When one animal gets shocked and moves away, the others quickly follow. After that, workers can reshape the herd (to clean the feedlots or for any other reason), simply by stringing a wire anywhere across the pen. What one does, they all do.

Chute 3

The cattle also follow each other up a chute and into the truck that will take them to market, none the wiser. They aren’t able to think for themselves and just do what the animal in front of them does.

But cattle aren’t the only ones who abide by a herd mentality. The argument “everybody’s doing it” can apply to more than just cattle and high schoolers. For the rest of us it might mean cutting corners on taxes, falsely padding a resume’, not telling the whole truth, or any number of other things… because “everybody’s doing it.” But God challenges us to make up our minds, each one of us, as to the standards we keep.

Scripture paints an interesting word picture about a “narrow gate” being the way into God’s kingdom. It also describes the way most of the “herd” will go, calling it “the wide gate” with a broad road leading up to it. In other words, the narrow way is the difficult way, and the wide way is easy. So we need to be careful about which crowd we’re following, or we might find ourselves in some big trouble.

Herded together

As for the cattle? They can follow the herd mentality all they want.

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.” (Matthew 7:13)

Being Authentic

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Birgitta, Emerald, and I took an interesting road trip last weekend resulting in the car odometer gaining 1236 miles. Leaving Michigan, we headed west through Illinois, across the Mississippi River, and into Iowa to Birgitta’s old college. After depositing her and Emerald to visit friends there, I continued west to connect with friends I hadn’t seen in 10 years.

Beautiful farms

Driving through landscape reputed to be the richest farmland in the whole world, my journey ended at the home of Becky and Fred, a couple Nate and I met in the 1970’s when we began raising children together. Eventually they moved back to Fred’s childhood home and farm, where he and his brother have been successfully raising cattle (2500 at a time) and farming thousands of acres to feed them, for 36 years.

Cattle

As we toured the farm from the comfort of an air-conditioned mini-van, I asked endless questions and occasionally got out to get up close and personal with farm residents. The cattle have pretty faces and come in all colors: black, brown, gold, red, beige, white and multicolored. Several of the stock pens, though, held only black. “How come?” I said.

One of many

“Those are Black Angus,” Fred said, “certified to have Angus in their blood lines. They bring a higher price, and their meat is marbled to taste better.”

As we drove past a cattle chute he explained how the cattle march one after another through the chute into the livestock truck that hauls them to the packing house. But before they can morph into prime rib and hamburger, each has to be recorded, the Angus a different price than the rest.

Fred and Becky

 

I loved my farm tour, and our time ran out before my questions did. Later, while diving east to pick up Birgitta and Emerald, I thought about those Angus cattle. It would be easy to look at any of the cattle and say, “Oh, there’s an Angus,” but of course that wouldn’t always be accurate.

The Bible says something similar. One person might be an authentic Christian and another a “hypocrite” (Jesus’ word). They might look and sound the same but as Jesus said about the imposters, “Their hearts are far from me.”

So how do we tell who’s who? The Bible says, “Test them. If they acknowledge Jesus as fully man and fully God, they’re bona fide believers. If they’re promoting a different philosophy, they’re counterfeits.” (1 John 4:1-6)

Just as the Angus and non-Angus get sorted at the packing house, God will one day sort the rest of us, too. And when he does, I want to be sure I really am who I think I am.

Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ ” (Mark 7:6-7)