What’s new?

Posted on by

Half way through last Sunday’s sermon, a skirmish in one of the pews got everyone’s attention and stopped the pastor’s preaching.

“Someone call 911!” a man said, as he bent over the person having trouble. Several from the congregation jumped to help, and a uniformed security man entered the sanctuary speaking into his shoulder radio, “Yes, the Free Church on Douglas.”

I was sitting with my former next-door-neighbor, who’d had personal experience with 911 and had lost her husband to quick cancer shortly after we lost Nate. We both clutched.

The elderly gentleman struggling during the service was given a wheelchair ride to the parking lot where an emergency vehicle awaited, its flashing lights pushing their way through our stained glass windows. The service resumed, but Becky and I were lost in thought.

How quickly our minds race back to trauma. A soldier, newly home from a war, flinches when he hears what sounds like gunfire. An earthquake victim feels like running when a truck passes and the ground vibrates.

Trauma imprints our brains with extra oomph when it’s been life-threatening. A 911 call, death, gunfire, an earthquake – each stimulates us to act on fearful impulse. Later, when similar circumstances pop up, we react the same.

Some people organize their entire lives around an upsetting event, either by reliving it over and over or by making sure it doesn’t ever happen again. In both cases the incident dominates thought life and keeps someone stuck. Opportunities are lost, and a sad spirit dominates every day.

Is there a way to distance ourselves from past trauma when something like a 911 call yanks us back?

Yes, and God gives us the key: to set our minds on him.

If we fill our heads with his supremacy and sufficiency, other thoughts must leave. It’s easy to get mentally lost in our troubles, and immediately after Nate died, I felt that way, continually reliving his rapid decline and death, camping there for months. But calling out to God for comfort and peace slowly filled my mind with something other than Nate, and it was the Lord.

If today I was asked to hold someone’s hand as they died, even a stranger, deep sadness would cover me like a heavy blanket. But I wouldn’t stay under it for long, because I’ve become acquainted with a new mindset God has put in my head, thoughts dotted with hope and future plans because he is in them. Although I’ll never forget the details of our family trauma, I don’t live inside of it anymore.

God is our Creator, and he’s continually making all things new. When we believe that and watch for how he’s doing it in us, we won’t have to fear being pulled backwards by a 911 call but can quickly move forward into the fresh optimism he’s created.

“The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create.” (Isaiah 65:17,18)

I didn’t know…

Posted on by

Nate used to say, “Ignorance is no excuse,” and of course most of us agree with that. The trouble is, when we’re dealing with complications like filling out tax forms or answering questions we haven’t researched, pleading ignorance is a handy escape hatch.

While driving home from Iowa last weekend, a sign on the highway reminded me how ignorant I really am. It said, “CELL PHONES ILLEGAL IN WORK ZONES.”

I knew about work zone speed reductions, massive fines for hitting a worker and jail terms for doing damage, but never had I heard about the cell phones. What else don’t I know?

When I was a child, people marveled that the knowledge of the world had actually doubled in 50 years. By the time I was in college, knowledge had doubled again in only 5 years. Today the speed of knowledge-increase may not even be calculable.

The internet has taken the place of Encyclopedia Britannica, and teachers no longer ask students to memorize answers to questions but rather teach them which questions to ask. The answers are too numerous to learn.

Scripture has a great deal to say about knowledge. It’s often linked with wisdom and understanding, a triple fail-safe for correct thinking. We’re encouraged to get as much of them as we can.

God criticizes the simple-minded for not wanting to gain knowledge and doesn’t accept their excuse of ignorance kindly. His judgment of those who hate knowledge is severe, because God himself is the stepping-off point for gaining it. In a sense, if we don’t want a knowledge-increase, we don’t want him.

Dictionary.com tells us knowledge has to do with facts, truth and principles, and Scripture is loaded with them. Learning what they are is our first step toward right living, and to work at it is stepping toward God. So how do we do it?

One way is to notice sunsets, storms, stars, the sun and moon. Psalm 19 tells us the heavens “pour forth speech that reveals knowledge.” It sounds like God is making it easy for us.

Another way is to have a healthy fear of the Lord. Proverbs 1 tells us not only is this the start of being wise, it’s also the source of knowledge. Proverbs also says that if we study the Bible to gain knowledge of God, we’ll have a leg up on understanding, too. And another tip from him:  it’s a good idea to steer clear of people who don’t value knowledge. Better to hang out with those who do.

God actually wants us to have knowledge, along with all its benefits, and he reveals many of his knowledge-secrets as we quest after them. (Matthew 13:11) The end result is godliness, something we’d all love to have.

And now that we know how, I guess ignorance is no excuse.

“This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” (Philippians 1:9-10)

Fathers Day, Part 2 of 2

Posted on by

For nearly 30 years, my dad owned a successful engineering firm, operating out of a Chicago high rise in the concrete canyons of the Loop. As a kid I visited him often (with girlfriends in tow), admiring the thick glass double doors in his reception area and his big office overlooking the skyline.

Dad’s drafting room resembled a Disney studio with its 200 tilted drawing tables and men perched atop tall stools working on royal-colored blueprints. To him, though, it was just a way to earn a living. After retirement at 70, he didn’t look back and never missed it.

Dad did well for a little boy who started school without a word of English. His Swedish immigrant parents worked hard and expected him to do the same, which he did, finishing school with two degrees from Northwestern University.

Attending a Swedish Free Church in the city, he heard the Gospel as a child and received Christ into his life, never wavering in his commitment. A quiet man, he didn’t dictate his faith but lived it out in front of us for 92 years. As Mom frequently said, “Your father is the most Christ-like man I’ve ever known.”

When Dad died, his last will and testament was more like a last will and testimony. I read the legal document through, no small task with its complicated legalese, but two paragraphs jumped off the pages. They had nothing to do with possessions, trusts or assets, and were written in simple language I understood:

Article I – I commit my soul into the hands of my Savior in full confidence that, having redeemed it and washed it in His most precious blood, He will present it faultless before my Heavenly Father.

Article IV – It is my hope that the beneficiaries will remember the words of Our Lord who said, “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” (Luke 12:15) Let them consider themselves as stewards of their possessions, not forgetting to use them for the welfare of others, particularly with respect to bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those in spiritual darkness. By giving both time and money unselfishly, they will discover the truth of Our Lord’s words: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35) and “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be the servant of all.” (Matthew 20:27)

Dad was ready to die, because he’d made the main thing the main thing. He’d led a life of quiet sacrifice, serving the poor, giving 50% of his income to the Lord’s work, and putting himself after everyone else. He’d given much and, as the Bible says will happen to a giving person, he was then given more.

He also left a legacy of harmony in his family, a large group in which there was no fighting, no anger, no bitterness. I remember hundreds of the words he spoke in life but none more vividly than those he left in death.

“Freely ye have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8)