Strength of Commitment

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I’ve been thinking of Good Friday, even in my dreams. This morning when I woke up, I felt awful because a fresh dream was still hovering. In the dream I’d been wolfing down a plateful of rice cakes coated with thick peanut butter. Since I gave them up for Lent, as I awoke I was devastated. No one in the dream seemed to know I was going against my commitment to the Lord. As for me, I’d simply forgotten about it.

In just a few seconds the nightmare faded, but the thought of “forgetting” to keep my tiny bit of shared suffering with Jesus was deeply disturbing. During Lent I’ve wanted to reflect every day on Christ’s cross and the weeks leading up to it. The rice cakes that stand in my kitchen cabinet next to the Jif have been important reminders of this season (especially because of the Post-it note there that says “Lent!”). But I’d like to think even if there were no rice cakes, Jif or Post-it, Jesus’ sacrifice would have been on my mind every day anyway.

As I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ walk toward his own death, I’ve wondered how much thinking he did about it. Although I doubt he thought about it as a child, we see him describing his death to his disciples as he taught. Somewhere between pre-teen and adulthood, his Father must have begun detailing the future. And surely as he did that, he also strengthened Jesus to follow through with the elements of the plan.

As the Father was reminding him about the cross and encouraging him toward bearing it, Satan was probably working non-stop to coax Jesus away from it, fabricating lies about being able to accomplish it in another way. And I believe Jesus could have pulled out, had he wanted to. Even as he was being arrested, he said he could have called on God to rescue him. (Matthew 26:53)

But the Son and his Father were in it together. They mutually devised salvation’s plan, and they partnered to carry it out. This is evident in the Father’s response to watching his Son suffer intense torment just before his arrest. Listening to, and watching Jesus agonize as they talked, the blood of intense stress coming from his brow, God responded with help. He dispatched an angel exactly then, and not just as a reminder to Jesus he’d soon be back where he belonged, in heaven. Scripture says the angel came for one purpose: to strengthen Jesus.

As I’ve been thinking of the anguish leading up to Easter Sunday, the thought of the Father-Son team embarking on this massive effort “as one” has brought comfort. Jesus understood the plan and refused to divert from it in any way.

Unlike me in my dream, he never forgot the importance of his commitment.

“The Father is in me, and I in the Father. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:38b, 30)

Inner Promptings

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Last week as I cleaned out a large, glass-front hutch, I needed to find new homes for over 50 pieces of decorative glass. The neighborhood consignment shop, a charity outlet and willing friends all factored into placing these items I loved but had no room to keep. But one piece went someplace special.

It was a glass purse [much like this picture but in cobalt blue], about 6″  high with clear glass handles. I’d noticed at our local bank that one of the tellers collects glass handbags and shares them with the rest of us by arranging them around her bank window.

I wondered if she would like my cobalt purse and decided to take it along on my next visit to the bank. I stuffed the glass purse into my leather one but then began having second thoughts. “What if her collection was given by a mother or grandmother and was based in sentimentality? What if she didn’t want any more purses? What if she said, ‘No thanks’? What if she wasn’t even at work that day?”

I didn’t know this woman personally and wasn’t sure how she’d respond. But after getting tired of my own negative back-and-forth, I decided to ditch my worries and give it to her, even if it turned out badly.

Waiting at her teller station surrounded by pretty purses, I felt self-conscious. Others were standing behind me, watching. When she finally came, I nudged my glass purse toward her and sheepishly said, “Is there room for one more?”

She gasped with delight and clapped her hands together, then threw them both  in the air. Picking  it up carefully as if it were an injured baby bird she said, “Oh my goodness! It’s absolutely gorgeous! Oh my word! Really? Oh dear! Thank you!”

On and on she lavished praise on my little offering and on me, and I felt like a kindergartener who’d just become student of the week. As I walked to the car, I thought back to my negative self-talk and felt ridiculous. How silly to have worried over her reaction.

Mary reminded me later of a quote from George Sweeting: “Never suppress a generous impulse.” I like that, because it’s a clean-cut way to make a quick decision without the stress of second-guessing. Besides, it’s a good way to live.

So what was behind my wishy-washy self-talk? The answer can only be self-focused pride. I was nervous about what she (and the others in line) would think of me. I was afraid of being embarrassed or rejected. And I wanted to be approved of, as a gift-giver.

God clearly states the dangers of prideful thinking:

  • Pride leads to disgrace…
  • Pride leads to conflict…
  • Pride goes before destruction…
  • Pride ends in humiliation… (Proverbs 11, 13, 16, 29)

Avoiding all of these is a good idea.

When I returned to the bank today, I used the drive-thru. “My” teller was managing the vacuum tubes, and when she saw me, she thanked me enthusiastically for the purse. By her kind response, she’s underscored a good rule to live by: never suppress a generous impulse.

 

“Something happened!”

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My oldest grandchild, Skylar, has a sparking personality backed by a strong will. Recently I got to spend a week with her and her family, catching up on her latest dreams and schemes. One thing she loves (along with every other two year old) is to join adults in whatever they’re doing, and I love having her assist me.

Ever since she was little, she’s “helped” me put on my make-up. As we approach the task, I’ve already removed the dangerous items from my zipped bag: a hair-cutting scissors, eyebrow pencil sharpener and nail clippers. Then, as I work to improve my old face, Skylar pretends to improve her flawless one.

The only questionable tool I’ve left in the bag is an eyebrow plucker, the kind with a scissors handle. Its “points” are flat, and I didn’t think Skylar could do any damage with it. Leave it to a two year old to prove me wrong.

While I was busy staring into a hand-size 10X magnifier mirror trying to put mascara on, Skylar hopped off her stool and wandered out of the room. In 20 seconds I heard a “Tszt” just before the power went out. Immediately Skylar’s alarmed voice came from the next room. “Something happened!”

We all came running, and there, sticking out of a wall outlet, was my scissor-shaped eyebrow tweezers. She’d plugged it into a socket and had experienced something new, an up-the-arm jolt like we’ve all known, unpleasant but not especially harmful.

Skylar ran to her daddy’s reassuring arms but never shed a tear, and I would have given anything to know her immediate thoughts. For a minute, however, our chatty Skylar was speechless.

I would never intentionally hurt one of my grandchildren, but this incident was probably my bad. There was an up-side, though. Skylar’s experiment taught her a few things:

  • Outlets are covered for good reasons.
  • Electrical shocks feel terrible.
  • My parents were protecting me when they told me, “No.”
  • I should obey my parents.
  • I’ll never do that again!

Experience is our best teacher, and Skylar’s new respect for electrical outlets will never dim. No damage was done (except to the blackened tips of my tweezers), and important lessons were learned.

Once in a while all of us have to be taught just like Skylar, through harsh experience. Scripture is full of wisdom we don’t heed as we toss it aside in favor of our own flawed ideas. So God steps back and lets us learn the hard way. Once we learn to internalize wisdom simply by listening, we spare ourselves and others unnumbered “jolts”.

If Skylar had simply believed her parents when they told her electrical outlets could hurt her, she would have avoided her unpleasant zap. Hopefully that potent lesson will serve to increase the validity of her folks’ advice from here on.

As for me, when I work with my traumatized tweezers, I’ll try to remember Skylar’s example, because I’d rather learn by listening than by a jolting.

“Josiah was eight years old when he became king… He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight and… did not turn away from doing what was right.” (2 Chronicles 34:1-2)