Looking Back... Moving Forward

It has been really cold here as it has in many places. The other day Deb was getting one of my heavier coats. She stuck her hand in the pocket and found this surprise.

Yes, it is a very rare find. It was the last playoff game that we attended by the Browns in 1994. Yes, playoffs and Browns rarely go in the same sentence. We would be happy just to win a game. But then I digress. It caused us to remember the game and the details of it. One little factoid - the Browns head coach that year was one Bill Belichik and the defensive coordinator was one Nick Saban (now longtime head coach at Alabama).

On the last day of the year, we love to look back. But then tomorrow, we start to look forward. We make our plans and New Year's resolutions. I have been fond of using something I called Be Goals which I have written about before. It is the concept of setting personal goals of internal change and transformation. But as I look into next year, I also want to be content in just living day to day. I want to approach each day with a fresh set of eyes and expectantly looking forward to just what God is doing that day. I also want to be thankful. How much God has indeed blessed me and how much I take for granted. I am talking about blessings of family, relationships, and most of all faith. God has indeed been good to me all year and I know, no matter what he is a God fully worthy of my trust.

The Wonder of Christmas

I love those Sports Sciences videos that break down the athletic marvels like this block by Lebron James into incredible science nuggets.

 

For example, in this video it talks about the reaction time of the block being .20 of a second, about the same amount of time to pop a champagne cork (not sure why they picked that one).

Do you ever marvel at the wonder of Christmas? If I were going to script it out, I would not script out the way God did. God, the infinite creator of the heavens and earth enters our finite time and space,  He enters the birth canal of the same woman He created. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes into a completely impoverished family and born in abject poverty in a non-descript town (Bethlehem). He is raised in a town that is not known for much of anything (Nazareth). He takes on a trade that is reserved for the common man (carpenter). He is obedient to fallible parents. He is an itinerant, homeless preacher for three years. He suffers tribulation and trial just like we do. He suffers a ghastly execution reserved for the worst of criminals. He endures hell for three days.  That is just a sampling. The highest of the high becomes the lowest of the low.

I can't get my head around this. And that is a good thing. If I got it, it would lose its amazement. But what I love is, I can't say I am deserving. I marvel, I wonder at the perfect sacrifice of Christ. And that is worth celebrating.

Lust and Transformation

I am old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter infamously said to Playboy magazine in 1976, "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times." It was ranked on Time Magazine's Top 10 Unfortunate Political One Liners. Carter has been ridiculed many times for that comment. Some just think it was goofy (of course men lust) and others thought just too information. But I appreciate Carter's honesty and being honest with ourselves and before our creator is the first step towards transformation from lust.

Last week I talked about the problem with sexual dysfunction in our society. It is not at all a shock to me that accusations against prominent men are coming out of the woodwork. There is a problem in the male community that rarely is spoken of. How we view women is a byproduct of many things. If there is a root problem, there has to be a root solution. 

1. Do you see that you actually have a problem with how you view women? If you don't think you do (which is a very small percentage of men), then read no further. 
2. Are you committed to a relationship with your spouse? Again, the answer has to be yes. You have to believe that marriage is a covenant. 
3. Do you view that lust is damaging to that relationship? And I am talking about just viewing other women in that manner. BTW, this is damaging also to friendships you can have with women. 
4. Commit to taking it to the Lord and asking him to change your heart. This has to be done daily. You see, there is an adversary that would long to see you mess up your life. Ask God to protect the sanctity of your marriage. Paul says "No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape so that you may be able to endure it." (2 Cor. 5:17). 
5. Aggressively guard against that which comes into your eye-gate. Deb and I love movies and we know that part of our movie watching process is to avoid any movies with erotic stuff and fast forward through parts as they pop up. There is a reason Paul says to flee immorality. Put that into the vernacular of our modern Internet society and it means we must be fiercely resistant.

Step 5 is precarious without Step 4. Humans are notoriously weak. I know some well-meaning Christian men who have accountability groups. This is in and of itself a good thing, but absolutely not enough by itself. A man cannot be transformed by other men and he can't will himself out of this problem. I find that if I am on the right track, I am naturally looking at women differently than if I am on the wrong track. I also know it does not take much to get on the wrong track.
 

The Root of Sexual Dysfunction

In the past, allegations of sexual misconduct might occur maybe a few times a year. Now, it is seemingly several times a week. Matt Lauer, Al Franken, Trent Frank, John Conyers, Roy Moore and the list goes on and on. What is going on?

 

To some level, much of what has occurred happened in a much earlier time and women are increasingly emboldened to speak out when in the past they might have been afraid to. I wonder how much of this has occurred that we don't know. But I happen to think the insidious nature of how we look at sexual relationships goes way beyond specific situations to a society that is absolutely saturated with the wrong images of sex.

As much as 20% or more of Internet searches involve pornography. It is so readily available and so easy to get. Free and paid T.V. also glamorize sex as casual and fun. Virtually none of this occurs in the context of traditional marriage. The goal in pornography is self-satisfaction. The other party is simply the means to this end.  It glamorizes how women can exist to pleasure men. Men in particular are really good at storing these mental images in their computer brain and the images intensely cloud how they look at the opposite sex. The can no longer look at them as people but as pleasure makers.

I participate in a number of close knit men's groups and the vast majority of them have struggled with exposure to Internet porn. One pastor I spoke with said 90-95% of the young men (as early as middle school) are purveyors of Internet porn. No wonder we have dysfunction with women, and especially our wives. Sex in the form of marriage is all about other-satisfaction and complete transparency. I wrote about this in my previous blog on intimacy in response to the death of Hugh Hefner.

There are damaging consequences to this behavior. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says that we are to flee immorality. The word used here is the word porneia which is where the word pornography comes from. He goes on to say that every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body (1 Cor. 6:18-20, emphasis mine). In other words, no other sinful behavior has the capacity to wreck a man physically. I believe that is what David was dealing with in Psalm 32 when he said, "when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long". The woods are full of people who have messed themselves up. And the list of those that could mess themselves up is the vast majority of us.

Fortunately there is a solution and I will explore this in another week.

Finding Beauty in the Seasons

It has been a long time in-between blog posts. First it was writer's block and then a series of trips for both business and personal down south. Much of the time I was in Florida but now back into the long winter season here in NE Ohio.

I am one of those people who suffer from a malady called Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD for short. Mayo Clinic defines it as a type of depression that's related to changes in seasons — SAD begins and ends at about the same times every year. Symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody. Strange as it is, I have lived in three of the four snow belts (NW Indiana, NE Ohio, and Western Michigan) which make for long winters. When I was in Florida, I almost felt like I had unlimited energy. When we got home, I felt like someone has sucked the strength completely out of me. I cope through the winters with a lot of Vitamin D.

I have a love-hate relationship with the seasons. Part of me just loves the four seasons. I really think the bad weather in Cleveland from December through April just makes me appreciate the really nice weather from May through October. It also really helps to see the beauty of all the seasons. Today, I decided to take my bike out in 40 some degree weather. Now some of my fellow bicycle enthusiasts will go when it is much colder, but I usually cut it off at 50. But I have found that just getting out even when others aren't helps me to be aware of the beauty around me. That appreciation helps my outlook. God has beauty even in the midst of winter doldrums.

We are in a series of messages in church called "All Things New" talking about what the new heaven and the new earth will be like. I read Randy Alcorn's book Heaven and it really challenged me to look at just the glimpse of heaven that this earth is like. Take things like athletics. Do I think athletics and competition will be heaven. I do! Think of things that give us the greatest joy and multiple by hundred, yet without sin. Competition is referred to in the Scriptures as something positive. Paul, for example talks about running and boxing in such a way as to be successful.

I have seen this video several times over the past number of weeks. This man is color blind and has never seen colors. His family gets him a pair of glasses that allows him to see colors for the first time. This is the kind of amazement that we should see in all we do on this earth and even more as we think of eternity.

The Heart We Don't Know

He was known to only a few and even to them, not well. He was apart from his family, but not completely estranged. His brother was shocked as shown in the video. He was not associated with any extremist organizations. He was by all accounts well off financially. He had a girlfriend but even she was shocked. Yet, Stephen Paddock meticulously planned and carried out a mission of mass execution of strangers.

My wife during the course of coordinating meets a person for the first time and literally only a few minutes later says calls her a liar, says she is getting bad vibes from her, and questions her faith. My wife, who does not have a mean bone in her body, was devastated. There is not a person on this earth who knows my wonderful wife better than I do and I cannot imagine more undeserved comments.

We see in these situations two opposite situations. The first is not suspecting the monster within and the second is making instant conclusions about people we hardly know. As humans, we love to sit in judgment, but most times we get it wrong either way. The human heart is amazingly complex and underneath it all no one can understand it. To quote my favorite poet Shrek "ogres are like onions" meaning they are complicated. Jesus (a little better source) said that he could never require man's testimony "because He knew what was in the heart of man" (John 2:25).

In the course of every day dealings, I constantly have to remind myself of this truth. Most times I have no idea what is going on in the hearts of minds of people. When I want to pre-judge people I hardly know, I have to stop and try to see them as God sees them. I have to take the high road which is what Deb took with her false accuser. She instantly apologized for offending the woman even though she knew she had done nothing wrong.

What about overt wickedness like in Las Vegas? It should remind us of the depravity in each of us. But it should also spur us to the good that is in us. The stories of heroism, of the many who donated blood, of those who supported the grief of others, and so on.  

On Hefner and Intimacy

Hugh Hefner had been married three times and dated numerous women over the course of his 91 years of life. He also claimed to have slept with over 1,000 women. By all definitions, by the definition of worldly pleasure, Hugh had it all. Many guys would have loved to traded places with him. Yet this epitome of success was strangely alone at his death. Hefner had no real transcendental relationships.

King Solomon seems like a close match to Hefner. 1 Kings 11 tells us he "loved foreign women" and he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines (mistresses, girlfriends). If you add up the seven hundred and the three hundred, it strangely matches the 1,000 of Hefner. Solomon was the original Hugh Hefner. But we get a sneak peek of where that left him in the book of Ecclesiastes. It left him empty and void. Solomon calls his chasing after pleasure part of his "vanity and chasing after the wind".

I have been married 32 years. I have had my best friend by my side through thick and thin. I have someone whom I completely trust. I heard a great definition of intimacy as "someone whom you can be completely transparent with". God has wired the marital relationship to be so much more than physical. Intimacy is praying together. Intimacy is crying together. Intimacy is sharing thoughts together. Intimacy is just watching a movie together. And on and on it goes. I doubt that Hefner, the original playboy, really knew intimacy.

The Folly of Perfection

The Cleveland Indians won 22 games in a row before the streak finally ended Friday night, a game I happened to attend. This streak set a major league record previously dating back to 1935 (I am not counting the Elias record from 1916 that included a tie). The Indians did it with surprising ease outscoring opponents by huge margins with few games being close. However, the 22nd game was an extra inning thriller where the Indians came from behind. The players apparently started wishing that the streak was over and they could get back to just playing ball. The streak of perfection was getting harder and harder to maintain. To keep it going was a day to day grind.

Likewise the Old Testament law contains laws that are impossible to keep. I haven't even rolled out of bed and gotten into the morning routine before I have violated at least one law. At the time of Christ's earthly ministry, the Pharisees had even further gummed up the works by adding numerous trivial laws that weighted the people down.

If the perfection of God's law is impossible, why does it exist? Thankfully, the answer is supplied succinctly by Paul in Galatians 3:24. It is our tutor to lead us to Christ. We recognize our own inability and sinful pattern and it reveals our need for a Savior. Tutor is an interesting word. The Greek word denotes a slave whose duty was to take care of a child until adulthood. the tutor escorted the child to and from school and watched over their behavior at home. Tutors were disciplinarians and caused those under their care to yearn for the day when they would be free from under the tutor's custody. Likewise the law is our tutor and shows us our sins leading us or escorting us to Christ.

What Storms Teach Us

Just about all of us have friends and/or family going through a once in a generational storm in Florida as I write this. As I sit here in Northeast Ohio, the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day, but in Florida it is nasty. It is so easy to feel helpless about what is going on. If I could pull a Star Trek, I would beam people up here. But time and space prevents me from doing that. 

The seasoned fisherman were terrified. Storms, like hurricanes were common on the Sea of Galilee. But this one seemed completely out of the ordinary. The boat was being swamped. They feared for their very lives. And there was Jesus asleep like a baby on a cushion, an intentional act of rest, not one like dozing. These fisherman did not suspect that Jesus was unaware, but that He didn't care that their lives were in danger. Jesus calms the storm and says to them "Where is your faith?". (Mark 4:25-41).

What is it to be learned about storms?

1. Storms remind us of our human frailty. 
2. Storms remind us of the brevity of "stuff".
3. Storms offer an opportunity for human generosity and caring.
4. Storms remind us of who is the one who is in control.

The Gift of Pain

I was trying to leg out an infield hit. I stretched to the bag and felt a little pop and realized I had popped my quad muscle. I limped back to the dugout and realized I was done. Two days later, feeling I was recovered enough from my quad, I tried to hit. As a power hitter, when I swing it is all parts of the body working in forward motion. On a 3-1 count, I let her rip and went down. Done for the evening again. Two days later, I am back at it again trying to catch and while stretching right to catch a ball out of the strike zone I did it again.

After three re-occurrences of the same image, it finally sunk into my thick skull that maybe I ought to lay low for a while and let my injury actually heal. So I did or so I thought. I was putting spaghetti away and I dropped a container of spaghetti on the floor. As I was going to pick it up, I felt the most intense pain in the leg to date and I dropped to the floor in agony. This pain caught me by surprise.

Author Philip Yancey has written extensively about the subject of pain. He co-wrote a book called The Gift of Pain and has referred to it in multiple of his books. Leprosy patients are at great risk of doing harm to themselves because they can feel no pain. Someone with leprosy can stick their hand in a fire and not know it. The book makes the fascinating conclusion that pain is actually good for us. Pain is much broader than physical. It reaches to the very core of our being. Some of the worst pain is emotional and spiritual.

Intentional Pain Stops Us from Unintended Consequences
If there were no consequences to our behavior, we would do all sorts of bad things. But the bad things we do leave a mark. My continued insistence on playing through pain only made my situation worse. We can see this with our dabbling with sin. There are always consequences and the mark of pain helps us to recognize it.

Unintentional Pain Reveals Our Need for God
Some of the worst pain comes from outside. It is the consequences of living in a fallen world. My worst pain on my example came from the accidental spill of the spaghetti. Likewise, the unforeseen such as an accident or a trial occurs. This type of trial leads us to recognize our frailty and our need for a personal God.

When God Interrupts Our Routine

Tomorrow millions of people will witness the rare phenomena of the moon blocking the light's rays. In some places, there will be a total eclipse. Here in Northeast Ohio, 80.5% of the sun will be blocked. During the solar eclipse, the lunar shadow will darken the sky and temperatures will drop will bright stars and planets will appear at a time that is normally broad daylight.

Retired NASA astrophysicist and photographer Fred Espenak said the experience lasts for just a couple minutes, but it's truly out of this world. "It is unlike any other experience you've ever had, "Espenak, known as Mr. Eclipse, told ABC news. "It's a visceral experience. The hair on your arms, on the back of your neck, stand up. You get goosebumps."

There are two ways to react to this event. One is to be awed by the event itself and the second is to be awed by the creator of the heavens and the earth. I love it when God gives us glimpses of His handiwork in a way that interrupts our mundane. It is easy to get wrapped up in the day to day routine. We are hurtling through space every day. Our body intakes oxygen. Gravity keeps our feet on the ground. We don't thank God enough for His handiwork. How good it is for us to take a step back and just reflect on the wonder of it all.

David writes "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you take thought of him, the son of man that you care for him." It is awesome that the creator of the heavens and the earth desires a personal relationship with me and you. Reflect on that tomorrow as you see His handiwork.

Nostalgia and the Art of Remembering

My baseball team played a game Saturday at League Park in Cleveland. For those who don't know League Park, it is a restored baseball park on the near east side. I have been told that it is the only original structure from its era other than Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. All other stadiums of that era were razed to the ground and stuff built on top of it. League Park was the host to professional baseball from the turn of the century all the way until 1946.

The field itself was remade (see picture below by my creative photo savvy spouse) to exactly the dimensions of the original ballpark including the short 295 foot fence in right field, which has a high 40 foot fence (even higher than the famed 37 foot Green Monster fence of Fenway). The other parts of the field were 380 feet to the outfield. Quick side note - I hit a blast to the fence on Saturday but because I popped a quad muscle during the week I only ended up with a single. My manager called it the longest single in League Park history. We envisioned that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played on this field. Bob Feller pitched here and all the greats of one of the most famous eras of baseball.

The word remember or recall occur 167 times in the Bible. As I look through the list, these are some of the themes:

• Remember events such as Passover
• Remember people who preceded you
• Remember the goodness of God
• Remember the sacrifice of God
• Remember the commandments of God
• Remember what you were like before
• Remember the days of your life or the days of old 
• Remember God's holy word
• Remember the brevity of life
• Remember if your brother has something against you 

Apparently God wants us to remember stuff. It seems like our culture today is stuck in the now. Remembering is healthy in context. 

The Truth Fortune Cookie

We eat a lot of Chinese food. For whatever reason, our sleepy little town of Brecksville has two takeout Chinese restaurants. When the owners of our preferred one went on vacation leaving us in a potential lurch, we simply turned to option B which is almost as good. Anyway, I actually read the fortune cookies and I am fascinated (sometimes) by what I read.

At first blush, this seems to be a fantastic combination of words. We all identify with adversity and we understand that adversity leads us to something, but truth?  I could see how adversity could lead us to strength. I could see how adversity could lead us to God? Does the fortune cookie author mean that adversity could lead us to recognize truth? If so, that is a lame one. Kind of like getting pulled over for going over the speed limit and saying I did not know the speed limit. The officer would say that my ignorance does not excuse me.

Truth is one of those words that more and more get relegated to a point of reference in our culture today. But truth is one of those words that stands alone and needs no context. Further, we are responsible for knowing truth. Adversity is irrelevant. Jesus says "If you continue in My word, the you are truly disciples of mine and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:30-31). The truth is the gospel. The trigger is knowing it and believing it.

In fact, the more I think about it, if Jesus were writing a fortune cookie, he would write "Truth is the first path to adversity". Think of those who have placed their lives on the line for the truth of the gospel.  They were convinced the truth was the truth and some people don't like truth. About 100,000 of them die every year for the truth.

Image

I have an awful combination. First of all, I sweat a lot. Second, I am a baseball catcher. When you wear the equipment of the catcher (the tools of the trade) on a hot, humid July day, you produce sweat - lots of it. On a typical game, under these conditions, I will lose five or six pounds. Which is why my car always smells like a locker room.

I can spray a whole can of aerosol Fabreeze in there and it still smells. I bought one of those scent things that hangs from your rear view mirror and it was used up about five minutes into its journey. Deb's car on the other hand still smells new even though it is several years older. You see, she is not a sweater and she is not a catcher.

Seems like a strange introduction to my blog, but half the battle to the journey of the sinner is the realization that they are odorous in the sight of an Almighty God. We are currently studying in the Sermon on the Mount at church (Matthew 5-7). The first part of the sermon is the Beatitudes. Beatitudes literally mean "happy". But they sure don't sound happy.

• Blessed are the poor in spirit
• Blessed are those who mourn
• Blessed are the gentle
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
• Blessed are the merciful
• Blessed are the pure in heart
• Blessed are the peacemakers
• Blessed are those who have been persecuted

The first four are self-assessment. They in essence say, I am a stinker. It is the one who completes the self-assessment and says that I need a holy and righteous God to remove the contamination of my stinkiness. That is the meaning of what the prophet Isaiah writes "though our sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow"(1:18). I need to come clean before God. To God, my stinkiness problem, when acknowledged in faith plus trust in Christ, is not only neutral but even sweet smelling. I still have the new car smell so to speak. 

I bring this up because our culture wants to constantly say we are all right and we can make our own way. Saying I am ok enough times does not make me ok.  This is not a healthy self-image. I am bound to disappoint myself no matter how many self-help books I might read. Don't get me wrong - we all have fascinating potential and I am an avid reader of authors like the late Stephen Covey. But my self-image must start with the flaws that I have. The amazing things can happen with a flawed sweaty guy.

Identity

What is your identity? I participated for many years in a personal strategic planning group called Focus Four. One of the exercises of Focus Four was to identify all of the roles that you play in your life and how you can be better at them. I am a husband, a father, a friend, a brother, a son, an entrepreneur and so on and so forth. Roles are factual - I am a husband because I am married (to a wonderful woman for 32 years I might add). I am a dad because I have three daughters (and wonderful ones they are). You get the idea.

I say that because roles define our identity. Sometimes however, roles get mixed up with beliefs or even worse opinions. Congressman Steve Scalise was targeted because he was a Republican. Our country has become increasingly polarized by this process of mixing up beliefs and roles.  It seems to be a problem on all ends of the political spectrum. We can disagree, but if you and I are friends, that is our role. Your opinions don't change that fact.


For the Christian, this is becoming even more and more of a problem. I don't even like to use the word Christian any more to describe me because people automatically assume I have a set of opinions and beliefs that cloud the only thing that matters. Increasingly, I like to use the word "Christ follower". The early church was described as "The Way" patterned after John 14:6 where Jesus said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to Father except through me".  Christianity was never designed to represent a set of political beliefs. Some of my well meaning Christian friends seem to have lost sight of this fact.

As a Christ follower, I am called to influence the world through internal change in the lives of people. Some people refer to this as the cultural mandate. I can serve the culture I live in and impact people that way. Peter says I am an ambassador. An ambassador comes from somewhere else and represents something else. We might say well that was then and this is now. But at the time of that writing Rome was the dominant power and Rome had slavery, abortion, infanticide, rampant sexual deviancy, and so forth. Yet there is not one word in the New Testament about the Christian trying to change this culture through demonstrations or political insurrections. One of Christ's disciples even changed from being an insurrectionist - his name was Simon the Zealot.

The change was through the change of hearts, one heart at a time. What I know and can testify to is that Christ changed my heart and my life many years ago. If I believe that Christ changed me and many like me, I have internal evidence. And if I believe that I can have a relationship with the creator God because of this, I am compelled to share this news which we call the Good News. Everything else I can do is a smokescreen to this.

Impact!

For those who played baseball or golf, there is a sound and a feeling that is unmistakable. The ball hits a sweet spot on the bat that generates the most impact. The ball feels like it literally jumps off the bat and you pretty much know it immediately. I hit one like this last week (about 330 feet - not bad for a 57 year old with a wood bat) and it keeps you going playing a kids sport. I won't mention that in the same game I struck out twice.

When we think about what is best for our kids, it is not happiness, but impact. Impact comes behind righteousness (or holiness) but it is it's cousin. To be righteous and be productive in our troubled world means to make an impact. I remember the people that have made the most impact on me - people that took an interest in me and mentored me. My dad and father-in-law certainly are among those people. Deb and I are marriage mentors and it seems like so much to spend 16 weeks or so investing so much in one couple, but it is so worth it if we can make an impact on their marriage.

I think it is for that reason that I don't really think about retirement in the traditional sense. The need to make an impact lasts for a lifetime. I think the best years of impact-building in my life are still ahead. The thought of no impact and living only for myself seems fruitless. I think of the words of Paul - "do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interest of others" (Phil. 2:3-4).

Do you think of impact-building in this way? On this Fathers Day, are you building into the life of others? It is never too late to start.

The Lost Art of Conversation

I love social media. It has brought me into contact with people I probably would not have stayed in contact with. It keeps me connected with those closest to me. My daughter is halfway across the world right now, yet she feels so close because of social media. Yet, for all its positives, I fear social media is causing more harm than good. One of the ways it is causing harm is it virtually eliminates conversation.

I can think of many ways to illustrate this, but let me share a couple. First your urge to engage in virtual activity hurts your ability to engage in interpersonal activity. Walk into your nearest restaurant and look at the tables. You will find people heads-down looking at their phones while the person sitting across from them does the same thing. Deb and I were eating out at Costco (yes, I am quite the date) on the way home from work and I spotted a father and young daughter and both were looking at their phones. I don't think I saw a single word uttered between the two of them. How tragic!

Another way of harm is that social media is a one-way expression of language. When someone tweets or makes a post, they are doing so to make a unilateral statement. That is why so many get in trouble. I don't care much for Twitter and don't use it. I have trouble expressing something in few characters and developing a thought. The problem is I am conveying a thought that has to be flattened into a few characters. Then I have the problem of context and time. Someone is going to read that tweet and try to inject their own context. In a conversation, both of these are less likely to happen.

I think of Jesus and the woman at the well (John 4:7-38) as a prime example of what we lose in conversation. There is context - it is the middle of the hot summer day and a Jew and a Samaritan woman would never associate. Jesus asks her for a drink, a very unusual request under that context. She responds to ask why He would do that. He says he can provide living water which evokes curiosity. It goes back and forth with Jesus explaining what living water is and identifying with this woman's sinful lifestyle without condemning her. It is a masterful use of conversation by the Lord of the conversation. Can you imagine Jesus using texting or tweeting?

"Can u give me a drink?"

?

"Can u give me a drink?"

? - "what r u asking Jew man? I am a Samaritan."

"I can give u living water"

?

And so on it goes. I have friends that will try to engage me in long conversation via text messaging and I put a stop to it. Call me - too long to discuss in 140 character spurts. It is so easy to fall into the trap and it follows us into ordinary conversation. I find I interrupt to frequently. I don't listen intently and empathetically. My staccato use of conversation is all too easy. Force yourself to listen deeply, to listen carefully. Repeat back the person's words to them. And please put the device away during the conversation.

Resist Hate

On my way home on Friday, I saw a car with the following bumper sticker.

I am struck by the combination of these two words. They don't go together. Kind of like "gorge slower" or "crawl faster". There is no way to resist hate. Hate is a raging fire that consumes everything in its path. Do you really think we can reason out of hate? Did the suicide bomber who targeted teenagers wake up that morning and try to reason his way out of the despicable act?

There is natural evil in that heart of ours. The separation between me and the terrorist is not that great. I blogged about this when Osama Bin Laden was killed. As an example, when I drive behind a person driving slowly and my "righteous" anger seethes and I curse at them. I have read many books on the Rwanda genocide as I have visited Rwanda twice. How could people kill their neighbor - people they had known for years? The answer is simple - they saw them, not as friends and neighbors, but as objects of the enemy. People when asked why they killed simply expressed it as a "job to be done". Just like the terrorist.

Hate needs to be transformed, not resisted. Hate must be transformed by love. We must see people the same way God sees them - in His image.We must empathize with them. We realize that they are not objects of God's wrath, but troubled recipients of His grace just like me. The love must be seated in that perspective, not some sappy man-made emotional reaction. This kind of transformation is 100% supernatural. I cannot will myself out of this deep-seated hate in my heart. God must do that. Hate is still there but it is crowded out by love.

James 4:7 is a great verse for this - "Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you."  This verse, at first blush, almost seems to support my friend's bumper sticker. In fact, it is the opposite. We are to submit to God first. Second, the resisting is against the author of hate, not the hate itself. The resistance must come supernaturally from God through his changing grace. 

Handcrafted

McDonald's latest advertising campaign uses the phrase "signature crafted" to describe it's new sandwiches. At this time, I am also reading the book "Simplify" which is a book that describes how companies have succeeded through what the author calls "price-simplification" or "proposition-simplification". In price-simplification, the goal is to continuously drop your price to a point where it is almost a no-brainer to purchase. One of the examples in the book is the original McDonalds business formula which is to produce acceptable quality but fast, consistent, and cheap.

One of my management team in a previous company once coined a phrase that has stuck with me over the years. He said, "Dan there is fast, cheap, and great - pick two". I have nothing against McDonalds (I actually like their breakfast sandwiches), but crafted is not a term I would use for their sandwiches. It is not like Morton's or Ruth Chris where there is a cook to order and I wait for my meal. If I wait more than two minutes for my sandwich, I am disillusioned. That is why they still call it fast food.

As I think about the beauty of God's creation, I think of this word "handcrafted". The psalmist contemplates this "When I consider your heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you have created, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him" (Psalm 8:3-4). I read the Genesis account and you see creativity and thought interwoven through the creative process.

Further, today is Mother's Day, a day we reach out to those that gave us birth and those that raised us. My mother did not craft me in my mother's womb and it is ludicrous to think that Deb that with our kids. No, God did that. Not one of our kids called Deb and said - "thanks Mom for making me". The perfect creator of the heavens fashioned a new human being using human agents, intimacy of human relationship, time, and process. It shouldn't get old to amaze at the wonder of God. As our kids get older, this realization that they are in God's hands gets easier and easier as I think the same God handcrafted them from the beginning and calls them by name.

The Science Guy

A few months back, I attended the Tableau conference where the keynote speaker was Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Bill Nye is a very popular science educator and known for his wit and high energy presentation. Nye said a lot of very interesting things - watch the first four minutes of the following video from this conference. He said something like "we are a speck that is standing with a bunch of other specks surrounded by a bunch of other specks that orbits around a speck among other specks in the middle of specklessness. In other words, we suck. Yet you can know your place in space and with your brain you can change the world." Earlier in the speech, he talked about finding how he came to be through water they found with life in it on Mars.

Nye, who is very entertaining, got a standing ovation. I found myself with a deep sense of sadness that this man, brilliant as he was, could view his origin and his significance through the lens of himself. In my wildest imagination and as someone who did not always have a personal faith,  I could not even possibly imagine the complexity of space and of humans just coming to be from nothing. Nothing I observe points to that. I see a great designer who fashioned the vastness of the universe and then fashioned human beings in His image. I saw that even before coming to a personal faith.

I am humbled that the creator of the heavens and the earth has desired a personal relationship with me. I look into the vastness of space and I do see how seemingly insignificant we are. Yet I contemplate the infinite worth that God my creator gave to me. I imagine the ultimate cost that God paid to redeem me from the bondage of my sin through His son Jesus. I think it takes far less faith to believe that a personal God created man in His own image and bought a relationship with him than my origins are from water on Mars.

Every rejection of a creator God ultimately comes back to pride. We want to be the captain of our ship, to control our own destiny. We hate the thought of being accountable to someone. So we fashion ourselves as our own god. So when we hear this kind of thing, it actually sounds good to us. Paul says we worship the creation rather than the creator (Rom 1:16). I am reminded by his words to the Corinthian church - "But a natural man doe not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised".  A creator God who loves you longs for you to come to Him. 

Reconciliation and Redemption

Friday night for Deb and I usually is movie night. We typically get something from Netflix or occasionally go to the movies. We watched last week the movie "Manchester by the Sea" because the actor Casey Affleck won best actor. We know there are various types of movies and genres, but this one was just flat out depressing. Without getting into the details (spoiler alert), Affleck plays Lee, a man who loses his family in a tragic event and then some 10 years later his brother dies and in his will he is asked to be the guardian of his nephew, Patrick. As we were watching it, we kept waiting and waiting for something to happen. This something Deb articulated as reconciliation or redemption. We were left at the end with two characters who were wholly unsympathetic and the story line as unfulfilling.

The human heart longs for at least one of these two themes, reconciliation or redemption. Everything else leaves us bereft. It doesn't mean only good news - often it comes at the heals of bad and tragic news. I think this week of Robert Godwin, the elderly man senselessly gunned down seemingly at random and posted on Facebook. What do we make of this? Out of this comes reconciliation. The family forgives a man they never met. I am struck by their interview with Anderson Cooper.

I talked to a friend this past week who was a managing editor of a major newspaper and I asked him why the press seems to only report bad news. He said it was because "bad news is easier to find". The Godwin family would be more than justified to want vengeance and retribution. And in the end, the killer committed suicide. If that was where it was left, we could understand it. But they take it a step further in forgiving this man. That has to be supernatural. They understood reconciliation was an essential part of the healing process.  The other was redemption. Robert Godwin was celebrated yesterday in Cleveland. This was a man who was far from perfect but one who by all accounts lived his life for his God and his family. So in this one tragic incident we have God working out these principles of reconciliation and redemption to His own glory and to our own healing.

The Final Score

After the Cavaliers had won the NBA championship, I started reliving the moments of Game 7 and now have purchased through iTunes Games 5,6, and 7 so I can relive them in even more detail. I can recite the key moments of the game - "Oh, blocked by James" or "Kyrie Irving for 3 puts it up, it's good". The common thread of all these games is I can watch it knowing the final score. Usually, I can pick up a thing or two each time I watch it. The details are more fun when you know your team wins. I did the same thing with the World Series games 2,3, and 4 all games they won. I did download game 7 because it was so epic, but it wasn't so much fun because even though there was the homerun to tie the game, I knew the end result was not in our favor.

 

As I think about Easter, I am reminded that we know the final score. The final score was etched when Christ rose from the grave. Good has won - evil has lost. The price has been paid for the penalty of sin and the payment accepted. But unlike the Cavs, even though the final score is won and our team wins, the day to day game still lives on. Satan does not give up even though he knows the final score. If he can't win, maybe he can convince enough people not to believe their team has won. Or maybe he can convince others of an alternate reality that the game is still very much in doubt.

So I need to live my life in the reality of the final score. Easter very much reminds me of that. Jesus said "It is Finished" - the word tetelestai used there is the final score. There is victory in Jesus. Doesn't always feel like it every day, but since it is reality, it is fact. My feelings don't change the final score. What does that do to me? What does it change?  This needs to be a daily reminder. As Paul says, the resurrection is everything. Without it, we are "of all men most to be pitied". But with it "it is finished" (tetelestai).

Food Poisoning, Part II

Thankfully, I am now recovered fully from the bout of food poisoning that I blogged about last week. I am not going to belabor this topic too much, but I feel there is one more side-note to this sorry saga. I knew pretty much immediately that I had eaten something that did not agree with me. I had a soup and salad and it was likely the soup that got me but the salad was the second thing I ate and even now, the thought of a Waldorf Salad skives me out. When I had food poisoning once before, we suspect it was a sandwich from Panera but it was cupcakes that skived me out then because it was the last thing I ate before all rumblings broke loose (you know what I mean).

Sometimes root issues manifest themselves to the second one in line. I may have a particularly bad day and I take it out on those closest to me. They are not the cause; they are simply the burden carrier. We know we can be transparent with them and sometimes they take the fall because they are just there in the aftermath. I know there are many times where I take my own baggage onto Deb (today is her birthday by the way) even though she is far from being the cause of my own frustration. My Waldorf salad was an innocent bystander of my contamination. A by-product of relationships is this diffusion of the stain of sin. I could be having the roughest of times but I know I have relationships that just seem to ease the problems.

Deb and I watched the movie "Fences" last night and Rose (Viola Davis) is a perfect example of this type of relationship.  Troy, (Denzel Washington) to whom she is married to is often despicable. He is always having bad days as he bemoans what he could have been and time and time again. Yet she is there for him even as he remains a despicable character. God has wired us for relationship even knowing we bear burdens of others.

Thank You Food Poisoning

I have been trying to lose weight. Last year, I put on six pounds that had never been there before after 10 years of being around the same weight range. Then the six pounds became ten pounds. Yikes! What happened? Age happened. I can't keep doing the same things I had been doing and expecting the same result. I have a particular affinity for sweets and lately latching onto Oreo cookies.

Last weekend we had dinner with some deer friends of ours at a nice, reputable restaurant. I ordered the seafood gumbo and a salad. After I ate the zippy, seafood gumbo, I did not feel quite right. I gutted it out so to speak. For the next five days, I extracted (my nice way of saying it) all of the stuff in my system. My weight chart (via Fitbit) shows the result. I dropped half of my excess weight and thus far I have kept it off.

It got me thinking about life. We can play around in the sandbox of life and if we draw close to God, He will put things into our life that rightsize us to him. Kind of like God introduces a little seafood gumbo and food poisoning into our life to get us back on track. God does not introduce temptation because that is for our bad, but He introduces trials for our good to get us back on track. James says that this is a welcome event and "we are to consider it joy when God puts us through trials". Why? It is "because the testing of our faith produces endurance" (James 1:3).

We have a number of friends going through various trials right now. My little food poisoning example is not to make light of the fact that trials are a burden. God says He will never allow any trial to be beyond what we can handle. The television preachers say that life is smooth and God wants us to be happy.  Wrong! God wants us to be holy. Holiness does not necessarily mean happiness - it means joyfulness and they are two different things and maybe the subject of a future blog.

I am hoping that my little bout with the gumbo will help level-set some new habits as half of my excess weight is now gone. Can I now take that as an opportunity to grow in my habits?

The 2:00 AM Friend

A 2:00 AM friend is someone you can call at anytime of the day or night and tell them anything. I first heard this term from Pat Morley at Man in the Mirror ministry.  Guys in particular are notorious for not having friends that we can be completely transparent with. When I was younger, I was always on my guard and very hesitant to open up my "broom closet" to anyone else. As I have gotten older, I have appreciated being honest and open with friends. It is vital that guys have close friends that are guys. While I am extremely open with my wife, there are certain things that only guys can relate to. I am sure the same thing applies to women.

One of my friends is a police officer and we were studying this particular topic. He has another similar category called the "DUI friend". He said when he is booking someone on a DUI charge, they have to have someone come to the police station to pick them up. He has seen people get out their phone and literally scroll through hundreds of names before saying they have no one they can call.  Who is your DUI friend? Do you have one? Who can you call and say I am in trouble due to my own stupidity.

Jesus Christ had twelve disciples but he had three 2 AM friends, Peter, James, and John. Keep in mind this is Jesus in His humanity. As God, He is fully present and with all who have faith in Him. But as a man, He maintained a close knit circle. They were with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. They were with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Yet as friends, they failed Him at times. They fell asleep in the garden for example as Jesus bore His soul before the Father.

We just finished a retreat with couples that we have spent the better part of the past twenty years of life with. We laughed together, we worshiped together, we prayed together, we played stupid games together. All part of life. Many of those men, I would not hesitate to call at 2:00 AM. God has not wired us to be alone. We need community.

Laws Are For Our Good

Deb and I have returned from a couple of weeks where we were gone a lot. We were in Lima, Peru visiting my mother and stepfather who live there. It is our fifth time to Peru and it has been fascinating watching the changes over the past ten years. One of the things that does not appear to have changed a lot is the traffic laws. I would say that they appear to be "selectively enforceable" meaning that some laws appear to be enforced some of the time. As an example, stop signs seem to be optional. When I asked my stepfather about that a few years ago, that was his answer. He also said that if you stopped at a stop sign, you may be likely to get rammed into from behind because people don't expect you to stop at the stop sign. On the other hand, my stepfather got a ticket for an isolated occurrence where he was at a corner and he had taken his seat belt off to get something out of his pocket.

Government laws are designed for our own good; or we would like to believe they are. They are not perfect, but that is the intent. God's laws on the other hand are perfectly designed for our good. Take abstinence and sex outside of marriage for example. People will rationalize that it can't possibly be right. Actress Scarlett Johansson recently said “You have to choose a path. I think the idea of marriage is very romantic; it’s a beautiful idea and the practice of it can be a very beautiful thing. I don’t think it’s natural to be a monogamous person. I might be skewered for that, but I think it’s work. It’s a lot of work. And the fact that it is such work for so many people — for everyone — the fact of that proves that it is not a natural thing. It’s something I have a lot of respect for and have participated in, but I think it definitely goes against some instinct to look beyond.”

We sometimes think that God's laws are onerous and therefore not for our good. But they are. God has not designed a system to enable failure, but enable good. There are consequences of immoral behavior. On the other hand, perfect intimacy in the context of marriage is the most fulfilling thing possible. Note that we are unable to uphold God's laws perfectly. They are the gold standard, so to speak but we break them every day. That is why the Bible says that the law leads us to Jesus - "the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith" (Gal 3:24).

In Christ, we have a perfect sacrifice that positionally puts us in a right standard before God for eternity. But we still have this sticky wicket which theologians call sanctification. That is we are right before God positionally but we can still mess up. God's laws are still valid for right living. We can declare them invalid like Scarlett Johansson does, but that does not change things. It may make us feel better for a time as we continue to break God's laws, but they will not change the consequences of wrong behavior.

From Nero to Trump - Keep on Praying

Wow, what a week! We have a new President, Donald J. Trump whether we like it or not. I do not blog on politics because I think politics and being a Christ follower are often confused in mainstream culture. Christians that blend the two are risking at best confusion, and at worst outright rejection. I do not want to take that risk. 

In the ancient east at the time of the writing of the New Testament, the Romans were in charge. There were good things such as a modern (for the time) system of roads and infrastructure. But the government was oppressive. It was a system that directly clashed with the beliefs of Christians. For example, Christians were considered "atheists" because they did not honor the Roman gods. They were asked to denounce Jesus Christ and honor the Roman gods and penalty to do so was immediate death.

In the midst of this, Paul says to "make entreaties, prayer, petitions, and thanksgivings for all those in charge" (1 Tim 2:1). I find this interesting that Paul writes this probably during the reign of the infamous Nero. Yes, that same Nero who made Christians human torches. Paul also says that we are "to be subject to governing authorities for all authority is established by God" (Romans 13:1). So while we may not like who is in charge, we are to support and uphold them. Paul even says we are to be thankful for them. Can you imagine Paul giving thanks for Nero?

Now roll that forward to democracy. There was no democracy at the time of Christ. I love that we live in a democracy. I am very thankful for the right for many thousands (including two of my own daughters) to gather in protest of this new President and to put him on notice that he represents the people. It is our right in this country to do so. Paul did the same thing when he appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen. He was taking advantage of the rights he had.

But at the same time, this does not invalidate what these verses say - in fact it supports them even more. If those who were directly persecuted were to pray and uphold their leaders, how much more are we in a democracy to pray and uphold our leaders. Paul actually gives the reason we are to do this when he says "so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity" (1 Tim. 2:2). What he is saying is that regardless of who is in charge, my king is King Jesus and I am not going to confuse human leadership and government with God our Savior. All government whether Nero or Trump is God-ordained and we are still to uphold them.

Hate Crimes

This week three black teens and one black juvenile were charged with the vicious torture and attack of an eighteen year old mentally disabled white man. The attackers posted their attack on social media with expletive taunts against Donald Trump and against white people. This same week, Dylann Roof entered the sentencing stage of his trial for killing nine black people at a historically black church. Roof showed no remorse in representing himself and even stated "there is nothing wrong with me psychologically". Both of these cases have been labeled "hate crimes" and have sparked renewed debate over this topic.

The FBI defines a hate crime as “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” The FBI goes on to say that hate crimes are the highest priority of the FBI’s Civil Rights program, not only because of the devastating impact they have on families and communities, but also because groups that preach hatred and intolerance can plant the seed of terrorism here in our country.

This concept of hate crimes is fascinating to me because pretty much all crimes are borne into attitudes of the heart. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus identifies the incipient reasons why we do what we do. Whereas the legalists of his day focused on the outward, Christ focused on the inward causes. In any outward action, you need to start working your way backwards. For example, murder is the supreme atrocity of taking another person's life, but murder moves backward to hate, hate moves back to resentment, resentment moves back to insecurity, and so on and so forth.

The cure for hate crimes is not to react to the outward crimes but to start at the root cause. The seemingly best of us are fully capable of committing the worst of crimes and recognizing that is the first step. Repentance has to start with recognition. But recognition doesn't do it by itself because we cannot cure the evils of our own heart. It has to move towards transformation and only supernatural transformation can change these deep seated attitudes of the heart. The gospel of Jesus Christ changes people - even the worst of us. It breaks down the dividing walls.

Jameel McGee, a black man was imprisoned by a white police officer, Andrew Collins who falsified a drug police report. He served four years in jail. Collins eventually admitted he falsified the report and served a year and a half in jail himself. McGee when he got out sought to "hurt Collins" when he got out. What happened - Collins apologized, McGee accepted the apology and today the two of them are close friends. The gospel does stuff like that.

My 2017 BE Goals

Last year, I got a Fitbit for Christmas and I set a goal of being more healthy and lose weight. But I gained 6 pounds. The Fitbit tells me I am exercising but it doesn't help me with my sweet addiction. Part of the problem with task-oriented goals is they address symptoms rather than problems. 

I bring up this concept of BE goals every new year. I first heard the concept of BE goals a number of years ago from Andy Stanley, a well-known pastor and author in Atlanta. BE goals are different as they are internal rather than external. Generally, they don't change from year to year and it is measured in progress rather than arrival. No one can say they nail BE goals every year. So here are my BE goals from last year and they are exactly the same for 2017.

Be Holy
It always starts with the most difficult one. Holiness is something only God can truly be yet we are reminded to be holy as God is holy. A difficult proposition but possible if the Christ is living through me.

Be Prayerful
Prayer is dialogue with the creator God. God has made that possible. God wants me to talk to Him the way a child talks to their father. How precious little time I truly spend in dialogue with God. The Holy Spirit is in me and helps me along in my weakness.

Be Patient
Yikes - this is a challenge for me. The man who tailgates people and loses his temper at every little thing. Patience is basically frustration when you are held back from expectations. It starts with improper expectations.

Be Mindful
Similar to patience, this is a awareness of others and my surroundings. Coming from the man who realizes things on the wall that have been there for years, this is a truly daunting challenge.

Be Supportive
This takes mindful to another level because it is a proactive reaction to being mindful. How can I be supportive of others in my work, community, relationships, etc.

Be Trusting
It is a danger to yourself to always be skeptical of others. I would rather be let down than be constantly skeptical of others. So many times I held off on sending that bad e-mail because I assumed the worst in people.

Be Accountable
Hardest thing for a man to be. We like living in our own cocoon and yet we have to be accountable to others. It is critical for men to have those relationships where we can be transparent and listen to brothers as they see areas of change needed in our lives.

Be a Friend
Deb and I were just talking about how much value we place on friendships as we have grown older. We have such a wonderful core group of friends and it is so important for me just to be a friend. I also want/need to develop new relationships.

Be Diligent
These words ring out in my head as Paul says to Timothy - "be diligent to present yourselves as one approved". It means we have to be proactive. This is one of Coveys 7 Habits.

Be Consistent
Finally, being consistent throughout the year is the path. It is January 1 and by God's grace by January 10, I won't have violated most of these already.