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.

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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.