Posts in Category: down to earth believer
“Random Thoughts on my Seventy-First Birthday”
I am seventy-one years old today. Here are some random musings.
- I haven’t lived in a lively, life-giving manner for much of my time on this planet.
- However, I have done a few good things along the way.
- I have experienced a lot of love and kindness.
- I have sometimes been loving and kind.
- Someone has said, “It is never too late to become the man (or woman) that you want to be.” I believe that this is true.
- Each day is another to celebrate life and to fully inhabit the day.
- It’s not about me. It’s about appreciating and caring about God, other people, and this beautiful world I’ve been given.
- Gratitude is one of the most important things that I can practice.
- To refuse the good words and other gifts that others want to give me is to insult them, God, and life itself.
- To refuse to pass along good words and other gifts to others is also to insult them, God, and life itself.
- How I use my time is the story of my life. I want to write a good, interesting story with a happy ending.
I am so grateful for all of you who read my scribblings! May you be blessed and blessable today!
“The Bible: The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Ugly”
“14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom. 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:14-24, English Standard Version)
Some of you are probably wondering about the title of this post. However, if you like old western movies, you immediately recognized my reference to the movie “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. Yes, I do indeed admit that I like old Clint Eastwood shoot-‘em-ups. I’m not saying this is a good thing. I’m just saying that I do enjoy that movie.
However, when it comes to the Bible, I am not so attuned to the good, the bad, and the ugly. And let’s face it. There are all of those things in the Bible. I am currently reading through the book of Judges. There is a lot of evil and ugliness (along with some good) in that book.
Here is the problem, as I see it. The evil and ugliness (along with the occasional good) is not identified with discreet characters, as in the Clint Eastwood movie. The goodness, badness, and ugliness are in God’s own people.
This is not limited to the book of Judges. It is found throughout the Old and New Testaments. David was a man after God’s own heart, yet the Old Testament does not soft-pedal his ugly and evil actions.
In fact, I tend to gravitate toward the bad and the ugly in the Bible. Why is that so, I wonder? I was thinking about that question today when I went to church.
My church tends to put a lot of emphasis on miracles and “victory in Jesus” and such. While I recognize that these are biblical and important, I sometimes feel as if we don’t take seriously enough the bad and ugly. If we say that we believe that the Bible is God’s written word, we need to take seriously the entire Bible, not just the triumphant and miraculous bits.
I was thinking about these things on the way to church. I did not know that it was going to happen, but our pastor preached on Romans 7, the Scripture that leads off this post.
Romans 7 deals with Paul’s struggle with the sinful ugliness within his own heart and mind. Some biblical scholars have argued that Paul is not speaking of his own experience since becoming a Christ-follower, but I respectfully disagree. Paul sounds pretty anguished to me. And he does not speak of his anguish as something that was in his past, pre-Christian life.
So, I was glad to see my pastor balancing the church’s (quite biblical) emphasis upon victory with the ugly badness within Paul. And, as my pastor pointed out, this is a struggle we all have in one form or another.
But I was left with several questions that I need to answer for myself. One of them is this: Why do I gravitate toward the ugly badness in the Bible my own life? Here were some of the thoughts that came to me. Some “reasons” are reasonably good and true, and some of my “reasons” aren’t so good or reasonable or true.
First, for the good reasons for my preoccupation with the bad and the ugly:
- As I’ve already stated, the bad and the ugly is part of the Bible. If I say that I believe the Bible, I need to take it all seriously. Not literally always, but always seriously.
- If I become too enamored by the miraculous and the triumphant, I will be unable to relate to struggling people. And there are a lot of them around.
But there are some bad and ugly reasons for my emphasis (preoccupation?) with the bad and the ugly:
- I don’t think that I deserve the good bits. But then, who says that anyone—including I myself—deserve anything. Perhaps life, in every sense, isn’t about deserving?
- Sometimes, I gravitate toward the bad the ugly because I want to hang on to those things. If I don’t want to give up doing wrong things and taking unhealthy approaches to life, I may want to justify this by saying, “Oh well, even God’s people in the Bible were a pretty flawed bunch.” However, a depiction is not a prescription, and explanations are not excuses for shoddy living.
Paul doesn’t end on a note of anguished defeat, but of grateful triumph. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
Considered in my merely human reality, there is lots of badness and ugliness, but God sent Jesus to deal decisively with our uglies and evils, and to free us to be grateful for the victory that God’s love gives us in Christ.
“When You Can’t Hit Unsend”
“Social media sites offer quick and easy ways to share ideas, crack jokes, find old friends. They can make us feel part of something big and wonderful and fast-moving. But the things we post don’t go away. And they can come back to haunt us.” (From the “Hidden Brain” podcast introduction to a great posting by Shankar Vedantam, which you may read of list to at https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/you-cant-hit-unsend/, accessed 03-18-2022.)
I love Shankar Vedantam’s podcasts called “Hidden Brain.” Today’s post made me cry, but it also made me think.
It was about a young man who had been admitted to Harvard. He sounds like a really fine young man. But he made a very bad decision. He was part of a group of incoming freshmen who sent out some really racist and sexually offensive memes. The entire group had their invitations to Harvard withdrawn.
He does not come across as evil. Quite the contrary. He was just a young man who made some really bad decisions in order to fit in. These bad decisions cost him Harvard. It cost him more than that. Of seventeen schools that he applied to afterwards, he was turned down by fifteen. He was waitlisted at three schools.
But he kept trying. One of universities for which he was waitlisted said that they had a slot for William. He and his dad rushed to the university. Here is the transcript from the Hidden Brain podcast about what happened next. (Jeffrey is William’s dad. Vedantam is, of course, the interviewer.)
“JEFFREY: We were wandering around, and there was something about an open house, and it turned out, we’d missed it. And so I was very disappointed. And then this professor just wandered in and said, can I help you? He looked like he was picking up something from a printer. And we said, well, we’re visiting and William has to decide by 5 o’clock. And he said, please, come to my office. So we went to his office, and I just sat there, too, with them. He and William had this wonderful conversation about physics and music and all kinds of things for about an hour. And it was just an amazing conversation. I was very impressed. He was giving us so much of his time.
And then the moment that I’ll never forget was, at one point, he just gets out of his chair, he gets down on one knee, he puts his hands together and he says, please, come here. And then he just got back in his seat and kept on talking. And I thought, oh, my God, that is the sweetest, most wonderful thing in this whole year. I mean, God, I’m starting to tear up now. But I just – it was amazing. I love that guy.
And I thought, you know, when I get back home, I’m going to write the chair of the physics department, and I’m going to say what a wonderful professor that guy was. And I got home, looked up who this guy was, and that was the chair of the physics department. I said, oh, my God, you know, what a wonderful place. So anyway, as you can tell, I don’t think I’ve gotten emotional about this since then, but I just want to thank that professor.
VEDANTAM: And what do you think is evoking this feeling in you? What do you think that professor was doing? What was he communicating to William that makes you so moved?
JEFFREY: He was being good to my son.”
I have made my own share of really bad choices. I’ve lost more than Harvard. I’ve lost my family, some friends, my self-respect, and a calling that I had come to love. The greatest loss of all was my own better self. I’ve spent the last nineteen years trying to recover that better self. By God’s grace, I’ve made great progress, but Shankar Vedantam is absolutely right: You can’t hit unsend—or un-sin.
The story goes that God had a bunch of sons and daughters who had made terrible choices. They had forfeited more than a shot at attending Harvard University. They had forfeited their souls.
But that’s not the end of the story. The story says that God didn’t give up on his children. He came to earth, in the form of his own Son, to redeem his lost sons and daughters. And his Son didn’t get down on his knee. No, he did not. Instead, he went to the cross.
Ya gotta love a God who would do that.
“What Makes My Heart so Cold?”
“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”(Matthew 24:12, King James Version)
My hands are awfully cold these days. It doesn’t take familiarity with the Eagles song, “The Cheatin’ Side of Town” for me to recognize this simple fact. I am old, and even though my “hands are [not] as cold as ice”, they are pretty cold. Before I hug my wife in the morning, I need to get in the habit of heating up those little microwavable bean bags and hold them in my hands for a minute or so.
But there is another and much more serious problem: Sometimes my heart grows cold. That is not simply a problem in relation to my sweetheart. Of course, it is quite serious there, but a cold heart affects my entire life and all my relationships. It also affects my enjoyment of life.
Jesus said that, in the last days of the world, iniquity would abound and the love of many would grow cold. However, I suspect that Jesus would agree that it wouldn’t take the end of the world for this to be true. In the context of Jesus’ saying that leads off this post (Matthew 14), Jesus tells his disciples about the signs that precede the end of this world. However, the signs are the kinds of things that are always occurring. I think that this is precisely one of the points that Jesus is making: Be ready all the time. The end could come at any time. This is precisely the point of the parables in Matthew 25, so I think that I am good ground here.
I used to think that Jesus was warning his disciples (and us) about other people’s sins and their effect on us. I don’t think so anymore. I think that Jesus was warning his original disciples—and us—about the chilling effects of our own sin.
It is no fun to take Jesus’ words that way. It is much easier to point out and condemn the sins of other people. It’s more fun too.
But my sins are the ones that will freeze my heart. The evil things I think and do, the good things I don’t do—these are the optional winter that I generate. I need to stop opting for spiritual winter. I can’t do a lot about my cold hands, but the temperature of my own heart is in my own hands.
“The Vastness of the Universe and God
Versus the Smallness that is Me”
I learn a lot from my dog, particularly about philosophy and theology. No, I’m not joking; I’m dead serious.
The other morning, I awoke with some very disturbing thoughts. The universe is so big, and God (if God exists) is so much bigger than the universe that God created, how could God be at all interested in the smallness that is me? And how could the smallness that is me possibly understand such a big God?
However, even when you have huge doubts, the coffee still needs to be made and the dog still needs to go out to do her business. So, I put the coffee on and took the dog out. She got down to the business of doing her business very rapidly. This was good because it was raining cats and dogs.
But when she came in, she started acting really weird. She wasn’t interested in a Pup-Peroni treat. She adores those things, so I began to worry when I gave it to her, and she just let it lie on floor.
And then, she didn’t want to go back and lie on the bed with my wife. That is as special to her as enjoying her dog treats. So, I let her sit on my lap as I worked at my desk. She usually likes that. She had to be picked up and put on my lap. Almost immediately, she hopped down, went down on her front haunches, and looked at me appealingly, with her eyes looking at me with this pleading look. “Do something!” her eyes seemed to be saying. Like babies and very small children, pets can’t tell us what is wrong. Or perhaps, they can talk, but we can’t listen. In view of our difficulty in understanding other human beings, I think that this might be so.
I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only thing I could think of in that moment. I carried our little dog downstairs and lay her on mama’s bed and woke up my wife at 6:10 a.m. “Something is wrong with Laylah,” I said.
As it turned out, there was nothing seriously wrong with our little girl. She curled up at my wife’s feet. They went back to sleep, and when Laylah woke up, she was herself again. My sweet wife forgave me for waking her, realizing how worried I was.
What has this got to with my questions about the vastness of the universe and of God? Absolutely nothing. Or so I thought until God brought my earlier questions to my mind again. It felt as if God was saying to me, “Child, your little dog only weighs about seven pounds. Yet you love her so much and are so concerned when she isn’t feeling well. Don’t you think that I can love you in the same way?”
“My Biggest Problem . . . And Yours”
My biggest problem dogs me wherever I go. That’s because my biggest problem is me. I’m not sure how to solve this problem. Perhaps, as with many problems, there is no solution. There are only better (or worse) ways of living with the problem.
Well, to be perfectly honest, two-thousand years ago, Jesus gave me the solution to my problem, but I don’t like it. Here it is:
“18 And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? 19 They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again. 20 He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. 21 And he straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing; 22 Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. 23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 25 For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? 26 For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.” (Luke 19:18-27, English Standard Version)
“The one who saves his life will lose it, and the one who loses his life will save it.” This stands all of my ideas on their head. If this is true, I don’t dare live a life that is based on my own thinking about things. Why? Because, in my own mind, it is the one who saves his life who saves his life, and losers are just losers. Either Jesus was right, or I am. And, even if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God—which I believe he was and is—I am hesitant to say that he was full of crap.
Jesus said a lot of really hard things here. He talked about denying ourselves and taking up our cross. And then, he added a really difficult word: daily. We are to take up our cross daily! The Christian faith, as someone has said, is not an initial spasm, followed by a long lethargy. Rather, following Jesus is my/our daily task.
So, it turns out that there is a solution to the problem that is me. Furthermore, I do know what it is. I need to deny myself today, pick up my cross, and follow Jesus.
Someone has said that God doesn’t call us to a picnic, but to a battle. It’s even worse than that, I’m afraid. In a battle, we might have the exhilarating and awful experience of killing someone else. We might end being a hero in someone’s eyes.
The awful truth is that God calls us, not to a battle, but to an execution. And it turns out that we’re the ones that are being executed.
But perhaps, if for just one day, I could deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Jesus, I might begin to solve the problem that is me. There is only one way to know. And Jesus’ execution was followed by a resurrection. He said that his disciples would experience the same things he did. They would experience a cross, but also resurrection. If I don’t choose to do the cross thing, I can’t very well experience resurrection.
Today is the day.
“The Sin of Assuming”
“Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.” (1 Corinthians 4:5, English Standard Version)
“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4, English Standard Version)
I am continuing to explore my own nature. Some of my discoveries are pleasant. Sometimes, I come to a pleasant vista and am blown away by the view.
At other times, I uncover a nest of poisonous snakes. Take yesterday, for example.
A few days ago, I decided that I did not know the Holy Spirit very well at all. God the Father? Yes, a little. Jesus the Son? Somewhat. But the Holy Spirit? Not so much. Yesterday, I realized that this was a serious mistake.
My wife and I were in the car, talking about people who have different ideas about covid vaccines and freedom than we do. I realized that I was assuming that those who don’t agree with my position are simply wrong. I mentioned this to my wife and said, “Well, here’s something else that the Holy Spirit is showing me that I need to work on—making assumptions about other people. I’m going to work on that, but it’s not going to be easy.”
Then we pulled up to a red light. We were in the left turn lane. When the green arrow lit up for our lane, the traffic didn’t move for a long time. (Okay. So maybe it was just three seconds.)
“The driver of the car in front of the line was probably playing with his phone,” I growled.
My wife immediately called me out for making an assumption. “This really isn’t going to be easy,” I replied.
So, a few minutes later, I was standing in line at my favorite restaurant in Sarasota, Yoder’s. I told Sharon to wait in the car while I stood in line. She had been on her feet a lot and was tired. I would call her when I got close to the door. (What a thoughtful husband, right?)
Not long after I got in the long line, a couple of ladies joined me. I turned around and was talking with them when a very tall gentleman quietly stepped in line in front of me. I gave his back a startled and disapproving look and thought about saying something to him. Fortunately, the woman in front of him gave him a little smile, which looked like the sort of smile that a wife would give to her husband who was parking the car while she stood in line. And that is the way it turned out.
“This is not going to be easy at all!” I said to myself. “In fact, it’s going to be really difficult!”
What’s wrong with making assumptions? A lot.
For starters, making assumptions is often (always?) a euphemism for what the Bible calls “judging”. Jesus, the Apostle Paul, James the brother of Jesus, and the book of Proverbs all warn us against making judgments about others. Paul even says that he doesn’t judge himself! (See 1 Corinthians 4:3-4 for further details.)
Another problem with assumptions is that they are shortcuts that avoid the necessary, difficult work of really observing, listening, and thinking through complex issues. And let’s face it: Humans are complex critters. But whether you’re talking about humans or microbes, is there any real shortcut for sustained observation and thoughtful engagement? If there is, I haven’t discovered it yet. Of course, I keep trying.
Then too, making assumptions is a sign of pride. Assuming that we know what motivates others to think and speak and act as they do means that we know them even better than they know themselves. Now, of course, I don’t always understand why I myself think and speak and act as I do, but when it comes to other people . . .
So, I am thinking about starting a new twelve-step program: Assumers Anonymous. We can’t use the letters A.A., because they are already taken. But I assume that we’ll sort out what to call ourselves.
I also assume that there a lot of people who would benefit from such a group.
Oops! There I go again!
“Generous-Hearted People”
PHILIPPIANS 2:4
“Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.” (Philippians 2:4, Common English Bible)
My wife went out to a massive yard sale here in the RV resort in Sarasota. She was trying to pick up some bargains. However, there is a wrinkle: We are only going to be here a few more days, and we don’t have any room to take things back with us.
On the other hand, this is not a problem. My sweetheart isn’t buying the things for us. She is buying them to improve the unit we’re renting for the next person or persons who stay here.
That’s my wife! Frugal (hence, the yard sale), and generous. I am not always either of those two things (frugal and generous), but I’m much better than I used to be. This is thanks to the generosity and frugality modeled by many others—particularly my wife.
I was trying to think of some Bible verses that spoke of such generosity, but I was having a difficult time. So, I used a very twenty-first century approach: I googled it. And I found more verses than I can shake a big stick at. Certainly, I found plenty of them with which to do some experiments in obedience. (You may read them, along with some brief comments at the following site: https://www.womansday.com/life/inspirational-stories/g30539201/bible-verses-helping-others/, accessed 02-19-2022).
Take the one that leads off this post, Philippians 2:4. Paul reminds the Christ-followers in Philippi that one aspect of following Christ is generosity. I suspect that the Philippians needed to be reminded of this because they were becoming a bit selfish. Christians don’t have the selfishness market cornered, but we’re not immune to selfishness either.
This post, in fact, is a small step by me to be more generous. I haven’t been posting much of late. Sorry about that. I realize that some of you might not only enjoy these posts; you might even benefit from them.
So, here you are! You can thank my wife for her yard-saling-for-others approach to generosity. Generosity begets generosity.
How will you choose to be generous to someone before this day is done?
“When Forgiveness Smiles at You”
I was feeling the weight of my past this morning for whatever reason—or for no reason at all. So, I called some friends who helped me greatly. However, what helped most was that Forgiveness smiled at me.
I was talking to a 12-step friend on the phone. The phone was on speaker, and my sweetheart was helping me fix breakfast. “Sometimes I can’t believe that anyone can forgive me for all the harm I’ve done in the past,” I said to my friend on the phone. My wife bent over my phone to get my attention and gave me a smile that would have lit up a major city. She wiggled her fingers by way of greeting and reminder. There I was, feeling remorseful about my past wrongdoing, when I was in the presence of Forgiveness.
My wife knows everything about me and my past these days. Much to my amazement, she is still with me. She still loves me. And she has forgiven me.
It is hard to maintain a gloomy spirit when Forgiveness smiles on you and wiggles her fingers at you.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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- “The Enemy is Perfectionism” December 6, 2024“The good is the enemy of the best.” (A common saying.) “The best is the enemy of doing anything at all that is good.” (My take on the saying and my reality.) Some of you have been wondering why I haven’t been posting any of my musings in the past way-too-long. I am tempted to […]
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
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