Right or Just Wrong?

I am reading the book by David Kinnaman, You Lost Me, about the reason why many young Christians are leaving the church and it’s having a sobering affect on me. I’m convinced more than ever that God is good, Jesus loves us, and the church has to do a better job of living out the gospel.

What particularly struck me today in my reading was a story that David tells about his friend Luke who works at a local coffee shop that he frequents. It seems that a man comes into the coffee shop everyday and regularly buys a small coffee and then always asks for an extra large cup as well. He then proceeds to put cream and sugar in his small coffee and then fills the extra large cup with 2% milk. After watching this man do this a number of times, Luke informed him that the next time he came in he would have to charge him for the cup if he continued to fill it with milk. The man became so upset that he complained to the manager and in the end the result was that Luke was written up for “failing to leave the customer with a positive experience”.

Say what? When I read this story my jaw literally dropped with astonishment. I get it, value the customer, apologize for upsetting him, and give him a pleasant experience, but how can someone be written up for doing what is easily seen as the moral thing? What about saying, “Way to go Luke thanks for looking out for the best interest of the company” and rewarding him. When did our value system as a society change to depend more on the outcome of the situation rather than our own rights?

I guess why this hijacks my emotions a bit isn’t because I’m worried if I’m going to eventually get busted for putting too much cream in my coffee, but more about how this reality will continually erode our world. What this begins to tell the next generation is that it is wrong to stand up for what they believe and it’s wrong to make a determination about someone else’s situation and react to it. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if someone hadn’t stood up to me and questioned my behavior. I owe my very life and soul to someone who didn’t even know me, but spoke to me about what they saw wrong with my life.

In our society there has to be a standard to operate on to make us strive to achieve something greater and something more profound and useful than doing what we want. God set the standard for us and the more we know Him the more we live by His standards.

It is not what you and I do... It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them! – Galatians 6:16 (The Message)

Have the courage to stand up for what you believe and help others see the standard that God set for us to live up to.

Man-made

I just got back from a great time In Lake Tahoe with my entire family to celebrate Christmas. It was a week early, but the busy lives we live and the miles that separate us all, cause us to work our schedules out this way. Unfortunately we were planning for a little more White Christmas than we got, but we made the best of it and created many great memories for years to come.

One of the plans we had was for all of us to going skiing or snowboarding, but the only option at the slopes was Man-made snow. You can choose your side on this debate, but once snow is packed I really can’t tell the difference and after a day of snowboarding neither can my quadriceps. Don’t get me wrong, nothing compares to fresh powder brought down from the heavens and shredding it on a snowboard (Sorry skiers I jumped onto one board years ago and I’m not going back anytime soon). However, this gets me to the point about the Christmas season that we are all celebrating today because there are two realities at Christmas, the Man-made and the Heavenly.

The true meaning of Christmas came down from heaven in the form of the incarnate baby Jesus Christ. He lived the perfect life to show us what life with the Father can truly be like. And then gave up his life to allow us the privilege to live our life to the fullest with God’s guidance. And ever since the first Christmas, man has been attempting his Man-made efforts to celebrate this truth and it’s gotten us farther and farther away from the real Heavenly reality. Now every where we look we see the evidence of Christmas, but it’s getting harder and harder to see the difference between the Man-made and the true Heavenly.

There is only one true meaning of Christmas and The Grinch, Scrooge, and Clark Griswold may have gotten close, but they didn’t truly discovery it because it’s not just being nice to our fellow man or giving gifts with sincerity. The true meaning of Christmas will radically change your entire life and can never be duplicated in Man-made efforts. The true meaning of Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ and the gift of life He brings. You can never be fulfilled with the Man-made efforts because they don’t really change anything, but can only mimic what only God can do.

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” - 2 Corinthians 9:15

May the true meaning of Christmas bring the joy of fresh powder to your lives today and throughout the New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Listening

If you are anything like me, when you listen to a song that you can’t understand the lyrics you simply make them up as you sing along. Eventually you start to believe that those are the actual words. I’ve had some pretty funny moments with my wife Amber when she hears me sing a lyric and she’s like, “that’s not what they say.”

When we get the lyrics to a song wrong it’s no big deal, but if we don’t hear what someone is trying to tell us it can cause big problems. When we don’t listen to what others are saying, just like lyrics, we make up whatever we want to believe about their lives. We fill in the gaps with our own understanding instead of the truth. But when we take the time to listen we start to hear things we never heard before. We begin to hear a need our friend has or a struggle our children may be dealing with. I’ve even been able to hear my wife drop a hint that I am not loving her the way she needs me to. I’ve discovered that when I take the time to listen, I learn more about what I am supposed to do then if someone were to simply tell me what to do.

Listening is the key to understanding and in our crazy busy lives, one of the hardest things to do is slow down and listen. That’s why God tell us to slow down and listen to Him. It helps us to be a listener first before anything else. The bible says over and over again, “Listen to what the Lord says.” It is a call to slow our lives down and listen to what God has to say to us before we act and before we make a mess of things.

Next time you try to sing the lyrics of a song that you don’t know, slow down and listen to what the creator of the song is really saying. And the next time you can’t figure out what to do in life, slow down and listen to what the creator of life has to say to you.

Questions

You made the sky so incredibly blue and yet the world does not recognize You.

A dog that’s lost will always find it’s way, but a child still goes hungry everyday.

So many questions that fill my mind; So many things I ponder that I can’t unwind.

If I ever stand in your presence to ask, I’ll probably just forget the task.

I may not be able to clearly see, but I trust that there is a reason to be.

Today I ask you to take my hand and lead me through all that I don’t understand.

Significance

The other day I had the chance to just hang out by the side of a river and watch the water flow over the rocks. It was seriously an awesome time of just contemplating the things of life that God has provided us with. It made me start thinking about the significance that water plays in our lives. We wash with water, we play in water, and we drink water. We literally can’t live without water. This thought caused me to start thinking about my own significance.

I want to make a difference in the world and I want to have a sense that my life mattered. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t. But the way that we most likely measure our own significance is to compare our lives to the difference we see other people making. Then we determine that if we want to make a significant difference then we have to go out and do something to achieve it.

I heard a joke the other day about a business man who was on vacation and came upon a guy who was sitting on a chair on the beach with a lone fishing pole in the water. The businessman asked the guy fishing “Why don’t you have two poles in the water, so that you can sale the fish you don’t need and make a profit?”
The fisherman asked in response, “Why would I need to do that?”
The businessman responded, “So that you can eventually buy a boat and catch even more fish”.
The fisherman replied, “And then what?”
The businessman excitedly replied, “Well then you can expand to two boats and eventually hire other people to fish for you!”
The fisherman asked, “And then what would I do?”
At this the businessman was noticeably agitated and said, “Obviously you could relax on the beach like me and do all the fishing you want!”
The fisherman replied, “And your point?”

You see we so often get caught up in being significant that we miss the whole point. Our significance isn’t found in what we do in this world as much as being a part of what God is doing.

“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of.” - 1 Corinthians 12:19 (The Message)

God has a plan and you are part of it. God has uniquely placed you in your life for a reason, so stop looking for a way to be significant and be significant. Be the difference maker in the lives of those who are already around you.

Twisted

Every time I open up a new package of bread I have to remove one of those twist ties off the end of the packaging. Then after I remove the bread I usually just disregard the twist tie and spin the bag and tuck it under the bread. Because how many times have you gone looking for those twisty’s when you want to put the bread away and they seem to disappear? And then there are those square ones, those are just annoying because you have to spin the bag enough to get them all the way around the bag.

Well then just the other day I go to get my favorite raisin bread for breakfast and it’s all hard and stale because it wasn’t wrapped up correctly. It was a tragedy to ruin perfectly good raisin bread that way. It made me realize that using those twisty things really are the only way to guarantee the freshness of the bread. I can do my best to preserve something, but if the bag gets moved and air gets inside there is nothing I can do to make it right again.

Protecting something is all about preserving it’s life. That’s why God gave us his word to protect and preserve us.

"How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands." - Psalm 119:9-10

Unfortunately, just like those twisty’s, people have disregarded God’s word and experienced a pretty stale life in the process. So let your life be twisted by God’s word found in the bible, it is the only way to keep your life fresh and preserve your existence from the stale corruption of the world.

Wrecked

We have all been in traffic caused by an accident. I’m not sure what compels us to slow down and look, but there is something within us that is drawn to the affects of a wreck. We slow down to see the damage done to both car and person and maybe even try to make sense of how it occurred in the first place. Wrecks cause pain, wrecks ruin lives, and wrecks make traffic happen. Even though there is nothing good about a wreck, sometimes seeing a wreck is actually a good thing if it causes us to drive more cautious and attentive.

This past week I was in a wreck. It wasn’t a car wreck that caused any physical damage, but it was a heart wreck that caused me to slow down and look at myself and it actually was a good thing.

I’ll spare you the details, but something happened that got me incredibly angry at a guy who offended my son Chad. I had every right to be angry, but the problem was my anger turned into disgust for this guy, so much that I found myself fantasizing about putting him in his place, embarrassing him in front of his friends and making him apologize to Chad while serving me lemonade. Okay not really about the lemonade part, but its funny how our minds work when we start imagining things. In the midst of dreaming of how I would wreck this guy’s life, God was preparing to wreck my heart.

About two days later, Amber asked when I was going to forget about it and move on. As I was answering her that I was justified in my anger, God reminded me that He was angry too, not at this guy, but that I wasn’t showing this guy real love, a love based on compassion and mercy. And that’s when my heart got into a head on collision with God’s heart. I was headed in a completely different direction and I got spiritually wrecked. It was painful, but a good kind of pain that got my attention and reminded me of what compassion and mercy really look like.

The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. - 1 John 4:8-10 (The Message)

I’m so glad that God rescued me from my wrecked life by sending His Son to die for me and I’m glad that He continually wrecks my heart to show me how He intends to use me to show others His love.