New Life'n

Influence used and avoided

Benjamin Franklin knew how to influence.  When baby America needed money and help, Franklin was sent to Paris to get it.  When you get there you don’t just ask and leave.  It took two years.  The stories are that he used his charm with the wives of the authorities as a way to reach their husbands.  Franklin’s influence was personal and relational.  He ended up staying nine years.

No charm or influence or persuasion was used to save King George III’s reputation in America.  Or the founding fathers’ reputation in England.  Once someone’s mind is made up, they’re going to see what they’ve decided to see.  When you have a revolutionary thing you want to do, you need people to be black and white.  Any gray could dilute the passion needed to do the thing.  And if you’re going to stop a revolution you don’t spend time contemplating the admirable qualities of the revolutionaries. 

So George had to be mad, ruthless, oppressive and dim-witted.  Do you picture him as old?  He was 37 when the American Revolution began – six years younger than George Washington. 

And the Americans had to be undisciplined, cowardly, ungrateful traitors.  Yet maybe never in the history of the world had there been a greater collection of political genius in one place at one time.

It’s a lot easier to be negative and think bad about someone when you don’t see them or interact personally.  It’s like neither side could risk the complications appreciating the whole truth about each other could have caused.  So the people here and there were left to their own conclusions on the evil intent of the other. 

How different might history be if Franklin had been sent to London instead of Paris?  Or if King George had visited America and sat down with the founding fathers long before 1776?

Peggy reminds us about the “mad,” “dim-witted” King (from a man who helps us know him and a lot of others better):  

"tall and rather handsome" and played both the violin and piano. "His favorite composer was Handel, but he adored also the music of Bach." He rendered "quite beautiful architectural drawings," assembled a distinguished art collection, collected books that in time constituted "one of the finest libraries in the world," loved astronomy, was nonetheless practical, and had a gift for putting people at their ease. He impressed even crusty old Samuel Johnson, who after meeting him called him "the finest gentleman I have ever seen."

Why reading it for yourself is so much better

The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him – 2 Chronicles 16.9

If you let those words stand alone like that you may picture, like I do, God looking for people who are fully committed to him so that when he finds them he can give them strength.

When you’re reading the whole Bible for yourself you see more.  You see before this that Judah’s king Asa used the treasuries of the temple to pay another king to fight Asa’s enemy.  So God sends a messenger to Asa reminding him that when God was trusted in the past, he had delivered.  Those words above are the words of that messenger.

And you realize Asa thinks things worked out great but now learns God had not only wanted to save Asa from his enemy in that battle, but to deliver Asa’s enemy into Asa’s hand, ending all future battles.  But since he wouldn’t rely on God all he got was the solution money could buy – help for the moment.  And it’s not really a solution, because God tells him “from now on you will be at war.”

And you see that a big reason Asa didn’t rely on God was because for a long time he and Judah had been very prosperous and so developed the habit of not needing God.

No one had to tell you these things.  No one had to tell you what you need to watch out for and what can happen if you’re not very careful.  Because you saw them for yourself and they spoke to you as if God were telling you personally. 

Why would a guy in a sport coat be buying dog food at Wal-Mart at 3am?

Making judgments is easy.  You can see something and come to conclusions on people’s motives and what’s happening even without the full picture.  The tipoff that this is probably not a spiritual judgment is that the judgment is almost always negative.  I do this all the time.

That dark Cadillac following us for twenty miles on I-77 the other day, speeding up when I sped up, slowing down when I slowed down, never passing and never letting me pull away from him?  He’s doing it on purpose.  He’s trying to get a reaction out of me.

Those guys collecting for the homeless in the intersection by the Walgreens on Independence Boulevard?  It’s some kind of scam – they’re catching you when you’re stopped at the light and you don’t have time to check them out and they know you’ll feel guilty if you don’t give something.

The slow checkout person?  It’s a power play.  Wants everyone to know she resents her job and customers so she’s slowin’ down the whole line.

That political party and it’s leaders I disagree with?  How could they be so blind?  How could they mislead people so much?  It’s like they’re evil.

And that lady in the shiny gold top getting out of an old BMW off to the side of the parking lot of the closed gas station when a guy pulls up to the pump on deserted Wilkinson Boulevard at 2am?  She thinks he’s there for something besides gas and he thinks she is, too – and anyone else who sees thinks the same thing.   

Which brings me to that guy in the sport coat buying dog food at Wal-Mart at 3am – he’s the same guy at the closed gas station with the lady in the shiny gold top!  Obviously he’s been up to no good all night and is probably hopped up on goofballs and…

Wait a minute, that guy is me and I’m still wearing my clothes from the graduation I attended earlier in the afternoon in Wisconsin and my flight was so delayed I didn’t get back in Charlotte until 1:30am and then couldn’t find my car and soon as I found it my gas light was on and I had to look for an open station fast but it wasn’t and the shiny lady appeared and I went Yikes! and skedaddled miles to find another station and now it’s really late (or early) but I promised Brenda I’d stop and get Delly some food because we’re leaving town in the morning and I don’t want to leave Delly at the kennel without her own food so even though it’s 3am, I’m buying some Iams.  And if anyone thinks anything negative about how it looks, well that just says something about them.

But I’m right about those others.

She prayed for Michael Jackson

No, not when she heard he died.  And not just once.  For years, every day. 

This isn’t the same thing, but I remember someone saying if there’s a person you have trouble thinking good thoughts about, pray for them.  You won’t be able to stay bugged.  It’s the buried treasure principle:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also – Matthew 6.21

Wondering about things you've always heard

I’ve always heard that when you’re a Christian and maybe a big influence, or effective, or a strong follower of Christ that the devil goes after you.  And that the devil leaves the weak alone because he already has them ineffective.

In the animal world – God’s creation – predators first go after the weak, the sick, the old, the young, the ones on the fringe, the ones lagging behind on their own.  They leave the stronger ones alone.  Well, that’s what Discovery Channel says.  Predators have the image of might, viciousness and intimidation, but they always go after the easiest ones to pick off.  Maybe that’s part of their viciousness – they’re merciless towards the weak.

In the Bible, Satan is compared to a lion, a predator looking for someone to devour.   Protection comes in resisting him, being strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, being sober-minded, watchful and firm in the faith.  Being strong keeps you from being devoured.

So what could this mean when a person who seems strong falls?  Is it possible some are weaker than you would expect based on their reputation, influence or what you see on the outside? 

Another thing I’ve always heard is that when trouble and challenges suddenly descend on a godly person it’s an ‘attack of the devil’ -- again, because they’re threatening to be effective.  This make sense.  You hardly ever hear people attribute the trouble and challenges of striving godly people to the Lord.

Then you remember that attacking Job, the godliest man in the East, was not the devil’s idea.  It was God’s.  And Job did not fall.  But it doesn’t seem right to say if you fall it’s the devil attacking the weak, and if you don’t fall it’s the Lord strengthening you – that seems as simplistic as those other things I’ve heard.  Maybe it’s both.  It’s just something I’m wondering about.

There's nothing like it

The wicked flee when no one pursues… – Proverbs 28.1

That’s what a guilty conscience does to you -- makes you feel guilty all the time.  It makes you feel guilty even in areas where you’re not.  Which is exactly how it’s supposed to work so you’ll do something about it.

…but the righteous are bold as a lion. – Proverbs 28.1

A clear conscience has power beyond your own ability to just plow thru despite your guilty conscience.  It liberates you.  A clear conscience gives you a sense of freedom and joy that, just like the guilty conscience, carries over to everything you do.

Three periods and a comma

When Johnny Carson quit it was a comma for Ed McMahon.  Other commas came with Star Search, Bloopers, and the Publishers Clearing House commercials.  Ed’s period came this week.

Farrah Fawcett had a comma after one year as a Charlie’s Angel.  Other commas came after the poster and the TV movies and awards.  Her period was yesterday.

Michael Jackson had a lot of commas, with bold print in between – commas came after the Jackson 5, Thriller and the Motown Special, and then all that hyperbaric oxygen chamber, Bubbles, Neverland, plastic surgery and courtroom stuff.  We’re talking about Michael’s period today.

The Governor of South Carolina had a comma this week.  There will probably be more commas to come, though maybe not publically, so we may not know about them.  His period, of course, could be at any time – just like yours and mine. 

There are a lot of commas in life but you can’t ever count on another one, and you never know when a comma will turn into a period.  Once the period comes there are no more sentences. 

It can be pretty profound to realize you’ve been given some control of the sentences, but not the punctuation. 

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom – Psalm 90.12

Being brave

The Nester knows what she wants to do – that’s why she hates going to fabric stores.  The people there tell her she’s wrong, she can’t do that, it won’t work, it’s not right.  It’s not enough to help her by selling her what she wants.  She has to do what they think, the way they think it should be done.  They’re the guardians of right 

People are a big help.  But they’re not the final word.  You have to decide for yourself.

It can be the same in spiritual things.  People will tell you you can’t do that, you shouldn’t do that, it’s wrong.  (I'm not talking about the clear, pretty-much undebated sins in the Bible -- I mean more the projects and ministries and methods that Christians feel led to do.)  And there’s the added sledgehammer – implied or stated –  this isn’t me saying it, it’s the Bible.  And they’ll show you the verses.  Suddenly you’re unbiblical.  Oh God, anything but that.  Because unlike designer opinions and decorating status quo, in spiritual things there is a final truth.  And final, absolute truth does need guardians.  It’s way more important than window treatments.

But the guardians disagree.  You can’t make them all happy.  If you’re convinced by one, another will still say you’re wrong.  Some will not only tell you what the Bible says, but also what it means and they’ll apply it for you, too, and they do all that in one move and with 100% confidence and if you disagree with their application to you they’ll say you’re disagreeing with God.  Yikes.  But you better listen to only one of them, because if you listen to more than one you’ll have to take a vote because they’ll disagree. 

So what do you do when a guardian is trying to guard and you’re the threat? 

Being unbiblical is serious business.  So is fearing men.  In the end, you’re responsible to the Lord – be able to defend yourself to him based on what he’s written.  Deciding for yourself does not mean making up your own truth -- there's only one of those and you don't get to invent your own.  You can only hunger for it, search it out, turn your ear to it, call out for insight, accept it and apply your heart to understanding what you should do about it. 

Be convinced yourself.  Some men, well intentioned, are master arguers and love doing it and you will feel you’re wrong if you can’t answer all their points.  And you may be wrong, but the truth is not up for grabs to the best debater. 

Do your best.  Take it serious.  Accept criticism, consider it and handle it gracefully.  But make a decision and act.   Go.  With boldness and humility.

Why the cross is so offensive

Because it flies in your face if you want to get any kind of credit.  And it flies in your face if you want to hang onto anything except Jesus and the cross to get to heaven or to live pleasing God.  And you were born wanting credit.  Credit for being good, for doing the right things, for avoiding the wrong things, for being better than someone else, for joining the right church --  credit somehow someway for something.  And you can’t hang on to a bit of it.

It’s very challenging even to a small ego to give Jesus 100% credit for everything and to not take just a tiny one percent.  C’mon, one percent?  That’s offensive if you can be so humble that you only expect one percent and even that’s too much.  But it is.

It takes something supernatural for someone to say, yeah, Jesus and the cross, that’s what I want, and not only want but gotta have. 

When excitement turns to mud

You got into this all excited.  No one forced you.  It’s your baby and you’re committed.  You’re also swamped, slogging thru mud, surrounded by choices that all look the same.  You’re in no-man’s land – there’s no going back yet you can’t see how you’ll ever get to the end.

Pixar is making Toy Story and they’re way into it when they realize the story isn’t good enough.  They stop.  Pay people for five months to do nothing until they get it right.  Every project since then they have the same crisis (but they stop paying people for doing nothing).  Pixar is now on hit number ten in-a-row.

Apple has been working years developing the iPhone when Steve Jobs says he doesn’t like it.  It’s not something people are going to love.  Everybody goes back to work to make it love-able.  Is it worth it?

David is supposed to be king but it ain’t happening.  Just the opposite – the current king is trying to kill him.  It’s been ten years.  David gives up and deserts over to Israel’s enemy to get away from Saul but even Israel’s enemy doesn’t accept him and kicks him out.  Arriving home with his band of brothers, David discovers all their families have been kidnapped.  Even his best friends are now turning on him.  But “David found strength in the Lord his God” and within days their families are safe and David is king.

So you’re in good company.  It’s no guarantee of the results, but you’re probably going to have a doozy of a story. 

Influencing accidentally

Is the easiest way to influence.  And it can last a long time.  Melissa Gilbert met Michael Landon when she was 9.  During the time of Little House he became like a father to her, complete with loving hugs between scenes.  His strong, handsome, macho personality became what a man was supposed to be.

He influenced her another way, too -- “As a kid, I didn't know he sipped vodka from his coffee mug … but I'm sure he's one reason why, as a young adult, I almost always picked men who smelled like alcohol.”

Dad influence 101

Derwin played in the NFL so when I talked with him last week before he took his son to a football camp I asked, “So what do you look for as you watch?”  Being an NFL player, he’d see things the average person wouldn’t, right?

His son is 8.  Dad said he looks for three things:

1. Is he putting out a good effort?
2. Is he listening to his coaches?
3. Is he encouraging his teammates?

That’s quite a contrast to the dads on the sidelines yelling instructions and corrections about skills and technique.  And this is a guy who knows more of the skills and techniques than almost any dad, but that’s not what he thinks is most important.  What’s most important is what every kid can do and what every dad can encourage – the inside stuff that has to do with the kind of person you are.

Truckers and sailors and other specialists

When I first got into Christian radio and went to the conventions with the other specialists like me I was surprised at the conversations – it seemed all about the inside stuff of music rotations and songs and artists and other technicalities.  I had expected more talk and excitement about impact and results and purposes.

One of the tendencies of people – especially men – is to stick with your cronies and talk shop.  The Christian world can be the same as the rest of the world in this when pastors, scholars, theologians, and worship leaders (and radio people, and publishers, and…) hang together and talk the language of the field of their expertise with each other.  There’s a wonderful world of conferences and blogs where Bible experts man-up and challenge and encourage each other.  The blogs especially have been good for confronting me with the commitment and depth of so many godly people, and I thank God for specialists who guard the truth.

There’s a risk, though, in being a specialist.  I saw it in Travels with Charley when Steinbeck talks about the truckers he met:

The men had little commerce with local people…

On the road their interests were engines, and weather, and maintaining the speed that makes the predictable schedules possible…It is a whole pattern of life, little known to the settled people along the routes of the great trucks.

By listening to them talk I accumulated a vocabulary of the road, of tires and springs, of overweight…I soon learned not to expect knowledge of the country they had passed through.  Except for the truck stops, they had no contact with it.  It was driven home to me how like sailors they were.  I remember when I first went to sea being astonished that the men who sailed over the world and touched the ports to the strange and exotic had little contact with that world.

Then Z posts this quote from Larry Crabb’s book Inside Out:

Perhaps it is time to screw up our courage and attack the sacred cow: we must admit that simply knowing the contents of the Bible is not a sure route to spiritual growth. There is an awful assumption in evangelical circles that if we can just get the Word of God into people’s heads, then the Spirit of God will apply it to their hearts. That assumption is awful, not because the Spirit never does what the assumption supposes, but because it has excused pastors and leaders from the responsibility to tangle with people’s lives. Many remain safely hidden behind pulpits, hopelessly out of touch with the struggles of their congregations, proclaiming the Scriptures with a pompous accuracy that touches no one.

It's great to be a specialist but not only a specialist.

How dead people can help you

Read what they wrote.  They, though dead, still speak.  It can be very personal, as if they are talking to you.  Dan describes what it can be like:

I love Spurgeon because he is like a beggar who has happened onto a vast fortune, and delights in plunging his hands deep into the piles of gold coins, then letting them run and tinkle between his fingers for all to see and marvel — and he bids us come, dig in deep, and take to our heart's delight. Only it isn't gold, it's better. It's the riches of Christ, the glories of God's redeeming faithfulness, His condescending love, His precious promises. No one shows Christ as lovelier, nor God's grace as richer, than does Spurgeon.

But even more, Spurgeon reaches me because it isn't theory to him, it isn't interesting doctrine or textbook cures he's reading off…

…Scripture was life to him, as well as truth. He knew dark sorrow and trial, hatred and persecution, frightful depression. He had to run to the cabinet and find healing for his own wounds. What he holds out to me, he has tried first, and found more than sufficient. He knows the darkness I've known, and he's found light, and he points the way. His preaching is not only true; it rings true.

His sermons and writings have been a balm to my soul more times than I can say.

Spurgeon’s been dead almost 120 years.  One day you’ll be dead.  Is there anything you could leave behind that you may still speak?

When people are loved they don't have to be mean anymore

The first time we saw Phantom of the Opera I was clobbered by the last scene and its display of the pain of being unloved all your life.  I had to keep my head down as we walked out to keep from being embarrassed.  I kept thinking about a world full of unloved Phantom's who only know how to hurt people.

We saw it again last night at the Belk.  Brenda asked how I was doing as we left.  "The usual."  This time my boo-hooing began with the Phantom's reaction to Christine's kiss; it's obviously something he's never experienced.  It staggers him and he releases Christine and Raoul.  

Even in the secular arts, the divine heart of the Gospel's effect on people is revealed.  When your need for love and acceptance and approval is met, you can stop grasping desperately for it.

Servants or friends?

One by one, several dozen agitated people asked the lady at the Northwest gate about the flight delay and if it would actually go and if there were any other choices.  I know what people were asking because I was one of them.  This was the last flight of the night to Charlotte -- if it doesn't go we stay all night in Detroit. 

She kept her head down and did her paperwork and answered yes it will go, no we don’t know when, and no you have no other options.  She was all put out answering the same questions over and over and she should have been.  Person after person approached her and then slouched away resigned to ignorance and helplessness.

There must have been a shift change after two hours.  A new sheriff came to town and she picked up the microphone and announced, “I’m so sorry for the delay, there’s been a maintenance issue.  Now, I’ve been told two different things – that a substitute plane is on the way, but we also see that they’ve pushed back our departure time again and that doesn’t make sense but I’ll give it five more minutes and call them and see what I can find out.”

Thank you.  The whole mood changed as people relaxed now that they knew something.  They didn’t know much, but they felt they knew as much as there was to be known for the moment. 

When you’re in the dark about something important to you, you get annoyed and assume two things: 1) someone knows what you need to know and they’re not telling, and 2) they don’t care.

Without realizing it you can keep kids, spouse, coworkers, employees in the dark, keep them guessing and frustrated, and keep yourself busy answering the same question.  You’ll earn your attitude and they’ll earn theirs.

Or you can tell them what you know, even if it’s not much, and let them know you’re all in this together. 

Either way, you’re sending a message about who they are to you:

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. – John 15.15

On the road to where you already are

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified – Hebrews 10.14

I’ve always thought this is the wildest thing.

The perfected is forever and in eternity where you can already be even though you’re still here, because in eternity there’s no time or space.  But the being sanctified is happening in the time and space of now.

One act of sacrifice by Jesus on the cross makes the person who personally accepts that sacrifice perfect for all time.  That’s your standing.  Done.  After alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the Old Testament stuff, there came a single sacrifice for sin, to take away sins.  That’s forgiveness.

Yet, at the same time, there is this ‘being sanctified’ or being made perfect, where your conduct on earth is catching up with your standing in eternity.  Every true Christian is on this conduct-catching-up-with-standing road.  The conduct does not earn or create standing.  But conduct can give evidence of having that standing, or NOT if it shows you’re NOT on the road of catching up.

Every Christian is at a different place on that road, with a unique starting place, and your own pace and speed and rate of progress.  And different stops and starts and diversions and wrong turns.  But everyone’s road ends at the same standard of perfection in eternity. 

The trouble in our relationships comes because it’s easy to excel at giving people flack (even if only in your head and heart) for being on the ‘being sanctified’ road.  The same road you’re on!  Oh, except your (and my) exits and crashes aren’t as damaging as theirs.  You can even subtly reject them and be angry at them personally, and actually cut them off in your heart.  This tendency seems to be another thing to remember about how people and the world work.

One way to think about judgment is as in discernment – you discern where they are.  Another way is judgment as in executing a sentence – giving them what you think they deserve for being where they are.  It’s easy to fool yourself that you’re doing the first when it’s really the second.  But getting mixed-up like that is part of being on the road.

It just needs to work

Carl Sandburg was a cultural icon in America for several decades in the mid 1900’s.  He died 40 years ago.  His reputation came from his writing – he won a Pulitzer for poetry and a Pulitzer for history.  You can visit where he lived the last 22 years of his life in Flat Rock, and we did a few days ago.

You’d think (I would anyway) when you’re a high-quality-achieving professional that the place where you did your profession would look, uh, professional.  His didn’t.  It looked like he made it up as he went, like he was poor or lived in the 1800’s, with all the boxes and crates he had for storage and shelves.  

It’s easy to make excuses for not doing what you know you should.  One of those excuses can be, “I don’t have what I need.”  Another can be guilt or shame over not having your act together in areas that you think prevent you from doing your thing, but really don’t.

Standing in Sandburg’s workroom doorway, you can hear, “Get at it – the other stuff just needs to work enough to get it done.”

The best way to give advice

Ask a lot of questions. 

Only they know their situation and purposes and desires and everything that has to be considered.  As they’re forced to think about what they’re doing and why, and how the little confusing stuff fits together, listen to their answers and help them hear what they’re saying.  Sometimes you just have to repeat their answers back to them – they don’t realize what they’ve just said.  Sometimes they only need one little piece that helps connect all the other pieces they already have.   

You didn’t tell them anything, but they’ll think you’re a genius.

The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters,
       but a man of understanding draws them out. – Proverbs 20.5

Taking advice advice

1.  Get it from the best at doing or knowing the thing you want advice in.  Don’t be shy about asking, even if they seem out of your league.  Most of the best are wired to want to help.

2.  Get it from someone whose thinking you respect and trust – even if they don’t know a thing about the area you’re seeking advice in.

3.  Take notes.  Use them to think later.  Save/file the notes.

4.  Find out what your spouse thinks,  Or your parents.

5.  Know what questions you have before you get the advice.

6.  Listen.  Ask follow-up questions.

7.  Take extra seriously the advice of those God has used in your life in the past.

8.  Seek the opinion of as many people you trust as you can.

9.  Don’t get the opinion of too many people.  Too many opinions can be as bad as getting no advice, leaving you free to pick the one you like with the justification, “Oh, yeah, I got counsel.”

10.  All issues you want advice on are not the same.  Wanting Nolan Ryan to look at your pitching mechanics is not the same as dealing with a child who is sexting.

11.  Thank them for their advice.  If the result of their advice was particularly helpful or meaningful, make sure they know.

Taking advice

Listening and taking advice changed everything for Randy Johnson.  Randy is a major league baseball pitcher and last week won his 300th game.  Only 24 players, in over 100 years of baseball, have done that.  So, yeah, in that area he’s special.

For a long time he was good, with great potential.  After he took the advice, he became just plain great.  Someone showed him how he could do things better and how to think about what he was doing, and he listened.  It changed his life.  It taught him to be flexible and adjust and learn new ways of doing things.  He’s continued to learn and adjust over the years and it’s made him very effective for a long time.

Nolan Ryan is the fellow who helped Randy.  But, even though Nolan is a master, lesser pitchers aren’t interested; “Mostly…it’s like a five minute conversation.  They come with questions but they have their own answers.  They hear me, but they aren’t listening.  Randy was different.  He truly wanted a different point of view.”

Most people won’t take advice like that.  They will in little things, or when they’re just starting out, but not in things they’ve been doing for years with some success.  If you don’t really want a different point of view, all the advice in the world isn’t going to change anything.

Um, Karl moved

Neighbors told me.  He didn’t tell me because we really didn’t know each other. 

We talked a few times over the four years we lived three houses apart, and I felt he liked being around me.  He gave me a jar of Knorr Aromat seasoning and I wanted to buy steaks and have him over to show me how he grills them.  Never did.  I meant to go see him in the hospital when he had heart surgery, but that week was just impossible.  If I started a neighborhood Bible study, he was one I thought might come.  But we haven’t started it.  Now he’s not a neighbor anymore.

If you ever wonder if it’s possible to put things off so long that opportunity finally gets up and flies away out of sight, it is.

Finding out fast

You learn the most the quickest about a person by listening to what they talk about unprompted, spontaneously.  You don't learn everything but you learn something, and sometimes it's a lot.  You may hear the kind of thing that really drives them or what they're passionate about.

Sometimes you learn more than they intend.  The other day, in less than three minutes, I learned that the fellow next to me on the plane had two masters degrees; was pursuing a PhD; had never walked the aisle to graduate because he felt it useless ceremony; was not paid what he was worth; knew how the department he was part of should be run and had told his supervisor who liked his ideas and she was going to act on them "maybe next year."  I learned all that about him without asking. 

Other times I've learned about kids going to Harvard or traveling the world or working with Chuck Colson or being a doctor and missionary for twenty-five years -- all in the first few sentences without me asking.  It's one thing when it comes out in the process of a conversation, it's something else when it's said up front.  That something else can feel like a need to impress a stranger, in which case, if it's true, there's another thing you're learning.

The other extreme is the person who doesn't talk at all unprompted.  After my plane ride, at a graduation get-together, a man walked in with his wife and didn't say anything to anyone.  I watched him move around the room alone, without speaking, and finally go outside on the deck.  I followed him and learned he's a life-long farmer; inherited the farm from his dad but it's OK if his own kids don't do the same, he'll just sell it; has never lived outside that county; married a woman from out-of-state; and has no desire to live anywhere else.  He said that in the first two or three minutes, but only because he was asked questions.  

The more people you get to know, even a bit, the more you learn about how people think.  So in meeting new people, you have a couple of choices:

*  You can listen to what they talk about spontaneously, and possibly hear their heart unfiltered.

*  You can be curious and interested and ask questions and listen.

*  You can talk about yourself and help them maybe learn more about you than you figured on. 

Just pay attention

You don't have to study psychology or sociology to learn about human thinking and behavior.  Just observing and noticing in everyday situations can teach you lots. 

This video might make you want to fund a well.  But it also helps you notice that no matter their nationality, race, language or economic status, people are grateful when someone shows selfless generosity in something they desperately need.  And people who are generous react similarly to the gratitude of those they help.

Be a student of people

Remember when the Navy Seals rescued the freighter captain taken hostage by pirates a few months ago?  The stories pictured a technical military mission and strategy with sharpshooters waiting for their moment.  But getting to that moment involved knowing how people think and how they react to disagreements, drug addiction, fatigue, fear and selfishness.

The pirates are seasick.  The Navy offers to tow them to calmer water.  As they do, they also pull the pirates farther from land, without them knowing it.  Meanwhile, one of the pirates is injured, wants help, so goes aboard the Navy ship.  From him they learn the three other pirates are out of their favorite chew-drug,  They're showing signs of drug withdrawal.  They're short-tempered, arguing, and their seasickness is getting worse.  So the Navy discreetly and slowly cranks the towed boat closer to the ship, into its wake, making the towed pirates even sicker.  This is where the sharpshooters wait for their moment.  It comes when two of the pirates go to the side of their little boat to throw up.

Hostage negotiators are students of human nature and thinking and behavior.  They do it to save lives.  You can be the same kind of student, merging it with your insight into the Bible, to help your family, church, and others, wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

We're wired to respond to it

The Bojangles restroom was the cleanest I’ve ever seen in a fast food place.  I looked for a urinal to make sure I hadn’t accidently walked in the ladies room!  Plants perched on a table and in the corner, and the fragrance…forsythia?  Brenda said the women’s was the same.

When we finished our Cajun biscuit and seasoned fries, Brenda stopped the lady we saw doing the cleaning and told her what a great job she was doing.  She glowed and said she only works one day a week and tries to do things special.  Brenda told her it was very noticeable.

So after being complimented and encouraged, do you think she started slacking off?

There’s energy in encouragement.  When someone tells you something specific about who you are or how you do something, doesn’t it reinforce that thing they notice and make you be or do that even more?

What do you spend more time doing with kids, spouse, family, coworkers -- correcting and pointing out shortcomings, or encouraging? 

You probably think you're not like Simon Cowell

But you are.  He has all this inside stuff going on just like you (and everybody else).  Stuff you can’t see and rarely talk about, but that has a big role in how you live and how you feel about how you live. 

Usually we can only guess at the bubblings inside that make people do what they do.  We know our insides, but since we can’t see theirs, it’s easy to think they’re different.  Then we get to know them and they become “real” meaning we see they’re human like me.

What are Simon’s inside bubblings?  He recently told us himself:

He has a TV in the bathroom and watches the Flintstones and Jetsons – it reminds him of being a kid.

He’s used to getting everything the way he likes it.  Hates clutter.  Nothing is in the wrong place.  Everything must function smoothly.

He likes to be happy, but gets in dark moods for no reason.  He gets irritable and anti-social.  Sometimes he tortures himself when things go well.  “I have to find something to make me miserable.”  Sometimes he thinks he’s never going to be happy.

He knows thousands of people rely on him for their jobs.  He feels the pressure.  He looked at his schedule and realized every day for the next eighteen months was planned -- he knows where he’s going to be every day, every city.  It depresses him knowing he can’t escape from it.

He could never have kids.  They run your routine, he’d have to be up at a certain time, have to listen, he wouldn’t be able to just sit in a corner and think.

He had a girlfriend for eight years.  It got to where he came home with a head full of business and she’d ask what happened?  Who was in the meeting?  What did they say?  He said OK I’ll talk until 11, but after that no more questions.  Didn’t work.  They broke up.  He helped pay for a new home for her.  “I owed it to her.  You can’t bring someone into your life for eight years and then say ‘It’s over, I don’t need to look after you anymore.’  That would be completely wrong.”

He has a 14,000 sf house and in his dressing room off the bedroom?  Eight pairs of jeans on hangers, a dozen white and gray T-shirts, a couple of sweaters and one pair of shoes.  That’s it.

So, notice anything bubbling in there?  There’s a lot more going on than what you see sitting next to Paula on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, eh?  Just another human being trying to live every day. 

It’s people.  You’re surrounded by them and they’ve all got this kind of stuff that’s the main part of their inner life.  Learn to see it, and to assume it’s there even when you don’t see it.  Be curious, not for celebrity trivia, but as training in how people think and what their ticking looks like.  This insight into how people think and how the world works becomes invaluable when merged with the Bible’s insight into the same things.  It gives you the potential to see and understand and be an influential blessing no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

My bully

Emily got me thinking of one of my bullies.  I hate him.  He’s sneaky and he lies.  When I get busy and tired, and especially if I’m discouraged, he starts in.

He loves it when there’s several things that have to be done at the same time and it’s going to be a challenge but I have to get there, and I lack confidence, and fear I won’t finish.  That’s when he starts his bullying.  He tells me a very simple, very subtle lie.  He doesn’t say it out loud, but I sense my soul hears it, and if I’m not careful believes it: “You are what you do.  If you fail, then that’s who you are.” 

Funny – when I succeed, that’s never who I am; only failure becomes my identity. 

There are two answers to that “You’re not good enough -- you’re not as good as you should be” feeling:

1. Admit it.  “You got that right.  I’m all wrecked up.  You don’t know the half of it.”  There, that settles the performance part.   Because even when I succeed I’m wrecked up. 
2. Get your good enough from Jesus.  When you belong to him, you’re clothed in his righteousness, forever beloved and accepted, a constant recipient of his steadfast love and grace.  I was slouched over in church one day and Brenda passed me a note: “You belong to the King.”  And you belong to him all wrecked up and all.  That should matter.

How science and religion are alike

1.  Both believe absolute truth exists.

2.  Both are pursuing the truth.

3.  Both respect and protect the truth by building boundaries around it and confronting heretics.

Science and religion are not like the arts or business.  Arts and business have no absolute truth to protect – they may have a status quo to maintain, but that can change.

And heretics in science, while confronted, may be useful in breaking thru to new discoveries of what the truth is.  This is where science and religion differ:

• Science is on a quest to discover new things that reveal more of the truth. 
• Religion (at least biblical Christianity) believes all the truth to be revealed, already has been.  The quest is in understanding. believing and following the truth we know.

The urge to dig your own well

God embeds all kinds of desires and needs in us.  What a wonderful thing he’s done – intending that these desires and needs would find their joyous fulfillment in him and in what he gives.  The trouble for us comes when these normal, good, needs and desires are distorted.  And boy are they distorted; not because of a corrupted culture, but because of a corrupted us.  As bad as we hear “the world” is, and is getting, the perverting of good urges within us will always be the worst source of mischief. 

Think of yourself, and those you know, and people you see as you go thru your day.  Too theoretical?  OK, just watch the kids – they’re a laboratory of sin (oops, sorry, didn’t mean to say it).  Behold the things that would be a behavior or attitude that you’d say should be fixed.  Can you see a God-given urge or need behind each of those “problems?”  Can you see the trouble that comes from insisting on the right to have that desire fulfilled, and in being obsessed with making it happen?  Some of those God-given desires:  

• Hunger         
• Love               
• Acceptance   
• Intimacy        
• Significance   
• Justice          
• Respect        
• Comfort         
• Rest              
• Relationships

We’re human, and the distortion is gonna happen, one way or another, to some degree, with each of us.  And it’s funny, too – putting up with someone whose warped desires are the same as mine is way easier than putting up with those other people who have real issues (is that just me?).

They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water – Jeremiah 2.13

How to get there

Trying to get there is messy.  Even knowing exactly where you want to go can be messy.  And you’re messy and so are people, and almost every place you want to go involves people.  So how do you get there?

a long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge – Seth Godin

A guy gives an atheist a Bible...

You know Penn & Teller?  Penn Jillette is the big one who talks.  He's also intelligent, thinking, reasonable and decent.  And he's honest about being an atheist -- most people just live like they don't believe there's a real God, without owning up to their unbelief.  

You watch this video (5 minutes) and it reminds you how spiritual life is so...spiritual.  If you don't have it, spiritual things make no sense, no matter how much sense you have.  And you see that an atheist can preach a sermon.  Penn's sermon is instructive, telling how a Christian can talk to an atheist:

1. be honestly complimentary -- not empty flattery
2. be kind and nice and sane
3. look me in the eye

Penn's little sermon also challenges with something you might never realize an unbeliever would think: "How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?"

Resetting the GPS

I’m reading John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley and enjoying it much more than I planned.  I planned to only not be bored by it, but now I’m inspired.  He’s a thinker and a feeler, he’s observant, and he knows how to say what he’s thinking, feeling and observing.  I guess that’s how he won Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, eh?  And where do you learn to say things like:

“she emerged from the car with an explosive ooze.”

“The sky was the color of wet gray aluminum”

“a hunting coat…with a game pocket in the rear big enough to smuggle an Indian princess into a Y.M.C.A.”

I remember a hurricane when I was a kid in Connecticut, and the reaction of the adults that it was a big deal, and my mom slogging us thru the wind and rain to Barry’s house next door.  Sometimes I’ve wondered what hurricane that was and if it really was a big deal.  Then I’m reading the beginning of Travels and I realize it’s the hurricane that delayed the start of Steinbeck’s famous trip – Donna.  Cool.  I’m running thru the backyard to Barry’s house gripping my mama’s hand at the same time John Steinbeck is sixty miles away across Long Island Sound in Sag Harbor trying to save his boat and keep a tree from falling on Rocinante.  Now I’m really hooked.

Anyway, he had no GPS, of course.  He had to study maps and ask directions and get lost and stop and figure out where he was.  But he knew where he was going.  Today, we would just hit “recalculate.”

----------------------------------------------

I’ve been going somewhere in what you’ve been reading here over the last few weeks.  It’s not been precise, but a meandering little journey making the case that God has made you to be a bigger influence than you may realize, big as in a blessing to your family, to your church, to others you know and meet, and to God.  And that there can be an art to your influence, in addition to the usual way of seeing it as a science of education and formal training.  You can see the basic outline HERE, and read more of the idea in the posts before and after that, but here’s the brief outline we’re following for a bit longer:

1. Take responsibility for yourself and your influence
2. Know the Bible
3. Soak up the Bible’s attitude, approach, demeanor, patterns, principles
4. Look at the world and people and see how it works and how people think
5. Now take these growing insights into the Bible, people, and the world, and begin to merge them

This is the beginning of seeing not only the individual pieces, but how the pieces are related, and how that relates to you and those you meet.  Some people call it wisdom.  It's the beginning of seeing what things mean.  It's the beginning of becoming more useful to people, your family and your church. 

We’ve roamed thru #3 over the last few weeks.  We’re starting #4.  Steinbeck’s a master at this -- seeing how people think and how the world works.  He’s in his truck, in the dark, in the rain, and he’s very lonely:

“I knew beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid.  I thought how terrible the nights must have been in a time when men knew the things were there and they were deadly.  But no, that’s wrong.  If I knew they were there, I would have weapons against them, charms, prayers, some kind of alliance with forces equally strong but on my side.  Knowing they were not there made me defenseless against them and perhaps more afraid.”

There.  That’s where we are.

Noticing the difference -- persuading authority

There’s authority and there’s those under authority, and when you’ve got it you’ve got the say, and when you’re under it in the end you do what they say.

When I worked at the diesel engine plant, occasionally there were times where my buddies blew up at some work issue.  Even with the union’s help things couldn’t be made right enough.  So they would “hit the wall” – stop working and sit down in a line along the nearest wall.  Management and union leaders would come and everybody stood around for awhile.  There would be some raised voices, and within a few hours the guys would go back to work with nothing changed, but they’d act like they showed ‘em.  We all knew they were trying to save face and act tough, because we all knew they’d be fired if they stayed on the wall. 

The wallers loved the big show of force, but they weren’t respected and never accomplished much with management. 

There’s something about being pushed that makes you want to push back.  And there’s something about pushing and not being resisted that makes you quit pushing.  Think of arguments and kids and marriage and siblings and work and disagreements with returning the solar landscape lights to Wal-Mart. 

When my wife, Brenda, pushes me, I always feel an inner resistance towards her.  When she’s more suggestive, I hear what she’s saying instead of how she’s saying it.

With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone. – Proverbs 25.15

Noticing the difference -- plans and interruptions

You know those weeks where at a certain point you realize you’re just a pack mule, mindlessly hauling load after load without appreciating why?  And you need a break to regain energy and perspective?

That’s Jesus and his guys in Mark 6 and Luke 10.  There’s been busyness, tragedy, heartbreak and disappointment, and some incredible accomplishments.  Now it’s time to rest.  They have to.  They’re constantly in crowds and “they had no leisure even to eat.  And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.”  This is Jesus’ plan – rest, a quiet place, alone.

It doesn’t turn out that way.  The people find out where they are and follow – crowds of people.  Thousands.  There’s no rest.  Just more needs to meet. 

For me, when I pass my limit, I go numb and nothing counts until I get my mental mojo back.  I’m a zombie and I have a right to be because I’m whipped.  My expectations of myself go to zero. 

What is the reaction, the demeanor, the personality of Jesus when his plans are interrupted?

“And he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing.” 

He serves them.  Oh, and he feeds 5,000 of them from one boy’s lunch.  They aren’t an interruption.  Somewhere he finds strength.  It’s as if the interruption is accepted as part of the plan from the beginning, even though it wasn’t planned for.  And if it’s part of the plan, then so’s the energy needed to do it, and so’s anything God needs to do, too. 

But, how do you know if you should consider an interruption as part of God’s plan, and actually respond to it that way?

Because it happens.

Noticing the difference – inner vs. outer

It’s easy to get things backwards.  There’s a natural way of thinking that happens effortlessly. 

Valuing accomplishment, power and influence comes easy.  It seems normal to respect those who are achievers with a record of great accomplishments, and who have wide influence.   

It doesn’t seem normal to give that same respect to someone who lacks the achievement and influence, but who is, say, slow to anger with their inner thoughts and life under control.  And they shouldn’t have the same respect – they should have more:

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. – Proverbs 16.32

Subtle influence, blunt results

A sharp lawyer-type tries to trick you.  In your answer to his question, you turn him to the thing he’s expert at – the law – and there he finds he may not be as sharp as he thought: the law is making him feel a bit guilty, as it should. 

So he tries to sidetrack things with a technical question – how do you define “neighbor” anyway? 

This is where you can soak up not only what God says, but how he thinks, how he responds, his attitude, his demeanor, and his personality, which are all part of how he influences.  He’s going to change the question.  But he’s not pointing out that he’s changing the question.  He’s not telling the lawyer “wrong question!”  Without force or lecture he’s going to make the point he wants to make, changing the conversation and question to his purpose. 

Jesus begins to change the question by telling the story of a man attacked on the road.  He’s stripped, beaten, robbed, and left for dead.  A religious guy, supposedly in a spiritual vocation (like the lawyer asking the question), sees the man but avoids him.  Another religious guy does the same.  These spiritual guys have roles as go-betweens between God and man, but there’s no God going thru these men to that injured man. 

(I’m not too hard on these two.  It’s easy to be, since we know the whole story, but I can relate, and I’m a slacker in this, too: Maybe the injured guy’s a criminal and some of his cohorts got mad at him.  Maybe those other guys are still around and if I help, they’ll think I’m his friend and I’ll be in trouble, too.  Maybe it’s his own fault and he’s all drugged or drunked up.  How do I know what happened?  See, excuses are easy.)

Then another man, considered very UN-godly by the religious guys, sees the injured man and stops.  He has compassion, treats the man’s injuries, loads him up and takes him to an inn where he can recover.  He pays for the man’s care and tells the innkeeper to bill him for anything else that has to be done and he’ll settle up when he comes back from his trip to check on the guy. 

So the religious men avoid the inured man, but the un-religious guy has mercy, interrupts his plans, goes out of his way, takes care of the fellow and pays for it himself for no reason and with no recognition.

Now, the lawyer had asked, “Who is my neighbor?” and this story is Jesus’ answer.  But at the end Jesus doesn’t say to the lawyer, “So, this is who your neighbor is.”  Jesus says, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor?”  And the lawyer answers, “the one who showed mercy.”  

It goes from “who’s my neighbor?” to “are you a neighbor?”  Neighbor is not defined by who they are or where they live.  A neighbor is a person who shows mercy and compassion to whoever needs it.  A neighbor is a person who is a living expression of God’s merciful, compassionate heart towards people.  About that, Jesus says, “You go and do likewise” – PROVE to BE a neighbor by SHOWING compassion and mercy. 

A neighbor isn’t a them, it’s supposed to be a me.  And Jesus’ getting me to that blunt conclusion starts out with an insincere person who wants to trick him and make him look bad.  Now, that’s the way to influence.  

Kris Allen singin' in church

At New Life Church in Arkansas.  Dude's been a worship leader.

Blah blah blah eat

Every time we come home, Delly (the wonder dog) goes crazy with excitement.  That's what dogs do, right?  But she mainly goes crazy with excitement for Brenda because Brenda almost always gives her a little treat when we come home.  And as she gives her the treat she'll say, "Now just this one time..." or "I'm not going to do this every time..." or "Delly you've got to quit expecting a treat when I come home." 

Of course, Delly doesn't know how Brenda feels, or what she's saying, or what she means when she says it.  She only knows what she sees -- "when Big Lady comes home, I eat."  Brenda has trained her, unintentionally.

If people ignore what you say and how you feel and what you mean, what have your actions trained them to expect?
 

Singing

You know how everybody has a style, a way of expressing themselves that is part of who they are?  God, too.  His attitude and personality and demeanor and temperament are in the Bible.  It's not just the teachings and commands and doctrines, but the way he says it, the way he expresses himself -- his voice, his tone, his inflection are all part of his personality.  Don't miss that.  Soak it up. 

It's in the words he chooses -- and doesn't choose.  It's in the things he has patience with -- and doesn't have patience with.  It's in his bluntness at times, and what seems like intentional veiling at other times.

It's hard to describe it or give an example.  It's like trying to describe someone's singing voice.  You can't use words, you have to hear it.  This is like that.  Hear it.  Don't miss it.  Soak it up.  

That's the voice you want to sing with.