New Life'n

Growin' up

Part 16 of the story of how Gary's life changed.  You could call it From Beer to Eternity.  There might be 20 or so of these to make up the whole story.  Links to other parts are on the right.

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I meet a man when we move to South Carolina.  I've been a believer six months.  I'm invited to tell our new church how I came to trust in Jesus (I'm part of a morning radio show so they think people might be interested in the radio celebrity).  That night a man who was there calls and invites me to a class he teaches.  He says I need to learn doctrine.  What's that?  When I walk in his class the first time, it's strange -- there's a calm, a peace, a seriousness in the air.  And a sense that there's someone else there, but I don't see them.

He's not like any other Christian I've met.  He's not cool and hip or rigid and dogmatic.  He's a bank examiner and looks like the bank examiner Carter in "It's a Wonderful Life."  He'd be easy to underestimate, but I see a rock, a giant.  I've never met anyone like him.  When I speak he doesn't say a word and I feel him listening thru the words and seeing everything I'm thinking and feeling.  He's intimidating but not on purpose.  I know him ten years before I hug him.

I go to his home Bible study where I learn how to read and study, and I also learn how to think.  Before he teaches he makes 30 minutes of wise, insightful observations on events and news and things people are talking about, then he apologizes for taking up our time on that.  I learn the Bible is always relevant, and the most relevant thing you can do is think the same way you see God thinking.

He invites me to call with questions and over several years I do  -- hundreds of calls.  I always ask if he is busy.  He always just says, "go ahead."  I ask about church, marriage, kids, work, bosses, money, people -- whatever happens to be getting my goat at the moment.  I take notes.  I have several three-ring binders plus folders filled with notes from his home study and our conversations.  I don't know it at the time, but it's a life-course on understanding the Bible and translating it into life. 

For some reason things he says seem to stay inside me, coming out of my mouth years later.

He never tells me what to do.  He asks questions and gives perspectives and expects me to think.

At some point he tells me someone did the same thing with him.  He says he "can't hold a candle to that guy."  Later, I meet that guy and he describes another giant doing the same thing with him.  I realize I'm part of a chain that goes back to Jesus.  I'm scared.

He's the one on the right, quietly waiting to see if George Bailey needs help thinking about anything.

Two ways to criticize

1.  You're giving your opinion.  Basically you're saying, I'd do it different.  Even if you don't say so, when you say it's your opinion you acknowledge there can be different ways to look at it or do it, and that you might be wrong.  You're saying you disagree, you think it's a mistake.

2.  You're saying it's wrong.  You come on strong.  You're passionate, it's like it's a moral issue.  You're saying in some things there's right and wrong and this is one of those things and you're wrong. 

I think this gets mixed up all the time.  I think people often mean #1 but come across as #2.  This changes the whole way your criticism is going to be taken. 

There are all kinds of implications when you come across as #2 -- implications the person you're criticizing has to fight thru to hear what you're saying.  The main implication is this:  I'm right!  You're wrong!  This is not my opinion and I don't have to worry about expressing this with humility, because I'm right.  My judgment, my morals, my wisdom (at least in this) are superior to yours -- and if you disagree, you're proving it! 

You would never say that and probably don't really believe any of that, but when your hearer adds up the score, that's what they can get.  Is that what you want?

When you're convinced there's right and wrong at stake, humility might be even more important.  With #1 it might come natural (after all, you could be mistaken).  But with #2 humility is important so your message gets across without the distraction of you seeming arrogant.  Besides, even with #2, you could still be wrong. 

It's easy to know how to criticize -- just do it the way you'd want someone to do with you.

The expulsive power of a new affection

Part 15 of the story of how Gary's life changed.  You could call it From Beer to Eternity.  There might be 20 or so of these that make up the whole story.  Links to other parts are on the right.

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Right away I read the Bible and, uh, it's fascinating.  That never happened.  Before it was a bunch of guys in sandals -- why would anyone read this?  It was like reading nuclear physics.  But suddenly I'm interested in nuclear physics.  I'm so interested I have to write down what I see -- oooh, look at that!  It seems so important I just copy down what it says.  I still have those notebooks.  Over the first few weeks I read John and Romans and listen to J. Vernon McGee on the radio.  I read My Utmost for His Highest but don't have a clue what he's saying.  I can't wait until six months go by so I know something.

I stop using the f-word.  Without trying.  It just doesn't come out anymore.  My interest in music changes.  I've always loved rock and roll and I'm sort of a connoisseur but after four months when we move, I never unpack the old albums (these are the vinyl days).  They're still in boxes over twenty years later.

I'm not bored.  That had been a problem.  My priorities and values and interests are slowly changing and merging into plenty to do.

When you move and leave a house for the last time, you walk out the front door and step away just like you always have.  Everything feels familiar.  But, even though it's the same as always, it's different because you're never going back.  For awhile the house is still right there behind you.  But with every footstep, it slowly moves farther away until it disappears. 

The old house is still big behind me.  But it's starting to get smaller. 

Space rocks burn up 23 miles over your head

Is that how high the heavens are above the earth?  Or are the heavens everything beyond the earth even farther than can be measured?  However far it is, THAT'S how great God's steadfast love is (I was reading HERE) -- and not just love but rock-solid-steady love -- "toward those who fear him."  I'm taking that to mean just for being a believer, but I'm also going to take serious that my fear/awe of him should possess my soul and not just be theologically in my head. 

Then that part about my transgressions being removed from me as far as the east is from the west.  He says REMOVED!  And taken away!  Gone and out of sight!  There are some things even in the last week that I've accepted a paltry version of his forgiveness for.  I haven't counted it as thorough, boundless, rich, generous, undeserved and immediate.

One of the biggest lies I fall into is I somehow sneak into an area of thinking where I think if I suffer enough for my sin, or despise myself enough, then I'll deserve forgiveness.  Then I catch myself -- it's all him and what Jesus did on the cross.  My confession and repentance connects me with that forgiveness, but does not earn it.  Thank God -- it's instantaneous, already done.

He remembers that I am dust. Thank God again.  I needed that so much this morning.

And just like all the dogwoods and other flowering trees here in NC have been so beautiful but are already starting to drop those blossoms which will soon be replaced by leaves and forgotten, so am I here now but gone soon.  But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

What the meek inheriting the earth might look like

Lord?

Part 14 of the story of how Gary's life changed.  You could call it From Beer to Eternity.  There might be 20 or so of these to make up the whole story.  Links to other parts are on the right.

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So I'm sober for two years.  And after a year in Iowa we find out I'm losing that job.  Great.  Now what?  I'm 37-years old, no education, I've moved my wife and kids away from family and our long-time home,   and I have no control over keeping my job or even if I can get another one. 

And exactly what DO I have control over?  Not my health, although I'm healthy -- I could have cancer and just haven't found out yet.  I can't control how my kids turn out -- I can influence and try, but I can't MAKE anything happen.  I'm totally confident of Brenda's love, but I can't MAKE her keep loving me.

Years ago I said I wouldn't have kids until I knew what I was doing and here's the kids and I still don't have a clue.  I always thought at some point you become a "grown up" and you have maturity and judgment and wisdom, but here I am and I sure don't have it.  So now what, Mr. Smart Guy?

One afternoon while Brenda is at the bank, out of the blue, while thinking of all that control I don't have, I get down on my knees in the basement of that rental house on Greenway Drive in Bettendorf.  I have never believed in God, although I've always thought if there is a God, it would be a really big deal -- if he created you and the whole universe, then he's kinda like the owner of the whole thing, including you, right?  So I'm on my knees -- on my knees?! -- but it seems normal and I've never ever had a thought of belief in God until that moment when I say, "Lord  -- I'm saying Lord? -- Lord, I give up.  I quit.  I don't want my life, you take it."  Inside me, there are some other things I'm acknowledging, things I've heard repeated over the years about me being a sinner, Jesus' death in my place, a pardon and forgiveness that are mine when I trust him and his death, his resurrection and real life that is still being lived.  I'm believing all that, too, without saying it, but I'm telling God so I guess I'm praying, and it's as if I'm being carried along on a wave and I'm just riding it.  I can't help myself, I have to do this.  It's all one thing and it seems like a minute or two.

I get up and don't think or feel anything -- but everything's changed.  I just don't know it yet.

That night I have a dream that my arms are all scaly and itchy, but then the scaly stuff falls off.  I always remember that, but I never have any kind of dream like that again.

When your head's swimming -- make chili

When a bunch of stuff happens at once, and everything blows up in your face, and you're going back and forth with reactions and emotions, what's the best thing to do?

Maybe nothing.  Wait.  Resist the temptation to decide or act now -- you'll probably just have to change it later and it will be even more complicated.  Let the pieces of the puzzle find their place.  They won't all fall into place, but enough will that you can begin to see a picture.  Let the emotions die out.  Then you can act or react.

The best soup and chili simmer for a long time so all the ingredients merge to form one flavor.

...Unless you don't have time -- you HAVE to act now.  Derwin Gray told the story on the radio yesterday morning of discovering all his gear stolen -- computer, phone, wallet -- everything.  It was a public place, and he immediately gathered his group together and looked in all the trash cans (for discarded wallets), and questioned bystanders.  I asked him how he felt when he realized all his stuff was gone and he said, "I didn't have time for emotions -- I had a job to do."

You can eat soup and chili as soon as it's hot.  But when you have a choice, giving things a chance to simmer and blend together is tastiest.

Your influence

Oswald Chambers gave talks to soldiers and students during World War I.  When he died, his immediate influence would have ended there, but his wife began publishing her notes of his lectures.  That's how we got My Utmost for His Highest, which has been a far bigger influence than his original talks. 

Think of the dead people you've never met who have influenced you.  You've been inspired or taught or challenged by them.  Somehow, they left something behind and it made a difference in your life.

It could be letters or journals or photos from long-ago relatives -- even though they didn't do it on purpose, what they left behind has influenced you.  Could they have had a bigger, better impact on you if they had done it on purpose?

Who else has influenced you, that you'll never meet?  It could be in writing, or music, or audio or video, or artistic, or an institution, or some creation or change they made.

What if you tried to do something to contribute to your influence after you're gone?  Maybe it would be for your family, or friends, or ministry or work.  It doesn't have to be 'to' them, just 'for' them.  Maybe it's a letter or a series of letters or videos or a book.  It doesn't have to be "for the ages" or "for the masses."  You're not trying to be famous -- you're trying to be an influence for good even when you can't be there.  What message is being built into you over the years?  If you had to communicate that message to someone you'll never meet, what form would it take?

There's influence today that can carry on beyond it's impact now -- from parents, family, friends, teachers, pastors.  There's influence that's not today but that can be in the future -- with people you'll never meet.

Some people influential today are irrelevant in the future.  Some people irrelevant today are influential in the future.

And some people are both.

You're going to spend a lot more time as history than you are as today.

Climbing a sycamore tree

Part 13 of the story of how Gary's life changed.  You could call it From Beer to Eternity.  There might be 20 ar so of these to make up the whole story.  Links to other parts are on the right.

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Once alcohol is out of me, I can think.  I'm kind of an analytical, maybe a little intellectual and you could say I'm free to be myself more than I was with alcohol.  So I begin to think and process in ways I hadn't been able to. 

For some reason I occasionally ask Brenda, "so tell me about Jesus."  It's just a casual question.  One time I ask our 10-year old daughter Emily the same question.  She can't believe it -- she suddenly has one chance to save her daddy from the bowels of hell and she panics and can't think of a single thing in the Bible.  She quotes the only thing that comes to mind, a Sunday School song, "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.  He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see."  She says it very serious-like, because, you know, there's a lot at stake.

About a year later we move to Iowa.  Brenda asks me to go to church with her until she gets to know someone.  No big deal -- I'm totally neutral.  I hear a bunch of sermons and we make a few friends.  I keep going to church; I don't know why.  Brenda isn't bugging me about church or Jesus at all like the old days.  There's a small spot inside me that wants to say, "Don't you notice I'm still going with you?  Don't you notice the questions I'm asking?"  She seems oblivious.

At church one Sunday, one of our friends, Karen, comes clear across the room during the invitation at the end, grabs my arm and pleads, "Gary pleeeaaase, pleeeease..."  She tells me I've got to go up and get saved or whatever.  It's a bit of a scene.  This is an unbelievers nightmare -- the thing you always know is gonna happen if you go to church.  For some reason, I'm not embarrassed and I'm not upset with her.  I know she really cares, she's just delusional.  Besides, I like her husband Mike.  He's not pushy at all.  But there is something about him that's different, that's appealing and interesting -- quiet, confident...I don't know, just...something.

If you're quietly scared and feel like you're on thin ice

Peggy Noonan says in the last six months we've become anxious and depressed and apprehensive about the future.  Have you?  At the same time we hear that Americans are becoming less religious, and you might say that means people are seeing religion as less relevant.  Is it?