New Life'n

Everyone knows no one knows everything

Have you ever been around someone and no matter what they’re asked, they have an answer?  And sometimes you know better, and when they answer authoritatively and definitively you end up doubting all their answers because you realize they’re never going to say ‘I don’t know.’ 

It’s counter-intuitive.  Never saying ‘I don’t know’ leads people to realize you really don’t.  And admitting you don’t know gives more credibility to things you do.

Another way to say ‘I don’t know’ is to answer with questions – more and more questions.  In answering your questions, the person asking the original question may end up answering it.  So it will have the same effect as if you did know even though you didn’t.  It’s a nice deal -- they get something better than your flailing around can give and you keep your credibility.

Where boldness comes from

The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion – Proverbs 28.1

When all you’ve got is your own strength, wisdom, ability and energy you have to be careful – you could come up against something stronger, wiser and abler at any moment

When you’re dependent on the strength, wisdom, abilities and energy of God you can be bold because it’s all up to him and nothing you meet will be stronger, wiser and abler than him.

Because we leak

Ever heard the phrase, “He’s forgotten more than you’ll ever know” about someone with great knowledge or wisdom or ability?

Our minds and souls leak.

Maybe that’s why I make so many notes of things I hear or read or think of.  I want it to become part of me, I don’t want it to get away.  Just writing it down can help – it’s part of the absorption process, like meditation.

But our minds and souls leak.  And what do you do with the notes you make?  I hang onto them because they say things I want to know or become or that seem valuable for others.  They end up in a pile on my desk, then in a drawer, then maybe a box and over time in the attic or garage.

Then when you clean out the garage you come across them and the process starts all over.  Cleaning out the garage this week, here’s what’s on top of a new pile of old notes.

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“Small groups are not rocket science.  You don’t have to have a whole bunch of special training.  Get people together often enough that they get comfortable and know each other and share and trust and help each other.” – Tim Hawks

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“We do not hold weekend retreats, or two-week conferences in churches, etc, but rather it is a matter of settling down with small groups of believers who are keenly aware of their need, meeting with them every other week (time for truth to soak in) for about threee years.  We have found this means by far the most effective in producing lasting results.” – Miles Stanford

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“As the Gospels are the transition from Law to Grace, so the Acts are the transition from Judaism to Christianity.” – (don’t know where I got that)

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“Leadership: (don’t know where I got this either)

• high level of persistence
• overcome significant obstacles
• attract dedicated people
• influence groups of people toward achievement of goals
• guide thru crucial episodes

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“In all fields, even those of culture and art, other peoples’ judgment exercises a paralyzing effect.  Fear of criticism kills spontaneity; it prevents men from showing themselves and expressing themselves freely, as they are.

“Much courage is needed to paint a picture, to write a book, to erect a building designed along new architectural lines, or to formulate an independent opinion or original idea.” – Paul Tournier

One or the other

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

Isn’t it nice to know you don’t have to yell or get all stressed for someone to be convinced?  It’s almost like the harder you try the less persuasive you’ll be.  As if backing off and relaxing frees the way for persuasion to happen.

So when Jesus cleared the temple and called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs and broods of vipers, does that mean he wasn’t trying to persuade?  That there’s a time for persuasion and another time for anger and judgment?

If you were trying to persuade, you’d want to remember the difference. 

You can't understand. Understand?

Continuing The God Show.  You can find out more and get caught up HERE or at the link on the right under “other writings.”

The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

We’re in the nature channel, beginning to see how the whole earth is filled with God’s holiness, and how Job gets to discover this in a very personal way when horrible things happen and he wants it to make sense.  God answers and opens Job’s eyes by turning to the nature channel.

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Have you ever been super patient with someone who just kept on with the thing that challenged your patience, and you felt a bit insulted, and you finally got to where you had to set them straight?  And you did it bluntly and hammered it hard so there would be no misunderstanding?  That’s what God’s questions and pointing to the nature channel feel like:

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Tell me if you have understanding.  Who determined it’s measurements – surely you know!…who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

Maybe you can start to feel a bit of flop sweat breaking out on the back of your neck?

“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?’”

He bosses the ocean.  You know when you go to the beach and stand at the edge of the water?  That’s where God orders the sea to halt.  We like the beach because we sense something big there – well, this is it.  But we don’t realize it so often we splash and look down at the sand crabs and nice shells. 

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place…?”

Uhh, no – that would not be something I have done.  In the morning when you get up have you ever, ever, ever thought that this morning has been commanded by God?  And that he’s commanded every morning that’s ever been?

Have you entered into the springs of the seas?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?  Declare if you know all this.

I know the earth is big, but I’ve never seen the whole thing from every angle at once.  Is that possible? 

Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?  You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!

Umm…well…I…

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?

Snow and hail to God are like a pocketful of rocks to a kid?

What is the way to the place where the light is distributed?

From whose womb did the ice come forth?  And who has given birth to the frost?

Can you lift your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you?  Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?

Then at one point he challenges Job to “adorn yourself with dignity, clothe yourself with glory and splendor, look on everyone who is proud and bring him low, tread down the wicked where they stand” and if Job can do that, then God will “acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you.”  It didn’t happen. 

And this is only part of the beginning.  He goes on and on into the animal world hammering the same idea – you are not God and therefore cannot understand God kinds of things. 

This is a response God may have when we question him or demand that he explain why he’s allowing us to go thru horrible stuff.  And he does not say these things because we’re rebels – Job was the greatest man in that whole part of the world – he says them because God is so great that even upright, blameless people cannot comprehend his greatness and ways. 

But we can comprehend that that he’s incomprehensible, because we live in his creation -- the whole world is filled with his glory in nature.

Talking about yourself

Harold said, 'he'll never talk about himself.' Harold raised me spiritually and was so impressive that I wanted to meet the fellow who had helped him the same way. I was making a trip to Florida where Harold's Bill lived, and Harold set up a visit to Bill's house. But he warned me he wouldn't talk about himself.

I sat in Bill's living room and he could tell I didn't have any agenda or questions other than meeting him. I just wanted to soak up what this fellow was like. He was part of my spiritual genealogy. You would think I'd have some questions but I didn't.

After a few minutes it might have felt awkward to him. He started doing what Harold said he wouldn't -- talk about himself. He told stories. The story of proving that you could build and pay for a house debt-free, by faith, without great wealth; we were sitting in that house now. The story of his wife's liberating life-change thru illness and recovery. How he prayed that God would change his life the same way and so he prepared to get sick himself but instead his wife asked him for a divorce. His change came thru confronting what kind of guy he was that would make his wife want to divorce him.

There were more stories he told about himself. After a few hours, I thought, my God there IS another one (like Harold). And I was awed at being part of a chain like this that went back to Jesus.

There's one kind of talking about yourself that makes you the focus and sets you in the middle of things and makes it seem like your main interest is yourself. It can even make you look insecure, as if you think you don't exist if you're not visible in the conversation.

There's another kind of talking about yourself. Where the listener hears you, but sees something else. A painting. And you're the brush. The details in the painting are the details of your story. But the picture as a whole ends up revealing the artist more than you.

I like Monet paintings -- I don't know why, just the feel and the mood. There are other impressionists who painted the same kinds of scenes in the same style -- but there's only one Monet. And most people, though untrained in art, can tell the difference. Monet may not be the subject of the painting, but he's definitely revealed.

Sometimes I need to be humble and not talk about myself -- when that talking sounds like I-Me-Mine and just draws attention to the brush.

But since meeting Bill, I know sometimes I'd better talk and tell my story and let the brush do some painting, knowing the picture just happens to include me. If I don't, and if you don't, a masterpiece might be missing from the artist's gallery.

Unless I see

Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. – Matthew 11:20

I guess we know what would happen if Jesus were here today, live and in person in the flesh.  Same thing that happened when he was here before.  Mostly unbelief.

Most of Jesus’ mighty works led to judgment, not salvation, because most who beheld his mighty works did not believe.

So there’s your expectation for the results of any sharing of Christ you do with people.  Most won’t respond. 

Two questions:

1.  Is God as glorified thru judgment as he is thru salvation?

2.  Was Billy Graham a better evangelist than Jesus?

Oh, and he is here today, live and in person, only now in the flesh of those who have responded with repentance.

How to know if you're dead

Oh, God, I think I’m half-dead.

“When a man’s heart is cold and unconcerned about religion – when his hands are never employed in doing God’s work – when his feet are not familiar with God’s ways – when his tongue is seldom or never used in prayer and praise – when his eyes are blind to the beauty of the kingdom of heaven – when his mind is full of the world, and has no room for spiritual things – when these marks are to be found in a man, the word of the Bible is the right word to use about him, and that word is, ‘Dead.’” -- J.C. Ryle

The emotion of smell

A year ago I was given a tour of the Joe Gibbs race shop and the smell clobbered me.  It wasn’t bad -- it's just that it was exactly the smell I had worked in 25 years earlier at the diesel engine plant when life was so different.  Machining lubricant or something.  I hadn’t smelled that smell since those old days, and all the feelings and emotions from then (mostly bad) came flooding back.

Last night we walked onto the gym floor during a gathering at the open house at our grandkids elementary school.  Brenda laughed and blurted, “Oh, this isn’t right to be walking on this floor in our shoes.  We’re all going to get in trouble.”  The smell of the fresh wax on the gym floor shot her back to Wayne Township Elementary School where you could only walk in sock feet on the basketball court.  

It’s pretty amazing they use the same wax on gym floors that they used decades ago.  It’s also amazing there’s dusty cubbyholes tucked inside you holding envelopes stuffed with old smells and the emotions that went with them at the time you smelled them.  And occasionally an envelope is pulled out and blown off and all the old emotions float out with the smell.

I hope the cubbyhole in me with this envelope is never reopened:

More important than making sense

Continuing The God Show.  You can find out more and get caught up HERE or at the link on the right under “other writings.”

The God Show is five channels (in addition to the Bible) that don't change over time or according to culture, where God's ways, invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived but often missed: 1. Nature, 2. Authority, 3. Family, 4. Marriage, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place. 

We’re in the nature channel, beginning to see how the whole earth is filled with God’s holiness, and how Job gets to discover this in a very personal way when horrible things happen and he wants it to make sense. 

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Starting in Job chapter 38, after Job and his friends have done all the talking, the Lord has His say. And He really doesn’t answer their questions.

Instead, God seems to want to show Job that Job cannot possibly come close to understanding and appreciating God’s ways. Job and his friends assume that they can and should figure out what God is doing and why -- and God acts like proving those assumptions wrong is more important than Job’s suffering. And to prove their assumptions wrong, God does not go into long, intellectual pronouncements like Job’s friends do. God just points. Again and again He points.

He points at what He has created.

He takes everyday natural things that Job is familiar with, things that Job has maybe taken for granted, and He opens Job’s eyes to what those things say about God, and about Job’s ability (and expectation) to figure things out. God proves how holy and set apart He is by showing Job what God has done that Job hasn’t, and can’t, do, or understand.

Job has been asking God questions, and now God says, “You don’t have a right to demand or expect answers -- but I do. Now I have some questions for YOU and I DO have a right to YOUR answers.” And in asking Job these questions, God asks us, too. It’s as if God is saying, ”before we move on with addressing your situation and your questions, let’s get it straight about who you are and who I am…” This must be important.

And God opens Job’s eyes by turning to the nature channel.