New Life'n

51-49

Is a decision.  It’s OK if it’s close.  We do it all the time. 

It’s the thing you say you’ll do, but when it comes time to do it or go or attend or meet, you’d really rather not.  You’d rather stay home.  If you could, you’d cancel.  You’d like to have an excuse.  Well, not totally.  Part of you really does want to go and that’s the part of you that said you would.

But when it comes time to do it you really don’t feel like it. 

This is normal.  Did you know that often the people who are presenting or performing or meeting with you feel the same way?  A big part of them doesn’t want to do it, either.  They feel just like you do.

But you know what happens: After you do it – attend, meet, perform; whatever it is – you’re glad you did.  You experienced something or engaged someone or something in a way that was necessary or beneficial.  You did it because the reason you said yes, matters.

The 49 is heavy,  But not as heavy as the 51.  Yet the 49 doesn’t go away just because 51 is heavier.  You still have ‘all these reasons’ against the thing.  It doesn’t feel right.  Inside, you want more margin.

Presidents are elected with a 51-49 majority all the time and they’re just as much President as they would be if it was 100-0,  But it’s NEVER 100-0.  Every choice has for’s and against’s.  If you’re going to decide based on the existence of reasons, you’ll always be able to decide any way you want, because there’s always reasons for any decision, either way.

Which has more, or better, reasons?

It’s easy to think of reasons you don’t want to do something – they’re always there.  That’s what you feel when the time comes to do it.  But the reason you do it anyway is because you committed to it, and the reason you committed is at the time you knew the potential benefit.  And that hasn’t changed.  What’s changed is how you feel.  And how you feel will change again after you do it.

Good things happen when you do it.  You rarely regret it.

You rarely regret it when you DON’T, too, because you usually don’t know what you missed.   You live in blissful ignorance.  But rarely does something necessary or beneficial happen when you “don’t.” 

You just never know it didn’t. 

Getting closer to God

When you want to get close to someone you spend time with them.  Small-talk and a quick hi-how-ya-doin are fine for casual relationships, but if that leaves you unsatisfied you need something else.

Spend unrushed one-on-one time together and without trying you will know them better and grow closer.  It happens with people and with God.  It doesn't have to be every day.  But if it's never, then that might be part of a sense of distance and separation you feel.

You can download a free little ebook I wrote about a personal experience of doing that one-on-one listening and pondering.  If you read this blog regularly, then you may have read it last year, but here I've compiled it in one handy-dandy package.  It's short, maybe 10 minutes of reading.

You can copy it, print it, email it to anyone you want.  May you get to red far more often than I do!

Download Getting to Red

Dumb like birds

The first few years we lived here it was fascinating watching the birds build their nests on our porch and raise babies and send them off into grown-up bird-dom.  After 5 years it’s just a pain to keep the porch clean.  Birds are messy.

I’m people, so I think like people.  To keep the birds away this year I reasoned with them.  I put a brick where they always build the nest, to convince them to move on, this isn’t the place for you.  The brick says, look, this is going to be too much trouble. 

They started to build the nest next to the brick.

Then you try to change their “want to.”  A friend suggested rubber snakes or an owl.  Of course!  Genius!  No bird is going to make a home where the kids are going to be snatched away by predators, right?  Rubber snakes are a buck at Walmart, a plastic owl eight bucks.  I got both; even put the snakes right on the ledge where they build the nest. 

It worked for awhile.  Then one day I saw the beginnings of a new nest – right on top of the snake's head.

The last resort is to make it impossible to carry out your desire.  I built a barrier – a physical barrier using vinyl guttering to cover every spot where birds could land.  It’s like grounding the kids for life – let’s see you get in trouble now!  It doesn’t matter how much they want to or how hard they try.  They can’t – there’s nowhere to land.  They’d have to build a nest that floats in the air. 

You don’t reason with animals, and their “want to” is hard-wired.  You can’t change instinct.  That’s why we have fences and cages and vinyl barriers on the front porch.

Reasoning and motivating are for the higher creatures like us. 

Except when it doesn’t work.

Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you – Psalm 32.9

A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools – Proverbs 26.3

Now act like it

Unbind him and let him go – John 11.44

If you do a miracle of raising a man from the dead, wouldn’t you remove the death clothes and make him all fresh, too?  Lazarus is still wrapped up in the four-day-old funeral clothes he was buried in. 

There’s more to life than a technical definition of circulation and respiration – and we have a role in that ‘more.’  It’s possible to have a new life, yet be bound in the clothes of the dead.

You can go years without renewing your auto inspection and registration, and never get caught.  But you’ll drive under a foreboding sense of condemnation, guilt, shame and fear.  You know this can’t go forever; sooner or later you’ll get caught.  You’re always watching for cops.  (There’s one right behind you!).  It’s like you’re dead and you’re waiting for everyone to find out.

When you finally pay up there’s relief – no more condemnation or guilt.  But you know what happens?  Right after you pay up, for days or weeks after that, you still drive in fear.  It’s become a habit.  Even though you’re free, you still feel a little buzzing dread that you’re going to get caught, like you’re doing something wrong.  You’re alive but you’re not acting like it.

Let the new live.  Take off the things that are part of the old dead thing.  Be what you now are, with what you now have.  Stop those things that are part of of the old life, the old way of living and thinking. 

Unbind him and let him go.

When you’ve been given a new mind and a new power, let your mind be what it is.  Go with your new interest and way of thinking.  Don’t fight it.  Like physical life grows, so will this.

This is where the big battle and activity of faith starts – not in believing that God is going to do some big thing, but in believing in the big thing he’s already done.  Get this one first and the big things we want him to do in jobs, families, relationships, money, health, etc, will settle into a quieter place.

Yes, it's possible to stay in one grade for years

How much longer are some of us going to keep God trying to teach us one thing?  He never loses patience. – Oswald Chambers 4/15

Ever get in a rut?  Ever feel like you’re living the same scene, the same frustration, over and over?  Maybe this is why.

“Why does this keep happening?”  As if it’s not fair, as if someone is picking on you.  As if there’s no connection between your relationship with the Lord and how life looks and feels.

One kind of discipline is like a training where you’re pressured and stressed and exhausted to make you stronger.  Another kind of discipline is like a spanking so you’ll shape up.

When you’re a parent, you know which discipline you’re doing with your child.  When you’re the child it can be confusing.

he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it – Hebrews 12.10-11

Too intimidating to think about

More of The God Show.  This is The Marriage Channel.  The previous post is HERE.

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I get a lot of personal benefit from my marriage with Brenda.  I live on that level of benefit to me.  I pay, too, but I get way more than I give.  I live mainly on the level of thinking of marriage as being between her and me, with a background realization that our relationship is a picture of God’s relationship with his people.  That’s as high up as I want to handle.  I can hardly handle that.

Do you ever think about what marriage is?  You do believe something about what it is, because if someone asked you you’d have an answer.  But, the answer is not something most people have thought about.  It’s like why the grass is green or the sky is blue – it just is. 

You know there are explanations of why the grass and sky are what they are.  But it doesn’t matter why.  It’s enough that they’re there. 

If you do think about marriage, there are several layers of how you can think about it, from low to high:

One: There’s nothing to think about.  It’s something people have always done – it’s useless to think about what it is or why it’s there.  Like grass and sky, it’s green and blue because it is.

Higher: It’s for companionship and making kids and meeting basic needs.  You can think of a lot of other things like this.

Higher: It’s a picture of the relationship between God and his people – husbands love wives like Christ loves the Church, and wives submit to husbands like Christians do to Christ.

(That last one is is probably one of the most generally misunderstood and abused things in the Bible.  It’s so misunderstood and abused that the popular perception is that it’s saying it’s better to be the husband.  No way – when you understand it, if you had a choice, you’d never pick being the husband.  However, there are many who do understand it, and who honor it, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.  But, all that’s for another time.)

The higher up you go in thinking about marriage, the more intimidating it gets.  The higher up you go the less selfish you can be about your marriage.  What if there’s one more layer? 

What if marriage is also supposed to be a picture of God?  Personally, him?  Like the nature and authority channels we just looked at, what if marriage, too, is rigged? 

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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. Marriage, 4. Family, 5. You.  Really, he's all over the place.

Little ditty about Margaret and Larry

Last night I did another one of those things that’s supposed to be a time-waster: Be reading something purposeful online and then get sidetracked.  Somehow I ended up reading about how Margaret became Margaret and Larry became Larry.

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Margaret ran out of books to read.  Her husband suggested she write her own. So over several years, she did.  She told few people; it was just a hobby.  She never tried to turn it into a real book.

In her job at a newspaper in Atlanta, she was helping a book publisher find new authors in the South.  She didn’t think of herself as one of those authors. The publisher guy found her entertaining and asked if she’d ever thought of writing a book.  Margaret's friend laughed: Margaret?  Write a book?

This playful mocking bugged Margaret and later that night she went to the publisher’s hotel with bundles of papers that were her manuscript.  He had to buy another suitcase to take it with him.

He loved it.  Everyone who read it loved it.  It sold millions and made her famous and won a Pulitzer Prize.  Three years later it was an Academy Award winning movie.  Seventy years later we still quote lines from the movie.

She never wrote another book.  She said being the author of Gone With the Wind was a full time job with all the calls and interviews and door bell ringing.

Ten years later she was crossing Peach Street in Atlanta with her husband to go to a movie.  An off-duty cab driver’s car hit her.  She died five days later.

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Larry was a small town kid who went off to the big college.  For 24 days.  The college was too big – twenty times bigger than the town he was from – and he went home and got a job with the street department.  Larry liked the job and said he could have done it for a long time.  But Larry had a gift.  And people who recognized and needed his gift came after him. 

Larry knew he had a gift, too, and knew he needed to use it.  When he did, he made  everyone around him better.  He was like magic, though it was his friend who had that name.

Larry’s gift was basketball and he took his teammates and team where they’d never gone before, to an undefeated season and a national championship game. When he went pro he took his new team from 29 wins to 61 wins in one year.  He got trophies and championships and recognition as the best. 

Then his back hurt and he stopped.  He’s an executive now, in the sport where he was magic but it’s not the same magic.

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I didn’t make notes on those things I read when I chased the rabbit.  Why do I remember the stories? 

I had known the facts – Margaret Mitchell was a Pulitzer Prize winner, and Larry Bird was a Hall-of-Famer.  Isn’t that all you need, the facts?  Maybe – if the goal is to pass a test on the facts.  Why was I interested in more? 

Why did you keep reading what I wrote about people you don’t know or care about?

Isn’t there’s a built-in curiosity to know the how and where and when and why along with the what?  Where does that curiosity come from?  It must be there for a reason.  There must be something to be gained, or some glory God can get, from pursuing that curiosity.

Margaret and Larry’s stories connected me to them, even though I’ll never meet or know them.  Everytime I hear stories like that I feel that connection. 

I think the connection is to that messy mix of humanity God put in each of us.  And he put each of us with our common humanity in the middle of other messy lives that move and breathe and are connected.  I’m not the only one.  I’m not by myself. 

The facts and people that I’ve “heard of” are real, and live in a context of other facts and people, just like me.  And even with the people I know personally I’m usually unfamiliar with the context – the story – of the things I know about them.  When I hear a story I connect with them more.

Stories connect us and make sure we remember people are real.  Without that connection to others thru their story I could think somehow I’m different – better or worse – and that would be a disconnection from reality.

Stories encourage us when we think we’re alone, and keep us humble when we forget others are as real as we are.

What's a story?

Stories have a wimpy reputation. 

I used to think they’re for children, or for entertainment.  Grownups like meat, and stories are an appetizer.  They’re OK to soften hearts, to prepare for the meat.  They’re OK to use to illustrate something.  But to tell the truth you need direct, to-the-point speaking, lecture or preaching.  Stories cannot stand alone and communicate a significant, meaningful message.

Now I think it’s both.  Overt instruction and storytelling both have their way of getting something done. 

When you hear the word ‘story’ you might think of a made-up thing, and it may be.  But a story is often just a description of something that happened.  It has a plot and characters and it’s all connected.  Like the Bible.  Like living.  And like overt teaching, a story can be effective or ineffective.

I could overtly tell you you should do something to help the people in Haiti and that you should organize something in your circle of influence and show the love of Christ.  I could remind you that Jesus said what you do for the least of these you do for him and how can the love of God be in you if you don’t help? 

And I could tell you if you would do something, your doing might be contagious and you’d be surprised and overjoyed at how God caused people to react to your giving, which is what 2 Corinthians 9 said would happen.  And that you can make a difference and you can inspire others to, too.  I could tell you all that and it would be true and right and good.

That would be one way.

Another way – not a superior way but a different way – would be to let you hear a story saying the same thing.  This was from last month when Renee called me on the radio:

Renee tells a story

Telling a story is the primary verbal way of accounting for life the way we live it in actual day-by-day reality. There are no (or few) abstractions in a story - story is immediate, concrete, plotted, relational, personal.

And so when we lose touch with our lives, our souls - our moral and spiritual, our God-personal lives - story is the best way of getting us back in touch again. Which is why God's Word is given for the most part in the form of story.

Eugene Peterson

Fear and hate

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil – Proverbs 8.13

‘Fear of he Lord’ is one of those hard-to-explain things.  But it must be important, because it’s all over the Bible.  You would assume God wants us to understand it.

Maybe it’s that practical: if you fear the Lord, you hate evil and pride and arrogance and perverted speech (the rest of verse 13).

‘Hate’ is a strong word and has a bad name today, as if all hate is bad.  Hate is good if you hate the right things.  Hating murder would be good.  Hating that rattlesnake in your bed would be good.

What if you’re neutral or insensitive or tolerant (now there’s a word that has a good name today) of evil, pride and arrogance?  Well, that would be fine (as fine as being neutral on murder or rattlesnakes), but you could not say that you fear the Lord.  If you fear the Lord you will hate those things.

He doesn’t say here what you will do about your rightly placed hate, or how you will do it.  But, you know you wouldn’t hate those things in a prideful, arrogant way using any kind of perverted speech.  Because you fear the Lord.

Stories talk

Easter Sunday we were with 22 kids, kindergartners thru 5th grade, in a room, talking about Jesus dying and coming back to life. 

We talked about blood and how when you see blood you stare and get concerned.  The kids were about 25% attentive.  Then, we asked for stories about seeing blood.  This they got into.  They told about cuts and scalp wounds and punctures and scrapes – it went on and on.  Even after we moved on to other subjects, a hand would shoot up and there’d be another bloody story.

Then we watched 15 minutes of a movie showing Jesus crucified and buried and coming back to life.  Some of the kids covered their faces when the soldiers pounded the spikes in Jesus’ hands.  It wasn’t graphic; just enough that you knew what was happening.  The kids were dead silent and attentive.  We had talked about the spikes earlier; the kids didn’t cover their faces then.

When the story-part of the movie finished, there was an epilogue with some kids from the movie talking into the camera about what Jesus’ death meant and how each kid had to decide for himself how to respond.  It was very good – well said and done by peers the kids could relate to.  A really perfect conclusion to the story.

But the kids in our room lost interest when the story-part ended.  They squirmed and twisted and whispered and gawked around.  Not all of them but most.  If you went by what got their attention, you’d say dump the talking-heads part and stick with the story.

When it was over we talked a bit and asked if any of the kids prayed along with the kid at the end of the movie to trust and receive Jesus.  Four hands went up.  More than one out of six.  In the evangelical-table-of-odds, that’s pretty good.

The story put the kids there, made it real.  Their hearts were engaged.  It got their attention.  The explanation at the end pushed them to conclude something personally, but was only engaging to a few. 

Stories themselves are neutral.  They can be fluffy, meaningless entertainment.  But, usually, stories carry messages – even unintended – that can inspire, revolt, enlighten or challenge.

Are you who you are more because of things your parents said to you in a lecture or more because of what you picked up from the influence of their living?  Story is the living. 

At the same time, can you remember a moment when mom or dad got down at your level and stared you in the face and spoke words you’ve never forgotten?  That wasn’t a lecture or a story – but that was living, too.  They got your attention, so you heard.

Attention opens the door.  Stories talk because they get our attention, and we feel a message with our hearts and souls.  And our hearts and souls motivate us to act and change.

 

Illustration from What Matters Now ebook from Seth Godin.