New Life'n

There's this really bad disease...

I don’t want to get it. But I could. In fact, I think it’s brewing inside me right now, waiting to spread.

No doctor can treat it. There’s no pill to fix it. It’s sneaky bad. And the worst thing: You don’t know when you’ve got it! But everybody else does know you’ve got it! By then, unless there's a miracle, it’s too late.

The late-stage symptoms of this disease were all over the news today. We all saw it:

“My people love me!'” – Muammar Gaddafi

“I am a good person. Everyone was greedy. I just went along.” – Bernie Madoff

“I’m tired of pretending like I’m not special. You can’t process me with a normal brain.” – Charlie Sheen

I don’t know the name of the disease, but Bruce Springsteen once described it in a song:

Poor man wanna be rich;

Rich man wanna be king;

And a king ain’t satisfied til he rules everything

It’s been around a long time; Solomon noticed it, too:

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom – Proverbs 11.2

The most underrated way to influence a life

My best friend’s mom made some negative predictions about my friend when he was a kid. The usual kinds of careless, throwaway, you’ll-never-amount-to-anything stuff. Decades later, none of those predictions came true. But my friend still believes them—it feels like they’re true.

Another friend, Erica, found a scratchpad note on the kitchen table titled, “Words that describe me.” Her daughter wrote words like, awesome, responsible, silly, and perseverant on the paper. Erica got weepy when she read it. “I realized these are words she heard from me.”

You have to be careful what you tell people. They might believe you. And they might believe you their whole life.

Yes, you can have your way

Normally, our mini schnauzer growls and barks when another dog crosses in front of us. But this time, her bark is muffled and a little gagged. I look down and see her gobbling and gulping a big hunk of chicken meat and bones that she’s been carrying that I didn’t know about. Great. Chicken bones splinter, right? Not good.

This can turn into a battle, and I don’t want it to, so I calmly tell her “drop it.” I pat her on the back and then quietly, and more firmly, command her – she knows what “drop it” means. She clenches and gulps harder, trying to swallow it whole. I start the low, authoritative growl we use when we want her to feel and fear our mastery. She gulps harder and tries to get a better grip on the chicken.

I take off my gloves and feel her bulging snout – chicken bones stick out and a glob of meat and bones are deep in her mouth. I break off some of the bones on the outside and throw them aside. I growl at her and grip her jaw and squeeze and order, ‘DRAAAAWWWWP IT.’ This usually works by now. The chicken is far back in her throat and I’m afraid I might shove it back in a bad way and hurt her. She won’t let go. I’m getting mad. She’s an idiot. I’m picturing chicken bones splintering in her throat, or stomach, or guts. Se wants it so bad. She will NOT give it up.

I growl, and squeeze her shoulders, and push her to the ground and do everything to put the fear of God in her.

And then I quit. I’m mad, I let go, stand up, and start walking. I’m done. “Dog you want it, you got it. But I’m not paying $500 or $1,000 for x-rays or surgery (we’ve been there, done that).” I’m really angry – you do everything to feed her right, and love her, keep her out of trouble and then rescue her when it comes. But she’s got a free will and if she insists on using it for harm, at some point she gets her way. Her appetite for crap has been an ongoing problem. Right now, I’m done.

I let her gobble it down. I walk home, angry. I feel far from her and don’t care what happens, but of course that’s why I’m angry, because I do care. But we’ve hit the limit of what I’m willing to do to fix it.

And I wonder if that’s how it could be.

I’m made for a purpose and I have an assignment in this life, and the assigner gives me everything I need to complete it, and clears the way, and rescues and forgives with limitless patience. And I can reject it all and insist on using myself for myself, to my destruction.

I can hear him now, “I’m done here. You won’t listen. If you insist on going this way, I’m letting you. You’re telling me you want this more than anything in the world – you’re telling me by your behavior. I don’t believe what you say. I believe what you do. Go on. Have at it. I’m not leaving, but I’m leaving you alone with what you want. I don’t need you, but I want you. You don’t want me, but you need me. We’re far apart. I’ll never stop wanting what’s best for you and I’ll never leave you, but I will leave you alone with what you insist on. So go on. Have at it.”

When he finally came to his senses…he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son… – Luke 15

Today, trust looks like...

Your assignment.

I visited a gentle, godly man recently. He had been a university President. Then his wife got sick and he quit to take care of her. For thirteen years. He wanted to do it. He kept talking about it being his “assignment.”

What’s yours? How do you know what your assignment is?

It’s the thing you have to do. You don’t have a choice.

In school, you had a homework assignment. You had to do it.

And now, it might be to raise godly kids. It might be to go to work today. It might be a tough conversation you’re not looking forward to. It might be waiting for who knows how long. It might be doing something hard that no one will ever know about.

It might be all those crazy government forms I didn’t want to fill out today—I put off that assignment for months. I had been pretending it was just a chore, not an assignment.  

How do you know that’s your assignment, as if it’s from God? Because you know you have to do it, and because you say you believe God loves you, and that he knows and controls all. Yes, he might change it. But, until he does, this is it.

So trust it’s from him and do it. Knowing it’s from him changes everything.

Today, trust looks like...

He engineers the day without consulting me. When the surprises and interruptions come, he knows. He may plan it, or it may come with his permission, but what’s the difference? It’s all under his watch. Do I know better? Am I going to argue? So far, no argument of mine has changed a single interruption. But I keep trying.

Today, trust looks like...

Everybody gets the same minutes, hours, days, and weeks. (But not the same years.) The same minutes and hours as Bach, Hitler, Steve Jobs, and Beth Moore.

He put 168 hours in a week. Sixty minutes in an hour. If there’s not time to do what I have in mind, maybe I’m wasting the time. Or maybe the thing I don’t have time for is not his idea.

Those frustrating, unchanging limits force trust and dependence on the one who put the limits there. When the time’s up, it’s up. No matter what you think or how you feel, Arise! and move on to the next thing. If you’re procrastinating or dilly-dallying, stop. If not, trust there’s time for what he has in mind, and trust for the guidance and energy to do it. Doing what I’m supposed to, and with a peaceful attitude, is the proof of my trust.

Trust looks like...

God knew what he was doing when he made me.

I have a personality, demeanor, strengths, and weaknesses. Strengths to use, and weaknesses for him to show himself strong thru (usually I forget that last one). Don’t fight it (except the sin). Don’t wish you were different (except the sin). If who you are is random, then yeah, go on a self-improvement program. But, if you think God is in control of the whole thing of you, and he made you on purpose for a reason, and you try to be someone else, who will be you?

I’m slow, not prolific. I have to think and concentrate to get anything done. I’m disorganized and messy. I speak when I should shut up and shut up when I should speak. I talk too loud and too long. And my head’s shaped like a light bulb.

Some parts of you are just the way you are; some parts are that way because you’re not trusting God. Know the difference. Trust him and change the untrusting parts, and embrace the parts he made on purpose. Just because I don’t like something about myself doesn’t mean it’s sin. Sometimes I worry more over those parts than the parts that are sin. Isn’t there enough of the sin to worry about without micro-managing the unique aspects of your personality? Maybe he made you that way on purpose.