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Saltines and Sandies

August 25, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. August 24, 2011

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.” (Psalm 34:8)
“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” (Psalm 119:103)

My favorite cookie has always been the Pecan Sandie. It’s not that I don’t like others; it’s just that I have history with the Sandie. My Aunt Irene used to have a stash at her house in a cookie jar. Aunt Irene had no children, so I could feast on cookies the whole time I was there. A Sandie has good memories for me.
But cookies in our house growing up were up high. It demanded that a little guy, like me, had to do a bit of cabinet scaling to obtain one.
On the other hand, the lower shelf that I could reach with no effort had the Saltine cracker box on it. Saltines were there for the taking.
Perhaps you think differently, but my thinking was “How many Saltines can a kid eat?” I’ve never heard a parent say, “You’ve had enough crackers! Now put them away!”
If you go into a restaurant and request crackers, they will bring you a basketful, but if you ask for a chocolate chip cookie check your bill. Restaurants give crackers; some even give pickles, peanuts, and popcorn…but no one brings a plate of cookies to the table for free.
In terms of the leadings of God in our lives, are we munching on Saltines or reaching for the Sandies? In other words, do we obey the God-leadings that never demand too much, or allow ourselves to stretch to reach what demands all of who we are?
Another way of saying it is, do we “dull-ify” the things of God in order to not risk being disappointed? I can remember reaching for the cookie jar, pushing the “in peril meter”, only to discover that it was empty. It was disappointing!
And there were the Saltines! Multitudes of them, easily within my safe reach!
A follower of Jesus is always settles for the Saltines will never taste the richness of God’s calling.
There are times when a Saltine is what we need. It’s usually when we’re in the midst of some kind of stomach illness. We’ve overextended, and we need to settle for a time. Think of it as a sabbath rest, a centering experience.
Honestly, though, how many of us are reaching for the hand of God so often that we need a “Saltine break?”
Personally, it occurred to me this week that most of what I’m about, and most of what I’m leading my church in, is cracker-based instead of cookie-reaches.
“Lord, I pray for power to reach for the Sandies, the sweetness of Your favor as I pursue the risks of Your calling!”

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Different Languages

August 18, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. August 18, 2011
On a recent flight to Chicago, Carol and I witnessed an interesting language situation. Across the aisle and one row up there was a little girl about 7 years old sitting in the aisle seat with an open seat beside her. We couldn’t quite understand why she was by herself, but, of course, “not understanding”is a key term in this story.
A good-sized man in his late twenties came up the aisle as people were finding there seats, and when he got to the aisle that the young girl was sitting in he looked up at the sign that tells which seat is which, looked down at the young girl, looked back up at the seat, and then asked the young lady “Excuse me! Is this your seat?” She looked up at him with a seven year old’s confused eyes, but didn’t say anything. The young man, who was about 6’2”, 230, was very patient and he sat down in the open seat behind her and waited until a flight attendant might happen to wander by.
About a minute later a young woman came up the aisle and the young man realized that he was in her seat, so he unoccupied it and stood in the aisle…with great patience. (Yes, where are the flight attendants when you really need them?)
Finally one of the attendants happened to come by and the young man asked him about the young girl. With a bit of frazzlement the attendant said to the 7 year old, “Miss, this is his seat.” And then the attendant fled the scene! The young lady didn’t say a word, and continued to sit and play with her teddy bear.
The football player continued to be very patient. He got the attention of another flight attendant who came by, said something similar to the young lady, and then proceeded on.
A minute later as the plane has filled and the man is still standing in the aisle, another attendant came by and talked to the girl. Finally, it dawned on someone that the child didn’t speak English. She only spoke Spanish, and her grandmother was in the row ahead of her, and her mother was four rows in front of her.
Enter a flight attendant who spoke Spanish, and the situation got easily solved. And let me say it again, the “Hulk” was patient the whole time. The young girl was simply one seat away from where she was suppose to be, but the language of the airlines was foreign to her. She simply sat in the first open seat.
I thought of how people who aren’t familiar with church sometimes brave a visit. We need to ask ourselves how much of what we say is like a foreign language to them. It’s not that we should not use terms like “atonement” and “blood sacrifice” and “Pentecost.” But, perhaps, we must be willing to slow down enough to explain them. How comprehensible is the message that we proclaim about the gospel of Jesus Christ? How clear is the pivotal truth of the grace of God in a culture that believes more in earning one’s way?
When I receive a blank stare from someone who happens to navigate what the right entrance is into our building, find the sanctuary, and join our congregation in a gathering of worship, are there other things I should be considering to bridge the “language gap?”
In the confusion of the situation with the seven year old there were statements that dictated, and questions that weren’t understandable. Finally the right question was asked that provided clear direction about what should be done next.
Sometimes the people of God ask the wrong questions. Asking someone is they have been filled with the Holy Spirit makes no sense whatsoever to someone who then is wondering “What is the Holy Spirit?” Jumping over “A” to get to “B” doesn’t work very well.

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Speed Traps and Grace

June 30, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. June 30, 2011
A few blocks from our church building an unmanned police speed van has been parked one or two days each week. It’s driven to the spot around 7:00 in the morning and left there for the rest of the morning and afternoon. This nifty vehicle, that was created in the back of someone’s dark mind, takes a picture of any speeding vehicle that happens to unsuspectingly go zooming by.
If I can use the word “unfair” in this situation it’s in regards to the fact that the van is parked at the bottom of a hill. There is a slight curb as people come down to the hill. After the curb there’s another two hundred yards or so before reaching the bottom of the hill.
According to the law the expensive photo gifts that the drivers receive is legal. The speed limit is 35, and if you’re going 42…downwards!…that’s your problem. Unmanned police speed vans don’t understand grace. It eats into the city revenue.
It should be at about this time that many of you are expressing your sympathies for the speeding ticket I received. Except…I didn’t get one! I did, however, notice a number of other people having flashes go off as they were braking. Pausing at a red light just a block away from the speed trap I saw eight flashes in the span of one red light.
Let’s see….eight times $125 (estimate)…that’s $1,000 in about thirty seconds. Why doesn’t the police department order more of these revenue makers?
As I said, unmanned police speed vans don’t understand grace.
I’ve noticed a lot of people don’t understand it as well.
Some expect it, but don’t offer it.
Others stretch it like a size 44 trying to squeeze into a 34 waist. How far can it be taken without splitting at the seams?
A forty-four never looks good in a thirty-four, but someone will try to make it happen. (Stay at a distance from anyone who is trying to do that!)
A Christian who believes in grace as it pertains to him, but becomes judicial in its application to others is a contradiction in terms, but, unfortunately, also too common.
We have a habit of reading grace into Scripture as it pertains to us, but seeing it as a possibility in others requires a reach that is hard to extend. Grace is for my speeding vehicle, but at other times I’m the police speed van rigid in my situation assessment.
Absolute law!
When will we live in absolute grace?
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors!”

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RUSHING DOWN THE STEEP BANK

June 27, 2011

WORDS FROM W.W. June 26, 2011
One of my favorite Jesus stories is the “swine dive” in Mark 5. In case you don’t have it memorized, it’s the story of Jesus’ encounter with the demon-possessed man. The man is so afflicted that his name is Legion, an implication about how many demons has taken up residence in his life.
Jesus is going to set this poor fellow free and the demons request that he send them into a herd of pigs nearby. When that happened there was a two thousand swine mass stampede to death.
I can only imagine what that must have looked like. I’m seen a bunch of guys rush into a lake to try to get the greased watermelon, or a herd of crazed people rushing through the doors of Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving about 4am…and those were quite the sights, but I’ve never seen a herd of pigs racing to their doom.
I think of that story because of another comment that was made by a man who assigns basketball officials to college games. He said “moving too quickly maximizes risk.” His point was about how someone who referees basketball games usually wants to move up the ladder to high school, then Junior College, College, and then…for a very, very few…professional basketball.
He’s seen many officials advance too quickly, and then come crashing down, because they hadn’t put in the necessary time to season their game.
The same principle applies to the growth of a follower of Jesus. Moving too quickly maximizes risk. How many times has someone experienced new life, had incredible enthusiasm and excitement, and been put into a position, or entrusted with certain responsibilities that they weren’t ready for?
Many times!
We expect instant success and sudden stardom. To have gradual growth as a disciple is looked down on.
The responsibility is on the mentors and the Body of Christ. If we don’t see the value in solid gradual growth then no one else will. We even see it in church growth. If a church grows by 50% in one year it’s applauded. There’s a good chance a traveling workshop will arise out of it within the year after that. It’s common for other people to want to copy the sprint to success.
But a sprint to success is on the same level as the swine dive off the steep bank. People aren’t ready for rapid growth, individually and corporately. The first church grew quickly…I mean, off the charts growth patterns…and then it had to stop and figure out the Hellenistic widows who had fallen between the cracks. In essence, it had to stop and think about where things were.
Moving too quickly maximizes risk.
Perhaps that’s why the description of an overseer, or elder, in 1 Timothy 3:6 includes these words: “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.”
Hmmmm…

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The Pursuit Worth Pursuing

May 15, 2009

Many years ago I knew a lady who was passionate about collecting buttons. Not buttons that you sew on to your coat, but rather buttons that you pin on to your coat.

Political campaign buttons. Buttons with pictures. Buttons with smiley faces. Buttons with slogans. Buttons with American symbols, and buttons with British symbols. Buttons from states, and buttons shaped like different states.

Her home was populated with buttons, thousands and thousands of buttons! But she used buttons to facilitate “that one thing” in her life that she pursued with passion and purpose. Her buttons were used to initiate conversations, but “that one thing” in her life was Jesus. Buttons opened the door to conversations about Christ.

I would say that a vast majority of people can’t point to “that one thing” they desire to pursue. It’s that one thing that is like an emerging flame within their spirit. That one thing is not a hobby, or even an activity. It’s “the pursuit worth pursuing.”

It’s Adoniram and Ann Judson pursuing a new calling to be missionaries to Burma as a result of being convicted that baptism by immersion was what the Bible talked about. The conviction they felt, listen to this, was during the voyage they were on to India, where they were to being sent by the Congregational Church to be missionaries. All of a sudden the pursuit worth pursuing…that one thing…changed their plans. They went from being commissioned, financially-supported missionaries to un-commissioned, non-supported, un-employed missionaries. Luther Rice, who was another commissioned missionary, whose views on baptism had also been changed, sailed back to America and went from Baptist church to Baptist church raising support for the first American Baptist missionaries overseas. If Luther hadn’t come to understand that this was the pursuit worth pursuing the Judson’s wouldn’t have been able to spend the rest of their lives sowing the seeds of the gospel in Burma.

This was not meant to be an article about American Baptist missionaries. It’s just to illustrate the point that I’m not sure how many of us come to that point of knowing what in our life is “the pursuit worth pursuing.” We might re-word it for our situation, but its realizing the “heart” of Paul’s passion. He wrote “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12, 13b-14)

We focus on trivial pursuits that “flame out.” “Temporary flings” is the phrase that best sums up what consumes the bulk of our energy.

Why is it that our attention is so easily diverted? It could be because the pursuit worth pursuing is also a little intimidating. Like the dust clouds rising behind a speeding car on a dirt road, there are accompanying doubts that trail closely behind the pursuit worth pursuing. When the drive forward is halted the dust settles in around us making the way unclear. The “what if’s” surround us.

What if I go full speed forward and I fail?

What if I pursue and I fall flat on my face?

What if the flame flickers out while I’m pursuing?

What if I’m just meant to be mediocre?

The pursuit worth pursuing is not a problem for most people, because they never get started.

I’m more afraid of another “what if.” What if “that one thing” that God has planted in my heart…that pursuit worth pursuing that He is entrusting me to be about…what if that one thing is the pursuit I never pursue?

That would be a tragedy!

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