Month: October 2022

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For the Record, Don’t Bring a Knife to School

Halloween is coming up, and it takes me back to some old memories.

When I was in…probably 3rd or 4th grade, our whole class was encouraged to dress up for Halloween. I think all the classes were going to be part of a costume parade or something. This particular year I was going to dress up as a pirate. It was cool, I think I had an eye patch, a fake scar or something, and even a clip-on earring that would help complete the look.

I also had an idea for a more controversial item to complement the costume. My aunt knew of my love of the outdoors, and in her travels she found something she thought I’d like. She gave me a novelty knife. The handle was actually made out of a deer hoof, so it was pretty unique. The blade itself was very dull, but the point was very sharp. Maybe it was something a pirate would carry, I dunno, but it looked kinda cool, and I figured I’d bring it to school. (I very conveniently left Mom or Dad out of the decision. I was pretty sure they’d say no, but I think I convinced myself that the reason they’d tell me no was because they didn’t want me to lose the knife.)

On the bus ride to school, everybody was excitedly talking about their costumes or the parties their class would be having. We were all going around, talking about what we’d dress up as, and I started talking about my costume. When I talked about the knife I’d brought with me, a kid that was a year older than me had his eyes go wide. “Hey, you could get in big trouble for that!”

I was a little taken aback. I wouldn’t say I was an angel in elementary school, but I was a pretty good kid. It struck me as ridiculous that I could get in big trouble for carrying a dull novelty knife. My thought was “c’mon…it’s me! I’m not gonna do anything bad with it, it’s just to make the costume look cooler.” At the time I had no concept of zero-tolerance policies or making an example out of somebody. I tried dismissing his input as just plain dumb, but his words stuck with me.

The parade and party were in the afternoon. The whole morning I sat at my desk, wrestling with my own thoughts about whether or not I should include the knife as part of the costume. The entire time, in a class of probably 20+ kids, the knife was sitting in my desk hidden behind some books. I started to worry about what would happen if the teacher found out about it. Was the kid on the bus right? Was it something I could get in trouble for? I ended up getting pretty uncomfortable with the whole situation.

I ended up skipping the knife as part of the pirate look that day. We did our little elementary parade, and the whole time I felt like my costume was incomplete. As far as I knew, nobody else had a clue that anything was missing from my ensemble. At the end of the school day, I brought the knife home with me and never brought it back to school. Mom and Dad are only finding out about it now, the same way you are. J

Just so we’re clear, bringing a knife to school was a bonehead thing to do. I knew better than to consult my parents, but it never entered my mind that they’d have legitimate reasons why they’d say no. For some reason I figured everybody at school, including any teachers that saw it, would say “hey, that’s cool!”

Sometimes all you need is to bounce an idea off someone else. I wasn’t too proud or arrogant to ask…it simply didn’t occur to me that there were other perspectives. I figured my view was sufficient. If you’re facing a decision where you’re a little out of your depth, consider bouncing it off someone else, even if you think you’ve got a pretty good lock on things. I didn’t ever hang out with that kid on the bus, we just happened to live on the same route. Even so, he gave me enough solid advice that he helped change my mind. Maybe someone else can do the same for you.

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You Sure That Thing is Street Legal?

I’m not super handy when it comes to working on cars, but there’s an engine concept I think is very interesting. These days we tend to be more concerned with miles per gallon or some other measure of fuel efficiency, but it seems like not that long ago gas was cheap and horsepower reigned supreme. We might someday have car racing with electric vehicles, but there’s something special about the roar of a gas-powered engine.

In high-performance combustion engines, it may not seem believable, but it’s possible for them to be a little too powerful. Ultra-powerful engines either make the insurance companies too nervous or they make professional races unfair. To make very powerful vehicles street legal, or to level the playing field on a race track, somebody came up with the idea of a restrictor plate.

Some quick background: for an internal combustion engine, one of the things that gives it power is a design that allows a sufficient amount of air into the combustion chamber to enable the optimal explosion of the fuel, which in turn generates power. Generally (at least up to a point), more air equals more power. That’s why you’ll sometimes see muscle cars with crazy contraptions on the hood or weird air intakes built into high-performance cars that have their engines in the back.

A restrictor plate is something that intentionally limits the amount of air that can flow into the combustion chamber. Using less air, the engine can’t produce the same amount of horsepower. A restrictor plate ultimately reduces the amount of power the engine can generate.

Sounds a little ridiculous, doesn’t it? If you’re going to go through all the trouble of designing and building something that powerful, why would you intentionally reduce its potential? Wouldn’t it be better to just design and build something a little less potent in the first place?

Let’s make the connection now. To all the Christ-followers out there, you gained the Holy Spirit at the moment of your conversion. The Holy Spirit is the member of the Godhead that empowers you with the things you need to perform the tasks God assigns to you. God won’t ask you to do things without also equipping you to do them, yet too often Christians install their own versions of “Holy Spirit restrictor plates.” They hold God at arm’s length in some way, or perhaps see where God is leading and intentionally avoid pursuing that goal. God will implement His plan for you whether or not you’re on board with it, but there’s more that can come from a fully devoted heart than can come from a heart that’s only going through the motions.

So I’d ask you…why not take off that Holy Spirit restrictor plate? If God’s determined to use you, He’s going to use you whether you object or not. Trying to interfere with it is just going to make things hurt more. Why not save some pain, unleash all that horsepower, and see something that’s really high-performance?

“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” – 1 Peter 4:10 NKJV.

(I didn’t originally mean to have the “manifold” pun in a post about muscle cars, but now that it’s there, I’m having a hard time taking it out.)

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This is Going To Be a Little Too Close!

Lookout! Take Evasive Action!

This past weekend was a 3-day weekend for us. The federal holiday meant our whole family had the day off, and we decided to go on a hike.

In the northern Virginia area, sometimes it seems like there are a million different ways to get somewhere. My family had been to this particular hiking area before, but I hadn’t. Between looking at the route ahead of time, then following two different sets of GPS directions and my wife’s memory of the last time she’d been there, we ended up going a route none of us had ever taken. It wasn’t bad, we enjoy taking the back roads when we’re not in a hurry, especially if it involves some country scenery…a nice change of pace from where we spend most of our time.

Well, this particular route took us on some small roads. They were all paved, thankfully, but some of them didn’t have any lines painted on them and were narrower than what we’re used to here in the suburbs. It was also the kind where you often couldn’t see too far ahead due to all the turns and/or hills. No problem. I grew up and learned to drive in an area like that.

As we were driving, we were going uphill in a curve. From out of nowhere, a bright yellow 18-wheeler that seemed even larger than normal came flying downhill from the opposite direction, and was very much in my lane. I swerved until I was practically scraping the hill on the passenger’s side, and by the grace of God, we dodged that bullet and lived to see another day. Just when the excitement from that experience died down, a deer decided to try to beat us across the road, and since it, too, came out of nowhere, our vehicle underwent more evasive maneuvers.

Now really, how relaxed do you think I was for the rest of that drive? It would have been nice to go for a laid back, enjoyable ride in the country, but there is a different set of hazards that come along with that activity. As the rest of the family was pointing out fun things along the drive that we don’t often get to see, it fell to me to ignore those things and focus on the responsibility that was more important at the time. I had to keep everyone in the vehicle safe by constantly scanning the road and the surrounding area as we drove along. Thankfully, we finally made it to where we were trying to go.

This life is full of distractions and other things that seem like they’re trying to get in the way of where you’re trying to go, especially if that destination involves pursuing the activities God’s called you to pursue. In that case you have responsibilities that are more important than the distractions you’ll pass along the way. Yes, it means there are things you’ll have to forego. It will cost you personally, and it will sap you of some of your time and energy.

That’s okay, even if it’s hard, because it will one day be worth it. It doesn’t mean God requires that you live a life of misery. (On the contrary, Christians are to live lives of joy.) It simply means that your calling is too important not to do, and if you’re going to succeed in accomplishing it, it means there are other things in your life that are not going to get done. Do your best to ensure the things that don’t get done are things that have no eternal value.

By way of example, I like watching a TV show to veg out as much as the next person, but there’s a difference between decompressing and binge-watching. If doing God’s work means you haven’t caught up on the latest season of whatever the latest hit show is, that’s gonna have to be okay. It doesn’t need to be TV, it’s anything that takes up more of your time than it ought to, or anything that you wouldn’t be devoting time to if you were fully engaged in the thing God’s assigned you to do.

You do that, and when you make it to the end, your prioritization will pay off…

…we made it where we were trying to go!

(As an aside, I was going to write on a different topic before these events happened. When God put two near-misses in our path, I started wondering why. Near as I can figure, it’s because someone reading this needs to hear about it. If so, God orchestrated events just right so we had some uncomfortable moments and sovereign protection so they could be shared. This post’s for you!)

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How’d They Come up With “Yabba Dabba Doo?”

I’ve always been interested in the idea that a multitude of individuals can perform their own distinct (and widely varying) jobs to the best of their ability, but someone over them (a manager, a coach, a superior officer, etc.) oversees and puts together those collective efforts to make something really big happen.

Some people take a different view. They think of themselves as running in the rat race. They don’t want to feel like they’re a cog in the wheel. If you derive your life’s purpose from an unfulfilling job, yeah, you’re going to feel like “just another brick in the wall,” as the old song goes.

But what if you derive meaning from God’s purpose for your life? If you do that, it’s a whole new ballgame. It’s often difficult to see in the moment, but as you look backward, you can see that things fell into place and coalesced in a way that helped you get to where God wanted you to be. Sometimes those things are the actions that other people are taking and other times it’s the way events seem to unfold. When it’s all said and done, a lot of things came together in a way that enabled your goal, your purpose, to go farther than it otherwise would have. It’s like you were part of a puzzle, and your piece and all the other pieces had to fall into place for the picture to be completed.

I’m going to shift gears on you a little bit here. When I was a kid I had lots of different books that I got from yard sales, thrift stores, hand-me-downs, etc. One of the books I had was a Flintstones book. I dug around online a little just now, and it was called “The Great Balloon Race.” I don’t remember much of the story, but as you turned the pages, in one of the upper corners of the page there was a picture of Fred juggling three balls. Each time you turned the page, something about that picture was slightly different, but it didn’t really become evident what was going on until you treated the whole thing like a flipbook. Starting at the beginning of the book, Fred walked onto the page and faced the reader. He tossed a ball into the air, then another, and then another. If I remember correctly, each of the balls made a few uneventful loops as Fred started to put on a show, but then he fumbled one of them. You could see his facial expression change as he realized his mistake. When he focused his attention on that particular ball, it made it difficult to keep track of those still remaining in the air. A second ball danced past his fingertips and fell toward the floor. You saw his eyes start to shift toward the last remaining ball in the air, but by now his rhythm was thrown way off, and he had to swipe at it to even get close. That action just ended up batting it off into the distance and out of reach. Left with nothing, he then looked at the reader, shrugged, and walked back off the page by the end of the book.

Our Christian lives are like flipbooks, but the metaphor goes a layer deeper. Just like before, each individual page of the flipbook is a puzzle, and you’re one piece among many. When you’re doing the will of God, your actions are fitting together with the actions of other believers. This flipbook was already in progress before you were born; one day you walked onto the scene, and there were other pieces that connected with you to form a single, larger picture. The pieces connecting with you may have been Sunday School teachers, a grandparent or parent, a friend, a pastor, or maybe someone you heard on the radio or TV. That particular picture may have also included a family or job situation, a specific time or place, or a set of circumstances that led to your acceptance of Christ. Those other pieces, who were themselves affected by other Christians earlier in the book, had an effect on you that grew you in your Christian walk.

Whether your Christian walk lasts for decades or for only a few minutes at the end of your life, you at one point walk onto the scene, and you’ll someday exit the scene. Each page that happens in between is its own puzzle that consists of numerous other “cogs in the wheel” that are doing what God has charged them to do. None of the individual cogs has insight into what the whole picture is shaping up to be or what kind of story the flipbook will tell, but they know that there’s a grand artist that’s in charge and is steering the path of where the story’s going. After all, when God called individual followers into their individual callings, He had their subsequent interactions already arranged in His mind. You do your part, other people do their parts, and God brings it all together.

Someday you’ll exit the flipbook altogether and it will continue without you. Your calling is meant to bring glory to the Lord, and many times that involves inspiring or somehow helping another “puzzle piece” to live out their Christian walk. Be watchful for opportunities to be a piece of another puzzle that’s a page in one of Christ’s flipbooks. One day you’ll be able to reconnect with all the other people that were involved in the same pictures you were, and you’ll be able to watch how the flipbook turned out.

Lord God, You are intimately involved not only with my life, but with the lives of everyone else on this planet. You’re in the process of telling a grand story, and right now, in this moment, we’re a part of the story for a limited time. Thank you for giving us opportunities to be part of the story; please help us to have the boldness and strength to accept Your invitations when they come. I ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.