Tomorrow is Valentine’s
Day. It’s often viewed as a time to pause and reflect on the “special-ness” of
the important people in your life.
While the celebration
of love is nice, our culture seems to have adopted the idea that “anything
goes” in the name of love, and that finding true love means everything after
that point will be perfect. Love stories end with the main characters living
“happily ever after.” The unfortunate fact is that taking two imperfect people
and placing them in a relationship will always yield less-than-perfect results.
Sadly, many committed relationships crumble despite the noble intentions of
those involved.
People who have known
great heartache can therefore best appreciate the idea of a love that will not
fail.
In Bible times,
weddings worked a little differently from the way they do today. Back then when
a couple became engaged, the groom-to-be departed to make preparations for the
wedding, their living arrangements, and their future together. The bride-to-be remained
with her family while this took place, and she waited for the groom while he made
preparations. Without texts, emails, or any other expedient form of
communication, she would have to wait and be perpetually ready for her groom to
show up and whisk her away to their wedding and new life together. Imagine not
only having no input on the details of your own wedding, but also being left completely
in the dark about when it would even take place!
This is the situation where
we currently find ourselves. We’re waiting, and we don’t know for how long. In
my last post I wrote a bit about the importance of the Church. The Church is
sometimes referred to as the “Bride of Christ.” Jesus has gone on ahead to make
preparations, but He fully intends to return for us, the Church:
…I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that
where I am, there you may be also.
John 14:2c-3.
Now that’s a kind of
love we can celebrate.
Like in Bible times, we
receive very little information about the details of when the Bridegroom is
planning to come back. Even though we live in an era of instant gratification, lack
of a specific date on the calendar actually changes very little about what’s
important in this case. It’s important to remember that while waiting, we are
to remain faithful and we are to remain ready, no matter how long it takes. It
is imperative that we watch with expectation and with anticipation, ever on the
lookout for when our Lord will make His return and escort us to a deeper phase of
our relationship with Him.
The question is…have
you stopped making yourself ready? You know in your mind that He’ll come
someday, but it probably won’t be anytime soon, right? I mean, it’s been about
2,000 years since Christ walked the earth; what are the odds that He’ll come
during this lifetime?
What you decide to do
is up to you, but I’ll pose one last question to you today. Are you living
faithfully for the one to whom you are betrothed?
We live near
Washington, DC, where traffic is a part of life. When we want to go visit
family that lives far away, sometimes we get up very early and hit the road in
the wee hours of the morning. After the initial excitement of stealing away
during the night, the kids usually settle down, lulled to sleep by road noise.
The last time we took a
trip like this in our minivan, everyone settled in soon after we got on the
highway and the inside of the vehicle was quiet. That’s when we noticed an
annoying squeak that happened each time we hit a bump in the road or the
vehicle’s chassis twisted slightly. It came from somewhere near the second row
of seats, a squeak that was quiet, but loud enough to be annoying if you’re
trying to fall asleep. We tried to track it down and stop it, with no success. After
awhile the kids were able to tune it out and fall asleep.
We eventually arrived
at our destination and had fun with family over Christmas. On several occasions
while we were there, I drove the van around town, just doing errands or driving
us to friends/family’s houses. I’d actively listen for the squeak, and it was
often audible, but it was hidden in the sound of the kids laughing, the current
conversation, or whatever was playing on the radio.
Just like the still
small voice of the Holy Spirit, the squeak is always there, but you have to actively
listen for it if there’s a lot of other noise going on. It doesn’t stop
squeaking, but it’s a lot easier to hear when there are no distractions. If
there’s a lot of other noise in the mix you have to deliberately focus in on it
to notice it. It’s much harder to get a fix on it if you have to pluck it out
of the background.
Are you having a
regular quiet time where you get alone with your prayer and devotions, away
from all the noise and distractions? If not, don’t be surprised that you don’t hear
from the Holy Spirit.
You’re an expert on
you; you know you better than anyone else. Take the steps you need to create
the right environment. If your phone is a distraction, shut it off during this
time. If you need to wake up earlier, before others are up and moving around,
maybe that’s the way to go. If you’re a night owl, finding the right time
before bed might be your sweet spot.
I’d urge you to do what
it takes to make your quiet time work. How agonizing would it be to one day
find out that God was whispering to you all along but you couldn’t hear Him
because of all the noise going on around you?
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalm 46:10
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When I was a kid I used
to love watching cartoons. I don’t know what happened since then, but I guess
somewhere along the line they decided they were going to stop making good
cartoons.
One of my favorite
cartoons to watch was “Duck Tales.” It featured Scrooge McDuck (of “Christmas
Carol” fame), the three young duckling triplets Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and the
lovable (but terrible) pilot, Launchpad McQuack.
Scrooge McDuck was a
greedy guy, there’s no doubt about it. Part of the draw for a younger me was
that he was always mounting expeditions to go in search of lost treasures. Off
to faraway jungles, canyons, deserts, mountains, the ocean floor…no matter the
danger, Scrooge McDuck’s greed drove him to adventure.
One such adventure
involved catching a leprechaun. The main characters caught a leprechaun and
demanded that he show them to the massive underground treasure caverns (because
a pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow just ain’t enough sometimes). The
leprechaun showed them to the hidden entrance, which was under a young tree. I
don’t remember why they couldn’t go exploring down the tunnel right then and
there, but for some reason they had to temporarily abandon their quest. Knowing
that it would be extremely difficult to identify this one tree in the middle of
the forest, McDuck took out a handkerchief and tied it to one of the branches
of the tree. After binding the leprechaun by making him promise not to mess
with the hanky or the tree, the adventurers departed.
I think it was the next day when the treasure hunters returned. The hanky and the tree were indeed untouched, but now the forest was littered with hundreds of white hankies. The leprechaun had kept his promise, but still managed to obscure the value of the makeshift marker.
Let’s switch gears for
a minute. Take the perspective of Satan and the other fallen angels. You’ve had
definite limits imposed on you, but you’re free to meddle with humanity in
other ways. How can you divert people from the true way to God and eternal
life, which is a relationship with Jesus Christ? You can’t touch that one true
hanky, but you can sure hang up a lot of other ones that look enough like the
original to make the real one hard to spot.
Aside from
Christianity, there are a handful of major world religions on the scene, but
there are an untold number of minor ones, splinter groups, minor sects, and
other less popular religions. All of them are fake hankies.
In addition to using other
religions, the adversary attempts to muddy the waters for actual Bible-based
events. The focus of Christmas and Easter used to be Jesus’ birth and Jesus’
triumph over sin, respectively. Now it’s Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Being
a Santa fan doesn’t make you a bad person, but consider this: this Christmas,
are you and yours giving at least as much emphasis on the story of Jesus’ birth
as you are to Santa?
There’s a lot of
distraction out there, but remember the true reason for the season and the fact
that the adversary has to ask permission to launch certain attacks on
Christ-followers.
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission
to sift you like wheat…” Luke 22:31
8Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you
considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is
blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil.”
9Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God
for nothing? 10Have You not
placed a hedge on every side around him and his household and all that he owns?
You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in
the land. 11But stretch out
Your hand and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your
face.”
12“Very well,” said the LORD to Satan.
“Everything he has is in your hands, but you must not lay a hand on the man
himself.”
Then Satan went out from the
presence of the LORD. Job 1:8-12
When Americans think of
Australia, one of the things they think about is the wildlife. Some of the
things that might come to mind are kangaroos, crocodiles, koala bears, etc. The
tour company I traveled with recognized that, so one of the things they built
into the itinerary of our Australian trip was a stop at a zoo that had a lot of
these animals.
I’ve been to some zoos here in the states. Things are usually set up so that you can’t get too close, but you usually have an unobstructed view of whatever animal is present. Not this place. It was kind of a cross between a petting zoo and a crocodile kennel. You could hand-feed the kangaroos (maybe they were wallabies), handle snakes, and get close to the emu.
I think the main
attraction was probably the crocodiles. The owner was a colorful character.
Think of him as an older version of Crocodile Dundee that put on a bit of
weight and wasn’t quite so light on his feet anymore. He was fun to be around
and took us on a tour of the sights.
I’d guess that this guy
had anywhere from six to 12 crocodiles in various chain-link pens throughout
the zoo. He brought us around to the various pens, sometimes teaching us about
crocs from outside the pen, other times going inside and feeding the crocs a
chicken or two.
I was a little
surprised by this guy’s willingness to go right into the various pens, and even
more surprised at how close he was willing to get to the various animals. He
would be within a few feet of the gaping jaws of these enormous monsters, and
he’d toss meat into their mouths. He was actually missing a few fingers because
he had gotten too close in the past and eager crocs had snapped down quicker
than expected.
He seemed so laid back
about being in such close proximity to reptiles that could kill him. The only
thing he kept nearby was a rake. He used it to scratch the back of some of the
crocs to help them relax, but he kept it with him for another purpose. When a
croc is getting a little too aggressive and you need to move him back, you can
flip the rake around and push on a sensitive spot on their head, and it will
back up. We got to see this first-hand when one of the crocs started coming out
of its pen. Farmer Dundee here flipped the rake around and pushed the croc back
far enough to close the door.
One of the things that
struck me the most about this guy was how confident he was in knowing when it
was safe and when it was not safe to approach one of the beasts. Again, he was
so casual about being in extreme close proximity to crocs that I didn’t know
what to think. He actually sat on one of them when he was tired and wanted to
take a break.
This guy’s behavior is
an example of how we can become so comfortable around danger that we let our
guard down and get careless. By the time I met him, this guy had been around
crocs for years, but for all I know, he could have been attacked and killed by
one of them the next week. You can go for years flirting with danger or
something you shouldn’t be around and everything turns out fine; until it doesn’t.
You won’t always see it coming, either. That’s why it’s best to simply avoid
such situations if at all possible. A few examples might help. If you’re a
recovering alcoholic, don’t go meet friends at a bar. Avoid situations where
you’re alone with that attractive co-worker. Each of us is more susceptible to
certain mistakes than others, but we’re better than we might think when it
comes to predicting where things can go south. Let’s assume you’ve got a good
head on your shoulders; just because you’re not looking at a guy sitting on a
crocodile doesn’t mean you can’t recognize a situation that’s a bad idea.
I don’t blame my
crocodile farmer friend for doing what he does, but he has to constantly be on high
alert for trouble. Even though he’s had a lot of successful crocodile feedings,
he’s still missing some fingers. The lesson here: if you’re perfectly aware of the danger but you
intentionally stay near it anyway, don’t expect to come out of it unscathed.
Are there any
unnecessary risks in your life you need to stop accepting?
In the military, especially in units that operate fighter aircraft, there’s something called a “show of force.” This is a tactic that was used a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan early in our military’s operations in those countries. A show of force is when a very maneuverable plane gets low to the ground, goes full throttle, and flies as close as possible past the enemy on the ground.
If you’re on the
receiving end, this tactic is not something that will physically affect you;
there are no shots fired and there’s typically no ordnance dropped. If you’re
unaccustomed to sudden loud noises, though, it’s something that will make you
wet your pants. The idea behind a show of forces is simply to make you cower in
fear and, at least for a little while, make you stop doing what you were doing
while you question your life decisions.
A few years back I
experienced a spiritual show of force. I had been working for a few weeks to
prepare a talk for a group at church. To use another military analogy, to “red-team”
something means to examine your own capabilities/facilities from the
perspective of the enemy, taking the opportunity to uncover weaknesses and
vulnerabilities. For the talk I had been preparing, I focused on “red-teaming
humanity” from the perspective of Satan and his fallen angels. If you’re
familiar with C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape
Letters, it was kind of like that, but delivered in the form of a
brief/presentation.
At first I thought it
was a cool idea. It was neat to gauge Humanity’s collective spiritual weaknesses.
The problem was that to do it effectively, you have to think like you’re a
member of the bad guys’ team, and that becomes uncomfortable and even troubling
to do for an extended period of time when you have Christ living in you. As the
time drew near for me to present the project, I was excited to share what I had
prepared, but I was very eager to be done with it.
I know I’m jumping all
over the place and mixing metaphors, but I need to throw another one at you.
Imagine you’re on a professional football team, and somehow your team gets hold
of your opponent’s playbook. You’d be ecstatic, but if the other team found
out, they’d do just about anything to keep you from exploiting it. I had put
together a brief that was going to show some of the basic strategies from the
Devil’s playbook. I even thought “you know, leading up to this brief, it wouldn’t
be surprising if I had some sort of experience that was a little outside the
norm.”
I had no idea at the
time, but I was spot on. Less than a week before I was to give the talk, I
experienced the show of force.
I was at a gas station,
getting my car inspected. There was a spot inside the gas station where people
could hang out while their cars were in the garage. I was sitting there, doing
stuff on my phone, when the door opened and someone walked in. I didn’t look
up, but I heard a woman start speaking strangely. I assumed two people had
walked in, or that she was speaking to someone nearby. There are a lot of
weirdos around, so I didn’t look up; I assumed she was speaking to someone she
knew. Still looking at my phone, I was surprised when she reached down and
touched my arm. I was startled to look up and see her staring down at me with a
pretty intense look.
She seemed a little bit
like she wasn’t playing with a full deck, if you know what I mean. I don’t even
remember what she said next, but I totally blew her off. She walked past me and
sat down on a chair behind me.
I wasn’t sure what to
make of the whole situation, but as I refocused on whatever I was doing on my
phone, I started thinking about some of our pastor’s main themes of his
then-current series: don’t stay silent; engage.
I kind of worked my way up to it, then turned to face this woman. I was caught off guard to see that she wasn’t sitting like a normal person. She was sort of sliding off the chair, rigid, with both arms stretched behind her unnaturally and her head tilted far back.
I plowed ahead anyway.
I asked her about one of the strange words I remembered her saying. Thus began
a bizarre encounter that I don’t even remember very much of. I do remember that
without me giving any indication of my spiritual beliefs, she started ripping
on Jesus Christ pretty hard. She behaved very unnaturally and aggressively
tried to persuade me that Christianity was false and misleading.
This went on for a few
minutes, and I can’t even tell you how glad I was when the guy told me that my
car was ready. I didn’t even care whether it passed or failed; I popped up out
of my seat and started walking his way. The woman suddenly became very adamant
about touching my hand. “Let me shake your hand.” I declined, and she extended
her hand quite urgently, saying “I need to touch you.” I later recounted these
events to my pastor, and when I asked him what that part was all about, he
explained that some people believe they can transfer spirits from one person to
another by touching. Now, because God only allows demonic forces to go so far,
I don’t think that would have been a concern, but let me tell you…I had
absolutely no problem skipping out of there without saying a cordial goodbye.
Friends, I don’t know
if this has occurred to you, but we’re in a war. There’s a whole lot out there
that our senses cannot perceive. Looking at the last 10, 20, or 30 years, it
seems like the dark forces are the ones making all the moves and all the noise
(has our country moved toward or away from Christianity during that time?). To
use another metaphor, imagine there’s a fire that needs to be put out, and that
God’s Holy Spirit takes the form of a nearby lake. The water to extinguish that
fire is present, but without something the Holy Spirit can fill, a vessel of
some sort (Christians), the water does nothing to fight the fire. Please don’t
misunderstand me; I’m not
saying that God is powerless without us, but I am saying that He chooses to
work through us. When we allow
God to work through us, we become that cup, that jug, that bucket, or that fire
hose that gets filled with the Holy Spirit and gets to have a front-row seat
when God fights the fire. Are you going to be a part of something big when God
invites you along to strike at the powers of darkness, or are you going to put
your feet up and watch TV?
Here’s part of one of
my favorite Bible stories from the Old Testament. When an enemy king and his
army tried to attack Israel, God spoke through the prophet Elisha to warn the
Israelite king, who was then able to effectively counter the enemy’s moves multiple
times. Naturally, this frustrated the enemy king, and he wanted to capture
Elisha to increase his chances of success. The most exciting part of the story is
the perspective of Elisha’s servant:
One
of his servants said, “No, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in
Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.” So
he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and take him.” And it was
told him, saying, “Behold, he is in Dothan.” He sent horses and chariots and a
great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city.
Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and
gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And
his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered,
“Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the LORD opened
the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and
chariots of fire all around Elisha.
-2 Kings 6:12-17
There’s more going on
than what you can see. You’re smack dab in the middle of a war. While it’s very
important to have a sober respect for the enemy’s power, don’t be put off by a
show of force. Ask that God “fill this vessel,” and that you have the boldness
to live out your faith and your calling. When you do, there’s no telling how
God will use you to fight the enemy’s fire.
You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. -1 John 4:4
We’ve got a fireplace
at home, and we like having fires once it gets cold. Buying or collecting wood
for the fireplace can be a hassle though, and this year we happened upon a
different solution. Earlier this summer a nearby neighborhood cut down a lot of
trees and sliced the trunks into slabs, leaving them to rot throughout the
neighborhood. I actually enjoy splitting wood by hand (especially after
aggravating days at work), so I went and picked up a bunch of them and brought
them home for splitting and burning.
The problem is that I
don’t have an efficient method of splitting the wood. Most people know what an
ax is, but not everyone knows what a maul is. A maul is kind of like a
sledgehammer with a wedge on one side. When I first started splitting wood
earlier this summer though, I didn’t have a full-sized maul. The one I have is
meant for splitting pieces of wood that have already been split, but are still
a bit too big for the fireplace. It’s kind of a hand-held “mini-maul.”
This tool is great for
splitting branches or small trunks that are, say, the diameter of a coffee-can.
Once you get into dealing with slabs of trunk though, it becomes much more
difficult.
I had a slab I was
determined to split up, but it was so big I couldn’t even put my arms around
it. Nonetheless, I put it on top of another piece and started looking at the
natural grain of the wood, then started taking shots at it. At first the
mini-maul just bounced off the wood. A few more shots, and each time the mini
maul bounced. Each time the tool struck the wood, though, it left a pock mark.
I started striking the slab in a way that the pock marks lined up to create a
fault line across it. I didn’t really feel like I was making much progress, so
I turned the slab and started doing the same thing in a different direction.
Then I did it in yet another direction.
I struck the wood over
and over and over again. Sometimes the tool bounced and other times it started
penetrating into the wood. I was out there for a long time. My hands got sore
and hot, like blisters were starting to form. I was tired, and eventually my
shirt was so soaked with sweat that it had almost no dry spots, and I thought
about packing it in. I must’ve left nearly a hundred pock marks before anything
began happening.
Finally, the sound of
the impact changed, and a crack emerged. When it did, it breathed new life into
my effort.
Once the crack was
established, it was easy to exploit into a split, and things moved quickly from
there. After splitting it in two, it only took a few shots to make additional
splits in one of the two sides. Those smaller chunks became infinitely easier
to break into the size I wanted, often in a single blow.
In the end, this little
tool was able to deliver enough targeted force to smash a strong, sturdy slab
of oak into about 35 splinters that were shadows of what they once were. All of them were done in by the
persistent strikes of a tool that was “too small” to do the job.
It’s an alarming spiritual
analogy for those things we do that we know we shouldn’t be doing. It might not
be anything major, but it happens again and again. Call it the straw that broke
the camel’s back, or call it death by a thousand paper cuts. It’s something
that doesn’t seem too bad, in and of
itself. It’s not a crushing blow, but it’s something that delivers targeted
strike after targeted strike against your Christian walk and, if it’s not
stopped, has the ability to cause major damage to your spiritual health and
relationships.
Maybe it’s gossip. It
could be reading a certain kind of novel. Maybe it’s a glance that lingers
longer than it should. Perhaps it’s tension in your marriage that goes
unresolved and festers. Doing these things a single time is not something
that’s devastating to your spiritual walk, but each of them is something that
leaves a pock mark. You may have even told yourself “it’s not a big deal, it
doesn’t hurt anybody.” Well, maybe doing it once isn’t a big deal, but have you
only done it once? Consider whether your pock marks are aligning in a way that
will lead to cracks and problems in the future, maybe soon.
Is there something
you’re doing that you know you shouldn’t be doing? If you’re wrapped up in
something that hinders your ministry or God-given purpose, even just a little
bit, it can affect your ability to make your maximum impact for Christ’s
kingdom. Like athletes that train hard to compete at a high level, cut yourself
off from things you know aren’t helping you. Don’t run for third place, or for second place; run to
win.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. –Hebrews 12:1-2
I demolished each of these pieces of wood using that mini maul. If you feel you’ve stripped the unneeded junk out of your life, how can you help the “other pieces of wood” around you to do the same, so that they can better resist the onslaught of strikes that hit them every day?
When I was in college I took classes in Outdoor Leadership, which included developing skills in both technical areas and in leading individuals and teams toward outcomes. One day our class was learning about how to properly set rope anchors for rock climbing. Obviously, it’s very important that your equipment catches you if you fall off a rock face, so our instructor was teaching us how to secure the safety rope to a number of anchors we had established at the top of the cliff.
The instructor, Kevin,
demonstrated a variety of ways to attach safety equipment to boulders and trees
at the top. He made a point to emphasize that we’d need to establish three
solid anchors before being able to proceed. “That way, if one of them
fails, you’ve still got two. Even if two of them fail, you’ll still have one
more.”
Of course, someone
asked the question. “What if this one goes, that one fails, and the other
one goes, too?”
Kevin looked at him, confused.
“You mean if all three of them
fail?”
“Yeah.”
“Then God wants
you dead.”
When you have a God-given
task laid out in front of you, it’s certainly a good thing to spend time planning
and preparing, but there comes a point where you’re prepared enough and it’s
time to get moving. Kevin didn’t want us to establish four anchors, or five.
Three was enough. The chances of all three anchors failing was so low that
setting more of them would have been a waste of time. If we spent time focusing
on more than three, that time took away from our actual reason for showing up
at the cliff that day.
It’s possible to take
so many safety precautions that it becomes too cumbersome to do anything. There
comes a point at which you are suitably prepared, reasonable precautions have
been taken, and you’re ready to leave the comfortable behind. The only thing
that remains is for you to take action.
By all means plan
effectively. Expect problems and make backup plans if necessary, but don’t let
perpetual planning stop you from getting started. If all the necessary pieces
are in place, it might be that you
are the only thing holding you back. What are you waiting for?
There was a lake not
too far away from the college I attended. Some of the college’s classes either
took place on the lake or took field trips here. I did some canoeing on the
lake for one of the Outdoor Leadership Training courses. The college offered waterskiing
during the first half of the fall semester, too.
I don’t remember what
course it was; it must have been some kind of Biology or Ecology class that
brought us to the Lake one September day. Our class was going to use the same
speedboat that the college used for waterskiing to go out into the lake and take
water samples at various depths.
There were too many
students in the class to bring out in the boat all at once, so we split into
two or three groups that took turns heading out to the middle of the lake. The
driver, a student named Laura, spent a few minutes driving out to deeper water,
a few minutes taking samples, a few minutes joyriding, and a few minutes
heading back to the dock to switch out students.
I was in the last group
of students to head out on the lake. In order to make room for more students,
the professor stayed behind on the dock while the rest of us rode off to the
middle of the lake. As we sped along, I looked around the boat. It was very
similar to the one I had driven for a few summers and had enjoyed going
kneeboarding behind. As providence would have it, on the floor of the boat sat
a lifejacket, a kneeboard, and a ski rope.
We started collecting
our samples or doing whatever experiments we were supposed to do. I wanted to
say something about wanting to give kneeboarding a try, but thought it would be
too crazy. As we wrapped up our tasks on the lake, I couldn’t help myself any
longer. I forget how I did it, but I asked Laura if she’d be open to letting me
jump in the lake to go kneeboarding. To my great surprise, she said
“sure.”
I didn’t ask any other
questions. I lost the shirt/shoes/socks, emptied my pockets, donned the life
jacket, grabbed the board and rope, and jumped into the water. It was cold, but
I didn’t care. We got lined up, Laura hit it, and we were off to the races. The
water was a lot choppier from the wind than I was used to, but I was kneeboardingin a science class.
We were far enough away
from the dock, or maybe around a bend in the lake so that the professor and my
classmates on land couldn’t see us. We didn’t want to goof off too long and get
in trouble, so after a bit of tooling around, Laura stopped the boat and I
climbed back in. We stowed everything and headed back to shore. Come to think
of it, I don’t think anyone on shore even knew what we’d done.
There will be key moments in your life where you only
have a single opportunity to seize the chance to do something you want to do. There’ll
be times when it simply will not happen unless you step out and make it happen.
If you hem and haw, you’ll be stuck watching as the opportunity passes you by.
You might have to
abandon the norms you’re accustomed to. I didn’t even have swim trunks, but
when Laura said she was open to my request, I was in the water with no
questions asked, wearing whatever clothes I already had on.
Many times in this blog
I’ve written that God will place opportunities in your path to do something
great. I’ll use this post to clarify: He will place the opportunity for you to
do something great just off your path.
God loves the timid, but He also has a special place in His heart for the bold.
If there’s something big, bold, and brash that you feel called to do on Christ’s behalf…don’t sit on it. God might bring an opportunity near your orbit, but you’re going to have to pursue that chance…you’ll need to run after it and chase it down. If you feel called to make it happen, live with abandon. You might even have to jump into the cold water with your regular clothes on.
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As a kid I always hated
this time of year. There’s a mental shift once the calendar gets close to
rolling over from August to September. Even if the temperature is in the 80s or
90s, the pool’s still closed after Labor Day. All the fun and relaxed schedules
of summer come to an end, and it’s time to once again get into the routine of a
new academic year.
As an adult I look
forward to this time of year. The heat and humidity of summer (ever so
slightly) start to fade, it becomes safer to venture outside without breaking
into a sweat, and football season starts up again.
It’s a time of new routines.
Once you’re set in a
routine, it becomes difficult to make changes to it. My guess is that if you
regularly attend a church, there are either end-of-summer events going on right
now or a series of kickoff events for various ministry programs coming up in
the next month.
My challenge to you: be
intentional about designing your Fall schedule. If you’re like most people, you
probably don’t have a whole lot of extra time. If you’re interested in a Bible
Study, some kind of home group, or discipleship class that’s starting up soon,
you’re not likely to join it once it’s already been meeting for a month or two.
If you want to make it happen, do what you’ve got to do so you’re at the
kickoff event or the first meeting.
Hello Fall
I know it doesn’t seem
like it now, but in about six weeks you’re probably not going to be willing to
commit to an ongoing gathering because Thanksgiving is right around the corner.
After that December starts and, well, we all know how busy that month can be,
so you won’t be able to jump in to anything new until a few weeks into the new
year.
Whoa! In two sentences,
four months flew by! I meant for this to be a little ridiculous, but I suspect
it also rings true for a lot of people. The sole point of this post is that you
can’t just let life “happen” to you; you have to take control of your calendar
and wrangle it so that you set yourself up to spend time doing the things you
want to be doing.
The end of summer is a
great time to look ahead. By all means celebrate the fun memories you’ve made
over the past few months, but if you spend too much time looking backward, your
schedule will be dictated for you.
This post will likely be censored or unavailable for readers in east Asia.
At the end of World War
II, many nations across the globe were exhausted, in physical and financial shambles,
and/or struggling to define their identity. One of those nations was China.
The quick version is
that in the late 1940s the two most powerful groups in China that had worked
with the United States to combat Japanese forces struggled against each other
for control of the nation. The Nationalist group, losing strength and support,
began to flee toward the ocean in order to escape the Communist group. Upon
reaching the Pacific, with the adversary not far behind, the Nationalist
leadership escaped to an island off the coast of China, an island now known as
Taiwan. The Communists went on to establish firm control over mainland China,
and vowed to someday reclaim Taiwan, which they view as a rogue Chinese
territory.
That was 70 years ago. China still intends to reclaim and annex Taiwan, by force if necessary. The Chinese Government knows, however, that if it suddenly grabs Taiwan all at once, the international outcry would be detrimental to its long-term goals, so it came up with a different plan. It’s been slowly exerting pressure on those within its sphere of influence to either support the idea that Taiwan belongs to China, or at least avoid supporting Taiwan in any way. The Chinese populace is not nearly as distracted and forgetful as we are in America, and the idea is that over time there will be so little international resistance that eventually China will reach out and pluck Taiwan for itself and the outcry will be manageable. Unfortunately for Taiwan, there’s evidence that the plan is working.
Don’t believe me? Let
me show you an example.
Not long ago Tom Cruise
introduced a trailer for his upcoming movie, Top Gun: Maverick. This is a
sequel to the original Top Gun movie that came out 34 years before the sequel.
I’ll admit, I’ve watched the trailer a few times and I’m definitely excited to see
the movie some day.
It wasn’t long after
the trailer went public that an eagle-eyed fan noticed something very peculiar.
There’s a brief shot in the trailer where Maverick (Tom Cruise’s character)
puts on an old bomber jacket that he wore in the first movie. The jacket is
full of unit patches that signify some of the assignments Maverick completed.
The fan did a side-by-side comparison of the jacket from the 1986 film and the
jacket from the sequel. He noticed that where the 1986 jacket had a large patch
containing flags from Japan and Taiwan, the 2020 movie replaced those two
portions of that patch with similarly colored ambiguous shapes.
This was not an
accident; it was quite intentional. China doesn’t get along with Japan or
Taiwan. Rather than simply write in a minor plot change that uses a different,
newer jacket, (or even avoid camera angles showing that particular patch) the
people that made this movie decided it would be best to rewrite history in
order to appease China. It would be different if China made the change itself
before allowing it to play in Chinese theaters, but here the actual patch from
the world’s first major summer blockbuster was deemed unpalatable and updated
before it was even released in America. Now the movie posters act like it never even happened,
history is erased, and the people that never saw the original won’t even know
anything happened.
Imagine…this level of
sinister manipulation by “soft power” methods is engineered by earthly minds.
If mere humans can orchestrate this type of behavior, imagine the level of
sneakiness and underhandedness that the most powerful of all angels is capable
of.
Now, before you get any
crazy ideas, no, I’m not saying that China is run by the devil. I think this
instance is an excellent illustration of one of his tactics, though. He knows
he’s headed for an epic clash that he’ll eventually lose. In the meantime
though, he hates God and us so much that his main motivation is to rob God from
receiving glory. He does it through discouraging/distracting Christians from
doing the work God calls them to do and by doing everything in his power to
prevent humans from becoming Christians. That’s it. At the end of the day,
that’s all it is.
Satan knows that a
sudden power grab is too overt and people would too easily recognize it for
what it is. With that in mind, he works a little slower, in smaller steps but
always pushing toward making the world a place where anything goes and
Christianity is labeled as too intolerant and restrictive. Think about how much
Christian influence the United States has lost over the last hundred years, or
even the last 20 years.
When you shape the
narrative, it’s much easier to control the outcome. As a Christian you can’t just
hide your head in the sand and hope things will get better; you need to engage
the culture. If someone tells you that “there are no absolutes,” you can politely
remind them that their statement is self-contradicting. If someone tells you
that “everything in life is meaningless!” you can ask whether or not they
believe their assertion has meaning.
Engage the culture.
It’s your culture, after all. Push back against ideas that run counter to what
you know God would want. It’s not easy and you might be alone, but if you don’t
do it, it won’t be long before Christians end up in a situation with the
adversary posturing to reach out and pluck this isolated refugee enclave so it
can do what it feels is best with this group of troublesome upstarts.
