Whispers

Grrrr! Almost a week has gone by, and I still haven’t been able to post the entry I had in mind for last week. What was once just a minor delay has begun to take on growing proportions, and the whispers are threatening to take over.

Last Sunday, Pastor Bob gave a wonderful message. This is not really all that remarkable. Pastor Bob and Pastor Ron are great preachers and usually give wonderful messages; I must admit, though, some of their messages fall into the realm of “really awesome” sometimes. Anyway, Pastor Bob had been given a unique clock, and I was impressed by how he described it and wove it into his message. I took a picture of Bob with the clock, and asked if he could send me his sermon notes so I could quote him correctly in a blog post. As he had just completed the last service of the day, he smiled and graciously handed me his sermon notes. Well, as I helped Pastor Bob lock up, we chatted. We continued to chat across the campus, up to his office, and out to the parking lot, and… somewhere along the line, I put down the notes and lost them. Well, not lost in the technical sense, just misplaced while I was doing something else. I hope I didn't shove them into the offering bag. The counters might think Pastor Bob was sending them a message. LOL!

I was fairly certain that Pastor Bob must have an electronic copy. How else would he have printed it? So I dashed off an email asking if I could presume upon him to attach it to a reply and send it to me.

I didn’t get a reply, but I did start hearing whispers: “Even if he doesn’t have an electronic copy, couldn’t he at least reply back saying so? How hard is it to attach a file? It’s can’t take more than 2 minutes of his day! It’s not like I’m hard to contact… I write a blog for the church. My phone number has been the same for over 30 years!”

But, hey; I know how email can get lost in the shuffle. I know how one thing leads to another, and how the best laid plans often get sidetracked. So I called the church… several times. I kept missing Pastor Bob (he’s a busy guy), but got assurances that he’d call me back.

I didn’t get any return calls, but I did get more whispers: “Is everything else in the world so much more important that I can’t get a call back? Am I that unimportant? Do I only matter when they need me to something?”

I tried to shake off the whispers: “Bob loves me. He cares about me. It’s probably just a silly misunderstanding. I’ll see him Sunday and find out how we managed to get so disconnected. We’ll probably have a big laugh about all this.”

Then a new set of whispers started.

I checked my voicemail Wednesday night to hear a message from my friend Jim. The church was starting a new study series, and though I had signed up, I had heard nothing about being part of any group. The message was time-stamped from Monday, but somehow my message server did not deliver it until Wednesday! Later, I found out that the message server had experienced a crash; no messages were lost, just delayed in their delivery. As I listened to the message I heard how the group had missed me last Wednesday evening, but were looking forward to me being there this Wednesday. I was hearing the message too late to do anything. I had now missed two weeks! I didn’t even know where they were meeting.

The whispers were definitely increasing in volume and intensity: “How is it that NOBODY could call and talk to me personally?!? My doctor, my dentist, and the Red Cross can all call me to remind me of appointments… can’t my church call and tell me I’m part of a new small group? Can’t the group leader touch base with me? Shouldn’t I at least be informed of when and where they are meeting?”

Again, I took a step back and realized that somebody had tried to reach me, and a series of breakdowns had kept me from hearing the information. Sometimes we depend on technology so much we forget that we might not always be connecting all the way to our intended target. Then I had another revelation… my ISP (Internet Service Provider) had changed the way it allows outside domains to communicate with it. Long story short: my email had not been connecting properly between my domain and my ISP (SMTP and POP3 changes for all you techies). Turns out, I may have lost more than a few email messages.

When Jesus was in the desert, he was tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:13). Jesus experienced the very same temptations we experience. He heard the same whispers, but he recognized them for what they were: lies. We go through our own spiritual deserts… sometimes it seems on a daily basis. For that reason we pray:

“Lead us not into temptation.”

And yet, the whispers persist. Satan is persistent! For that reason we pray:

“Deliver us from evil.”

This is why it is so important to REALLY invite Jesus into your heart and your life. We are broken people. We are sinful by our very nature. We try to do our best, but our churches are imperfect, our pastors are imperfect, we are imperfect, and most of all… I am imperfect. When we truly open our hearts to God, we begin to walk with Jesus, and we have the power to say:

“Get thee behind me, Satan! I’m not listening to your evil whispers any more!”

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

The Giraffe Test

How’s your thinking? Perhaps you have a good job, a college degree, and years of training and experience. All of those things are nice, but it’s really important that you can still think. The following short quiz tests your ability to think in various ways.

Question #1:
How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?







Come on now… play along and answer the question.






* scroll down for the answer *






Answer:
Open the refrigerator, put the giraffe in, and close the refrigerator.

Note:
This question identifies whether you think of simple answers, or if you overly complicate things.


Question #2:
How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?





Hey… it’s just like before… answer the question.






Did you say, "Open the refrigerator, put the elephant in, and close the refrigerator?"

(Wrong Answer)

* scroll down for the answer *






Answer:
Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant, and close the door.

Note:
This question measures your ability to think through the consequences of your actions.


Question #3:
The King of the Jungle is having a party. All the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?





Come on … you know this one.






* scroll down for the answer *






Answer:
The Elephant; the elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there.

Note:
This question tests whether you use all available information.
OK, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.


Question #4:
There is a river you must cross but it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?





Hmmm… Oh, and you haven’t got a boat, either!






* scroll down for the answer *






Answer:
You swim across. All the crocodiles are attending the party.

Note:
This question judges whether you can focus on the big picture, not just a small part of it.


Interestingly… 90% of adults tested got all the questions wrong, but 70% of preschoolers answered them all correctly. Some adults I know just cannot get past the first answer. They protest that it is silly to think that you could possibly put a giraffe in a refrigerator. Their ‘adult’ mind gets so stuck that they completely disconnect from all of the rest of the questions. Children, on the other hand have no trouble imagining being able to fit a giraffe, or even an elephant, in a refrigerator; they haven’t been taught yet to accept what society believes to be physical limitations.

In Matthew 11:25, Jesus observes:

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and revealed them to little children.”

Adults consider themselves to be among ‘the wise and the learned’ and live in a world of experience, facts, and scientific proof. So often, though, their scientific proof is nothing more than repeated experience that they take for fact. At various times throughout history, the wise and the learned have declared:

- The Earth is the center of the universe;
- The Sun revolves around the Earth;
- The Earth is flat;
- Men will never fly;
- It is impossible to travel through the vacuum of outer space;

How many other statements, which once were accepted as fact can you think of that, have eventually been proven false?

Little children, however, live mostly in a world of faith. We ‘wise and learned’ adults have a lot to learn from little children! While sharing Bible stories with the little kids on Sunday mornings, I find them to be often much wiser than adults. Here are a few of the things some of the youngest kids have taught me:

Hold hands.
When they go back and forth from their classrooms to the story area, they hold hands so they can stay together, and so that nobody gets lost. As adults, we should remember to hold on to one another so we stay together, and hold on to God so we don’t get lost.

Run to get picked up.
If a little one is afraid, falls down, or is tired… they run to mommy or daddy throw up their arms, and cry: “Pick me up. Carry me!” Being grown-up, self-sufficient, and independent, we adults seldom run to our heavenly Father crying: “Pick me up. Carry me!” If we look back on some of our greatest challenges, however, we often realize that we didn’t come through on our own… God was carrying us.

Forgiving means forgetting.
Kids squabble; it’s a fact of life. Whether it is over a toy, a snack, or a place on the mat for story time… they often push, shove, or otherwise act inappropriately toward each other. Usually a parent or teacher steps in, stops the inappropriate action, metes out justice, and possibly rebukes one or both of the children. Amazingly, they are playing happily with each other only seconds later. Once the situation is over… it’s over! Children seem able to forget about the fight (as well as the behavior that led to the fight) almost as if it never happened. Wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if adults stopped listening to that ‘wise and learned’ voice that tells them never to forget the wrong, never to let go of the hurt, and ultimately… never to forgive.

See the wonder of the world.
There is no joy like the joy of 70 young children experiencing some new and wondrous thing all together. I get to see this all the time while sharing Bible stories with them on Sunday mornings. They shriek with laughter, they can hardly contain themselves while franticly waving their hands to get picked to help with the story, and they can’t wait to share the news of new things they have just experienced. So many adults seem to have acquired a ‘been there, done that’ attitude that they can hardly smile anymore, let alone laugh out loud; God forbid that they should EVER shriek with laughter! It is distressing to me to hear people confess that they don’t attend church because they are basically afraid that God is going to call on them; ‘to pick’ them to help out with the story. The kids keep reminding me to boldly share my wondrous experiences and God’s exciting Good News!

Know who loves you.
From the preschoolers who sing “Jesus loves me, this I know…” to the 5th graders who can quote John 3:16, all of the children in our fellowship know exactly who loves them. In our wisdom and our learnedness, we adults alternately see ourselves as so bad that God cannot possible love us, or we see God as unloving… listening to the ‘wise and learned’ argument that a loving god would not let bad things happen to good people. Thankfully, if you choose to live life with the spirit of a child, you can know exactly who loves you without reservation… God!

Yes, as we grow to be adults, there comes a time when we should put away childish things. We shouldn’t walk around with a pacifier in our mouth, we probably need to let go of the security blanket, and we should learn not to cry and whine just because we are tired or hungry. Sadly, we all know plenty of adults that still haven’t learned these lessons.

Though I have put away childish things, I pray that I continue to live with the heart, the spirit, and the faith of a small child.

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

City Bus

Last Sunday was hot! The temperature while I was directing traffic in the parking lot and in the middle of the street was nothing short of brutal. Perhaps because the heat tends to slow things down, there were a lot more people showing up late for the 10:15 service than usual. This was not necessarily a bad thing, as Pastor Bob running a bit late and people from the 8:30 service were leaving the parking lot much later than usual.

This meant that the late-comers were able to snag a space in the parking lot as people trickled out. This is sometimes the case, and is one of the miracles I get to witness on a regular basis as I direct traffic and dodge cars in our parking lots. I enjoy the intricate ballet of cars leaving and entering the lots, and liken it much to the “loaves and the fishes”. I often will wave a car onto the lot, even though I know full well that there are no empty spaces. Yet somehow God provides, and someone will decide to leave at that exact moment.

As I said, a lot more people showed up late last Sunday, so it was 10:30 before all the traffic subsided and I was making my way back toward the Worship Center. As I walked off the north lot, I passed the church’s laboring air-conditioning plant and noticed the open side doors of the Worship Center. Now, I’m always telling my family to keep the doors closed when the AC is on, so I figured I veer over and close the doors to the Worship Center to try to keep some of the cool air in the building. As I approached, I could hear that Pastor Bob was already into his message, and I found a man with a baby and a small boy at the doors. The man was feeding the baby a bottle, and while the baby seemed content, the man seemed irritated. I suggested to the man that he might be more comfortable in our baby room. It’s air-conditioned, has comfortable seats, baby facilities, toys for his young boy, and has a sound system that allows parents to hear the service. He didn’t seem to care about utilizing the baby room, and informed me that the young boy was not his. Indeed, he wondered aloud why the boy’s parents weren’t controlling him, as the boy was trying to close the door the man was holding open for fresh air (go figure).

“Are your mommy and daddy in church?” I asked the little guy.

“No,” he answered, “my Daddy’s at home and my Mommy’s on the city bus.” He replied.

“Oh, did you come with your grandparents? Or did you come with a friend?” I countered.

The boy, Evan, as I later learned, was not only bright and articulate, but quite insistent for a 5-year old. After repeatedly telling me that “Mommy’s on the city bus,” he brightened up, cried out: “Come… see,” and took off at a run toward the Life Center building. I followed, though my failing knees, ankles, and feet kept me from keeping up with a running child. I didn’t even have time to think about him losing me, as he kept doubling back to cheerfully encourage me to “come on… hurry up!”

He stopped just in front of the Life Center, and proudly proclaimed: “City bus!”

As began to catch up to him, I finally saw what he meant. There, parked between the Life Center and our Youth Center was… the Red Cross Mobile Blood Unit… certainly a bus. An adult could read that the vehicle was the Red Cross Blood Mobile, but to 5-year old Evan, it was the “city bus.”

As a matter of fact, as I escorted Evan toward the waiting area set up by the back doors of the bus, the doors opened, and there was a young woman who had just given blood sitting in the recuperation area just inside the bus. Triumphantly, Evan cried out: “See? Mommy’s on the city bus!”

Now, it is not all that uncommon to find children who have slipped away from their parents, and are exploring the many fascinating corners of our campus. In this case, Evan’s mother, Kathleen, had left him with the volunteers in the blood donor waiting area, and he had wandered over to the playground during a few hectic moments. From there, it was only a few steps to the side doors of the church… where I found Evan.

As I sat chatting with Kathleen, I discovered that she was just visiting our campus, not to worship with us, but to give. Her home church did not sponsor blood drives, so when our church hosts Red Cross blood drives… she comes to donate her blood. The bandage on her arm told the story of how successful her giving had been on this day. Like me, she has one of the rare blood types, so she donates as often as she can. Both of us agreed that it felt good to know that we could donate a pint of our blood, and that it might well save a life. I thanked her for her gift to the community, and I thanked Evan for teaching me about the “city bus.”

Later, as I reflected on this tiny part of my day, I realized that we need to be more active in sponsoring Prayer Drives. Each of us has a different kind of prayer power inside of us. What if we asked for people to channel just a tiny bit of their prayer to people they don’t know? I can’t do anything with a pint of my own blood, but the Red Cross can do amazing things with it. It’s the same with prayer. I can’t accomplish anything by trying to direct my own prayers, but when I give my prayers to God, He can do amazing things with it.

I’m not going to try to tell anyone how to pray. I’m just asking: “How’s YOUR prayer life?” Have you given in prayer without any thought of knowing how it might be applied? Have you responded to a Prayer Drive (request for prayer)? Like Kathleen… have you gone out of your way… and out of your comfort zone to give?

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Flawed

The following is a Chinese folktale. I have heard it retold many times, but this time I’ll quote no less an authority than the New York State Testing Program (Grade 4) which attributed the retelling of this story to Carolyn Han, with illustrations by Christine Joy Pratt.

The Cracked Chinese Jug

by Carolyn Han
illustrated by Christine Joy Pratt

Each morning Han Han fetched water for his village from the river. He placed a bamboo shoulder pole across his back and put the empty jugs on either side.

When Han Han returned to the village, he had one and a half jugs of water. One clay jug had a tiny crack, and some of its water had leaked out.

The perfect jug was proud of itself. It had carried a full load of water. But the imperfect jug was embarrassed. It had done only half of the work.

One day the cracked jug could stand it no longer. “I’m a failure,” it cried. “Why do I have a crack?”

Ignoring the jug’s cry, Han Han carefully filled both jugs with water at the river. By the time they reached the village, the cracked jug was again only half full. “Why don’t you throw me away?” asked the broken jug.

Han Han smiled at the jugs and put them on the shelf.

The next morning when Han Han placed the jugs on the ends of his shoulder pole, he said to the broken one, “For months, I’ve heard you complain.”

“I’m ashamed of myself,” answered the cracked jug. “I’m worthless.”

“Today when we return to the village, I want you to look along the path,” said Han Han.

It was the first time the broken jug noticed the flowers. The colorful flowers made the cracked jug very happy. But then it remembered its crack and the leaking water, and again it felt sad.

“What did you think of the flowers?” asked Han Han.

“They’re pretty,” replied the jug. “They’re only growing on my side of the path.”

“That’s right,” said Han Han. “For months you’ve watered the wildflower seeds. Your ‘failure,’ as you call it, has changed our village and made it more beautiful.”

“Then all that time I felt useless,” said the cracked jug, “my flaw was really my most valuable part!”

God wants to use us. He has already paid for our redemption… flaws and all. He’s not looking for perfection; He wishes to use our uniqueness (what we sometimes perceive as flaws) for a wonderful purpose that we can barely imagine.

The apostle Paul had a flaw he called “a thorn in his flesh” that he asked God to take away. Paul speaks of it in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9…

“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.”

But God knew better. God knew that he had just the right vessel with Paul; not just to carry the Holy Spirit, but to be the perfect tool to water and grow a new and emerging church.

So stop worrying about your flaws. Let yourself be filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and know that when God’s Spirit leaks out of your flaws… it is to God’s plan and purpose. Perhaps you spill hope from your flaw, maybe it is encouragement, or it could just be unconditional love.

Remember the words of Paul (and I’m taking the liberty to paraphrase a tiny bit):

“God’s power is made perfect in our flaws!”

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Plugged In, But Disconnected

Sunday was our Rally Day, and our Ministry Fair, and our Annual Church Picnic… all rolled into one glorious day. With near perfect weather, we celebrated our ministry efforts and opportunities, provided a sumptuous picnic lunch, played games, raffled prizes, shared in awesome fellowship, and consumed huge numbers of snow-cones (well… the kids sure did). The parking lots were full to overflowing, and so was the street parking around the church. We had many more people show up than we anticipated, but we didn’t run out of anything. That had less to do with any type of miracle, and more to do with some intelligent planning by all the hard-working folks that made the whole thing happen.

Before taking up my position of snow-cone wrangler, I was determined to try to photograph most of the event. Now, being the person I am, that also meant talking to almost everybody. Since I am the chief contributor to the ‘Alive in the Spirit’ blog, I am also the chief promoter of said blog, so… I would ask people if they had read the blog lately. The unanimous answer was: “No.” Now these are my brothers and sisters in a fellowship better know as ‘church’, so rather than just leave it at that, most seemed to need to offer some sort of reason as to why they hadn’t read the blog lately. There were some really creative excuses, but for the most part, one basic problem resonated among my friends: “I’d love to read the blog, but I can barely keep up with email and Facebook, as it is. I just haven’t got the time!”

I really enjoy the comic strip ‘Zits’ by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, as they have their fingers on the pulse of the ‘plugged-in’ society in which we live. Most of us are constantly connected to our cell phone, and through them we are connected to text messaging, email, and the internet. We are plugged into our families, our friends, sports scores, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, Myspace, and Facebook. We can communicate instantly and we have access to much of the learning and information that is available in the world today.

Never in history have we ever been so plugged in.

Yet, never in history have we ever been so disconnected from each other!

So much information, so little time… and it’s getting worse. Just look at all the spam email you receive. I mean, really… various body part enhancements, drugs, debt consolidation, chain letters, hoaxes, and political mud slinging. Sadly, more than half of it comes from our friends. Sure, a funny YouTube video might really be hilarious, but after 10 of your friends send it to you, it is just a big time waster… having to delete what now amounts to spam from your mailbox.

Compared to text messaging, email is only a minor time-waster. So many parents have had to place their families on unlimited calling plans because their teenager had racked up hundreds of dollars in text messaging charges. And what’s so important that it needs to be messaged 24/7/365? From what I can tell, after exhaustive survey of teenage text users, it’s pretty much critical information like:

- i’m bored
- this class is so lame
- sk8ers 4evr
- ur a noob
- i’m hungry
- ; p

Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook are pretty much more of the same. I’d guess that 90% of what passes for communication and social networking is totally useless idle chatter. What isn’t vacuous content is coarse, crude, or rude. It should really come as no surprise: people text whatever happens to pop into their head. Should anyone attempt to castigate them, they act like you are infringing on a God-given right. Of course, since spelling, grammar, and vocabulary don’t matter to this plugged-in world, most are horrified that you would even think of castigating them. Though they might be erroneously thinking of a surgical procedure, threatening them with a rebuke is just as onerous. LOL!!! I’m not worried about any of them taking offense, because they stopped reading at 255 characters.

While being plugged-in is tremendously important these days, we seem to be disconnected in a big way.

Like Jeremy in the Zits comic strip, we can be so focused on being plugged-in that we completely disconnect with those around us… often in rude, thoughtless, and boorish ways.

Some of the most spectacular recent public examples of this disconnect have been impossible to ignore:

- Representative Joe Wilson shouting “You lie” during a speech by President Obama.

- Tennis star Serena Williams threatening, with expletives, to cram her tennis ball down a lineswoman’s throat at the U.S. Open (after Serena had earlier splintered a racket on the court in a rage, I think everyone was quite concerned for the lineswoman).

- Singer Kanye West grabbing the microphone from Taylor Swift and insisting that the award she was accepting should have gone to Beyonce.

No less spectacular, but far less newsworthy, are the daily disconnects we see in rude and volatile drivers, the disrespect children show to their parents and teachers, the disrespect we show each other when a call, text, or twitter is more important than a face-to-face conversation.

The irony of me writing this on a computer, formatting the pictures, posting to the blog, and knowing that it is forwarded to Facebook does not escape me.

On Sunday, I saw people connecting in a good way. During our picnic they queued up politely for food, brought drinks to people sitting near them, worked and shared and served together, played together, and encouraged their kids to be polite and nice (this sometimes reads: scolding). It was a fine summer day, a fun picnic, good friends, and stimulating conversation. People were pretty much unplugged for several hours, and they really seemed to be enjoying themselves. Our picnic accomplished what we can’t even do during our church services… it got people to turn off their phones! You can’t text and toss a water balloon at the same time… you can’t twitter and be in the 3-legged race, and you won’t be on the phone while they might be calling your winning number for the big raffle prize.

The more we plug into our social network sites and smart phones, the less we connect with God. God wants us to connect with His words… not ours. God wants us to make a difference in people’s lives… not see how many Facebook friends we can have. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t utilize technology; it’s a great tool! But we need to be able to put the tool down from time to time; otherwise it’s just another addiction… a replacement for God. God sent Jesus to redeem us from the sin that separates us from God. Jesus calls us to walk with Him in the light… don’t miss His call because you were too busy being plugged-in!

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Refiner of Silver

This week, I stumbled upon an old story I had put away years ago. I have no idea who the original author is. Once again, it is a story reproduced countless times via email and on sites around the world. As always, I would love to give proper credit to the author, so if you have any reliable information about this little gem, please email me with the details. Here’s the story:

There were a group of women in a Bible Study on the book of Malachi. As they were studying chapter three, they came across verse three, which reads:

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled the women and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, this woman called up a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot - then she thought again about the verse, "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?”

He smiled at her and answered, "Oh that’s easy… when I see my image in it."

So… if you are feeling the heat of this world's fire, just remember that you are being held in God’s hands, and God is focused on you.

My wife is fond of telling our daughters: “God’s not done with you, yet.” I KNOW He’s not done with me, as I feel plenty of heat working on all my impurities. I just pray that, little by little, I continue to improve in God’s hands, and that I can reflect His image more and more.

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Spiritual Warfare

My good friend, Kathi Avarbuch, sent me the following:

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There was a little old lady, who every morning stepped onto her front porch, raised her arms to the sky, and shouted: “PRAISE THE LORD!”

One day an atheist moved into the house next door.

He became irritated at the little old lady. Every morning he'd step onto his front porch after her and yell: “THERE IS NO LORD!”

Time passed with the two of them carrying on this way every day.

One morning, in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted: “PRAISE THE LORD! Please Lord, I have no food and I am starving, provide for me, oh Lord!”

The next morning she stepped out onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there.

“PRAISE THE LORD!” she cried out. “HE HAS PROVIDED GROCERIES FOR ME!”

The atheist neighbor jumped out of the hedges and shouted: “THERE IS NO LORD; I BOUGHT THOSE GROCERIES!”

The little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted: “PRAISE THE LORD! HE HAS PROVIDED ME WITH GROCERIES AND MADE THE DEVIL PAY FOR THEM!”

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LOL! What a great story.

If you’d like to pass it along, save yourself a whole lot of cutting and pasting, and just send the URL of this blog page to all your friends. That way, some might find out about our blog, or our church, how the Spirit is alive in our fellowship, or even how God might be calling them. Of course, acceptance is optional, but we always put the offer out there anyway.

In this funny little story, I see a wonderful spiritual warrior in the little old lady. She is faithful, she is bold, she is steadfast, and… she knows her enemy!

She is faithful. Even though she is old, she continues to praise the Lord.

She is bold. She knows that the spiritual battle is ongoing, so she encourages her portion of the world by proclaiming: “Praise the Lord!”

She is steadfast. In the face of criticism, denial, and mocking, she continues to hold her spiritual ground. She never retreats, she never falters, and she never stops offering praise to the Lord.

She knows her enemy. With her supply lines cut, and under physical attack, she still continues to praise the Lord. When her neighbor jumps out and claims victory, you can see that she knows her [real] enemy… and that she knows the real power of the Lord even better as she proclaims: “Praise the Lord! He has provided me with groceries and made the devil pay for them!”

Notice that she didn’t attack her neighbor. She aimed her barb at her real enemy… Satan. She recognized her true enemy, and her enemy wasn’t her neighbor. Christ already taught us this lesson. Do you remember Jesus’ response to Peter saying that he (Peter) would never allow the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus to happen? In Matthew 16:23, Jesus turned to Peter, but was rebuking the enemy when he said:

“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Oh, Lord, when my neighbor is a stumbling block to me, help me remember to cry out: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Oh, Lord, when my neighbor has wronged me or hurt me, and I find it impossible to forgive… let alone love my neighbor… help me to remember to look into my own heart and cry out: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Oh, Lord, help me to be faithful, help me to be bold, help me to be steadfast, and help me to recognize my real enemy.

Oh, Lord, as I see the beauty of your creation, as I experience the wonder of being alive, and as I am filled with the joy of walking with YOU, may my heart and voice ever proclaim:

“Praise the Lord!”

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Perceptions

Almost every week, my daughter takes my grandson to the La Habra Children’s Museum. She has a pass, and likes to take him when they first open up… before the busloads of day campers overrun the place… and overwhelm a little 2-year old. After the museum, their routine is to have lunch at the Corner Bakery Café in La Habra at the intersection of Imperial Highway and Idaho Street. Jenny appreciates the healthy children’s menu, and especially the fact that they have a selection of menu items that don’t set off her allergies. Since they make everything fresh, you order, go sit down, and they bring it to you when it’s ready.

Two weeks ago, she and Jeffrey were at a table waiting for their order, when Jeffrey looked up into the exposed ceiling of the eatery and exclaimed: “Look, Mommy, a dragon!”

Now to a 2-year old, the twisting, turning exposed ductwork might well be perceived as a dragon. Jenny looked up, chuckled at his imagination, and explained: “No, sweetheart, those are ducts.”

A week later, what do you suppose happened? Sitting in the same restaurant, Jeffrey points to the ceiling, and happily proclaims: “Look, Mommy, duckies! There are duckies in there.” His brain registered the correction, but not the subtle difference between a ‘duct’ and a ‘duck.’ He couldn’t see any duckies, but Mommy had said that’s what they were last week, so it must be true. His faulty perception had been corrected, but his limited perception of the world had led him to a belief in something that was still false. He’s only two, so his perceptions, and vocabulary, will continue to grow, and he will soon grasp the truth about ‘ducts’.

It’s much more difficult to change the faulty perceptions of adults.

How many people in the world have a faulty perception of Christians and Christianity, because of what they have seen, or heard, or witnessed? Do we think enough about the perception we project as Christians as we go about our daily lives? Do we model Christ, or the world, in our unintentional witness?

And if they see ‘dragons’, do we lovingly and patiently take the time to understand their position so we can better understand their perceptions? Or, do we just hurriedly swap ‘dragons’ for ‘ducks’? Where they once saw only a capricious and vengeful God, now they see an irrelevant God. What perception do you develop when you see people in clown wigs at sporting events, painted up, and holding a sign that reads: John 3:16? That sure takes a lot of explaining!

Churches teach classes on how to share the Good News with the unchurched. You can find books and seminars on evangelism by the hundreds, with more being published every month. I’m convinced, however, that while all that may be well intentioned, Christians who are alive in the Spirit of Christ don’t need any of it. If you are alive in God’s Spirit, the Spirit leads and guides you. We need to encourage each other to be more alive in God’s Spirit!

How do we do that? How do we become more alive in God’s Spirit?

There’s more than just admitting that we are sinners, and then asking Jesus to be Lord of our lives. That is just our birth into a life with Christ. As in the physical world, we need to do more than just be born to stay alive, to be healthy, and to grow. To be alive in the physical world, after we are born, we need to continue to breathe, we need to drink, and we need to eat. There’s more, of course, but let’s start with the basics.

To be alive in the Spirit we need to do the same things as in the physical world. We ‘breathe’ during prayer; as the Bible says: “At all times and in all situations.” We ‘drink’ during worship; satisfying our thirst for God-in-our-lives through praise and music. And we ‘eat’ when we devour God’s Word; His scripture strengthens and protects us.

When I’m breathing, drinking, and eating in the spiritual world, it seems quite natural and expected to be alive in the Spirit… like riding a bicycle. If I am not, just as in the physical world, I begin to suffocate, die of thirst, or die of hunger. Have you ever felt like you were in a spiritual desert? I know I have.

As I said before, we need to encourage each other to be more alive in God’s Spirit!

Breathe! Drink! Eat! God has great plans for you!

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Joy

It seems that everybody is my Facebook friend these days. If you do not know what I’m talking about, get a teenager to hook you up! Anyway… last Sunday, I was crossing our Messiah campus when I bumped into Carlo and Aimee Bell. Carlo and I are such big kids (others say: “goofballs”), that we were gleefully playing off one another in seconds. Aimee is much more responsible than Carlo and I, but before too long, all three of us were giggling and laughing and being wonderfully silly. I was excited about a friend on Facebook and was telling them about how they should hook into her as a friend, too. I was sure that they would appreciate the pure joy she shares in each of her videos. How could I know that? Simple… Carlo and Aimee radiate a pure joy that is infectious to everybody around them. Although their lives are filled with challenges, they reflect a purity of faith and service and spirit and joy … as it is magnified off of each other, and then reflected into a world that is rather starved for joy.

I was telling them about singer/songwriter Stacey Renee Baltes. Stacey is the school chum of Carmen Pease who organizes our on-going Leadership Conference series. I had heard Stacey at one of the conferences, and was really impressed. But being linked in to her Facebook page has been nothing short of wonderful! You see, Stacey is sharing all of the songs she has written for the children’s ministry at her church. The technology used to do this is not exactly “high-end”, and her studio looks to be her living room, but I find myself watching the videos over and over. I laugh and giggle, I feel like she’s talking and singing right to me, and I can’t help feeling transformed by her pure and innocent joy.

Here… check out her V-I-C-T-O-R-Y song, and let’s see if you can watch without giggling (turn up your volume):



Stacey is alive in God’s Spirit. You can see it in her smile, you can feel it in her music, and you can hear it as her sweet voice shares inspired lyrics. Her CD is wonderful, she’s awesome in person, and the videos are so much fun! Of course, I can hear the grumbling already: “With that much talent, it’s easy to be full of joy. What about the rest of us?” Well, I’d point back to the beginning of this post to Carlo and Amy, and point out that with FAITH, and SERVICE, and SPIRIT… come JOY.

Find the gift that God has blessed YOU with, and use it. If you don’t know what your gift is, volunteer. Teach Sunday school, get in a Bible study, lead a bible study, try out for a play or the choir, join the repair team, serve on a committee or run for a council position. The short answer is: there are hundreds of ways to find your gift… through service. The truth is that just sitting in a pew during worship isn’t what God wants from us. He wants us to shine and sparkle with our gifts, to His glory, to light a dark and despairing world.

Take a look and a listen to how Stacey “sparkles”:



Don’t hide your joy under a bushel basket… “Be” the light on the hill and let your joy shine and SPARKLE through!

Oh… by the way… if you want more of Stacey, you can connect with her at:

http://www.staceybaltes.com/

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

The Dash

I know that many of the recent posts have been about a similar theme, and today’s post is more of the same, but the Spirit is leading me down this path so I trust that God has a purpose behind all of this.

Today, I attended a memorial service at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Arcadia. The memorial was for the son of my wife’s cousin who had just recently died in Texas. He was only twenty-five. His name was Alex Edge; he died of a drug overdose.

I was moved while listening to Alex’s father, Dirck, overcome his emotions to tell of Alex’s life. In a few short minutes, he painted a picture of a brilliant young man who was an expert at motorcycle riding, who had a passionate love and talent for photography, and who was compassionate and caring to all who knew him. Last Wednesday, Alex’s friends put together a memorial service, and it was attended by over 150 young people. One of the comments was that Alex lived more in 25 years than most people could pack into 2 lifetimes!

Almost all of the family showed up: aunts and uncles, and the (for me) confusing tangle of all the cousins. Family orbits often tend to be separate, rather than to intersect much… except at funerals or memorials. Surprisingly, their grief is our grief. We all show up to lend our support, but there is little we can do, so we pray that our presence will somehow help Alex’s grieving parents, Dirck and Kim, and his younger brother, Evan.

Pastor Sonnenberg delivered an inspiring and uplifting message. He acknowledged that Alex struggled with problems. Then he looked out at all of us and said that every one of us also struggled with our own problems and sins. I can’t do his message justice, but it was centered on Romans 8:31-39:

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He asked for Alex, but he asks for all of us when he said: “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” Then he answered for Alex, but he also answered for all of us when he confidently summarized: “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In listening to all of Alex’s accomplishments, and the impact his life had on so many people, I was reminded of the beautiful poem by Linda Ellis:

The Dash
by Linda Ellis 1996

I read of a man who stood to speak,
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke the following with tears.
But he said what mattered most of all,
Was the dash in between those years.

For the dash represents, all the time
That she spent alive on earth.
And how only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters most is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left,
That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough,
To consider what is true and real.
And always try to understand,
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,
And show appreciation more,
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,
And more often wear a smile
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read,
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
And how your spent your dash?

I was just thinking that even though Alex’s death is a tragedy for his family, his parents and his brother can be proud of the way he spent his dash… and confident of where he’s spending eternity!

Alexander Joseph Edge
December 4, 1983 - July 27, 2009

How’s your dash coming along?

Your brother in Christ,

Dave