Life is Not a Football Game

I’m not a big fan of watching football games on television….don’t shoot me, I know that’s practically un-American, but God made me unique…ha! I didn’t tell you that to defend my position but to use football terms in an analogy. We’ve all heard, said, and probably used in our own actions, “The best defense is a good offense.”

While this might be true in football (I don’t even know if it is), that’s not what God had in mind for the life of a Christian. Who among us hasn’t done that at one time or another? Some people make a lifestyle of it. It’s when we don’t own our actions and sins and divert the attention/focus to the actions and sins of others in an effort to defend what we have done/said. We attack the other person when we feel defensive. We go on the offense, usually in aggressive, angry ways. We become a one man team. We quarterback when we hurl ugly words and tones at the opponent. We become the offensive line when we tackle and rush at those we perceive to be trying to get at us. Intimidation can come in loud voices, rushing in to get in someone’s face, using physical size to our advantage, wounding with words, and making your opponent the enemy all in the name of defensive actions instead of owning our own shortcomings and failings.

Like in football, people and relationships get hurt and damaged. Scripture talks about this.

Psalm 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Proverbs 17:27 A truly wise person uses few words; a person with understanding is even-tempered.
Proverbs 12:18 Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing.
Matthew 7:3 And why worry about a speck in the eye of a brother when you have a board in your own?
Proverbs 20:19 A gossip tells secrets, so don't hang around with someone who talks too much.
James 1:19 My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry.
Proverbs 18:13 What a shame, what folly, to give advice before listening to the facts!
Colossians 3:19 And you husbands must love your wives and never treat them harshly.
Ephesians 4:26 And "don't sin by letting anger gain control over you." Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry.
Proverbs 14:29 Those who control their anger have great understanding; those with a hasty temper will make mistakes.
Proverbs 17:14 Beginning a quarrel is like opening a floodgate, so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.
Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride. Don't be quick-tempered, for anger is the friend of fools.
Romans 12:19 Don't quarrel with anyone. Be at peace with everyone, just as much as possible.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.
Romans 12:17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.

Football may be a game where defenses and offenses make a difference. Life is not a game and living a Christian life means leaving all that behind. God’s Word says it all.

Just One Piece of the Puzzle

1 Corinthians 12:12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

I ran across an interesting analogy this morning. As members of the body of Christ, we can be compared to pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece has protrusions and indentations. The protrusions represent our strengths (gifts, talents, abilities), and the indentations represent our weaknesses (faults, limitations, shortcomings, undeveloped areas). The beautiful thing is that the pieces complement one another and produce a beautiful whole.

Just as each piece of a puzzle is important, so each member of the body is important and can minister to the other members of the body. And just as when one piece is missing from a puzzle, its absence is very obvious.

My mother liked to put puzzles together. She could sit for hours on end, late into the night working on one. My grandson, Douglas, enjoys them as does one of my best friends, Helen. It didn’t move fast enough for me so I never really got into it. I admire the patience it must take to search and place each piece in the perfect spot.

God does the same thing. He takes what looks like a lot of random individuals and works them into His big picture. He crafted each piece to add to the beauty to His picture. He knows the role each individual will play. I’d go as far as to say He places each one next to someone that needs what the other has to offer. As the first paragraph said, we all have strengths and weaknesses. It is no coincidence the people in your life are there. Together we are stronger. Together we can do more than any one of us alone. God places us where we need to be for maximum benefit to all.

 
Aren’t you glad our God has a plan and purpose for each of us that fit perfectly into His picture? I am so thankful He is patient to seek us! I may be but one piece of the puzzle but I know I am there because He choose me. How awesome is that?

Something to Think About

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, one day out of each 365 to honor the work and mentalities of a godly man used by God to shine a spotlight on inequities and injustices done against human beings for having the audacity to be born different from the ones perpetuating the injustices.

In 1957, nine high school black kids were bused to integrate the schools of Little Rock. I was too young to remember that particular time in history but I am old enough to have felt the sting of isolation and disassociation in the late 1960’s for having black friends in high school. Social and racial unrest was alive and well in those days. It was as alive in my time as much as it was in the days Jesus walked the earth and Jews and Gentiles did not mix, talk, or accept one another as equals. It is alive and thriving today when racial, religious or even economic differences separate one group from another. Have we learned nothing?

Sometimes it looks like it on a surface level but dig just a bit deeper and prejudices can be found multiplying like worms in the dung of ignorance. Sadly, Christians are not immune to such insidious thinking. We claim we aspire to emulate Jesus yet His interaction, treatment and acceptance of all people looks nothing like our so-called enlightened status. I doubt He would share any claims of ‘progress’ made. Bearing prejudices in any form is not in keeping His command to love one another, to love your neighbor as yourself.

We all have ghosts of prejudices living in our lives, minds and spirits. Deny it if you must but you deceive only yourself. People tend to fear what they do not understand and, typically, we do not try to understand that which we fear…it is easier to maintain our comfort zone of ignorance than to open our minds to possibilities that challenge our status quo. Sweeping generalizations make it less cumbersome than thinking of a people group as individuals that happen to have history and bloodlines in common. None of us get to ‘pick’ where, when or to whom we were born, yet we act as if it were a personal assault on our sensibilities when people are different. How dare they be ‘wrong’ in such a blatant way as to be born different than you or me? Surely that is reason enough to be suspect.

 
Jesus didn’t think so…………..I'm just saying.

Eye-opening Trip Down Memory Lane

Coming home from the hospital where my dear friend had heart surgery today, I stopped at the local post office to buy stamps...you may remember stamps, they were once little cheap things we put on envelops when we wrote long letters to distant friends, paid bills or actually mailed out Christmas cards. Today, we use the internet more and more for all of the above mentioned correspondence. But today, I needed a real stamp to mail something....it's been a while. The long hot drive home from the medical center found me relieved to pull into our small hometown. I have long loved small town living.

Walking into the post office I was greeted by the familiar smell of post offices everywhere, no matter how big or how small, there is a distinguishable smell they have that can be found no where else. The cool air was refreshing and the hushed quiet felt reassuring, don't know why but it did. The hallway of mailbox faces lined the wall of the empty hall. I miss the brass plates that once adorned post office mailboxes, it's not the same when the detailed brass plates were replaced with the more economical and decidedly less attractive mailbox doors. Now they are just doors, no longer feel like locks to a treasure chest.

Maybe my kid-like fascination with post offices of days gone by was rather fanciful but I've always been enamored by them. I can remember being excited about going to the post office. We no longer live in a day and age where having your kid walk to town to check the mail is a good idea but we used to! I loved climbing the tall steps the old post office, the heavy glass doors the hushed stillness of the hallway that held the beautiful, magical brass-fronted mailboxes. I was also fascinated with the big poster of Uncle Sam pointing to you as you stood in front of it! Ah, and the metal stand with all the brochures from the different branches of the armed forces invited you to enlist and see the world. I always took one of each home with me because they ignited my imagination about foreign place I hoped to one day see. I miss those, too!

Today, I needed one stamp, so I entered the inner office of the post office where you buy stamps and/or send off packages. There were only two men to be seen, the professional though friendly postal worker behind the counter and a man in well-worn overalls talking about the merits of changing daylight savings time to winter months rather than the hot summer months where you work till nine, don't have dinner till eleven and then have to start all over again early the next day. I said, "Sir, I will vote for you for any office for which you choose to run based on that platform alone!" I, too, am not a fan of longer hot days! Never cared for daylight savings time, not any of my life. I prefer my days to be days and my nights to be night over daylight extended well into the night time hours.

He then moved on to discuss with some disdain the state of our country under our current leadership. Terse words about terrorist, birth certificates, et cetera were tossed over his shoulder as he left the glassed in inner office. I commented to the postal worker that he must hear all sorts of commentaries. He said he heard all sorts of things every day. This man, he said, had just lost his combine; he just lost everything and it was so hard to be a farmer in this economy. My heart was heavily burdened for the farmer than just walked out the door. I do not know him, do not know if I would recognize him if I saw him again but  my heart hurt for him. We have a lot of farmers in this area and, sadly, I must say, I have not given them a lot of thought. But this day, I felt a heavy weight of knowing my fellow small-towner, a farmer, my neighbor has lost his entire livelihood. This hurt me through and through. 

Friends, we are all connected, all people. Small town, large cities, third world countries, remote islanders, famous and infamous, rich and poor, educated and illiterate...we are all connected. Sometimes we get so absorbed in our own little worlds and illusion of importance that we never give a thought to "those people" that do not hit our radar. Today, I felt conviction in my spirit for the blind eye with which I viewed my world. How can we say we seek to be more Christ- like if we do not have the heart and vision for all people Christ displayed over and over? God has a world vision, not tunnel vision. As one with a call to be a missionary, I have had a heart for lost people....somehow that world vision has narrowed and I've stopped thinking in world vision terms. For this I asked forgiveness. My prayer is that we purpose to open our eyes to all people. To feel their pain, share their joy, empathize with their issues, show compassion to those where needed and most importantly of all, do this in the name of Jesus!

My nostalgic memories of trips to the post office and my need for one little stamp was, I believe, a divine appointment to show me where I had lapsed into apathy where empathy would be more Christ-like. I always say I wish I got postcards from heaven....today it as a message in a post office...isn't that just like God?! 

It's Me - Really!

This morning, while logging in online to the blog site I had a thought zip through my mind I’d like to share. You see, at this moment in time, I have four blogs with two each on different blog sites. The log-in box has a little place to click on if you are logging in under a different user name. I was.

I have two primary email addresses; one for family and friends and the other I use on business emails. They are set so that when I receive an email on either one, it is forwarded to the other. This way, regardless of what mode I may be at the time - personal or business – I am notified when I receive a new email. Since your user name on the blog sites is determined by the email address you use, you can have more than one user name. Clear as mud…I know.

The thought I had was that just as I juggle user names and email addresses albeit the same old me, some people use different ‘faces’ and personalities for different situations even thought they, too, are the same old person. We all tend to put our best foot – or face – forward when we want to impress and try to insure a certain facade but the person behind the facade is simply the same old you. Rather like the “man behind the curtain” in “The Wizard of Oz”. We can blow smoke and flash mirrors but we are who we are and everywhere we go…there we are!

We can fool some of the people some of the time but we can not fool all of the people all of the time. And we certainly can not fool God any of the time! As people in our lives come to know us more and more, they are exposed to bits and pieces of the real us; eventually putting together a picture of who we really are as if we were a jigsaw puzzle. God, however, sees who we really are before we are ever born! He knows our victories and failures, our highs and lows and the very number of hairs on our heads. We can change our names, faces and move about the earth as we choose but we are who we are when God looks at us. The awesome part of this story is He loves us regardless of how we try to mask and disguise the real us to those around us. Scripture tells us we are to be transparent with one another, meaning showing our true selves weaknesses and all.

Somewhere in my life, even as a child, I knew the parts of me that others liked or did not care for. I’ve always seen the pattern that people either liked me a lot or didn’t care for me at all…no middle of the road to speak of. My mother used to say that you never had to wonder where you stood with me, I would tell you. I never really understood why that was a problem, it seemed honest to me. It took some maturing on my part to understand that not all people care for transparency and revelation. I had to learn to play the game I detested so much. Imagine how delighted I was as a born again Christian to realize God wanted me to be who I was all along. He loved me just as I was, even before I started the walk toward becoming more Christ-like. Any half baked facades were tossed aside gleefully and there I stood before the Lord, unashamedly naked with all my warts and imperfections….and He loved me.

I entertain myself with thoughts of changing my name and I certainly can be anyone I want to be in my email addresses and user names, but I am who God created me to be and none of the other stuff matters. Yes, there are still people that either like me a lot or do not like me at all and that’s ok. I can live with that. I know I am being true to God and true to the person He created me to be. My God account far exceeds the import of my email or user accounts!

This is the real me wishing you a Jesus-filled day being the real you in the one and only real God.

What Sermon do you Send?

People would rather see a sermon than hear one; powerful meaning behind those few words. We’ve all heard it said that your actions speak louder than words AND scripture tells us that out of the mouth, the abundance of the heart speaks. In plain simple words…Listen long enough to someone and their true self will be revealed by the words they speak. Together, well, it can be like the old One-Two punch. However, no one can walk in victory while they speak defeat.

Our talk and our walk must line up with the Word of God. Any one that has spent time reading scripture can repeat the essence of them to you but the words ring hollow when their actions are shouting out another message. Mixed signals confuse. People absorb and take on that with which they live. Consider the poem below, while it talks of children learning it is also talking of the lives being walked out in front of them.

Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D.

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

In Philippians 4:7-9 (NIV) we read: And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Notice the scripture tells us to think about the good, pure, noble, praiseworthy…..and to “put it into practice” in our own lives. It’s basically telling us to put our words into action…walk out our talk and thoughts. We can not sit by passively and expect our thoughts and actions to take care of themselves. We must ‘purpose’ to monitor what we think about, what we feed our hearts. Leading a double life with one foot in the Bible and the other in the world is a sure way to scream out mixed signals. The Bible does not say we are defeated, our words should not either! The Bible says we are victorious in Christ, our actions should say the same. The same One-Two punch I mentioned before. Our thoughts give life to our words and our actions play out what is in our hearts which is fed by our thoughts! It can be a circle of life or a circle of dysfunction and defeat. We can be a walking talking sermon or a walking talking disaster looking for a place to happen!

Stand guard diligently, Friends, over your heart, thoughts and actions…..you never know who will be watching the sermon you are presenting.

Words - Treasure or Trash

As a reader that loves to write I have an ongoing love affair with words. Our language is just chocked full of words with which to express oneself plainly and succinctly. My Honey tells me Spanish has much more to offer when choosing how to express an idea or concept and sounds much prettier in the process.

Some words and phrases do tickle the ear more than others. I suppose what delights the ear of one may fall like lead to another. For example I refer to the community we live in as our village; the sentimental moniker given by Donovan, our grandson. To me, village sounds more pleasant than subdivision. It conjures up visions of quaint abodes, winding streets, garden gates and people strolling by. Subdivision brings to mind a large piece of paper with lines crisscrossing one another to delineate one plot from another; numbers and straight lines. That’s how it comes across to me anyway. Words and their appeal or lack there of do affect us emotionally whether we realize it at the time or not. Our street name was Valley View (lovely) before the county dictated county roads have number names. Living on Valley View sounds better than living on 4511, does it not?

Regardless of how they sound, our words should ring true every time they leave our mouths. Some people love to play words games; I’m not referring to Scrabble but to toying with words to infer something more pointed and perhaps unkind but said with words just benign enough to claim innocence. Veiled ugliness is still ugliness, People. There are those that use words to pierce another’s emotional jugular vein and walk away feeling powerful and clever for having done so. Flattering words of praise are empty and tinny if not sincere. Yet, when one shares from the heart words of love, concern, appreciation, etc…words can be a healing salve that sooths even the most fevered of us.

The words we use, the tone the words are spoken in or the context in which written combine to reflect the person’s inner self. The Bible says so.

Luke 6:45 (New Living Translation) A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

Our words should be our bond people are able to count on. Once when dealing with someone that did not do as she said she would, I was sad to hear her say, “Well, I didn’t promise.” Sadly, she thought she should not be held accountable unless she promised. This same person, however, would be aghast when you did not believe what she told you at other times. Her word was not reliable and lost all meaning in the process. She said what she thought you wanted to hear at the time of commitment but her words fell to the floor as they came out of her mouth….if she only understood what that said about her heart!

In conclusion let me sum it up…Say what you mean and mean what you say; God knows your heart anyway!

Unscripted Life

Long ago I dated an interesting man…very briefly. This man was intelligent, had many common interests and I found his company pleasant. My children thought he rather looked like a cross between Mr. Rogers and a turtle….hmm. It did not take long to discover he had perceptions regarding personal interactions that were different than my own. Over lunch one work day he expressed feelings of caring for me. Though he expressed himself sweetly, not sharing his level of ‘like’, my reply was unsatisfactory to him. He looked stunned and said. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say.”

Excuse me? What I’m supposed to say? This, friends, was the exact moment of the beginning of the end…

Apparently, he had thought through our conversation beforehand and how it was to play out. He proceeded to tell me what I was supposed to say. Oh, dear…..I wasn’t even close! I told him I had not received a copy of his script and spoke from my heart, not the play he had written. I wasn’t ugly about it but this brought the conversation to an abrupt end. Let’s just say that ½ mile trip from the cafe to my office was very long and quiet that day.

I cannot remember my first conscious thought about scripts you are expected to play but they were early in life. Growing up in a home with an abusive, controlling stepparent, I had first hand experience with roles expected of me. I learned to spot them quickly.

Have you ever carried on an argument or conversation in your head in anticipation of the real conversation? Sure you have. You are writing the script in that moment. You decide you will say, “….” when they say, “…..” and IF they say, “….” instead, THEN you will say, “…” right back at them! If it wasn’t so sadly destructive to relationships it would be ridiculously funny. You are armed and ready with your scripted replies for battle. No allowances made for productive discussion because you already know what they are supposed to say and how you will shoot them down with your loaded, cocked and ready replies! They better just look out because you are armed to blow them out of the water. All the while, you’re feeling very clever about it, too.

The flip side is the scripted less armed discussions, such as the one in the cafe that day. You are expecting certain reactions, displays of affirmation and affection and they never come. You’ve written the script, you know exactly what you will profess at the perfect moment….the perfect moment never materializes and you are left deflated and maybe even with a broken heart. What’s the matter with these people, can’t they see they are messing everything up?! Hurt feelings abound.

The complement that doesn’t come, the acknowledgment due fails to show up, our efforts not recognized, the desired sweet love profession left hanging in the air….these are but a few of the scripted expectations that bring hurt, disappointment and even anger; yet we brought it on ourselves with the scripts we write in our heads and hold others to play out. Most often, the other person is totally unaware you have the script, much less that they are required to read from it. It is a circular dance of destruction.

Equally destructive to productive relationships are those that purposely control and manipulate with a constantly fluid approval system that no one can please or meet the ever changing standard; consequently, these people never dispenses approval regardless of how the other tries. The script here is changing so often you could not read it if you tried and wanted to. These are the people I feel sad for; they are never happy, never let anyone else be happy and are never satisfied. They probably do not realize their script writing is the biggest cause of their lack of satisfaction because they are too busy blaming everyone that doesn’t rise to their constant script changes.

Regardless of the scripts people try to foist on us, we have but one to please and He is the author of peace, love, and acceptance. If we are not feeling any of these then we are reading the wrong material. Next time you bump into a script look to see who the author might be. If it leaves you feeling defeated, deflated, destroyed or destructive…walk away. Refuse the part in the play of scripted life some may attempt to hand you. God made you unique, creative and full of love; those are the only roles we need accept.Live an unscripted life for even a moment and you will know a freedom that has no boundaries; a freedom to be all God created you to be without the stage of a scripted life.

Tuna Taco??!!

My Honey is Hispanic and was raised in San Antonio, TX, spending his early years in his grandparent’s house where Spanish was the first language. I am not Hispanic and was raised in the bay area of the Gulf of Mexico where Small-Town-Texas-Redneck was the first language.

He is a ‘land crab’ and I am a ‘water baby’. Though our cultures and youth experiences are similar in some ways, there are more that are incredibly different. Understand we grew up only three and a half hours apart! (In Texas we measure distance in time rather than miles)

He grew up with menudo, tacos and tamales. I grew up with cornbread, greens and gumbo. Our common culinary denominator…beans and rice, prepared differently; yet the same. Our life has been an adventure of melding two cultures and living in harmony and appreciation for the differences. Today, though, we’re talking about food…sort of.

As a baby my Honey had a pacifier in one hand and a taco in the other. Sadly, my first experience with Mexican food was in a frozen dinner; an uninspired introduction to Latin cuisine. Not the case for my Honey. He is taco oriented from the word GO. Regardless of what I labor to place before him at mealtime, he finds a way to make a taco out of something! If there are not any tortillas on the table, he will wrap up a bread encased taco. He’s not picky, anything that will fold in half around anything else edible will do! Tacos are to him as mother’s milk to an infant.

One day while preparing tuna salad sandwiches for lunch I decided to make it easy for him and simply used tortillas instead of bread and made him tuna tacos. Mine just a plain ole’ tuna sandwich on whole grain bread. He was working outside in the yard and running in to find taco materials would be a waste of time, so I presented him with three tuna tacos on a plate. Settled on the yard swing in anticipation of lunch, he looked quizzically at his tacos and asked what they were. When I told him tuna salad tacos he looked at me like I was crazy. I explained it was only a matter of time before he made a taco so I was saving him time and effort. The first bite was a tentative one, indeed, but he relished every bite after that.

Here’s the spiritual analogy that you knew was just a few keystrokes away…hehehe.

When it comes to sharing Jesus sometimes you just might have to wrap the message in a taco. By that I mean we need to use discernment and be sensitive to how it will best be received by the one to which we are presenting it. If putting everything he eats in a taco is the most nurturing to my Honey, then I take comfort in knowing that the food I prepared for him is feeding his soul as well as his body. It doesn’t matter that it is unfamiliar to me and never in a million years would it occur to me to do so. It is the best way to reach him where it makes the most impact. If I tried to shove a heaping bowl of seafood gumbo down his throat just because it was my favorite regardless of how it appealed to him, I would be wasting my time and good gumbo. I use gumbo as an example because it is a part of my family tradition every bit as much as tacos are to him. He did not like it at first and had to acquire a taste for it. If we want people’s souls to be reached we must present Jesus in a concept they can understand. That’s why I encourage people not to use ‘Christian-eze’ as much as I do. It’s not a language non-Believers comprehend.

My theory is fairly simple. If the message of Jesus is to be shared with people of different backgrounds, cultures, languages and intellects it is imperative that while we remain true to the content, we may have to serve it in a recognizable form that touches the basic inner being of the receiver. Jesus in a taco here; Jesus in an eggroll there. Matters not as long as people are being fed the Bread of Life. Jesus supplies all that nurtures and nourishes us; we’re not adding to Him, just serving Him in a way that will touch hearts and lives though it may seem different and foreign to us. He is for all nations, all people, all cultures and tongues …. The Bible says so!

A missionary friend shared a story from a mission trip in Africa where the spiritual leader of the local people asked that they bring Jesus to them not as a potted plant but as seeds they could plant and grow in their own soil. WOW, that is so much more lyrical than ‘wrapped in a taco’ but the message is the same.