A Parable

Bobby and Billy lived next door to each other. Beginning in elementary school, every morning they walked to school together. One day (all too soon, according to their mothers) they reached high school.  Eagerly they looked forward to fun, freedom, football. When they both made the team, they reveled in the attention.

Sadly their celebrations were halted when Bobby failed a couple of crucial tests and was dropped from the team. Billy was shocked. He had barely passed those tests and thinking of college ahead, resolved to study more to be sure he kept his grades up. Bobby was offended at his teacher who caused him to be kicked off the team—probably jealous that her son failed to make the team. He became bitter and dropped out of school. He found solace in the company of guys he used to think of as losers, hanging around the soda shop during school hours and on a dark street corner after dark.

Dark thoughts led to dark place, and dark deeds followed for Bobby with the inevitable outcome of brushes with the law. By the time Billy left for college with a sports scholarship, Bobby had run out of friends willing to finance his appetite for thrills and booze and half-heartedly looked for a job—even fast-food stores were reluctant to hire someone uneducated, with a tendency to show up late or high. No sweat. His good buddy who supplied him with drugs said he could always use his help—now he was solvent, dressed better, if a little flashy, and found he was suddenly attractive to the girls who followed his new group of friends—until he was arrested and jailed.

It wasn’t fair! Billy had all the luck, with a brand new college degree, employers called him—Bobby (or should we say Booby?) couldn’t get one to answer his call when he was paroled. Nobody befriended him now, and while on parole he was warned to avoid his former friend or else return to finish his complete sentence. No job, no friends, not much future to look forward to. Even if by some fluke, he were offered a job like Billy's, he was ill-prepared to perform. And now even Bobby had no time for him--he had a great new job with a big corporation, was engaged to be married and was buying a house. Good luck seemed to follow him around.

Good and bad things surround each of us as we travel our path. Both offer opportunities for growth and character development. When we are children, discipline is meted out by parents and teachers. As adults, we must exercise self-discipline, accept and learn from those uncomfortable “teaching moments” from God. (Have you noticed that you tend to spend more time with God when you're neck-deep in dilemma than when life is a happy tune?) If we accept the discipline, we profit and grow; if we rebel at the experience, we still go through the same discipline but choked by resentment, we get no wisdom, benefit or growth.

The ABCs of Planning Ahead

Remember back in elementary school when you discovered geography? You probably picked out a favorite place that appealed to you far more than all the other parts of the world, a place of daydreams, one perfect place you dreamed of visiting. As you grew, you read all you could find about it and yearned to someday go there.

And the more you read about it, the stronger your desire grew. Maybe it was the African jungle filled with mighty elephants and dangerous carnivores, or tiny Holland, carved out of land stolen from its surrounding sea and planted with tulips of many colors, riding a camel to see the great pyramids or the Holy Land where Jesus once walked. How thrilling if you should happen to be there to greet Him on the very day of His return?

Once your destination is decided, it will take planning and preparation, of course, to make the most of your travels. Perhaps you already have lists of sites you want to see, marked them on maps, studied tourist brochures and learned it takes lots of dollars to travel! If your trip of a lifetime will someday happen, you must start early and work for years to save funds for the trip.

A summer job  when school is out will cut back on days at the pool with friends. Some weeks  temptation will win and savings will suffer. It is depressing to see savings grow so slowly; it takes determination; to go to work while friends enjoy their holidays.

Diligence pays off! Now reservations are made, ticket purchased, passport in hand you finally set off in your car for the airport. After a couple of wrong turns and a detour or two, you're hopelessly lost. If only you had checked a roadmap--You go home disappointed, rebook your flight, Set your alarm to be sure you have ample time in case you hit a delay; all is well--except the flight is overbooked and someone  isn't flying today! This time you've done everything right, so far as you know,  but will it be enough? Random disasters happen ;;all the time through no one's fault.

Have you noticed your plans being diverted like this in other areas of your life? Reaching your ultimate desired destination demands discipline, careful, constant effort or you may be deceived by the devil who daily builds roadblocks in your path. Developing discipline will direct you to your divine domicile. Consult your Official  Tour Guide--your Bible--regularly to avoid being doomed to a deadly destination.  That would be devastating.  
                                                       And that's no joke!

Don't be a Birdbrain

                                            

A bird awakens one spring morning and is led to collect twigs and leaves and discarded downy bits of feathers and weave them into a nest. Soft, it must be, with high sides to keep her little ones safe. And soon her babes are cuddled together in their little shells, waiting for their time in the warmth of summer sun. Early every morning she flies out to find her breakfast. She will need her strength for her hatchlings, who will soon fill the air with their hungry cries. She knows her days will be spent bringing food to her tiny ones. They will need nourishment to grow strong little wings when their time to fly arrives.

One day she saw a larger bird circling the tree where her little ones slept, waiting for their day to leave their shells. Perhaps she cried out, warning the strange bird to stay away as she left. While she was searching for her breakfast, the strange bird approached the nest and saw it was a fine nest, and decided it would do nicely for her own family.  But her babes would be larger than those who now slept here. There was not enough room for both little families. So one by one, she rolled the tiny eggs to the rim of the nest, up and over the side, to fall to the ground, smashed. Then she deposited her larger eggs in the nest and flew away for her own breakfast, leaving her babes to be cared for by the smaller bird, who perhaps wondered why her hatchlings were larger, hungrier, and more demanding than those she had raised last year.

This may explain the saying, “You can’t stop a bird from flying overhead, but you don’t have to let him nest in your hair.”

Perhaps you were raised in the church but your faith hasn’t developed deeper roots as you grew up, with new, larger problems to solve. Along comes a new idea which seems to have developed into a new, deeper understanding of secret things, exciting things entrusted only to a few very special souls  It seems to add something new and exciting to the Bible, but wait! If the Bible is what it says it is, it contains all we need to know spiritually, so what entity invented these new, thrilling "truths"?

Many years ago I briefly flirted with this mind control experience, which briefly made me feel powerful but which I learned came from my enemy Satan. This new spiritual knowledge is so appealing, it draws you to spend more time and energy learning how to harness your spiritual “powers”, really for your own personal profit. I have seen in others that little by little, it replaced their prayer time.  Anyone deeply  involved may notice they have "matured" beyond the scope of their former church, which they no longer have time for. Their view turns inward, trying to develop control over their consciousness to leave and return to their physical body or commune with spirits of departed souls. But what happened to the bird who left her nest unguarded? The bird who took over in her absence enslaved her to a life of caring for strange babes.

Dear Ones, I pray you awake from your enchantment and instead hunger for the presence of God which may have been “tossed out of your nest” to make room for self centered growth of mental control over your life. Like cotton candy, it looks appealing, tastes sweet momentarily but will leave you starving. This avenue of study doesn’t nourish your spirit. It will push your relationship with your Heavenly Father out of your nest, your heart.

Like the baby birds who were pushed to their death, these false teachings bring death to your spirit. Before you open your heart’s door to a strangely different idea, check its source.

What's His Problem?

Was it something I said--whether carelessly venting because of something someone said to me earlier? Before I growl right back, I’d better hit Rewind to review my last few minutes. Maybe I was a little sharp-tongued after that almost-auto-crash scared me so—and maybe that was partially my fault. I did back out without looking first. But she should have been watching anyway; I was still rattled from that spat when my 8^th grade daughter tried to blame her detention on her boy friend. Who wouldn’t be irritable after the day I’ve had?     Ohhhhhhh! Yeah.

Okay. My bad. I’ll overlook his rude remarks this time. Guess I’m not perfect either.

Really? Do you leave home with your boxing gloves on, ready to fight anyone who rubs you the wrong way? Do you expect others to handle you with kid gloves? For way too long, I expected undeserved animosity everywhere I went. 

Maybe a spiritual chiropractic session can help you. (It sure “straightened me out” ) Or a trip to your inner eye specialist to see yourself and others more clearly. Is there something so special about your life that other people should tread lightly in dealing with you because your problems should be considered more egregious than their own?  Oh, you didn’t realize they had problems requiring their attention?

Remember the old saying that, if given the option of trading your bag of troubles with anyone else, you would very quickly beg to have your own again? Maybe if you had someone to share your problems with, it would be easier to suppress angry words, enabling you to think about others without losing patience with them. And who knows what problems your companion is dealing with?

There’s a new thing to consider and it might shock you: maybe instead of his purposely goaded you into ange, he barely noticed you; maybe you and your misery are far from his mind. Maybe you are so much less important to his day that you are just a blur he passes by. But whether others barely notice you or whatever they think or don’t think about you shouldn’t wound your ego too much. You have a Heavenly Father who always has time to listen and wants you to share your concerns with Him.

Understanding Our God

Day after day we rush out of our homes, head down, memorizing the long to-do list we never seem to complete before coming home to crash at sundown, mentally updating our list of tomorrow’s chores. As our heads hit our pillow and  our eyes begin to close, perhaps we remember to direct our thoughts upward to God, either to breathe a brief prayer as we begin to doze or to feel a momentary frustration or feeling of hopelessness. Where's the joy? There's more to life than this. The Bible says so.

I wrote the above paragraph weeks ago and waited for God's comment before continuing. I believe He is making it clear that He also has been frustrated at our daily schedule taking far too much of our attention. 

He is now providing time and incentive for us to look to Him for the answers we need,  reminding us that our lives are more than the schedule which stole more of our attention than it deserved or needed. Now many of us have a surplus of time to spend with Him, and many of us (first responders) have found our attention to the routine rush usurped by weariness and stress from extra hours of work caring for others, leaving them too weary to think or pray.

His ways are not our ways. We seldom fully understand why He allows severe disruptions in our lives, We sometimes wonder whether we complained once too often how hard our lives had become.  Yet we have been told this world is not our home, and for now we are subject to all it offers, good, bad or horrid. so, no! Fires, floods, storms, diseases happen.  Now we can plainly see we are not His favorites, right after His chosen Hebrew nation.  Complacent because for so long we called ourselves a Christian land, we're shocked to see ourselves as He sees us, no more deserving than all the others around the world where declaring their faith may be a death sentence. In the midst of crisis, He can call out to all His children, remind us not to look at trouble all around us, but instead to ask Him to hold us close and to fill our hearts with gratitude for His loving care. 

Pray for each other. Pray He heals this world and pray we use any opportunity to share what we have learned about His great love, lest any soul should miss one last chance to meet our Savior. 

Losing Weight

Me—tethered to the ground

I remember years of stress, trauma and tears, long working hours. losing my marriage and mother whom I had clung to, depending on her too long, then bit by bit my life became simpler, more streamlined as bits of sadness, resentment and fears floated away, left behind without the pain of loss I would have expected. My girls married and left home the same year and I survived both double blows.

 My job, which I had thought held my identity before retiring, Whoosh! Left behind all too soon it seemed. I noticed I had begun leaving behind a few things no longer useful; surprisingly without feeling deprived—I was expecting stress but only noticed an occasional twinge of regret, soon forgotten, surprised at how easy it was to let things slip away.

By my 80th year I see life is simpler now, in my final chapter. Looking back, I see so clearly how He has guided my desires, shaping them slowly but surely, closer to His own. I remember my first awareness that I had reached my peak earning years, so put aside my briefcase and career ambitions and was relieved and pleased there was no twinge of loss; I was free to concentrate now on more important concerns. As I freed myself from those earthly tethers, I felt lighter, ready to float freely.

My physical world shrank as my best (busier) days were left behind. Without a whimper I sold my car and used the cash to outfit my bathroom to more comfortably accommodate my new physical circumstances. In His wise council, God had led me to buy long term care insurance, which financed three years at Horizon Bay assisted living (and is still available for the next time it’s needed) which prepared me for a bigger step. God’s blessed home, my perfect nest, after 40 years of serving me and providing my comfort and temporary haven for others—sold, gone? No, its price is there in my bank statement, so it’s still caring for me.

              

Going from ambitions to responsibilities to freedom from the usual expectations is a gradual procedure. Other bits of life no longer needed I have left in a scattered trail as I go forward mentally unencumbered, including freedom to come and go at will, walking confidently without stumbling, sleeping peacefully the night through, the liberty of making independent decisions, and the newest, asking Sandy to handle my bills and checkbook, confessing to a little whining about my fading vision which made her help necessary. I must admit successfully paddling my financial canoe had privately been a source of pride/,  

me, weightless, ready for take-off

 Less time spent on this world’s needs allows more time to contemplate my extended future!  I’m reminded by frequent aches and complaints that I will encounter a few bumps in the road ahead but it’s thrilling to imagine my next chapter, just beyond the horizon. So leaving the weight of these various bits of life left behind is easy---and a loss, just exchanged for glimpses of my next Home, waiting for me. My Father has so generously given me plenty of time for my faith to grow, to learn how to love Him more, how to find and follow His path through this broken world, ready and happy to lose the weight of bits left behind. These days I sense God’s presence close by and I’m listening for His call.

Creator, Creation

Recently Dr. Jeffress used the illustration of a sculptor and a marble slab from which he carved a handsome lion. Someone asked how he had managed to transform a slab of stone into the likeness if a beautiful, powerful animal. His reply ? “I just used my tools to remove everything that didn’t look like a lion.”

I wonder, though, what if we asked the stone slab its opinion of the process? Might it have rebelled, complained, shrunk away from the sharp blows of the hammer and chisel? Certainly it wouldn’t have been comfortable or pleasant. And when work was complete, might the stone lion have preened a little, just a bit proud of his newfound beauty, forgetting the artist’s technique and physical labor responsible for his transformation?  Don't we sometimes forget the source of our own daily successes  and forget whose Hand was on the tools shaping us?

Today a commonplace description of a successful, well-known corporate leader is a "self-made man". Hearing that often, the man thus described can get puffed up in pride over his success in this world. I sometimes wonder about God's opinion  on this subject. I guess it just depends on which world where you seek to excel and your (and His) definition of success.

A favorite old hymn came to my mind, not commonly heard in this new century:

                Have thine own way, Lord.

                Have thine own way.

                Thou art the Potter;

                 I am the clay.

                 Mold me and make me 

                 After thy will.

                 Here I am, waiting, Lord,

                 Yielded and still.

 I believe I can safely agree to God's definition of success.