Category Archives: Attitudes & Behavior

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November 23, 2021

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Attitudes & Behavior, Challenges & Difficulty, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Joy, Peace of God

FEAR NOT

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. [Luke 2:10-11 (ESV)]

Even though “Black Friday” sales already have started and stores have been decorated for Christmas since Halloween, the holiday season doesn’t officially start until Thursday with Thanksgiving. Although the angel brought good news of joy to the shepherds and told them not to be afraid, the holiday season brings a sense of dread and anxiety for many of us. “Stress” and “family” are two words that shouldn’t go together but often do. The dynamics of several families and generations gathering together over the holidays can put a strain on everyone as different traditions, expectations, politics, and faiths collide with one another. Couples struggle to keep both in-laws and parents happy while grandparents overindulge their grands. Children get too much sugar and not enough sleep, too much money is spent, and too much alcohol often gets consumed. Add to that the challenges presented by long-distance travel with its almost inevitable lost luggage, delays, or cancellations and trying to maintain peace at a politically divided dinner table and we have the makings of a perfect storm! The joy of the season easily gets lost in the stress of the season.

Hoping to have a perfectly orchestrated Thanksgiving feast and Christmas celebration, we often have unrealistic expectations and are disappointed when they’re not met. In actuality, our holiday is more likely to resemble that of the Griswolds than anything we’ll see on the Hallmark channel. Because we don’t live in TV-land, our problems won’t be resolved in ninety minutes and happy endings are not guaranteed. Things can and will go awry and there are no retakes when they do. Babies cry and spit up, toddlers have tantrums, children get tired and cranky, adolescents pout, milk spills, cakes fall, roasts burn, toys break, people sing out of tune, planes get delayed, and someone’s feelings are sure to get hurt. We just have to learn to accept and love the imperfections of our loved ones and understand that chaos and confusion are a part of life. Let us resign ourselves to the noise, disorder, and stress that comes with any family gathering and concentrate on the love, joy, and peace God brought to us when Jesus came into the world so very long ago.

Lord, guide us this holiday season so that what should be a joyous time of year doesn’t become a joyless one. Help us to have realistic expectations as we celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please, give us an extra dose of patience and a sense of humor when things go awry. May your message of love and peace fill our hearts and minds.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:13-14 (ESV)]

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November 22, 2021

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Attitudes & Behavior, Challenges & Difficulty, Faith & Hope, God's Plan, Holidays & Holy Days, Today: Make it Count, Trusting God

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

Lord, I trust in you. You are my God. My life is in your hands. [Psalm 31:14-15a (ERV)]

Going by the popular name of “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” the Brunfelsia is one of my favorite Florida flowers. Three colors of pansy-like fragrant flowers can be seen on the one plant at the same time: the deep purple of the new flower, the pale lavender that appears shortly thereafter, and the pure white just before the flower falls off. Although we get to see what this flower looked like yesterday, looks like today and will look like tomorrow, we don’t get to see the past, present and future of our lives all at once. God, however can.

This lovely flower was brought to mind last week when I had my yearly exam at the dermatologist’s. In honor of Thanksgiving, one wall of the waiting room displayed brown, orange, red, and yellow construction paper leaves scattered under a banner that asked, “For what are you thankful?” While reminiscent of an elementary school classroom bulletin board, the answers written on those leaves by both patients and staff weren’t like those of the average grade-schooler who knows little of things like death, biopsies, addiction, loneliness, strokes, cancer, conflict, bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness, violence, or struggle. While a fourth-grader might have written her dog’s name on a leaf, only a mature adult would have said, “I’m thankful for the troubled times because, without them, I wouldn’t be the person I am today!”

Indeed, I can’t say I was thankful for my troubles when they occurred but, like that person, I am thankful for what God did with them in my life. The hurdles, pain, injury, loss, and trouble that seemed so random and senseless at the time make sense in retrospect. I can see how God brought those difficult yesterdays together to bring me to a better and more beautiful today and how today’s challenges will lead me into an even more amazing tomorrow. Having no crystal ball to see how it all will come together at some point in the future, however, we simply must trust God with our tomorrows and settle on only seeing the past, present, and future at one time in the lovely flowers of the Brunfelsia.

Another name for the Brunfelsia is “Kiss Me Quick Before I Fade,” but I tend to think of it as the Carpe Diem flower. The phrase comes from the Roman poet Horace and was part of his injunction to “carpe diem quam minimum credula postero” meaning “pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the next one.” Horace, who died in 8 BC, was a pagan but, had he been born at a later date and become a follower of Jesus, the poet could have trusted in his tomorrows because he would have known they were in God’s hands.

As for me, while thanking God for the blessings of yesterday (even though I didn’t appreciate many of them at the time), I will pluck this day with enthusiasm and joy while trusting God with the next one. He planted us right here and at this time for a reason and He will faithfully cultivate, prune, water, and nurture us. Trusting that God knows what He’s doing, what He wants for us, where He’s taking us, and how He will get us there, let us release to Him all of our yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows.

God promises a safe landing but not a calm passage. [Bulgarian Proverb]

The Lord guides our steps, and we never know where he will lead us. [Proverbs 20:24 (ERV)]

So I saw that the best thing people can do is to enjoy what they do, because that is all they have. Besides, no one can help another person see what will happen in the future. [Ecclesiastes 3:22 (ERV)]

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November 19, 2021

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Attitudes & Behavior, God's Grace & Love, Holidays & Holy Days, Salvation: A New You, Today: Make it Count

DESSERTS OR DESERTS?

But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” [Luke 23:40-41 (NLT)]

wild turkeyWe’re hosting family and friends for Thanksgiving dinner and I’m still planning the menu. One guest won’t eat anything green, another doesn’t eat seafood, one dislikes turkey, and two are vegetarians. While I’m still working on appetizers, salad, main course and sides, dessert is a given. Between the sweets our guests are bringing and my pecan pumpkin pie topped with caramel sauce and whipped cream, even the pickiest eater will be happy! I probably could please everyone with just desserts!

Thinking of eating just desserts reminded me of a show I saw several years ago about non-traditional Thanksgiving menus. Prepared by the owner of a confectionery, the entire meal consisted of sweets masquerading as traditional savory holiday dishes. The turkey was formed of dark and light chocolate and the mashed potatoes and gravy were a white cake heaped in a bowl, topped with buttercream frosting, and drizzled with butterscotch syrup. The dinner rolls were doughnuts, the yams were sweet pumpkin soufflé, and the peas were made of marzipan. After their initial dismay, everyone enjoyed eating just desserts. In fact, upon cleaning his dinner plate, one little boy asked for dessert!

The life God give us isn’t like that holiday dinner of just desserts; there always will be things like sadness, trouble, loss, and pain. We didn’t enjoy them the first time around and certainly don’t want second or third helpings. Nevertheless, like that little boy, rather than relishing whatever sweetness we’re given, we often think we deserve more. While we might prefer a life of just desserts, what we don’t want is one of just deserts!

You see, in spite of their similar pronunciation, the phrases “just desserts” and “just deserts” are not the same thing.  “Just deserts” uses a now obsolete definition of “desert” as “something that is deserved” and precedes the mid-16th century concept of an after dinner sweet called “dessert” by several hundred years.

In fact, we’re blessed that God doesn’t give us our just deserts. As sinners, we don’t even deserve the blessings we’ve already been given. We certainly don’t deserve God’s love—a love so great that He sacrificed His only son for us. Without sin, Jesus didn’t get His just deserts when he suffered on the cross; He took our just deserts! Dying so that we might live, our Lord got what He didn’t deserve so that we could receive what we didn’t! We deserve condemnation and punishment but God’s mercy gives us love and forgiveness. Let’s be careful when we demand what we truly deserve from God; we don’t want Him to give us our just deserts!

The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales. [John Stott]

He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. [Psalm 103:10-12 (NLT)]

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November 18, 2021

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Church & Worship, God's Grace & Love, God's Plan, Holidays & Holy Days, Salvation: A New You

NEW WINE (Matthew 9:16-17 – Part 2)

But now we have been cut loose from the law; we have died to the thing in which we were held tightly. The aim is that we should now be enslaved in the new life of the spirit, not in the old life of the letter. [Romans 7:6 (NTE)]

concord grapesWhen explaining to some of John the Baptist’s followers why His disciples didn’t fast, along with the illustration of patching an old garment, Jesus compared His new way with winemaking. While many of us have sewn patches on clothing, few of us are experienced winemakers. Nevertheless, we know that today’s vintners ferment their wine in oak, stainless, concrete, or clay barrels rather than wineskins. Our only experience with wineskins may hearken back to college football games and ski trips when some fellows carried a wineskin filled with an alcoholic beverage hidden under their coats.

In the 1st century, however, wine often was fermented in large wineskins made from animal hide or bladders. Like new material sewn on old fabric, new wine in old skins also would be a failure. When unfermented juice was put into a skin and left to age, gasses would form. Although new wineskins were pliable enough to hold both wine and gasses as they fermented, old skins were hard and brittle. Without elasticity, the old skins would be unyielding as the new wine expanded during fermentation. Eventually, the old skins would burst and both wineskin and wine would be spoiled.

Thinking of new wine, today is Beaujolais Nouveau Day in France. Observed with music, fireworks and festivals, it celebrates the release of the first wine of the season. Bottled and sold just six weeks after harvest, Beaujolais Nouveau is intended for immediate drinking. I thought of this fruity red when Jesus concluded His two parables with these words in Luke 5:39: “But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”

With Beaujolais Nouveau, people who prefer the old to the new are correct. In spite of its popularity, Beaujolais Nouveau rarely lives up to its promise and never is as rich as properly aged red wine. The result of shortcuts and additives, unlike other wines, it doesn’t even improve with age. Calling it “near wine,” wine critics have compared Beaujolais Nouveau to eating raw cookie dough.

Jesus, however, wasn’t talking about new wine; He was talking about the difference between the old religious legalism of the Pharisees and the new way of God’s grace found in Him. He cautioned that it is far easier to fall back into the old familiar ways than to take on anything new. Grace through faith was a radical idea and Jesus knew He couldn’t put new ideas into inflexible closed minds. For many people, it was easier to remain in a life governed by laws and regulations than to step out in faith and live according the Spirit.

Unlike Beaujolais Nouveau, the rich life found in Christ isn’t the result of shortcuts or additives. Following Him lives up to its promise and only gets richer and better with time. Like Beaujolais Nouveau, however, the message of hope and salvation Jesus brought into the world is worthy of celebration (and not just on the third Thursday of November)!

Then he took some bread. He gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them. “This is my body,” he said, “which is given for you. Do this in memory of me.” So too, after supper, with the cup: “This cup,” he said, “is the new covenant, in my blood which is shed for you.” [Luke 22:19-20 NTE]

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November 15, 2021

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, God's Grace & Love, Patience & Perseverance, Prayer, Wisdom & Guidance

HE ALWAYS ANSWERS

Why do you accuse God of not answering anyone?  God does speak—sometimes one way and sometimes another—even though people may not understand it. He speaks in a dream or a vision of the night when people are in a deep sleep, lying on their beds. He speaks in their ears and frightens them with warnings to turn them away from doing wrong and to keep them from being proud. [Job 33:13-17 (NCV)]

monarch butterflyWhile sorting through comic strips I’d saved, I came across an old Beetle Bailey (written by Greg and Mort Walker). In it, the inept General Halftrack approaches the chaplain and says, “I’d like to talk to God like you do, but when I try to talk to him, He doesn’t answer.” Chaplain Stainglass replies, “Maybe you’ve been calling the wrong number!” Indeed, sometimes the silence seems deafening when we call on God but I don’t think it’s because we’ve called the wrong number. The general simply may have hung up too quickly! Abraham determinedly pled for the city of Sodom, Hannah untiringly prayed for a son, Elijah persisted in praying for rain, and the Syrophoenician woman stubbornly begged Jesus to heal her daughter. They continued to call and God answered them all! Then again, maybe the General was so busy talking, that he didn’t hear God answer him!

The General may have missed the answer because he didn’t recognize God’s voice. Perhaps he expected to hear an audible voice as did Moses in the meeting tent or Paul on the road to Damascus. Maybe the general imagined God’s words would come from an angel as they did to Mary and the shepherds long ago. Most of us, however, will have neither a face-to-face meeting with God nor an encounter with a host of angels. It’s more likely that God will use the voices of other believers when He talks to us as He did with the prophets to Israel and Judah, Jethro to Moses, Samuel to Saul, and Paul to Timothy.

Nature and natural events are another way God speaks. The thunder, lightning, quaking and smoke at Mt. Sinai certainly made God’s presence clear to the Israelites. He spoke through both a flood and a rainbow to Noah and a star to the Magi. Because God has a specific plan for our lives, we also will find God’s voice in our circumstances. When, like the Israelites, we find ourselves between an army and the sea or a rock and a hard place, He may be telling us to trust Him. If, like Jonah, we end up in the belly of a whale, He might be teaching us about obedience. Sometimes God’s even speaks through the supernatural as He did to Gideon with the fleece, to Moses with the burning bush, to Balaam with a talking donkey, and to King Belshazzar with writing on the wall.

Dreams and visions are another way God speaks. It was in a dream that God told Abimelech that Sarah was Abraham’s wife and a vision led Ananias to visit Paul. In one dream, Jacob saw angels ascending and descending from a ladder and, in another, God told him to return home. It was through Joseph’s dreams God spoke to him and through Pharaoh’s dreams that Joseph knew of Egypt’s future famine.

God also He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit. While some refer to Him as that “still small voice,” the Holy Spirit is anything but still or small when He points out our sins or has an assignment for us. Speaking to our hearts and often through our conscience, the Holy Spirit helps us discern God’s will, convicts us when we go astray, and gives us a sense of peace when we’ve taken the right path.

Perhaps the General forgot that God already provided him with plenty of answers in the Bible. All of scripture is God-breathed and His word is filled with wisdom and guidance. The words of Jesus are as relevant today as they were over 2,000 years ago. We, however, have to do our part by reading those words!

Like the General, we all have times when it seems God is away from his desk and ignoring our calls. The problem isn’t with God; it’s with us. We’re just not listening with our ears, eyes and hearts!

And the sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he brings all his sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. … My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. [John 10:3-4,27 (NCV)]

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November 12, 2021

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Attitudes & Behavior, Church & Worship, God's Word: The Bible, Knowing Him, Obedience, Temptation & Sin

GOING TRASH-FREE

A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash. [Proverbs 15:14 (NLT)]

eastern tiger swallowtail butterflyEvery breakfast, lunch and dinner, a recent house guest consumed between five and fifteen supplements like flaxseed and fish oils, magnesium, vitamin D, calcium, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, and resveratrol (among others). Annually, people like our guest spend around $35 billion on supplements, vitamins, minerals, botanicals, and other substances to enhance their health. It doesn’t stop there; every year, five million diet books are published, at least 17 million cookbooks are purchased, and $33 billion is spent on weight loss products. Add to that all of the magazines, food channels, websites, blogs, and podcasts dedicated to nutrition, recipes, and weight loss and you have a nation of people who seem obsessed with what goes into their bodies.

Recently, a several hours delay at the airport led me into one of the terminal’s newsstands. After browsing the magazine rack for something to read during the long wait, it occurred to me that our nation appears to be more concerned about what we feed our bodies than the material with which we nourish our minds. I’m no prude but just looking at the topics listed on the covers of many magazines caused me to blush and the exposed bodies on the covers should have made the models blush! Although the Bible is pretty clear about not gossiping, many of those magazines and tabloids were nothing but gossip about the private lives of various celebrities. Rather than being so concerned with the calories or fat grams we put in our bodies, we might want to give some consideration to what we put in our minds. Instead of going fat-free, we could try going trash-free!

If we go on a trash-free diet, however, we should give serious thought to the other things we consume. We have television programs with housewives unlike any I’ve ever met, bachelors and bachelorettes trying out one another the way King Xerxes did with Esther, and hook-ups instead of relationships. While I wouldn’t want to return to the 50s when Elvis’ gyrations meant he was televised only from the waist up, it seems that we’ve gone too far the other way as near naked entertainers twerk while singing disgusting lyrics like “Sex in the air, I don’t care … Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me.” As Christ followers, we should give serious thought to all that we consume, not just in print, but also on our phones, radios, iPods, computers, television, and movie screens.

The words and images we take in affect our spiritual well-being as much as food affects our physical health. If we want high-quality ideas and words to come out of us, we need first-rate ideas and words to enter into us. Are we looking at and listening to the media with the eyes and ears of Jesus or just mindlessly snacking on the equivalent of the empty calories found in junk food?

As for supplements—in actuality, the efficacy of many of my friend’s supplements is questionable; all they really do is create expensive urine. Supplementing our lives with daily Scripture, prayer, Bible study, Christian fellowship, and church, however, is guaranteed to make us better, stronger, and happier than any pill could!

Today, let’s spend more time thinking about our spiritual food than our daily bread.

Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food. Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. [Isaiah 55:2-3a (NLT)]

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. [Philippians 4:8 (NLT)]

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