Daily Blog

If you are looking for the Manitou post skip down to 10.29.11

11.14.11 The Fellowship of the Sword

11.6.11 Thou Shalt Love Thy…Cat?

Juliet joined our family seven months ago. She is a part-siamese house cat that rules the roost here now. Actually, she isn’t mean at all as some siamese can be. In fact the problem for me is just the opposite. She wants to smother me with affection. You would have had to have been here when she arrived to understand.

In the descriptive terms of our little grand daughter Marin, Juliet was a “scaredy cat” when we got her. It took her some time to get used to her new surroundings and IF you could find her it would likely be under some piece of hard-to-move furniture. So we let her adjust at her pace.

But when she discovered that we weren’t going to eat her or something, it was like a dam burst in her emotions. Suddenly this hard-to-locate ball of fur was stuck to us like those annoying styro packing peanuts everything comes shipped in. At first it was cute, but after a couple of months it became for me, in a word, irritating.

The more the cat wanted to be near me, the more I wished she was still under the sofa or something. And about that time I noticed something else, my attitude in general started to stink.

I had enjoyed quite a few months of close fellowship with the Lord. But I began to realize that was no longer true. At first I couldn’t find any gross sin to blame my distance from the Lord on. I began to ask him to “search my heart, and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me…” and His response shocked me.”

I have to love my cat? It isn’t even MY cat, and I didn’t want it in the first place!

But a proverb started nagging me, “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” Prov 12:10 NIV

My attitude toward our animal was starting to grieve the Holy Spirit, and almost as bad, it was starting to transfer to other people and events in my life. Pretty soon everything was annoying and I began to adjust to living in a low simmering stew.

I knew if I was going to get back to normal with the Lord, I was going to have to start giving Juliet the affection she was looking for, just like I was craving the affection of my heavenly Father. And, oddly enough, it worked.

So, I am ready to add another commandment to the list. And since I am related by faith to the Lion of Judah, that sort of makes the cat and I…

…second cousins?

Maybe not.

 

11.5.11 A Help Meet for Him

After God made Adam, he saw that his work with the man was not complete. Adam needed something more.  Genesis 2:18 records the Lord’s mind on the issue.

The King James says “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” The NIV renders it as, “The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

These translations are helpful, but the Hebrew is much more interesting and insightful. The phrase “help meet” or “helper suitable” comes from a term that is more inclined to use in a millitaristic sense. Behind it is the idea of someone who comes to the rescue of another in danger, and while “help/helper” is technically true, it may lack some important impact.

I used to see my wife as an obstacle. After we got married I began to discover that not only were we not on the same wavelength, I wasn’t sure we were on the same planet. If she said she enjoyed something, most of the time it was something I did not. If we were driving down the street and I mentioned a house I liked, often she did not. And what started as a molehill rapidly became the Grand Tetons in our relationship.

Even after I became a disciple of Jesus Christ my attitude toward my wife really showed little practical adjustment. When I thought I was following God in some matter, she often felt I was not, and was very vocal about it. And I was very frustrated seeing it as just an extension of the rift prior to our coming to know the Lord. I had no idea how much of a tragic mistake I was making.

I believe God has given women in general a capacity for greater sensitivity in two critical dimensions in life: 1)interpersonal relationships, and 2)spiritual discernment. For the most part men can be single focussed, task oriented, and often very good at what they do. But relationships and spiritual sensitivity comes much harder for them than for women.

I did not realize how important an asset my wife is to me as a man, a husband, and a father until the last few years. Now I understand that God can AND DOES use her to keep me from being blindsided as I am focused on what I am doing. It is in my best interest to see her as one of the ways God keeps me on track. He custom-made a person to help me be more and do more than I can be or do on my own.

I don’t know how she has stayed faithful to her wedding vows all these years. I personally know few if any women with her level of perseverance who could have kept at trying to be a help meet with someone like me who didn’t see that he needed help.

But I did, and do.

And she is still there, for which I am grateful.

Thanks, babe.

But I still do not like cooked spinach…or beets…

 

11.2.11 Asking and Receiving

“You do not have, because you do not ask God.” James 4:2b NIV

“My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.” Prov 2:1-5 NIV

I need wisdom, insight, and understanding as I refute the attacks and accusations of those who oppose God and his teachings. In particular I need all of these with reference to the study I am doing right now on the resurrection to ascension texts. And so I ask for them.

That doesn’t mean I don’t use my mind, the mind God gave me both by nature (genetically from my dad), and by nuture (as a result of what I have learned). So I lift up my voice and cry aloud for them, and “apply my heart to understanding”. But I am never exactly sure when that insight will come. Like at 2:00am when I got up to pray for someone who is dying.

I needed wisdom to know how to pray for this couple, and again I asked. But as I ask for wisdom on how to pray for them, James 3:17 comes to mind, “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” It is one of my personal favorites, and I meditate on it often. But as I pondered that verse early yesterday morning, and why it came to mind at 2:00am, I suddenly realized that it might hold the key to one key aspect of the study I am involved in answering the Till Challenge.

Sure enough, after I had finished praying for the couple, I went to my computer and to my shear delight discover that the basic structure of James 3:17 matches almost perfectly to the basic structure of 1Cor 15:3-8. It is a discovery, while not quite on the level of the Rosetta Stone, that unlocks part of the mystery of reconciling the texts.

The structure in 1Cor 15 can be understood as either “This is the order things happened” or “This is the order of presentation or importance”. The first does not fit with the Gospels at all, the latter fits perfectly. In James the structure can only be understood in the latter sense. The similarity allows me to argue for this sense to be taken in interpreting Paul’s passage. I am preparing my presentation for Dr Sellers of National Bible College with this argument.

It was all I could do not to shout for joy and wake up my wife. That would not have been good.

And that was all BEFORE my first cup of coffee!

11.1.11

If I was the dad of one of these kids I would be more than a little proud of them right now:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Teen-rowers-give-up-medal-dreams-to-help-capsize?urn=highschool-wp7953

 

10.31.11

Had a great day yesterday of fellowship with our church family in the morning and evening. Excellent report on the Haiti trip from the returning team members. Great to recall what happened a week ago as a result of preaching that exhausting message. Testimonies are still coming in from folks whose lives were impacted by it, not the least of which was my own. After the message I talked to my father who was stunned by what I said of him in appreciation on the radio and internet, and a wall that had been between us for 40 years came crashing down.

10.29.11  Manitou, for Valley Dwellers…

There is a mountain, really a plateau, on the edge of the Ozark city limits. The native Americans who lived here long before white men pushed them out (that is a story for another time) named it “manitou” (pronounced man-eh-taw), which means “mountain of God.” It is the location of the Youth With A Mission campus, the place of our temporary home for a year and a half after leaving our home in northern Michigan.

My wife, Audrey, and I have a habit we established while we lived there, going out to breakfast on Saturday mornings. It is a habit that we both enjoy, but for more than one reason. We observed that habit this morning, and shared the Big Breakfast at Mickey D’s with two senior coffees, a privilege for which we are grateful and unembarrassed to claim.

When we started the habit I was not only the project manager for the YWAM cafetorium renovation project, but I had also been given the opportunity to join in their SBS or School of Biblical Studies program as a student. I leaped at the opportunity, for this type of study, inductive Bible study, has been the passion of my life since I graduated from Bible school. The YWAM approach was similar to what I had learned, but on steroids. Making it even more distinct was a task-master lead instructor, the late Jim Nizza. He set the bar high, and expected you to clear it, whatever you had to do to get there.

I entered into the program with a little apprehension, not because of the rigors of study, but apprehension at how the other students would react to being with someone who had already taught inductive Bible study methodology to hundreds for nearly 20 years. No, I was sure of my abilities as a student and teacher, too sure. I had no idea how the Lord was about to work through that program to destroy the haughty confidence I went in with. Within a month I was failing.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand the text. Immediately I began to see things I had missed as I learned new techniques to scour the passages for clues to meaning and purpose to accurately understand what the authors had meant to teach. That was shear bliss for me. What I couldn’t understand was the software for laying out the book analysis, the structure of the assignments, and how to present what my instructors were asking for.

I sat in my office in despair one night and wept as I cried out to God to help me. Jim listened to my sobbing prayer, put a hand on my shoulder, and prayed that God would help me, and then what I believe was some lesser form of a miracle must have occurred. Because the next day I began to understand, not in a flood, which would probably in my case have resulted in more pride, but in baby steps.

But about the same time the Lord began to speak to me about the needs of my hurting wife.  I do not remember the exact order of events, whether I realized I needed to meet her needs before God helped me to understand the studies or not. Maybe I can find out and edit this later. But what I do know is that He was telling me I had my priorities wrong.

We had left behind our home, our community, our income, our ministry, everything near and dear to us in Michigan. My wife and I were living in one “cold in the winter, hot in the summer” concrete block room in a dormitory. We didn’t even have privacy as a family at mealtimes. Our kids had to share rooms with other YWAM students. Now we can see clearly God’s hand in moving us from Michigan to Arkansas. But then we were in a dismal valley of fog and gloom, not being able to see from one day to the next anything more of God’s will or blessing than enough to take one step of obedience at a time. We would take one by faith, daily, and wait for the next.

It was then that God asked me to put my pride on the altar and sacrifice it to meet the needs of my wife. I needed time as a project manager and student. She needed time with me, focused time, not moments snatched at the dinner table while sitting with other students, or crammed between classes.

So I suggested we go out to breakfast on Saturday mornings, prime study time for me. To my chagrin she thought that was a great idea. And so Saturday mornings became sacred ground for us as a couple. Missing the appointment was only tolerated under extreme conditions. It cost me as a student, seriously, but the dividends as a couple are still coming in.

So this morning, a bright crisp Arkansan fall morning, we were headed back home after breakfast as we rounded a bend in the road near the airport. Suddenly Manitou came into view and we could see the thick shroud of fog off the Arkansas River obliterating the slopes of the mountain plateau. Only the top was visible under the clear blue sky. I still didn’t get what was about to be revealed to me.

I dropped my wife off at home as I had to go up to the YWAM campus for a vehicle swap, and headed toward Manitou. Suddenly I found myself in fog so thick you couldn’t see more than 150 feet, and gloomy gray light. I slowed to 25 miles an hour as I approached the road that leads up the mountain.

I have walked, run, bicycled, and driven up that snaking switchback road hundreds of times, (and I definitely prefer a motorized vehicle ascent). But I don’t remember once doing it in fog like this. As I started up you could hardly see anything, but the more I climbed the thinner the fog got. Even near the top the fog still somewhat obscured the view. But as I crested the top I was engulfed in that same “as-far-as-the-eye-can-see-” sunlight I had seen from from the airport, when I could see the whole mountain.

And I was stuck at how the people in the valley, if we could swap stories about how miserable their condition seemed, would be unable to relate to my experience of that a difference being on the mountain of God makes in your perception of any given moment in time.

All I can say is, to a great degree, how we respond to our situations determines our perspective and our experience. We can choose to stay in the valley, or we can choose to come up on the mountain. From personal experience, I prefer the latter.

So Saturday breakfast, is a time together, yes, a precious time together as a couple. But for me it is a weekly reminder of when I couldn’t see what was going on, when I took little steps of obedience in the fog of my life, and eventually ended up in overwhelming sunlight.

I don’t know if you are in the valley right now, but I believe you can make a choice about staying there or not. The fog may not leave, but I believe you can. I did, and I believe it is possible for you too. Come on up, even though the climb is steep. The panorama is great, and the fog can actually become a thing of beauty when you see it from above. Come up on Manitou, the mountain of God, even if just briefly. It will help you make sense of things when you have to go back into the valley.