March 2010

March 1

Here’s my word for today, “down.”

Last week Diane and I took a few days to go down to Florida.  When we flew into Orlando, the Alamo people said, “You can take any car in this aisle.”  Aha!  Let’s take that convertible, a little Mitsubishi Eclipse that for all practical purposes was a two-seater.  How hard to get down into that car!

We got to Vero Beach and scouted out the stores in the neighborhood.  We bought almost nothing.  Our desire for things has gone down.

Each morning we’d go out for breakfast but that pretty well filled us up for lunch.  Didn’t need so much for dinner either.  Our appetites have gone down.

And when I used my cell phone to e-mail a co-worker, he wrote back, “You’re on vacation.  Put that thing down!”

Dr. Arnold Kuntz wrote, “Life narrows down, and crisis comes.  Suddenly, one thing matters, and there, in the narrow place, stands Jesus.”

As life narrows down, busy-ness and work are less important.  The days off reminded me I’m not going to be saved by work, even church work.  It’s all a matter of grace.  Life narrowing down should get us on our knees to ask the Lord for ever more grace.  Well, maybe not on our knees; they ache.  I prayed from a chair by the beach.   

March 2

Oh God, this is so wrong!  You sit high in the heavens and let an earthquake devastate Chile?  You’re the creator of this world.  Did you create it with such fatal flaws that hundreds of thousands die in Haiti?  My neighbor anxiously awaits word about his relatives in Chile.  Chile, Haiti, so much suffering and we’re supposed to believe that You love us?  Dear God, You are all that puny Dale has.  “Whom have I in heaven but Thee?” (Psalm 73:25) 

I know I’m not the only one to ask the question.  A young parent loses a child.  A life-long church-goer endures a long and painful death.  A child grows up in an abusive home.  The convulsions of the world convulse your believers as well.  Good Lord, we’re not the people You intended.  We are sinners, through and through.  Nature is broken too and often breaks us.  That said, that confessed, couldn’t You reach out Your hand, couldn’t You speak Your commanding word, and soften the harshness of this life?

You didn’t answer Job for a long time until You finally said, “Where were You when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me if you understand.”  (Job 38:4)  We don’t understand.  We know so little.  Dear Jesus, Son of God, we believe; help our unbelief. (Mark 9:24)  Amen.

March 3

What would you do?  You are in Chile or Haiti.  The earthquake has devastated your life.  You hear that people are looting nearby stores.  Do you join in the looting?  The commandment says, “Thou shalt not steal.”  That’s clear and I trust that you accept it as God’s command.  But in life and death situations, what would you do?”  

Before the construction of the temple, the tabernacle was Israel’s most holy place.  In the tabernacle were loaves of bread, the “showbread,” and only the priests were permitted to eat the showbread.  Still, David, who was not a priest but was hungry, asked the priest for the forbidden bread.  The priest obliged and David ate the “looted” showbread.  (1 Samuel 21:1-7; Matthew 12:1-8).

Jesus used that story to try and show religious legalists that love is the supreme command.  He quoted Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  Mercy is doing acts of kindness for others.  It’s not looting plasma TVs, as the news reports that some people in Chile are doing.  But take a loaf of bread or some water to feed your starving family?  I think that’s doing mercy.  Wrong?  Technically, yes, but “love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).   Moral questions are not always easy.  Neither is the life of Christian love.

March 4

“Our daughter shared a conversation she overheard at home,” wrote August Mennicke.  ‘Our 3-year-old grandson was standing at the basement stairs, trying to muster enough courage to make the descent.  Before taking the first step, he said, “Oh, Jesus, it’s awful dark down there.  You’d better hold my hand.’”  (Devotions for the Chronologically Gifted, p. 58)

19th century poet John Greenleaf Whittier also wrote about a 3-year-old… and about us adults.

March 5

Last Sunday Diane and I got into a short but stimulating conversation.  Members of our church are being asked to go door to door to pass out invitations to come to church.  Diane said, “Why does anyone need to go to church?”  And then, holding up her Blackberry, she said, “They have everything they need right here.”

Today you don’t need a newspaper; you can get news on a smart phone or PC.  You don’t need old style books.  You can get the same book on the Kindle, and cheaper.  You don’t need to pay for a land line because your cell phone meets the need. You don’t need to watch TV because you can get information and entertainment electronically.  Many of the “old” ways are comfortable but no longer the only way.

Why go to church?  “Modern Christianity tends to think of the church either as a place where individuals come to find answers to their questions or as one more stop where individuals can try to satisfy their consumerist desires.”  (James K. A. Smith, “Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?” p. 29)  For spiritual information, you can get better sermons and teaching on the internet.  If it’s “consumerist desires” that drive you, shop on line.

I’m not done with this but for now, why go to church?

March 8

Because Horace wrote poetry praising Caesar Augustus, he was given some small acreage outside of Rome.  “Nor, did I wish more, would you refuse to grant it.”  But Horace didn’t want more.  He was quite content to watch nature on his little farm.  “My stream of pure water, my woodland of few acres, and sure trust in my crop of corn bring me more blessing than the lot of the dazzling lord of fertile Africa.” (Odes, III, 16)

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the market’s greatest percentage loss since the 1930s.  A year later, are you worried about your portfolio coming back or do you find yourself at the other end, no investments, just scrimping from paycheck to paycheck?  Are you obsessed about money?  Let me put it this way.  Are you complaining about what God has or has not given you?

You can get to contentment by reading the wise of this world, like Horace.  “To those who seek for much; much is ever lacking.”  Or you can reach contentment by living in the story of Jesus.  “Foxes have dens, and birds have nests.  But the Son of Man doesn’t have a place to call his own.”  (Matthew 8:20)  Is there a God?  Do you believe He claims you in Jesus Christ?  Maybe that’s the deciding question.

March 9

“Opa, I have a question.”

“Connor, what is it?”

“When it’s time to eat, my brother Christian says, ‘It’s time to say grace, guys; come on!’  He learned prayers at pre-school.  He thinks it’s his job to make sure we pray. So Christian makes us sit and pay attention.  ‘OK,’ he says.  ‘I’m going to say grace.  Sit down everybody.  No spitting or talking while I say grace, OK, guys?  If there’s spitting or hitting, I’ll stop the prayer, OK?’  Then Christian prays.” 

“What do I do?  I put my chin on my folded hands.  Just get on with it, I think.  The other day I looked at Mommy and rolled my eyes.  When Christian paused to take a breath, I said, ‘Amen.  Eat!’”

“That’s interesting, Connor.  What’s your question?”

“All that talking that Christian does.  Does that mean that he’s a better Christian than I am?  Are the best Christians the ones who talk the most?”

“Connor, God gave us all different personalities.  Some like to talk more than others.  We shouldn’t confuse a person’s personality with a person’s faith.  Our Father in heaven says, ‘I judge people by what is in their hearts.’”  (1 Samuel 16:8)

March 10

Richard Baxter was a 17th century Puritan minister whose book, The Saints Everlasting Rest,” is a classic of devotional literature.  In one passage Baxter put these words on the lips of a person who missed out on heaven because of wasted spiritual time on earth.  “How many weeks and months and years did I lose, which if I had improved, I might now have been happy!  Could I find no time to study the work for which I had all my time?  No time, among all my labors, to labor for eternity?  Could I take time to secure the world and none to try my title to heaven?”

March 11

March 12