I messed up

Thomas Jefferson lived by one principle: "Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching." While it isn't a direct quote from the Bible, the principle sure is! All the world watches to see how the children of God will respond in times of need, crisis, and even peaceful repose. Why? They want to know if you will handle life differently because Jesus dwells within you.

Intelligent people are always ready to learn. Their ears are open for knowledge. (Proverbs 18:15)

Robert Half reminds us, "When one teaches, two learn." For me to teach anything, share any of the truths God has revealed to me, I have to learn them first. Do I learn them all fully before I share them? No, but when truth becomes alive to me, you bet I am going to share it! Be ready to learn, no matter the day or the hour. This is how I operate - when God speaks, I want to be ready to listen. How about you?

Do some of God's teachings come at a time when I am busy with other stuff? Yes, and if I don't slow down long enough to acknowledge it, I will lose it. If we go through life at a break-neck speed, we might miss more than one lesson God is teaching. We may not see the example set for us in another's actions. Are the greatest lessons always taught from the pulpit? Not hardly! Some of the hardest, but most profound lessons are learned at the moment we make the dumbest mistakes.

Remember: The 'teachable' do a whole lot of 'teaching'. What do others 'learn' from you? Do they learn of the faithfulness of grace? Do they see the wisdom of humility? Do they understand the importance of confession? These are truthfully what I would label as everyday kind of lessons. As we stumble through our day, we might find there are times to admit we didn't do things very well. Do we just do that silently, afraid someone might think poorly of us if we were to share it with another? They already saw us mess up - why not also let them see how a righteous man or woman deals with that 'mess up' in a godly manner? Just askin...

A life more fruitful

Mark Twain said that the human race had one really 'effective' weapon - laughter. I think our most effective weapon is not really laughter as much as it is the Word of God. Laughter might give us a momentary release - the Word of God and what it can accomplish within us is lasting and sure. Have you ever been reading through scripture only to find something within the passage 'calls out' some behavior you have been struggling with, or reveals some answer to a worry you have been mulling over? The purpose of the Word of God is to teach us - to make us wise. We are able to discern direction once hidden from us because of the work of the Spirit of God within us and the revelation of the Word of God to us. If we want more than an 'immediate release', we need to take in what can give us a permanent and secure hope.

If you rebuke a mocker, you will only get a smart retort; yes, he will snarl at you. So don’t bother with him; he will only hate you for trying to help him. But a wise man, when rebuked, will love you all the more. Teach a wise man, and he will be the wiser; teach a good man, and he will learn more. For the reverence and fear of God are basic to all wisdom. Knowing God results in every other kind of understanding. “I, Wisdom, will make the hours of your day more profitable and the years of your life more fruitful.” Wisdom is its own reward, and if you scorn her, you hurt only yourself. (Proverbs 9:8-12)

Who among us doesn't want a more fruitful life? If we embrace God's wisdom - the holy scriptures - we are bound to see fruit. Why? The seed of truth isn't just casually cast into our lives - it is purposefully placed. Teach a wise man and he will be wiser - because the seed is taken in, then it is turned over in the fertile soil of his heart and nurtured there by the Spirit of God until it takes root. When good seed takes root, fruit is bound to come forth. Knowing God results in every kind of understanding - even though we are unlearned in so many ways, God's Spirit can give us wisdom far beyond our years or education. 

Wisdom adds years to our lives - years that become more settled and certain as we allow God to impart his wisdom within. We could go through life on our own, but the wise man or woman will embrace all the help to sort out life's woes and worries as much as possible. Why? They have learned trusting in one's own ability to consistently produce the best outcomes (fruit) is pretty close to impossible. Good men exist, but any goodness that is 'self-made' is still flawed goodness. There is but one 'goodness' that is perfect - Christ's. There is but one source of true goodness of heart, mind, and spirit - to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ with all we have within us. 

Seeds will be planted today. They can be seeds of goodness and grace, springing forth in season in an even bigger harvest of that which reveals the goodness and grace of God within. They can be seeds of self-seeking, pride, or mistrust - all producing a harvest, but not always a good one that is 'unmixed' with the tares of this world. God's Word isn't to be trifled with - it is the source of much life and goodness. Take it in - trust it to accomplish its work. That work may be correction - reminding us of choices that have not been all that wise. It may be confirmation - allowing us to feel at peace with decisions we are about to make. How is that? The Word of God is purposeful - it is focused on the harvest that is about to be produced by being introduced to the soil of our hearts and minds. A ready heart and an open mind go a long way in providing soil that is fertile for fruitful growth. Just sayin!

Don't be afraid to share your mistake

A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether. 

(Roy H. Williams)

Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be—you get a fresh start, your slate’s wiped clean. Count yourself lucky—God holds nothing against you and you’re holding nothing back from him. When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up. Then I let it all out; I said, “I’ll come clean about my failures to God.” Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared. (Psalm 32:1-5)

I don't want anyone to feel they are alone in their mistakes - heaven knows I have made more than my fair share and I am not finished living yet! We are supposed to learn from those mistakes, though. How many times have you and I made the same mistake on more than one occasion? The likelihood is that we did not learn from it the first time, or in the subsequent times! It would be nice if we made mistakes once, learned everything there was to learn from them, and then never made them again. That isn't reality - we repeat them, not so much because we didn't learn the first lesson, but because there is often more than one lesson to be learned from the mistake!

If I overspend this month, blowing the budget all to kingdom come, I can get back on track next month. What did I learn from my mistake? It is possible to recover from the over-spending with a little 'thrift' the next month? Don't give into those rogue emotions the next time you feel like a shopping spree? Keep better track of your money so it doesn't get away from you? Yes, all of these are possible lessons, but each one of those are individual lessons, aren't they? Guilt over our mistake doesn't always bring all the lessons to be learned to the surface, does it? Sometimes we repeat the mistake because we didn't see the 'other' lesson in the first mistake!

Have you ever observed someone else make the same mistake you were just about to make and then stopped what you were about to do? Why did you stop? You recognized the mistake before you made it because someone else shared how the mistake affected them. Yes, you were acting wisely by learning from their mistake. Why do I read the reviews posted on the online shopping site? I like to see that others were pleased with the quality of the product I am about to purchase. I want to avoid the mistake of purchasing something that will not work, breaks down quickly, or is just plain junk. 

We aren't going to learn from each other if we keep all our mistakes neatly tucked away in some secret compartment. As we confess our mistakes to God, we are also asking him to make our lives an example that others may learn from - so they don't launch headlong into the same mistakes! It is hard enough to admit our mistakes to God, let alone anyone else. There is indeed something to be learned in sharing. It is quite possible that someone who is learning from our mistake may actually help us see more than the one lesson we learned on our own - their perspective gives them a different vantage point to see other lessons we may have never even considered from our vantage point. Just sayin!

Unlatched

"Don’t suppose for a moment, though, that God’s Word has malfunctioned in some way or other." (Romans9:6) Most of the time we are the ones who "malfunction" - not God, not his Word, not his promises, not his commands. When something is "functioning" as it was designed to function, it follows a particular order - all the pieces fit together as they should, producing the intended outcome. Truthfully, only God can do this 100% of the time! Try as we might, we are going to "malfunction" on occasion. Trusting in our ability is always going to leave us with "less than" whatever it is we could attain, obtain, or maintain with God doing the work!

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. (Romans 9:30-32)

Those who once did not believe, had no intention of following the one true God - they have come full-circle. They embrace what God is doing, while those who should have been embracing what God was doing all along in their lives have somehow taken a different track. It is like they were plugging down the track well, came to a fork in the track, and then "flipped the switch" to go down a track they were not originally on. We do this sometimes, don't we? We start out well, then without even thinking, we take the track which presents itself as an "option" in our lives. When it comes to our obedience, many of us "keep our options open"! One embraced what God was doing and reaped rewards beyond their imagining; the other chose to focus on something quite superficial and missed out. We need to understand that "playing the part" of a Christian is not enough to keep us in right relationship with God. We can read all the scripture we want to - looking quite pious in our pursuit - but if it is never embraced, never allowed to change the way we think and act, it will serve us little good. We can talk about God a great deal, even using the right "Christian words", but if we don't have heart-knowledge of God's grace and love, the words are empty.

There is a clear between living by some set of rules (the reading and talking part) and living by grace (the actual life-transformation part). The revealing words: "...instead of trusting God, they took over." Instead of trusting God with our brokenness, we look for ways to fill the void created by the broken pieces of our lives - things like working way too much, drinking/drugging, multiple relationships without any depth or commitment. There are multiple ways we go down this track of "trusting ourselves" to get us to the right destination - the list is probably too long for me to recount. The thing we need to see is the tendency we have to take over what is not really ours to "manage" - leading us clearly into a state of "malfunctioning" existence. Another word jumped out at me from this passage today: Absorbed. The evidence of going the wrong way - being self-absorbed - absorbed in what it is WE are doing, and totally missing what it is GOD is doing all around us. Another word for this is being "preoccupied". 

In planes, public buildings, and even on some busses there are little signs on the lavatories indicating which restroom is available for use. When the sign clearly displays "occupied" in red letters, it is unavailable. When the sign is slid in the opposite direction, it reads "unoccupied" in green letters. Just as these signs serve a purpose of letting someone know when it is they may enter, so it is with the "signs" we display in our lives. God looks for us to make the "shift" from "occupied" by self to being "unoccupied" and available for his use. When this shift occurs, it is because there has been a change in the direction the sign is facing. So, if we want to see real depth in our relationship with God, determined to stay on course with him, we need to make a shift in what has "pre-occupied" our minds, hearts, and emotions. I don't know about you, but I wish becoming a little less "pre-occupied" by the stuff of life was easier - like moving that sign on the lavatory from the left to the right! If it was this easy, there would be no excuse for any of us to ever miss out on what God is doing right in front of us. It isn't until we actually make the move from "self-occupied" to "open for use" that we reveal to God our intention for him to take access to the space other things have taken in our lives. When the little sign is moved from occupied to unoccupied, it is for the intention of allowing the door to open freely. Maybe it is time we did a little "unlatching" of our lives today. Just sayin!

Time to Listen

I am God, the one and only. I don’t just talk to myself or mumble under my breath. I never told Jacob, ‘Seek me in emptiness, in dark nothingness.’ I am God. I work out in the open, saying what’s right, setting things right. So gather around, come on in, all you refugees and castoffs. They don’t seem to know much, do they—those who carry around their no-god blocks of wood, praying for help to a dead stick? So tell me what you think. Look at the evidence. Put your heads together. Make your case. Who told you, and a long time ago, what’s going on here? Who made sense of things for you? Wasn’t I the one? God? It had to be me. I’m the only God there is—the only God who does things right and knows how to help. So turn to me and be helped—saved!—everyone, whoever and wherever you are. (Isaiah 45:18-22)

In these words, God opens dialogue with his people - God, Creator of the heavens—he is, we need to remember, first and foremost God. Maker of earth—he put it on its foundations, built it from scratch. He didn’t go to all that trouble to just leave it empty, nothing in it. He made it to be lived in. These words speak of the "creative" potential in the Word of God. As we "remember" he is God, we are to never forget he has a purpose in all he creates - all he brings together is for his specific purpose. Nothing stands void or desolate before him - for he creates NOTHING for the purpose of leaving it empty and desolate - and that includes each of us! If we are to understand the personal potential in God's Word, we have to allow it to have its way within us. 

Hear what God says next: I don't talk to myself or mumble under my breath! Now, this may not seem like much to you at first, but read it again. God doesn't speak to himself, but to us. He doesn't mince his words, or conceal them so only a few will be able to hear - he speaks plainly and in directness to our hearts. His words are powerful - filled with meaning and creative power. It behooves us to take time to listen when he speaks. I have heard it said, "God gets right to the point." It is so true! He doesn't need a whole lot of "fluff" in order to lure us in so we might actually come to a place of listening to him - he gets at it directly! We would do well to listen as "directly" as he speaks!

* He never asks us to seek in emptiness or stumble around in dark nothingness. Instead, he invites us into the richness of his presence - through the revelation of his word. There, we find the light that brings everything into openness - nothing hidden from the penetration of his light. God works out in the open, but he is always seeking the hidden places. The "operation" of God in our lives is definitely not COVERT. They are not disguised as one thing in order to accomplish something else - he is direct. Perhaps this is why we struggle so much with his work in our lives. No place the Word is allowed to touch ever remains the same - it is like a key unlocking the toughest locked places.

* His Word sets things right. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. (Genesis 1:1) Out of what others see as "nothingness" - he sees vast possibility. Out of what some have marked out as bottomless emptiness - God saw the potential of his power filling to overflowing. Out of what has been cast into the utter darkness of despair and hopelessness - he breaks through with light. Yep, his Word sets things right! God has a special affinity for the refugee and cast off in this world. The one fleeing from dangers real or perceived finds no better resting place than in his arms. The one who has been rejected by all others finds no other place of acceptance more perfect than in his arms. His Word is filled with stories of refugee and cast offs being embraced. His Word is the starting point for all who would see a place of asylum - an inviolable refuge.

* He challenges us to consider ALL the evidence. God never asks us to make decisions based on only scraps of evidence - he gives us the whole deal in his Word. In examining the entirety of its contents, the revelation we receive becomes convincing evidence of the "rightness" of our God and the "soundness" of his purposes in our lives. God's purpose in giving us his Word is not to confuse us more, or keep us from enjoying him fully. If we stumble upon some portion we cannot comprehend fully, there is only one way to come into understanding - ask him to open it to us. He is the one to make sense of even the hardest stuff we are challenged with in our understanding - both in his Word, and in life. It is in turning to him we are helped. It is in acknowledging the vastness of the nothingness we have been consumed by that we begin to see the possibility of God creating newness and purpose. It is in expressing just how empty our heart and mind is without him that we come into a place of being filled. It is in welcoming light that darkness is dispelled. All this is possible, not in seeking any amount of self-help or religious pursuit - for all of these are nothing more than "wooden-gods" we might seek. All this is possible only when the Word gets into us and we into it. Just sayin!

So, just spill the beans...

You don't just have a story - you're a story in the making, and you never know what the next chapter's going to be. That's what makes it exciting. (Dan Millman) If every chapter of our lives was opened with the words, "My purpose in writing this chapter in your lives is...", we'd feel a whole lot better about what is going on at the moment! The truth is, we don't know the end from the beginning, so we enter each new chapter of our lives with just a little bit of fear, a tiny bit of doubt, and maybe even an overwhelming amount of both! When we commit our hearts to Christ, believing that Jesus is God's Son, our "end result" will be eternal life in Christ Jesus. This very fact leads us to a place of "boldness" in approaching God with whatever our heart is burdened with - the ability to face the 'next chapter' with a boldness we don't possess on our own.

My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God's Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he's listening. And if we're confident that he's listening, we know that what we've asked for is as good as ours. (I John 5:13-15)

Belief is more than a head knowledge that Jesus exists, that he is the Son of God - it is a heart knowledge that actually influences our behavior. When we "believe in" Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are saying we will "adhere to" his commandments - his teachings, the examples he gave us in his walk on this earth, the promises he made to his followers. When we "believe in" Jesus, we are making both a heart and head commitment to "trust in" him - his strength, his love, his grace, his peace that passes our limited understanding - all of it. When we "believe in" we are really saying we are in a place where we are ready to RELY UPON that one we believe in.

That very "believing" attitude is what brings us to a place where we are totally "settled in" our minds, hearts, and emotions as to who it is we are serving, what it is we are engaged in, and what the end result of our service will be. We will have "absolute" knowledge - not just some ethereal knowledge (pie in the sky kind of stuff) - but total awareness that God is real, his promises are assured, and his commitment to keep us in his care is totally "in force" within our lives. Remember - when we commit to Christ, we ALREADY have eternal life - we don't work to get eternal life - it is already an assured thing. That "confidence" that is produced by knowing we have committed it all to Christ and that he has committed his ALL in order to bring us to a place of "privileged boldness" is what God has in mind here.

I have spent some time exploring the historical sites of our founding fathers, but I have a whole lot more to explore. The thing that impressed me in my explorations was the commitment of the men and women who came to this country with the hopes of being free. That is kind of how it is with us as we "leave" our country of birth (sin) and establish ourselves in our new country of rebirth (salvation). We leave behind the old, allowing the new to be established within us, and in time, the new becomes the way of life we pursue with a confidence that we have made the right steps. We have a "privileged boldness" in our new life. A boldness based in the fact that "in Christ" we are assured that when we make any request of God that is in agreement with his plan for our lives, he listens to us and hears us.  He listens AND he hears. We have a tendency in our society to just listen, without ever hearing the message being conveyed. We are inundated with all kinds of messages each day - some worthy of really hearing, others not so much - so we have learned to shut out some of them. All that comes to God, he listens to AND he hears. No message brought to him (prayer, seeking heart, need expressed) is ever NOT heard. It is heard, the meaning hidden within the request is known, and he works to help us through the answer we receive. We sometimes think he doesn't hear because we don't get the answer we hoped for, but remember, even a "no" or a "not now" answer is an answer!

The thing that we most often "trip up on" is in our not even asking God for what it is that burdens our hearts, trips us up repeatedly, or is just a dreamy desire. We somehow don't take the effort, time, or "risk" of asking because we don't have a confidence to ask, or may we don't think it is worthy to bring to God - as though it was a waste of his time. We have a "privileged boldness" in Christ Jesus. Bring it! God will "sort through" what may not be to our benefit at this moment - like when we ask him to help us win the lottery! He will "sort through" what seems to be a muddled mess of emotions - getting at the heart of what it is we are really experiencing at that moment. Our part is to take full advantage of our "privileged boldness" to just bring it all to him. God stands ready to hear from us - his word to us today is to simply "Bring it on!" Just sayin!