Love is God’s Gravy

 Ever had a really dry turkey, stuffing , mash potatoes for thanksgiving ? Who hasn’t!  We try so very hard to get the turkey cooked just right and get all the food prepared in such a way that it’s all ready at the same time but it’s near impossible.  We feel the whole meal is ruined and there’s nothing we can do to change it.

What can fix it ?  GRAVY!

Gravy fixes everything. It can take the most dry overcooked food and make it the best meal ever.  Just pour it over all the food and presto! It’s not dry anymore 

Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:8

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

God’s love and forgiveness covers all of our dryness in our souls and others.  His love poured out from his veins on the cross and makes us clean. We then let that love pour over us onto those around us as well and it changes everything.  

So as we meet for family gatherings where we might not see eye to eye on everything or past grievances are still an issue, let’s pour on God’s love over it all!  

Pass the gravy please!

Is Tobiah shacking up in your heart?

Recently I led a small group in our church through the book of Nehemiah.  Nehemiah is a fascinating book for study in that it has many facets that are applicable to the reader.

Are you looking for a book on leadership in difficult situations?   

Read Nehemiah

Are you looking for a book on doing a building project at your church?   

Read Nehemiah.

Are you rebuilding your life that has been a long list of disasters?   

Read Nehemiah.

In the book, Nehemiah constantly has to deal with 2 non-jews who seem to have much influence on the people living in and around the ruins of Jerusalem.  These two people are : Tobiah (an Amonite) and Sanballat (a Horonite).   Throughout the re-building of Jerusalem's gates and walls these two people make life difficult for Nehemiah and his people.   They constantly send messages of discouragement to them, mock them and try to make them afraid to prevent them from completing the work on the wall.

In one instance Sanballat tries to make them question their right to rebuild the walls (a written direction the King of Persia has given Nehemiah authority to do). Sanballat says to them 2:19, "What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king?".   Here he tries to sow the seeds of doubt into the people of Jerusalem.

In another instance, Sanballat tells the people of Samaria (vs 4:2-3) , "What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices?  Will they finish in a day?   Can they bring the stones back to life from heaps of rubble - burned as they are?".   To which Tobiah adds, "What are they building... even a fox climbing on it would break down their wall of stones!"   They do this to hopefully create hostility with the Jews and the people of Samaria to create a war with them.

Nehemiah ignores their insults and asks God for help and strength to finish their work.

Later, Tobiah threatens them with being attacked while they work on the wall.  They hope that either the Jews will stop building and be ready for attack or the Jews will keep building but not ready themselves for an attack and they would ambush them on a regular basis.   Nehemiah chooses to have the people arm themselves as they work on the wall and have half the men stand guard over the workers. While this does slow down the work, it doesn't prevent them from finishing.

After all this they finally complete the walls and the gates and celebrate.   Nehemiah doesn't stop with just working on the walls of the city.  He connects the people back with their Jewish faith and he has them make oaths to keep God's laws and support the Temple with their offerings.  

Nehemiah then returns to Babylon to fulfill his promise to the king.   Sometime later, Nehemiah returns to check up on them and what he finds is a total disgrace.

To his amazement, he finds that a room in the temple that should be filled with grain from the tithes of the people (used for grain offerings on the altar) instead re-purposed as a room for Tobiah.   The man who ridiculed and mocked them relentlessly now has a sleeping quarter in the temple.   He has shacked up in God's temple. 

You might be asking "How can they let this happen?"

The answer is provided that many people owed money to Tobiah and this may have been their way to pay off their debt to him.  

But we are often no different than the people in the book of Nehemiah.   Satan, like Tobiah, makes us slaves again of our sins and shacks up in our hearts.  We set aside areas for sins we have come accustomed to over time.  They are so invasive we don't even recognize them as the enemy of God anymore.   They take up space that should be for God's purpose only and crowd out his Spirit in our lives.  How the Amonite people must have laughed the people of Jerusalem as their leader had a personal room in their temple to their God.  So also, the people of the world may laugh at us as we too try to appease them live as people of the world rather than as God's people.

What rooms in your heart have you "re-purposed" and what are they now used for?

Has the room marked "Love" been changed to "Hate"?

Has the room marked "Faith" been changed to "Doubt"?

Has the room marked "Grace" been changed to "Revenge"?

Has the room marked "Tithes" been changed to "Personal use"?

Maybe there is someone whom you have not forgiven that is "living in your head rent free" and you find you waste much of your attention and thoughts on this person.

Nehemiah comes and has the rooms cleared out and purified and puts people in charge he can trust to keep them from falling back into ungodly uses.  

God also comes back in our lives and clears out our hearts, but it's not enough to "clean house", they must be filled with God's spirit.   As Jesus points out that as when an unclean spirit is removed from a person it searches for another place to find shelter.  If it cannot find another host it will return back to the person.  If it finds the room clean, in order but not inhabited by God it will bring 10 other spirits worse than itself and it will be worse for the person in the end.

Spend some time walking through the rooms of your hearts Temple and see what areas you have re-purposed or taped-off from God's use.   Ask God for forgiveness and begin the needed work of putting back what is God's only.

Open Jail Doors

     My grandmother on my Dad's side told of the story about her father, Gottfried Gentsch who owned a bar/restaurant in Illinois in the late 1800's.   He had an unruly patron one night that he had to literally throw out of the bar.   When he threw him out, in his anger he said to him, "If I see you in here again, I will kill you!".    A week later that man was found dead in a ditch in the back of the bar.   My great-grandfather was arrested and tried for his murder.  Back in those days they did not have fingerprints, DNA evidence or security cameras to help clear him of this murder and so he was sent to the county jail.  The warden of this small jail noticed that this man was not like the other inmates.   My great-grandfather had been an elder of his church and read his Bible regularly and continued to do so in jail.   After some time (I am not sure how long) the jailer said to him, "If some night you wake up and see the jail doors open, just get up and walk out and don't turn back".   Later that week, he awoke in the middle of the night to see that his door was open and he walked out.   He came back and started his life over and re-married a woman named Linda Strammer who would become my great-gandmother.   Later (I am not sure how long) a man who was a member of their church admitted on his death bed to the murder of the man who my grandfather had been wrongfully convicted of killing.  

    I tell this story not just as a historical novelty, but as a lesson for all of us.  The largest and strongest prison in the world is not made with concrete and steel, but is from our own thoughts and feelings of guilt, fear and shame.  We feel trapped and, unlike my grandfather, know we deserve to be there.  So often people become trapped in their lives.   We look at them and know they deserve so much more but they continue to make bad choices.   They believe that this is their lot in life and there is no way out of it.  

    But Christ has come to tell us we are free to go and the doors are all unlocked. 

    Jesus said,

        "You shall know the TRUTH and the TRUTH shall set you FREE!"

    What is that TRUTH?   Simply that God loves you and forgives you all of your sins because Jesus has already paid the price for you.  

    Jesus whispers to your heart to tell you, "The doors are unlocked now.  Leave and don't look back!"  For some, they will continue to sit in their cells thinking that this is all too good to be true and there must be a catch (maybe it's a trap!).  Other's will take the steps of faith to trust God and leave their cells behind.  

   God makes that offer to you today!  Will you leave or will you stay.  It's up to you.

 

Chasing Cars

 

    I will admit that this blog veers from my normal areas of writing as it pertains to a song that I heard on the radio that I feel has very deep meaning for men today.  I don't normally do song interpretation, but I feel called to do so for this one.

     The song is called "Chasing Cars" by the band Snow Patrol.   You have probably heard the song used in several movies and TV shows (Greys Anatomy for one).  Here is a link to it on YouTube:

         Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars (Official Video) 

     In my opinion, the song blends a perfect combination of lyrics, music and instruments to bring across an important message. 

     The song begins with a simply two "dull" notes played over and over by a single instrument.  This represents man living alone by himself.   It's simple but it's dull and boring.  Men tend to repeat the same patterns over and over.   Get up, eat, exercise, work, eat, work some more, eat, watch TV, play some meaningless games, go to bed....rinse and repeat.  

      The singer then begins with the following words:

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

     These are often the thoughts of many young men today.  This feeling that they are complete on their own and they don't need anyone else in their lives.  They can "do it all ... on our own".    It's a dull and empty existence that is devoid of beauty and meaning.  Many movies have been made on this premise and is the topic of countless stories.

     The song goes on...

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

     Now we hear two instruments playing and the music becomes slightly more meaningful and fuller.  He asks his girl to just lay with him and forget the world.   He has decided he needs someone to be with him, but he just wants to "forget the world".  He wants the relationship on his terms and doesn't want to move forward.  So often men settle for one-night-stands that go nowhere, but sometimes they open up them up to something more.  

     The song moves on....

I don't know
How to say
How I feel 

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

      The two dull notes are back but now the man acknowledges that he can't "do it all".   He can't put words to the feelings he is having. Men are so often unable to express their feelings and often give up by using those 3 same over-used words: "I don't know".  Too many men stop there and don't go further.   He realizes that this answer is "not enough" and he moves into a deeper relationship her.

     The song goes on...

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

      He starts out again with the same empty request to just lie and do nothing, but now he wants to do more.  He invites her to do something with him (even if it has no purpose). He recognizes that life is moving on all around him, and he is getting older.  When we are young, we think we are immortal and have all the time in the world.  But when we get into our 20's and 30's we see that is just not so.  Time is short and getting shorter all the time.   He now wants to experience life in its fullest form.  He needs her to show him "a garden that's bursting into life".   This may mean he wants to start a family, or he just knows that life without her is empty and dull.  Women bring life and beauty into the hearts of men.  They make us think outside the box of our rigid thinking.   They open us up in ways we can never imagine.  Sometimes this opening shows us who we really are inside and where are failings are.  It is through this that he sees he "needs her grace... to find my own".   Men know they are not perfect, and we screw up over and over.    We are often our own worst critic and find it hard to forgive ourselves.   Her love for him overrides his imperfections and gives him grace.  That grace empowers him to have grace for himself that never had before.   Only in deep relationships do we have the opportunity to offer forgiveness and grace.  

    The song goes on...

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

     The music reaches a crescendo here.  It is full and makes the listeners skin tingle in excitement.  I can remember the end of my first date with my wife.   The exhilaration I felt I cannot fully describe.  As I drove home in my car back to my apartment I looked up through the frosted window at the sky and yelled, "Thank you God!  I am so happy now!  Thank you!".  I knew I had found my soulmate. 

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all

     The singer has found his soulmate too.   He has given himself totally into this one woman and forgets all that was behind him.  He has forgotten his previous life totally.  All he wants to see is her perfect eyes.  Have you ever staired deeply into another person's eyes and then seen yourself in the reflection in their eyes?  That is how close he is now.  He is confused still.  As many men we will never fully understand the power women have over us.   The heart of a woman is a mystery only God can understand.  She is the "help-mate suitable for him" that he promised.  

     The song goes on...

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Interesting that the song returns to the same dull notes at the end.  Why? The reason is left up to the listeners interpretation.  Did the relationship end?   Was his love not returned?   Did she pass away?   Or did they need to start over again.   We don't know.

We do know one thing.  He is changed.  He has grown as a person.  He doesn't revert back to square 1 of thinking he can do it all on his own.  He knows he needs more than a career or money or fame.  He needs someone to love him. 

God's First Born

 Our modern culture often becomes a barrier to what God is trying to tell us.  We view stories in the Bible through our 20th century eyes and not through the eyes of the people who were writing the biblical accounts.  We focus on things that may be minor parts of a story because they touch a modern feeling or desire and miss the bigger more important message.  

   When we read the story of Jesus birth, we focus on Jesus lying in the manger and him starting out in "low estate" but miss the larger message God is communicating to us.

   The shepherds, the manger and the swaddling cloth are not 3 separate parts of the story. Instead, these pieces work together to communicate a much more meaningful message.

    Shepherding in Jesus' day was not considered to be a high calling career.  Their form of employment would be closely associated with garbage collecting of today.  But even though it was not a highly respected job, it was a very important job for the Jewish religion.  This was because their job was to provide the temple with sacrificial lambs needed for daily sacrifices.  God's law given to Moses required them to set aside the first-born male of every ewe. The law however didn't just accept any first-born male lamb either.  The lamb needed to be without defect.  It couldn't have a deformed limb, or be blind or have a hunched back.   To ensure the lamb was without these defects they had to be inspected by the priests.  This created a problem though because handling a newborn lamb would make the priest ceremonially unclean.  To work around this issue the priests would supply the shepherds with cloth to wrap the lamb in so they could physically handle them.  This cloth was called "swaddling cloth" and the lamb would often be wrapped in it and placed in the manger waiting for the priest to arrive and do the inspection.  

    So here we have Jesus, God's first-born son, lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloth and visited by the shepherds.   The message to the Jewish people of that time would have been unmistakable.  Here is Jesus, God's sacrificial lamb without defect who takes the sin of the world away.  God wastes no time making his message clear to us. 

  One final thought must be made here.  Jesus being wrapped in cloth previous used to wrap unclean baby lambs would make Jesus "ceremonially unclean" from head to toe.  God wastes no time separating his son from him having him jump into our filth. As the writer in Hebrews says, "He who knew no sin, became sin for us so that we might obtain the righteousness of God"

 

Abra Cadabra!

     For thousands of years words were thought to have magical powers.  Magicians for example would use the words "Abra-Cadabra!" before pulling a rabbit out of a hat or doves flying out of handkerchiefs.     Witches would use mysterious poetry to cast spells and hexes on people.  

    Words do have a lot of power.   The written word is still one of the most influential tools we have today.  While modern videos have the ability to communicate ideas as well , as does audio presentations, there is still something compelling about reading the words off a page.  Maybe because its been around longer than the other mediums or maybe just because it requires more mental facilities to accomplish that it has a longer lasting and more deep impression on us. (It is because of this I still prefer to write my ideas out rather than create video-blogs).   The written medium has another advantage over the other mediums.  That advantage is hearing the words written in our own voice and not in mine.  Right now, as you read this blog, you are "hearing" this blog in your head in your own voice as if you were the one speaking it.   This makes the written word even more personal as these words of mine become your words too.

     God's word has even more power.  His word can give life and it can take it away (he created it).  In Genesis God says "Let there be..." and there it is in all its glory.    Jews have always held that God's "word" is one part of God (while is Spirit and Creative force are distinctly different). This is why John in his Gospel writes "the word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth".  Jesus is that Word of God.

    When Jesus calls his disciples he simply says, "Follow me!" and they follow.  This is not to say they had no choice in the matter (they did).   They could decide to not follow Jesus, but they could not decide TO follow Jesus.  His word makes things happen.  When Jesus cleanses the 10 lepers he simply says, "Be clean" and they are clean.   When the storm threatens to drown them in the boat Jesus simply says "Be still" and it happens.  When he calls Lazarus from the grave he says, "Lazarus come out!".  No fancy poetry.  No Abra-Cadabra.  Just commands. 

    When Jesus is later asked to heal the synagogue rule's daughter, he comes to the house to find she is already dead.  When he goes into the room he speaks to the girl in Aramaic "Talitha Koum!" (which means 'little girl arise').   Why did Jesus choose to use Aramaic rather than Hebrew?   I think it is to show the disciples that there is nothing special or magical about Hebrew.   He shows them that his words are powerful no matter what language they are spoken in. This may have been as a teachable moment to Jairus as well,. As Jairus was the local synagogue ruler, he would be well versed in Hebrew and possibly think that there is something special about his people's historical language. 

    When the Bible is translated to another language it has as much power to save and transform as it did when it was first penned in Hebrew and Greek.  It doesn’t matter if it’s German, French, Spanish, Russian or Chinese, Gods’s spirit can touch the souls of those who read it  The medium is not important. The source is what is important. 

   When Martin Luther initiated the Reformation in 1520, he would later go on to translate the Bible from Latin into the language of the people , German   He did so because he believed God’s  word should be read by everyone and not just priests   Many of his day felt that this was heresy as God can only speak in Latin   Later, Lutherans moving to the US were hesitant to leave behind their German language and heritage but were forced by WWII to adopt their new country’s main language   They too may have been caught up in the notion that German is somehow more holy than English too  

    We must not let the medium be the message in the church  we must always keep the Gospel as the message and not worry about how God chooses to communicate it  it may be online   It may be an iPhone Bible app   It might even be a rap song   

     God’s  word is powerful in any language!

You are no different

       One of the great learnings a person can become aware of is the truth that you are no different than the person next to you.  A phrase once said was “There but by the grace of God go I”.  In this statement, we acknowledge that we would be in the same situation as that person if things happened differently for us.  It’s a humbling realization. 

      Today many people sneer at people of the past and call people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson evil because they owned slaves. Their beliefs emanate from a view that if they had lived back then they would do things differently.  

     How wrong they are.  

     We often don’t take into account how so much of who we are is handed down by the culture and environment around us.   We like to think we arrived at our trajectory on our own power and they only thing influencing us is our own DNA.  

    As an illustration, consider the modern day “alligator fish” (also known as “gar”). This fish is often referred to as a living fossil as its appearance hasn’t changed in 100s of millions of years.  Fossils we find today have the exact same bone structure and teeth.  There is one glaring difference however.  The modern day Gar is freshwater and the prehistoric is saltwater. Over the Millenia this fish as changed its ability to live in freshwater and become incapable of swimming in saltwater without dying.  Same fish but different habitat.   Humans are much like the Gar.  We may look the same as people in other centuries but we swim in much different waters 

     Many modern day “period pieces” (movies and TV) try to inject 21st century views and thinking into the 18th and 19th centuries to make you think these people living at that time were just like you and I living today.  One such PBS program called “Bridgerton”.  The series centers around the main character , Daphne Bidgerton, whose views (and even language) could be pulled from a modern day teen romance novel. Her character is purported to be living in England in the early 1800s and is fighting for “social justice” and upsetting the aristocratic system. This mixing of eras gives the wrong impression to the people viewing it that we find the people living at this time no different from us other than the need to wear long dresses , top hats and ride in horse drawn carriages. This could not be further from the truth.  

    The truth is, if time travel was made possible we would need a lot more than a change of cloths to fit in.  We would need a whole change of views , values and also language.  Once I was visiting the Pittock Mansion in Portland Oregon and saw some old newspapers mounted on the wall in glass (Pittock was the owner of the local newspaper).  I went up to the paper to read and see what issues they were concerned with in their time.  To my amazement I could barely read the article as the language and choice of words was far different from why I was used to reading.  I would need several hours and a Thesaurus to decode what many of that time could read without any trouble.  This is just one of many differences I would have to overcome in going back to this time.  

      Every culture from every time is like this.  They are who they are because of when they lived. Take for example those living in the bronze era.  City states attacked other city states on a regular basis to obtain their wealth.  There was no “Free Trade Agreement Acts” to protect them.  The only protection were bigger walls and better swords and spears.  When crops failed from no rain or from pestilence the people of their day did not have weather forecasts to give them hope or people to show them how to better rotate their crops.  Instead they had people who scared them into sacrificing their children or offering up their young girls as prostitutes for Baal worship.  To think that you would grow up in this culture, (illiterate and uneducated) and would act completely different is the height of hubris.  You would be no different than them and only by the grace of God are you saved from that type of life. 

     We need to show grace , not only to those living around us now , but also to those living in the past (maybe even more for those living in the past as they cannot speak for themselves).  We need to say to ourselves as we read about history that we would be very much like them.  

     This not too say you would not be any different.  After all,  you are still you.  The issue is the degree of difference.  Each generation has men and women who do think differently than their culture dictates but only by a few degrees of difference.  But like compounding interest from a bank these few differences over time multiplies over each generation.  

     For example, Thomas Jefferson put aside the idea of an aristocracy (blue bloods verse commoners) when he penned his infamous words “We believe all men are created equal”.  (even though he owned slaves). Lincoln would later use these words in his infamous Gettysburg address to include men of all races (even though he like many felt at one time blacks would not be able to live among whites).  Martin Luther King would build on these changes to end racial hatred still lingering from the civil war and to bring us together in love for one another  (even though he known to have been unfaithful in love to his wife). 

   So as you read about historical figures or people of different eras, remember that these people  , like you, are imperfect and a product of their time and world.  Thank them for how they were able to make the changes they did.  

Help is calling

     Recently I read a news story about a man who went hiking in the mountains and got lost.  People searching for him tried to call him on his cell phone as there was a chance he might have service in the area, but to no avail no one answered.  After several more days, the man was later found and recovered alive.  He told his rescuers that he had received their calls, but because he did not recognize the phone number he didn't answer the calls (we are so conditioned to ignore solicitors).   It seems so silly in retrospect that this man spent several more nights in the woods and could have potentially died all because he didn't recognize the phone number of the caller but we are really no different when it comes to God.

    God is desperately trying to reach us in our times of fear, darkness and loneliness.  He wants to rescue us from our despair over our past sins and current problems.   Too often, however, we don't "pick up" on his call all because we don't recognize Him working in our lives (or may be we do but we are too stubborn to let God be the rescuer).  He wants to restore us and save us.  

Jesus cried over Jerusalem as he approached the city saying, 

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem!  Killer of the prophets and those sent to you!  How often I wanted to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you would not!"

   He cries over you too in much the same way! 

    Unlike, the rescuers in the story, God doesn't hang up on us and stop trying.  Instead, as Jesus said, 

"He leaves the 99 in the pasture and pursues the one lost sheep and searches for it until he has found it.  When he finds it he puts it on his shoulders and tells his friends, "Come and celebrate with me for I have found my lost sheep!" 

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!

    Those are the infamous words repeated by Buzz Lightyear in the movie series "Toy Story".   The phrase is a bit of an oxymoron in that there is technically nothing beyond "infinity".   Infinity can never be defined or limited such that you can ever go beyond it.  Make up any large number with any number of zeros after it and all you have to do is add 1 more zero and you have a number 10 times larger than the one before it.

Let me illustrate:

      You say this is large number: 

                   1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

       But add a zero on the end and it becomes: 

                 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

        As soon as you think you have the largest number possible, I can make a larger one.  

     Infinity is a problem mathematicians have had to grapple with over the centuries.  As they study various mathematical functions and theorems the question always arises: 

                    "What happens when X goes to infinity?"   

     The solution to the problem may work for reasonably small values of X but may not work for problems were X is very large. Because of this many of their theorems have "clauses" written into them that limit the use of their purpose to "when X is small" or "X is between 0 and 1". 

      Infinity is difficult for humans to grasp.  We are finite humans.  We live in finite worlds, with finite bodies, with finite life-spans and have finite physical and mental capabilities. So how do you grasp something that has no beginning and also no ending?  Because we can't, we tend to limit the universe in some way to suit our finite limitations. 

     We also do this with God's love and grace. We think God's answer to sin (his grace) only works for small bounded problems like those math theorems.  We think to ourselves, "Well that may work for someone who hasn't committed any major sins or has lived a fairly descent life, but not for someone like me!"  

     But Paul writes:

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

     In Romans 5:20 he also writes:

The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,

     Only through God's Holy Spirit can we even attempt to know the infinite love of God in Christ. Like the large number you thought was a big number , only to have a bigger number made by adding a zero at the end so also is God's grace towards you.

     Then why should I stop sinning if God's grace expands to infinity?

     The problem is not with God but with us.  Because we may say God's love is infinite our finite selves reject this notion as it applies to us.  Oh it may apply to "others" but we often view ourselves as having a unique place in God's Kingdom that is outside of God's grace.  Because we will ultimately limit the grace God can supply, we will run out of it by constantly sinning or committing a sin which we view as too great for God to forgive.  (this is why we ask God to "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil") 

     This was the case of Judas.  We will never know the reason why Judas betrayed Jesus.  It might have been out of anger or frustration with Jesus not being the "Mighty Messiah" to kick the Romans out.  Who knows!  Often we get too caught up in the "Why did he do it?" and not the "Why did he kill himself?".  Judas spent 3 years with Jesus. He heard all his sermons. He saw all of his miracles.  He even participated in those miracles when he was sent out 2 by 2 to the local towns.  He saw Jesus forgive the sins of countless people, but Judas believed he had done something so egregious that God could not forgive him.  Peter denied Jesus to a little girl within ear shot of Jesus.  His sin was just as bad as Judas.  The difference is in their perception of God's love to them.  I believe 100% that Judas would have been forgiven by Jesus just as Peter was forgiven.  After all, didn't Jesus forgive the men standing below the cross who had lied to put him there?  If he could do that to them, he would surely have done it for Judas as well.

      Maybe you have done something you thought you would never ever do.  Maybe you think you are outside of God's grace in Jesus Christ.   Let me tell you that you are not.  Whenever you feel this way just remember this:

GOD'S LOVE IS "TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!"

God runs beside us

Recently while exercising at the gym I was watching ESPN and their coverage of the Paralympic Games.  I was watching the Track-and-Field portion of the program and was fascinated by the Women's Visually Impaired (blind) 100 meter dash. The event put the runners in odd numbered lanes and a seeing-aid in the even number lanes.   In this case, each woman was paired with a man running beside them all the way to the finish line.  Their aid helped with keeping in their lane by giving them instructions, but also to encourage them and let them know what place they were in.  

I couldn't help but see the connection to our "race" as Christians.  Christ is not waiting at the finish line to see if we make it or not.  No!   Like the runner-aid, Christ runs right beside us.  He urges us on to keep going and finish our race.  He also helps guide us with his words to help keep us going in a straight path and staying in our lane that is marked out for us.

Strength is Weakness and Weakness is Strength

 Saint Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

...because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

This verse seems to be a contradiction. How can one be strong when they are weak. Why would God give Paul a "thorn in the flesh" that would seem to make his work more difficult.  

    To illustrate why this is so,  I'm going to use two famous quarterbacks in the NFL: Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. When Tom Brady first auditioned for the NFL his statistics were not very good. The people at the combine noted that Tom was slow, didn't throw a good tight spiral, didn't look like he had ever been in a weight room, and didn't have a strong arm. By contrast, Aaron Rodgers got very good remarks at his first combine after college. On paper Aaron Rodgers is a much better quarterback than Tom Brady.  He is quick and can use his legs to get out of a jam.  He can really zip the ball and can throw it very far down the field if needed.  Yet it's Tom Brady who has seven Lombardi trophies Aaron he has one. Why is that?   I think the answer is that Tom Brady's weakness is his strength. He knows that he can't do it on his own and needs to rely on others on the team.  He works his hardest to improve those areas he is not good at, but in the end he knows that can carry him only so far.  He works hard to be the best team leader he can be both on the field and off the field.   Aaron Rodgers on the other hand does not do those things. He relies on his own capabilities (his speed, his throwing ability, his agility) to carry his team on the field.  While this has worked for him at times in the past, it has become his downfall as of late.  For example, this last spring he decided to sit training camp out and not spend time working with his teammates.  He clearly thinks he doesn't have to train with them and doesn't appreciate what his team does for him.  He has become puffed up and arrogant, to the detriment of his team (shown in their 38-3 pounding by the New Orleans Saints on 9/12/21).

So you might say Tom Brady's weakness is his strength and Aaron Rodgers' strength is his weakness.

So also it is with us Christians and our relationship to Jesus Christ. When we recognize our weakness and that we are incapable doing it ourselves, we see that we need to rely on him more and less on our own abilities.  Our weakness becomes our strength.  God gives us these thorns for a reason.  As with Paul, to remind us that we are weak and to prevent us, like Paul, from becoming "puffed up".  He doesn't want our "strength" to take our focus off the need for HIS strength.

EARN IT!!

     In life there are two kinds of earning.  One where we work a job, save our money and pay for what we want/need.  The other is where we are given what we did not ask for and use our lives to pay our thanks back.  Christians often mistakenly focus on the first and think that they must DO something to EARN their salvation, when it is really the second type of earning God wants us focused on.      

    In the gospel of John we have the following story of Jesus being confronted with a person caught in the act of adultery in John chapter 8:

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

        The last few words uttered to this woman may seem harsh to those who don't understand the full context of the problem.   Was Jesus telling her to shape up or else next time I might not be here to save you??   Was it Jesus chastising her after everyone else is gone?  Was he saying her salvation hinged on her living a good life?

       Not at all.  It is Jesus who will be paying for those sins in a few days on the cross and he knows there is literally nothing this woman (or any of us for that matter) can do to repay God. 

       To better understand this let me use the following video clip from the WW2 movie,  "Saving Private Ryan".  For those who may have not seen this movie, Tom Hanks character is sent with a team of soldiers to find and send home a Private Ryan whose family has lost 3 brothers in other battles and Private Ryan is the sole surviving son.  In the end, Tom Hanks character is shot in a battle to protect a bridge from the Nazi's and his dying words to Private Ryan (Matt Daman) are:  "EARN THIS!"

The scene cuts to an old Private Ryan standing in a cemetery where his friend is buried

          In this scene the man talks to the grave-stone telling his friend he hadn't forgotten what he asked him to do and that he thought about him every day of his life.  He then asks for his wife to assure him he was a "good man".  He spent his life "earning" the gift given to him and paid for by others sent to save him.  

         Jesus was sent to save sinners and give us eternal life with him.   The gift is already paid for and given to us without our asking for it.  All Jesus asks is for us use our lives in thankfulness and to "earn it".  We have all been given much by God and we should let our lives reflect that great gift as well.  We do not live good lives to earn our salvation, but we live good lives in honor, love and respect for all God has done for us to give us salvation.

Just like Private Ryan.

Don't get a Cat!

 

My advice to anyone looking to get a cat is this: Don’t do it!

A cat will take over your house and your life.

To start with, your favorite seat will become their seat. You will get up to get something from the fridge only to find your seat taken and have them look up you like they have done nothing wrong.  "Were you sitting here?" they seem to say and you will find yourself re-locating to a new seat.

You will never eat another meal in peace as you will be constantly hounded to share your food with them.   They will hear from across the house you opening a can of "anything" to come see what they might scavenge from you. They will assume that any food prep in the kitchen must be for them and not for you.  They will bop their heads into your calves with much enthusiasm and affection as they can muster to increase their odds of having some morsel of food dropped from your hand to their waiting mouths.  They will sit next to you on the couch and look up with big watery sad eyes.  If you try to look away they will tap you on the arm or shoulder as if to say, "Hey! I am here!  Please give me some!"

Throughout the day, you will be beaconed to the door to let them out only to be called upon a few moments later to let them back in.   Ignoring them is fruitless.   They will scratch at windows or bang nearby blinds over and over again as if to say, "I can do this all day! I have nothing I would rather do than drive you insane!"

Their hair will be found everywhere. It will collect on your floors , your beds , your shirts and your chairs. It will fill up your vacuum cleaner almost as fast as your can replace the bag.   Invest in lots of lint-rollers and have them spread throughout the house as you will need them. You will be embarrassed when friends ask you,  "Is that sweater cashmere?" only to say, "No. I have a cat!" 

They will interrupt your sleep with cat-calls to rouse your from your bed to find that they had brought a “pipe cleaner animal” to your door as an offering of value as if to say “Look what I brought you!” They will jump on your bed in the middle of the night like a 3 year old child when the rare occurrence of lightning strikes in the night.  You may try to console them but that was not the purpose of them waking you.  The reason they woke you was to put YOU on alert for the next strike and they will be upset that you are not as scared as they are!

Speaking of displeasure, they will show their feeling to in a variety of ways: from hissing to scratching to even pooping.   Yes, that's right! Pooping. Leave them alone for an extended weekend with plenty of food and water and you may have to endure a random "gift" left on your bathroom floor as if to say, "This is what you get for leaving me all alone!"  

Your workspace will become their favorite sleeping spot. Whether it’s your desk or kitchen table, they will make going to work so hard to do. They will entice you too look away from your spreadsheets and emails to provide them with neck rubs and chin scratches.  For some reason they will determine your upper corner of your laptop screen is the perfect place to rub their chin on.  Who cares if it moves your screen up and down, you're not really working anyway... right?  Sometimes they will mistake your computer cursor for a fly and try desperately to kill it and you may have to explain later to your boss how the value in field D26 got put into F34.

Couches and chairs will become places for them to sharpen their claws no matter how many more “approved sharpening tools” you buy them.  But why would they?  A piece of leather works so much better than polyester carpeting wrapped around a piece of wood.  They do have their standards to keep up you know!

Speaking of standards, they will test your patience with your choices of food you buy them. Each brand or variety will be consumed with differing amounts of disdain or appreciation. You will find yourself oddly joyful when they consume your purchase with vigor and delight. But don't get too joyful for just when you think you have their food selection figured out they will test you yet again as they stand over their food and look up at with a look of "What?  This again?"

As they grow older their health will deteriorate and you will spend 100's if not 1000's of dollars on them and endure scratches and clawing as you try desperately to give them their medicine.  In the end you will agonize what to do about their last days with you. You’ll spend hours caressing them and cheering them on in hope their health will return. You will do this, all the while knowing it’s not likely to change the outcome.  You will forget all of the above and wish for just one more day with them.

So my advice to you is if you don’t want to feel a hole in your heart when they go and like a piece of you is gone with them then I advise you to not get a cat.  It will be the worst decision you will ever make. 

 

Approaching Zero

 
    We often hear politicians and various social advocates say lofty things like:

"One more death from ______ is one too many!" 

    You can fill in the blank with any number of reasons. 

• Gun violence
• Drunk driving
• Drug overdoses
• Bullying
• Terrorism
• Gang violence
• Sports injury
• Stupidity
• The list goes on and on....

   Of course no one wants to see a loved one killed or die ahead of their time, but is ZERO deaths due to drunk driving, guns, violence, terrorism, over-doses or just plain stupidity achievable?   If you think it is, then what rights and privileges are you willing to give up to achieve that goal?

    In Calculus you learn the concept of "approaching a value".    Some functions by their very essence can never reach or attain a desired value.   They can come very very very close, but never ever quite there.   The simplest of equations to illustrate this is :

                                                           Y = 1/X

   When graphed you see the following

As you can see the function NEVER touches the X-axis where Y=0.  It comes very very close but is never quite equal to 0.  In calculus we would say

"The function Y=1/X approaches zero as X goes to infinity"

Does this mean we can't solve for Y=0?   Not really.   What we can do is accept a value "CLOSE TO ZERO" as good enough.    In the above graph we might accept a value of 0.1 as close enough to zero and say that when X = 10 we reach a value near zero.

It's not perfect but good enough.

What does this have to do with our world and what can we learn from it?   Well for one thing is that perfection is never attainable but something close enough will often do.   Today we live in a world that is constantly striving to be "perfect" and never seem to be finding it.   Many politicians today are selling a notion that perfection is just around the corner if we just give up some of our rights as citizens.   We can end all gun violence if we register all of our guns or get ride of certain kinds of guns.   We can prevent all DUI deaths if we just give up our rights to not be breathalyzed.   We can have no more hate if we just give up our rights to speak what we want to say.

Of course none of these requests will ever deliver on their promises because we can never reach perfection, but that won't stop politicians and law enforcement from pushing the next law they want passed. 

Our founding fathers put the words "In order to form a more perfect union" in our Constitution.  They were realists.  They knew that anything created by fallible human beings itself would be fallible and less than perfect.   They did not think their system was "perfect" but instead "more perfect" or to put it in mathematical language:  "approaching perfection".   They were admitting they did not have it all right from the start and that we would never get it 100% right either.  Like the function 1/X, you need to accept an imperfect output to find a solution to the problem.

In the TV show "Blue Bloods",  Tom Selleck's character often quotes the following:

"The enemy of good is not evil!  The real enemy of good is perfect!"

It means that if we only accept perfection, we will never achieve the good we want.  Like the function of Y=1/X, if you don't accept 0.1 as "close enough to zero" you will never find X=10.  So also, if you wait for and accept only perfection you will never be able to find a solution to the problems facing you.

In our country our Bill Of Rights help us define that boundary of less than perfect.   Take for example, DUI arrests.  We know DUI car deaths are never going to be stopped 100%.  As long as their are cars and alcohol we will have a bad mixture of the two.   While no one wants to see a loved one lost in such a way,  we know that we want our own rights to not be forced to do something against our bodies or have our bodily fluids used to testify against us (5th amendment right).  There must be a balance and we must accept a solution that is close but not perfect.  Of course the rights of the drunk person might allow some to go free and possibly offend again, but without the Bill of Rights and the 4th and 5th amendments, there would be no boundary to stop a government from invading your privacy and forcing you to bend to their will.  The protection of your rights make it necessary that possibly some undeserving drunk goes free. 

The 4th and 5th amendments stand as our "good enough" (but no farther) limits. 

Does this mean we just stop striving?  No.  But we do need to be will to accept it can never be perfect.  The good will be trampled by those promising and expecting perfection.

Bounding the Problem

     Okay, I don't want to get tooooo mathematical on people here but I do want to get something across that is import to understand.  Please! I ask you to be patient in reading this.

     Let's start with a question.  Can mathematics solve ALL problems?

     The answer to that question is NO.  It can't.    Some problems are by there very nature unsolvable and those in mathematics know this to be true.   It's for this reason that all math theorems put boundaries on the issue they are trying to address.  These boundaries are extremely important in defining the solutions it can provide.  Some examples of this are:

• For every function of Real Numbers...
• For all positive integers....
• For all functions that are contiguous and homogeneous between x0 and x1

      In all of these cases we are defining the boundaries of the problem space so that those who try to use this theorem on problems that are outside this space will know not to waste their time trying to use it.  It doesn't just save time, it insures answers they might derive will be viewed as wrong by construction.   It also, says to those applying your idea on their problem that does fit this boundary that their results will be of use to them.

     The problem today in society is we fail to define the boundaries of the problems we are trying to fix and we jump right into the solution space.   To illustrate this, take for example Sacramento's recent decision to carve out $130 million in funds to combat homelessness.   If we were to put this into a mathematical form it would look like this:

For all homeless people living in the city of Sacramento, $130 million is set aside to build Tiny Homes for the homeless so they don't have to live on the streets or tents.

    So the boundaries of this problem are:

1. The homeless 
2. Living in the city of Sacramento

    On first glance it seems to define the boundaries quite well.  If you are homeless in Sacramento then you will be given a Tiny Home to live in.   But is that adequate?   Here is why it is not.

• What does it mean to be "homeless"?   
• Does having a backpack and a sleeping-bag automatically make me "homeless" ?
• How do I prove I am really homeless or just someone looking for a cheap place to live?   
• How do I show I have been homeless for a term of time you might require?   
• Am I homeless by choice or by life's circumstances?

     Next, we need to look at the issue of Sacramento being the boundary of where we are trying to fix this problem.  Again, on the outset it seems to be pretty clear.   We can draw on a map the city limits of Sacramento and say that bounds the problem quite well.   We are not solving homelessness for California or even Sacramento County.    Here are the issues that make this boundary not a boundary:

• How do you define a homeless resident of Sacramento?  
• By definition they have no residency because they have no physical home
• If someone hitchhikes from Roseville, would they instantly qualify for a Tiny Home?    
• How long do they need to be in Sacramento to qualify and how do you assess that time?

    Without proper bounding, this issue will not be fixed but will probably grow exponentially as more homeless will come from other areas to take advantage of this new program.  It will not SOLVE the problem at all.   Here it is not that the solution is "bad" it's just that the bounding of the problem is deeply "flawed" and will lead to more problems than solutions. 

     Of course we might just say we accept that people will abuse the system and disregard our porous  boundaries and do nothing to address them. If  you do that you might as well have no boundaries at all.   You might as well let the world know we are opening the Tiny-Town to all who want to come and use them.

 

When to Quit

   Other boundaries we fail to add to projects like this deal with results and when to end a solution.  In many mathematical theorems the concept of "until" often plays a role.   The theorem may require you to repeat a process either until a solution is found or there is found a problem from which the algorithm cannot resolve itself.  Often in combinatorial problems this can be the case.  We cannot try ALL possible combinations for some problems and the search algorithm we employed has tried skim through those combinations might spend too much time and has find no solution. We must QUIT and try something else. 

    When bounding our social problems we often fail to measure if any improvements have been found and quantify if those improvements were "worth it".    No one likes to fail, but it's part of the search process.   Edison tried over 10,000 different filaments before he found carbon-thread worked.  If he had kept trying solution #1 without quitting he never would have found his answer.  Tiny-Homes might be a solution for homelessness but it might not be too.  We can try it, but we need to be willing to admit our mistakes and move on to the NEXT solution no matter how married to that idea we might feel. 

   This often happens because people become emotionally and economically connected to the solution.  Take the Tiny-Homes project.  It will need someone to spearhead it.  It will take people to manage the property and the buildings.   It will take others to care for the residents and maybe extra law enforcement and security.    These peoples lives are economically connected to this never ending.   If it ends, they lose their jobs and thus lose their economic security.   They lose their objectivity in the process and will do anything to make it look successful or an absolute necessity to the community.

A Better Boundary

 I am not entirely opposed to this idea of helping people who really need it. 

    Maybe to better bound the problem, the solution should be written as this:

To combat the problem of homeless working families, who currently cannot afford decent housing. $130 million will be set aside to build low cost Tiny-Homes for a small rental fee to allow these families a temporary housing while they work towards better economic stability.   The project will be reviewed annually and if costs to the community outweigh the benefits to the community it will be shutdown

   Here we have bounded the problem to solve the problem of homeless working families first.  Second we have bounded the problem to those who can work but can't make enough to rent a place (work could even be provided to them if needed). The Tiny-Home site could also provide the "address" they will need to fill out job applications to employers.  The rental fee insures that people coming here will need to find and keep employment and also provide them with a sense of honor and value.

Conclusion 

   Does this fix ALL homelessness?  Of course not, but it solves one big piece of it that we care about a lot.   For other homeless bound people we might need other solutions.  For the drug-addict we need treatment facilities to get them off the drugs and re-connected to families and communities.   For mentally-ill people we need to get them back into mental health facilities and not prisons.  Those problem-spaces need much different solutions than tiny-homes.  The tiny-home solution will not work for them, but instead will probably exacerbate their problems and make things worse for those it would help.   Maybe for some who get the help they need, the tiny-home would be a step in the right direction for them, but they need to first get those other problems out of the way.

   We must resist searching for simple answers to complex problems.   They are as rare as unicorns.

   PS - this solution is not new at all.  A "shanty town" was erected in the middle of New York Citiy's Central Park in the 1930's to deal with the Great Depression's homeless problem.  Readers will note that it was a disaster and the cause of many deaths by violence and disease.