Giving Advice to God

Which of the Lord’s attributes and actions have you experienced in your life recently? If you could change one thing about God’s nature, what would it be? Why that one? (Serendipity Bible 10th anniversary edition, page 1298).

Sometimes I wish that God’s intervention in human affairs were more direct and prevailed even in the short run despite man’s worst efforts to thwart his divine purposes. This boils down to a wish that beyond grace there was a super grace that did not rely upon mankind meeting God halfway – despite Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus his resultant ministry could have been avoided by abject rebellion on the part of Paul. Sometimes I wish there were a measure of less free will. (It is noteworthy that man’s free will is constantly limited by multiple forces including physical, social, and economic—why not divine force directed to this own good?)

In other words when I have aggrieved God with stupid sins of blindness and misdirected self-will (especially when hurting others) would not everyone have been better off with a little direct divine intervention and prevention? Remember staying the hand of a child from touching a hot stove? Surely this direct intervention is greater love than that shown when God allows us and others to get burned by our free will enticements. Is there any wonder that cruel and callous people sometimes sanctimoniously hold that their actions are endorsed by God?

Where lies the triumph?



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On Being “Left Out”

Will Smith and son Jaden

Describe a situation or period when you felt “left out.” How did it feel? How did you react? How did your faith help you to deal with that situation? What did you learn from this experience? (The Upper Room, July – August 2013, from final pages—questions for small groups).

Today in Sunday school we discussed the above question at length with class members sharing when they have felt “left out,” alienated from others, isolated or alone. Simply sharing these experiences and how we felt about them took considerable time. In conclusion we addressed the following question: “Ok, suppose you should feel “left out.” What few words will you tell yourself at the time to help you cope?

Alyssia said she would say “Devil get behind me”…and would pray, “Put a hedge of protection around me.” Deangelo said he would see it as a “test of faith.” I said that “I would look to Jesus for guidance….[that] I would tell myself “Never give up.” I would aggressively challenge those making me feel “left out” with “Come at me bro!” and when they did so I would say, “I want to get to know you.”

During our discussion we pointed out that a huge number of stories and movies treat the “left out” theme. Some had seen The Karate Kid on TV Saturday night and told how they were moved to tears when 12-year-old Dre Parker not only was able to be accepted by his former enemies but fundamentally transformed their behavior. It was remarked that from prehistoric periods mankind has been a social animal driven by survival needs. Thus, being “left out” can hurt deeply even if in some ways we can be in modern times more independent—at least so in surface appearance.

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Jesus as the Ultimate Wrath of God

How do you reconcile God’s wrath with God’s love? Is one primary and the other secondary? Are they the flip sides of the same coin? Or is there no way to bring consistency out of these two natures of God? (Serendipity Bible 10^th Anniversary Edition, page 1298).

I see the wrath of God as basically flowing from the truth of God. The prime instance of this is when God sent Jesus (the Word) into the world. This can be seen as the wrath of God because Jesus confronted the forces of darkness head-on then and remains a merciless gadfly against those forces to this day. Of what forces do I speak?—the forces of falsehoods and deception, the forces of hypocrisy and cruelty, the forces of self-righteousness and greed. In the face of blindness and self-deception Jesus’s weapon was uncompromising truth. Many of us would say that he treated the scribes and Pharisees with other than love as we would define it…..but not as God defines it. We insist that tolerance include the attributes of soft indifference and cool detachment, a studied and remote polite political correctness. This is and never has been God’s view of love or tolerance. We see that the wrath of God inflicted in the person of Jesus against the scribes and Pharisees was in a huge sense brought on by the scribes and Pharisees themselves. God is light and when people besmirch God’s deepest core convictions, they are setting themselves up for exposure by that light. God’s redemptive, revelatory love intervenes in history with uncompromising sometimes harsh illumination cast upon human affairs. God’s judgment visited upon the world is thus bifurcated—the result of God's love and man's idolatry.

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Realistic Patience

Be the change that you wish to see in the world. – Gandhi

If your patience were likened to a keg of dynamite, would you have a: (a) Short fuse? (b) Long fuse? (c) No fuse? (d) No powder? (e) No Keg? (f) Other? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1298).

Patience is given as one fruit of the spirit: The Spirit however, produces in human life fruits such as these: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance and self-control—and no law exists against any of them. Those who belong to Christ have crucified their old nature with all that it loved and lusted for. If our lives are centred in the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-25 Phillips). This accountability passage is sobering for it is a reality check on the healthy spirituality of man. Just as to patience alone we must wonder the extent to which the Spirit fills the hearts of men to do justly even little things – never mind escaping high crimes and misdemeanors. My wife had a saying on her closet door – a little prayer – “God give me patience, and give it to me now.” The sin of impatience is really a lack of consideration of the processes that are most generally required in yielding any product or service in life. In this sense it can be seen to be a very great sin and not a petty one at all for it is a sin through which we deny and seek to escape the reality lying behind virtually all of life. We yearn for worry and work free instantaneous miracles rather than facing with patience the task before us. We self-righteously await miracles rather than doing the grunt work necessary to change the world. Certainly armaments are a good case in point. We want weapons to instantaneously realize what rightly demands excruciatingly involved processes of peace and justice.

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Needed: Good Manners

In the quest for good manners, I am not interested in the correct way to hold a tea cup. I am not interested in formalism here anymore than I am in speech elocution. As a good speech ultimately derives from an earnest desire to connect and communicate, good manners seek to communicate respect and goodwill to others. Good manners have nothing to do with “political correctness” in which censorship and hypocrisy are substituted for simplicity and truth. Good manners allow one to disagree without being sarcastic and vindictive. Good manners are not a cold dress code one puts on, but courteous expression in intimate fidelity with one’s ethical convictions. They are not laced with profanity and ad hominem substitutes for humble, simple and direct communication. Any arguments buttressed with abusive pejoratives are suspect from the get-go—so essentially weak as to be desperately in need of tag-team relief from verbal thugs.

Now I do not write the above as someone not needing to heed my own advice. Like others I have substituted 4-letter bravado for a sweet spirit and humble examination. When the fall back force of one’s argument is bluster and obscene fulmination, one deserves to lose.

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What is Grace?

What is “grace?” (A Year with Jesus: Daily Readings and Meditations by Eugene Peterson, page 225).

Grace is a very positive word—it comes with practically no negative connotations. Whether someone wins graciously or loses graciously, it’s a quality to be desired. I am going to avoid the temptation to look the word up in the dictionary and come up with a definitive answer to the question: What is “grace?” Instead, I’m going to look back to where I first encountered grace and strive there to find its essence. This was for me in the home.

Grace involved the way I was treated by my family despite behavior that could have elicited the opposite of grace—namely cynicism, meanness, spitefulness, and ridicule. The first time I was shocked by a father yelling at his son (words that my father would never yell at me) was when I was about 13 years old in Ellenton. I was playing in an expansive lawn area late one afternoon next to a street lined with houses. From one of these houses I heard a father yelling at this son as the son came out the front door. The father yelled after him: “If you were half as smart as you think you are you would be President of the United States.” I knew instantly that in this spirit and with this tone my father would never address me. I got from my father just the opposite—quietly informal conversation filled with generosity, forgiveness, and belief in me; all serving to bring encouragement and hope. This is not because I had faults that my father could not plainly see; it was rather because my father loved me enough to treat me with generosity and forgiveness—with grace.

Perhaps one would expect grace more from my mother (after all, women are named “Grace”). I remember mother’s smile, her focus on the task at hand, and her joy. This light overflowed upon my brother and me.

Now my brother (4 years older than me) and I were sometimes antagonistic; but when the chips were down, my brother graciously covered for me and my sins. One time I got mad at him and threw a screwdriver at him, hitting his leg and bringing blood. He graciously let the matter rest and never mentioned it to “the powers that be.” Another time when I was beginning to experience sexual emissions, I somehow got into my head to dribble Wildroot Cream Oil hair tonic into the toilet. I thought it (being white) looked something like semen. After a spell of this, at the breakfast table mom and dad mentioned seeing it in the toilet and said Wildwood was expensive and this was a waste. Whether they flat-out asked who was doing this or just told us to stop I do not remember. But my brother said he would do it no more; again, graciously covering for me.

Based on my first encounters with grace, I continue to cherish it wherever I find it and pray that, despite deep inner forces to the contrary, I can sometimes genuinely express it.

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Face to Face

When I was a kid I loved the game Monopoly (especially when I was winning). I would play with my cousins Patsy and Tommy and my brother Bobby. We would spend hours on the game. When I was winning I delighted in buying up hotels on Boardwalk and watching the agony of my competition upon landing on the property. It was really quite a heady experience. Of course this was all a game and no one was really hurt—no matter what, we had fun.

It always amazes me the warmth and kindness of the American people on a person-to-person basis. Today my friends and I attended church and without exception we were treated with the utmost kindness and even joy. After church we went to McDonald’s for breakfast and ran into people considerate beyond belief. A joyful customer standing in line greeted and conversed with us warmly. Following placing our food order at the counter, we retreated with literally our backs against the wall waiting for our serving number to be called. Even in this position people arriving at the restaurant would ask us “are you in line” to be absolutely certain that they were not butting in ahead of us. On a personal level no one can be more kind and loving than Americans. I see this every day at work. There is no question as to the religion or politics of anyone I meet and greet. It simply doesn’t matter; respect and kindness always come first.

Now take away this person-to-person intimacy and profound changes can result. For example, I can get “in the game” of maneuvering my car through street traffic. I exultantly cut someone off. It is embarrassing beyond mention if “that someone” pulls up beside me at the next light and I see looking at me a face I know from church or work. I feel caught red-handed at cruelty.

This morning there was a story in the paper about a current investment game. Apparently much “smart money” now is flowing into real estate. The side effect of this is that 2 out of every 3 homes are bought not by someone who wants to live in the home, but rather is acquired solely for investment to sell later at a significant profit. Many would-be home buyers who want and need a home are thus locked out of buying a house. Those caught up in the excitement of the investment game and the lure of easy money are safely distanced from any intimacy with those they are hurting.

This “distancing” is at the heart of many of the ills many now suffer. Today Deangelo, Alyssia, and I visited the Florida Holocaust Museum. There I asked a docent what essential lesson we should learn from the Holocaust. His answer was not to be complacent in the face of bullying; not to demonize; and to show tolerance. (Tolerance is a one word summery that he so much wanted to convey that he found me later on the second floor just to convey it). I further will amplify his response thusly: Demonization; Dehumanization; Detachment; Self-absorption. That is, we make a person or group acceptable to harm by finding them evil or less than human. This involves detachment. We find ourselves disengaged from reality such that tolerance becomes perverted to “I don’t give a damn” as cruelty is underway. Finally, we become self-absorbed and inconsiderate of others.

As dreadfully cruel as the Nazis were, it is important to remember (as Jesus frequently pointed out) we are all subject to sinfully evil thoughts at one time or another, and, though not acted out in such dramatic fashion, they can end up coloring our lives and our treatment of others.

How can meanness deriving from detachment be structurally dealt with? Certainly, a strong democracy is one way; for the injured party has a place at the table whether we like it or not. Thus, if we are greatly inured to a laissez-faire status quo, we will often complain about big government or government regulation since a democratic government means that we must hear voices and trim cruelties we had rather not.

I am optimistic that much of America’s meanness (now significantly the result of detachment) will be alleviated once detachment and self-absorption are made less possible. At the Holocaust Museum are wood carvings of children who were victims of Nazi death camps. Surrounding the head of each child is a yellow hallo. I wish that we could come to see an aura around everyone we meet or greet either directly or through imaginative visualization. We would be greatly blessed if we could see each member of the human family as holy and unique—each with a sanctuary of conscience answerable to God.

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