A Work in Progress

One of the advantages of teaching in a small school in a small town is I have the chance to see students at several points along their life path.  And for some people, these different ages can be extremely different.  I can't tell you the number of students I have met in middle school that are kind of a mess.  They are too caught up in the drama, or they are angry all of the time, or they can't seem to focus, or they can't remember anything. or they lose things constantly or they are perpetually unhappy, or or or or or.....  There are a lot of issues that a young teen can have in their life, Some are self imposed; others come at them from the outside, but issues abound.  And please don't think that I am being judgmental.  I am sure there are reasons for all of it.  I am just saying that if we take a snapshot in middle school, things are often not pretty.

(Not a Pretty Picture)

But the years go on.  A few years later they are in high school and Juniors or Seniors and to a certain extent, they have gotten their act together.  They are happier and more self confident and more serious and less scatter brained. A little maturity goes a long way.  

Still there are other people for whom all of high school is still rough.  They either barely make it through to graduation, or don't make it and get side tracked along the way.  Some people take either a few more years or a setting other than high school to find their stride.  But that doesn't mean that their journey is done.   Many times over the years I have met up with people who left high school in rough shape and made much more of themselves along the way.  

As Christians it is important to remember that we are not defined by where we were at our worst.  We are not defined by where we were, or even where we are, but where we are going.  God offers us redemption and a fresh start.  We may not be the person that we want to be.  We may not be the person that God plans for us to be.  But that doesn't mean that we can's be someday.  A little maturity goes a long way.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

I often think of a quote from Mother Theresa of Calcutta, the nun who spent her life trying to help the poor of India.  She once said that she know her heart was as dark as coal.  If for all that she did, she saw that God still had great work to do on her, how much more is needed on me?

Putting It Back Together

This election makes me feel sad.  That is the realization that I came to earlier this week, and watching the third debate on Wednesday did nothing to change my mind.  A lot of the discouraging things about this election have been around for years, they are just more intense this time.

It seems like in every election I hear people say that they feel like they are voting for the lesser of two evils, but I generally don't feel that way.  In most elections I find myself supporting a candidate that I think will be good for the office, good for the community, good for the country, etc.  But it is hard to feel that way this time.  At the top, it is hard to find people that are truly gung ho about either candidate.  Most people are making a decision that goes like, "I know that _____ has problems, but ____ would be a disaster." The amazing thing is that people seem to think this no matter which candidate they plan on voting for.

And it isn't just the presidential race (although it is clearly the worst), every race seems to go this way.  I live in Northern Michigan where there is a battle going on for the US Congressional seat.  Two out of every three commercials on TV are about this race, and they are all negative.  Both sides seem to be trying to convince us that the other guy really isn't from here.  Or that they either want to take away guns or destroy social security.  They are focusing on the, "The other guy would be a disaster" mentality too.

So what are we going to do on November 9th?  Sometimes I am surprised by people who endorse certain candidates.  I find myself thinking, "Really? That's who they support?  How is that possible?" And I have been having that feeling across the board.  Sometimes it is from the endorsements of organizations or political leaders or church leaders.  I never know if they are true supporters or making some type of political calculation.

Sometimes the real surprise comes when I see friends backing one candidate or another.  Sometimes it is hard to wrap your head around it.  But I think that we need to be careful about reading too much into it.  Our friends have made the same conflicted decision that we all are making.  They have also weighed the pros and cons.  Some of the pros weigh more some of the cons weigh less.  Some of my pros are their cons and visa versa.  They have come to a serious decision, just as I have.  And Even if I don't agree, I can still give them my respect.

In the book of James, it says that The anger of man will not achieve the righteousness of God.  On November 9th we need to start putting the country back together.  We need to be less angry and more righteous.  We need to be forgiving of other's opinions and remember that like us, they want what is best for the country.  They just have a different vision of how to go about it.  We need to support and pray for our elected leaders whether we voted for them or not.  And in all circumstances, we need to give grace and show love as best as we can.  

Cave Tours

Over the years I have had a few opportunities to go on guided tours of caves.  When I was a teen we went to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  Then as an adult I've been to Jewel Cave in South Dakota and the Ohio Caverns in (you guessed it) Ohio.  Cave tours are fun.  You hear a little about when it was first discovered and it's early uses.  Inevitably this is some mixture of Native American sheltering supplies for the winter and bootleggers hiding a still.

This is followed by the walk into the cave.  Along a lit path we see stalactite and stalagmites and other unique rock formations.  There are formations that look like ice cycles and water falls curtains.  And some unique wildlife as well.  Of course there are bats, but deep in caves there are species of shrimp and cray fish with no eyes.  They live their own life without ever being exposed to the light of day.

One part of every cave tour is where they turn out the lights.  Caves go far under ground and there is a long level path and a number of lights.  But there is a point deep in the cave where the tour guide flips the switch and oh is it dark.  It is completely and totally dark.  Ink dark.  Can't see your hand before your face dark.  And then they light a match.  It is amazing how much light the one match gives off.  Under the light of the one match an amazing amount of detail comes into view.

As Christians we are called by God to be the light in the darkness.  Jesus came to Earth to offer salvation and we are in our darkest place, He is the light that can see us out.  And we are called to help spread that light in His place.  And while we are not Jesus, we can be the lit match in the dark cave.  And people can see in us a little bit of the Holy Spirit until they see the blinding light and the warmth of day from the Almighty God.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Sometimes on a warm summer evening you can look across the yard and when the night is dark the small glow of a fire fly jumps out.  The Christian walk is about letting others see God's light through us in a dark world.

Less Nukes

In some cities they have a program to buy guns from citizens.  The idea is that there is a problem with gun violence and some people believe that it would help if there were less guns.  So they offer to buy guns from people who voluntarily turn them in.  And they make wonderful photo ops.  We see pictures of a sheriff or a mayor or a sheriff and a mayor standing by a big pile of guns.

The problem is that the guns that are turned in are not necessarily the ones that are being used for the crimes.  The criminals and gang members keep their guns.  But some people need money, so they dig that gun out of the back of the closet.  Or they get the one that doesn't work right and isn't worth fixing and they turn them in.  The point is this, people are giving things up but they aren't disarming.

This reminds me a bit of the weapon treaties signed by the US and USSR during the cold war.  The first ones didn't reduce nuclear weapons at all.  They just slowed down how fast we were building them.  But eventually we had enough and came up with an agreement to make due with less;  We each would get rid of some and come up with some way to make sure that we are both following the rules.  

The key is that we would both get rid of SOME of the nukes, not all.  Both sides were still going to keep enough to be able to turn the entirety of the Earth's surface into radioactive cream corn.  We were willing to lay down a few, but not completely disarm.

There is a fundamental difference between reduction and completely disarming.  To completely disarm you have to change the way that you look at the world.  You give up some level of control and potentially turning it over to others.

The Christian walk is very much like this.  We start out trying to sin not so much.  Of course it doesn't feel that way, but if we are honest it is more like a limitation than a true reduction.  But over time with the conviction of the Holy Spirit we begin reducing the areas of our life outside of God's will.  But do we truly disarm?

To truly disarm would be to turn our lives completely over to the will of God.  It would be to release ourselves from our selfish will and to surrender ourselves completely.  For humans this is impossible, but all things are possible in god.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

There is a difference between turning over some things and turning over all things.  But that is what we are called to do.  

So You Had a Bad Day

I remember this one day when it was cold a snowing and our snow blower would not start.  I am doing all of the things that I would normally do to coax it into starting and a few that I don't normally do, but nothing was working.  I was getting very frustrated.

At one point along the way, I checked to make sure that there was oil in it.  And there was, but the cap on the oil reservoir would  not go back on.  So then I had two problems.  I could not cap the oil reservoir and I could not get the thing started and my temper was starting to build.  After some fiddling, I finally got the cap sort of back on the reservoir and after much struggle, the snow blower started.  My only problem was that oil cap.  I knew that it wasn't on right, and I needed to get it all the way on.  As I started to tighten the cap, it came off spraying oil with it.  The oil was all over my face and hair and clothing and to stop the spraying, I had to turn off the snow blower.   

I wish that I could tell you that at that moment I felt the warm embrace of the Holy Spirit, that I knew that it was all part of God's plan that I was thinking "Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul." I wish that I could say that, but I cannot.  My temper went into full blown boil over.  I am glad that no one was around to see me, but it wasn't pretty.  When I went into the house to fetch some rags to clean up the oil, my loving wife asked what was wrong, and I was still too angry to speak.  It took me some time to calm down.  I eventually got the oil cap back on, the snowblower started and the snow cleared.  All and all, not my finest hour.

They say that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how we respond.  Some days, the things that happen are bad and our response is even worse.  Every day is not our finest.  I have had those days and assume that you have too.  We say the wrong thing, we do the wrong thing, we get upset over things that aren't that big of a deal.  We can handle relationships poorly.  Say things that we don't mean just to hurt someone or be spiteful or petty or short tempered.

For most of us those days are a rarity.  Most of us meet the challenges of our day with the Shield of Faith and the Sword of the Spirit.  With the grace of God we do our best to let God's love shine through us, but we all have those days.

Which is why we need redemption.  Jesus lived a life without the bad days.  There surely were days that were better than others, but he never had the situations where he wished he would have done that.  Jesus had no regrets and went to die so that the grace of God could be delivered to the world.

Although he never had those days, he died so that I can be forgiven when I do.  And so can you.

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Jesus was the one, the only one who did not need redemption.  And so He became the sacrifice for us all.

Great Man Theory

There is an idea among some historians called the "Great Man Theory".  According to this idea, history is shaped by great people and by understanding those people, we understand the times in which they live.  Personally, I'm not sure if great people shape history or if the events of the day shapes the people alive at that time.  Probably some of each.

Either way, we often think of history from the perspective of the influential people of the time.  The American Revolution is seen through the lives of George Washington and John Adams and not the farmer who left his farm behind to loose three toes to frostbite at Valley Forge.  Or we see the industrial revolution through the lives of Henry Ford and Walter Reuther, not the person working each day on the assembly line, then going home and doing it all again the next day.

There are certain people who do seem to embody the times that they live in, or at least the way we like to remember those times.

It seems that in our society, there is a lot of attention paid to celebrities.  What they wear, how they act, the products that they use, celebrities have influence across our society.  Personally, I like to think that celebrity endorsements don't influence my buying habits.  There are some commercials that I find entertaining, but I don't think that they make me want to buy the product.  But no promises here.  The people who write those adds are good at what they do.  I imagine that I am influenced in ways that I am unaware.

The thing about celebrity role models is that in the end, they are just human beings.  Many times the real person is different than their public persona.  When the celebrity gets caught in the act of being human, there is nothing left but disappointment.

As Christians, we know that we can't put our trust in the things of this world.  The things of this world rot and rust.  People will inevitably disappoint, but the Grace of God is eternal, unwavering and always trustworthy.  The embodiment of God's grace came to the Earth in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus was a unique figure in History.  He was fully God and fully human.  He lived a perfect life and died bearing the sins of the world.  If history is the story great men, there is none greater.  And all of of history is defined based on whether the time was before or after the life of Christ.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

When we put people up on pedestals, they are likely to hit you when they fall.  Setting up human idols is ultimately self defeating.  If we are looking for a model on which to base our lives, there is really only one choice.

Witness Relocation Program

The federal witness protection and relocation program is a popular theme in movies.  The idea is that someone is going to testify against a dangerous character and their life is in danger as a result.  So they enter this federal protection program,  They are given a new identity.  A new birth certificate.  A new social security number.  A new history.  A new everything.

I was curious about this so I did some googling.  And it is a real thing.  They have placed over 18,000 people and given them a new start.  From what I found, they often keep their first names and maybe their initials.  They are given some money to get started, but are expected to make a living and support themselves.  Some of the people want to change their school records so that they got better grades or better references.  I guess that if you could rewrite your past, you might as well pick a good one.

In many ways, this is like the transformation that we make when we first become Christians.  Although our past is not gone and forgotten, in the eyes of God it completely is.  We get a new life as Christians, a fresh start and it is full of potential.  God is more concerned with where we are going than where we have been.  We don't need to inflate our school transcripts or pad our resumes.  God knows it all and He's OK with it.

One problem that they have with the witness relocation program comes when people do not really change but continue to cling to their old life.  They are wearing the disguise of their new life but never let go of the old.

Many people get into the witness relocation program because they have a checkered past.  If instead of embracing their new life, they repeat the mistakes of their old, it will never work.  Some people try to return to their old lives.  Or try to have it both ways.  Live the protected life, but still go back some times.  It never works that way.  You can't have each foot in a different life.

Much in the same way, to really live the Christian life, we need to embrace our new Christian identity.  We can't be living for God and living for the world.  Living a double life is like we are always in disguise.  Sometimes pretending to be Christians and sometimes pretending that our lives haven't changed, but always afraid that the disguise will slip and we will be found out.  That is a hard way to live.  To be a Christian we need to be all in.

Watch this video from Pastor Mike.

To be a Christian, we need to be all in.  We have been called to live a new life in Christ.  And to fully realize the blessings of this life we need to accept the new identity and not continue to live partially in the old.