Yanked By Her Braid

A mutual friend, who knows parts of my testimony, called me after my family returned from Church yesterday. They asked me to visit a struggling father and maybe offer some encouragement. And so I spent yesterday afternoon with a new acquaintence who is desperately trying to kick a narcotic addiction so that he can be a better parent and a better human. I always go into these situations with nervous reverence for the opportunities these situations may or may not present to guide someone to a God who loves them more than they can fathom and wants their best life more than they do. I prayerfully approach these circumstances with a profound gratitude that God met me when I stood literally with the shirt on my back, angrily challenging God to redeem me if His arm was long enough, and humbly (yes, anger and humility, the two can go together in the right circumstances) repenting for the things I knew I had chosen to do wrong which led to my state of shambles that day. Without acknowledging our sin and admitting our need for Christ's restoring sacrifice, there can be no Salvation. There can certainly be no second work of Sanctification if we never reach a crisis point where we recognize our utter dependence on a God of Mercy. And healing of our deepest wounds is not likely to ever take place without those first two steps.

My story gave me an entrance ticket into this man's life yesterday.  And we had nine hours of fellowship, talking about mutual acquaintences and professional experiences, our desires to be a good parent, our terrors of being miserable failures at parenting, our disappointments and anger with God (which we both agreed come from twisted thinking and unrealistic expectations on our part), abiding places of anger which were hard to let go given some of their righteous roots.  We talked extensively about horrible experiences of abuse we both survived.  We spilled our guts with each other.  And I bathed the man's cuts and scratches and deep wounds with cleansing Water found only in the Word of God, not in a holier than thou attitude of "get yourself straightened up or go to Hell," but with a genuine understanding of the paths sin takes us down and the beating our enemy gives us along the way.  Ironically, near the end of our time together he said "you'd make a good preacher, really able to meet people at those cross roads of life where they struggle the most."  I confessed to him that he had me pegged.

I originally wrote this piece as a note on Facebook about a year ago. I was looking for something else I wrote which seems to have disappeared, but I find my time with my new friend yesterday actually fits quite well with this piece.  He's certainly being yanked by his proverbial braid.  I have great hope it will work out right, but that's his choice at the end of the day. 

Yanked By Her Braid

by Blaze Wahlert on Friday, July 1, 2011 at 6:38pm ·

When my youngest daughter was approximately seven years old I recall a time when she and I traveled to one of our local pizza parlors to pick up the food I had ordered for our supper that evening.  This particular pizza shop was in a strip mall just down from a busy convenience store/gas station.  Upon exiting the vehicle my daughter darted out with the pizza store in her sights.  I just narrowly managed to get a firm hold on her long braid in time to stop her at the end of our parking spot, which caused a painful yank on her head and immediately caused her to spin around to face me with a justifiable anger, tears in her eyes, and to take fighting stance as she has been trained to do in Tae Kwon Do.  She seemingly had every right to be quite upset with me.  All that was changed by me gently turning her around to face the bumper and wheel of the car which had nearly run her over; and seeing the face of the terrified driver who was completely unable to stop the car in time to prevent what was almost a tragedy.

        I remembered that story today as I was surfing political websites and reading articles.  It seemed most authors represented a group who was willfully angry at not getting their way.  Other articles represented groups who had gotten their way and were spitefully judging their nay sayers.  Still other pieces were addressing hot button moral issues and legislative fall out from legalizing formerly unacceptable behaviors.  Nowhere was their any sense of charity in the sense of leniency in judgment of others or that most traditional sense of Christian love, agape.

        The worst part of the experience for me today wasn’t just the articles and their positions though – it was also the comments made by ‘we the readers.’  A modern capability to immediately speak our minds in public response to an article is something that too often shows our lacking wit and critical thinking abilities.  Henry David Thoreau said it most succinctly near the beginning of Walden: “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.  Yet it is admirable to profess because it once was admirable to live.”

        In former times philosophers were those who had a ‘love of truth’ and sought both to discern it and then live it.  Philo: love  soph: truth.  Today we have philodoxy which means 'love of opinion.'  In times now mostly gone if a philosopher expressed an opinion they had thought beyond the immediate selfish surface results, back to the overall foundations which made it applicable for the mutual benefit of society as a whole.  They could give you concrete examples and reason clearly even with their detractors.  The sound reasoning became actionable behavior we today call prejudice.  Through unreasonable and abusive behavior over the centuries that word has now become irretrievably tainted.  Edmund Burke said: “Prejudice is of ready application in an emergency.  It previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical and unresolved."

        If your eyes haven’t already glazed over, let me tie this up.  My daughter didn’t have my perspective that evening…all she saw was the goal of getting her pizza.  Her selfishly motivated hunger for pizza nearly cost her life.  My loving response, though painfully unpleasant, saved her life because in truth I see her God instilled dignity and value her as God’s creation, and am unwilling to just let her run toward whatever it is she fancies at the moment. 

        That is what bothered me today, no one was able to genuinely able to speak the truth, in love, into these situations.  They failed to express the heart rending desire of salvation, not just religious ‘S’alvation, but the overall well being of our fellow humanity rendered in Jude verses 22 and 23: “Have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh” (HCSB).  Whatever the issues behind whatever political hot button, you can bet your life that it is rooted in a lack of perspective at what sin will cost when it is fully revealed.  Sin will always take us farther than we wanted to go, cost us more than we were willing to pay, and leave us stranded on a dead end street having to walk back the way we came.  Those of us who call ourselves Jesus disciples must continually seek to find a way of “speaking the truth in love (Eph 4:15)” publicly without falling into a political camp.  We must live out loving the sinner, while openly revealing our dislike (and the reasons therefore) of the sin when asked for our position.  Unfortunately this technique eventually landed Jesus on the cross, but truly, I can’t think of any other way to live. 

       Call me ‘prejudiced’ but my daughter disobeyed my previously communicated standing rule to wait next to the vehicle, and it nearly killed her. 

____________________________________________

These are most of the Scriptures we spent time talking about throughout our time together, introduced into the conversation at appropriate points to provide a gentle washing of our wounds and with that perhaps healing balm (bold emphasis added to ones we dwelt on extensively):

Job 34:10-12, 21-22  - Job 36:5-16 - 2Cor1:3-4 (ESV)

Therefore, hear me, you men of understanding:  far be it from God that He should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that He should do wrong.  For according to the work of a man He will repay him, and according to his ways He will make it befall him.  Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice.

For His eyes are on the ways of a man, and He sees all his steps.  There is no gloom or deep darkness where evildoers may hide themselves.

Behold God is mighty, and does not despise any; He is mighty in strength of understanding.  He does not keep the wicked alive, but gives the afflicted their right.  He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne He sets them forever, and they are exalted.  And if they are bound in chains and caught in the cords of affliction, then He declares to them their work and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly.  He opens their ears to instruction and commands that they return from iniquity.  If they listen and serve Him, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness.  But if they do not listen, they perish by the sword and die without knowledge. 

The godless in heart cherish anger; they do not cry for help when He binds them.  They die in youth, and their life ends among the cult prostitutes. 

He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.

He also allured you out of distress into a broad place where there was no cramping, and what was set on your table was full of fatness.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Somewhere Between Hallmark and Hell

Father's Day is tomorrow.  Tomorrow will be a difficult day for me.  It always has been, probably always will be.  Mother's Day too.  For many of you the day may pass in Hallmark Cards fashion with a comfortable peace bedded richly in satisfaction and fond memory.  For many of us however, it is an anxious time where we come desperately close to the skeletons in our closet we have yet to exorcise. 

How do you honor parents that were not worthy of honor?  How do you honor the Fifth Commandment of God found in Exodus 20:12: "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you."  Is it even possible?  What would it look like?  Why should I?  I mean, surely God knows the details and will give me a pass on this right?  Don't theologians have a word for all knowing?  OMNISCIENT, right?  Since He knows, he'll understand if I sit this one out.  If this is what God requires, I'm out - enough with the Church thing already... y'all don't even know what you're askin'. 

There is a spectrum of experience here, and we all fall somewhere between Hallmark and Hell.  That's just the way it is.  For some individuals this day is fraught with a spiral of scared and angry emotion that threatens to suck them into a black hole vortex.  Unfortunately some were long ago sucked into the spiral and cast out the other side into an uncharted galaxy where the rules are made up as the individual sees fit, and frequently in direct contradiction to the laws of this present Creation.  For those who have found a firm foundation and invited Jesus in at his gentle  but insistent knock, we have allowed Him to come with us to the closet, open the door, cast His Light in where we could at least name the skeletons if we weren't entirely ready to face everything about them.  Each year I find fewer bones in that closet, less mess, less dust and debris.  And although that closet is still a disappointing room in my house, it is no longer a fearful frightening place I need to avoid.

These days get easier as the years go by, mainly because of the healing I experience as I walk a different life surrendered to Jesus and nurture a family who does the same.  I see the honor my wife is worthy of as a mother on Mother's Day, and as a father myself now there is a gentle healing that takes place in that experience and the daily experiences of attempting to be a Godly father for my daughters.  In me and my life choices, and subsequently my wife's and now our daughters we have broken the cycle of dysfunction and sin that marred my childhood.  We are no longer held in the bondage of iniquity visited upon the children of those who hate the Lord, we have crossed over into the thousands of generations who receive mercy because we love the Lord and seek to keep His commandments.  Love God, love others is the summation of those commands for those of you wishing to skip the detailed reading of the Torah in particular, and sifting through the imperative and indicative tense structure of NT Greek to understand the differences between Christ's commands and promises.

 Mother's Day.  Father's Day.  Grandparent's Day.  What if you cringe at the thoughts these holidays recall?  What if you hide behind a terracotta mask worthy of a Masquerade, Mardi Gras, or Phantom of the Opera on those days for others sake?  Go through the motions of happy so you don't rain on other peoples parades?  A real 'mummer's ball' with the Tubular Bells soundtrack from the horror films playing only to your ears in the background?

The difficulty tomorrow poses for me is formed by stories that in my case are long and complicated.  Short version:  Born a bastard into a broken welfare class family fully immersed in the "Free Love" hippy drug culture of the '70's I knew my father's name but am not certain I ever met him.  Later I was adopted into another family, with married middle class parents.  The damage to my psyche and image of men in general was well established by that time however, not only by abandonment, but also the experience and witness of various forms of abuse most always initiated by males.  So although I played pretend and acted 'normal' (whatever that is) in my happy new family, I'm not sure my new father ever bonded with me in a healing, constructive way.  I think he tried to an extent, but even with his Airborne Ranger military skills and Engineer Battalion knowledge and experience, he never found the way to scale the sheer hardened walls or cross the mine fields of my defenses.  A year after my marriage to Shonda, my mother disowned me after some harsh words, and he chose to stop trying and instead honor her anger.  Without intentionally blaming or shaming him for all that I will say that somewhere inside I honestly held (maybe the correct word is not in the past tense - hold) him in contempt because of that.  Yeah, abandoned by one father, and unworthy of another father's efforts - tomorrow holds that hardness for me after 22 years of walking a Sanctified life, attempting daily to wholly surrender who and what I am to Christ.  You don't know how many times I've lain prostrate before the Lord asking for a dramatic instantaneous healing like the physical issues remedied in the pages of the Bible.  His Grace is sufficient for me, and there is a deep sense of healing that comes from gaining knowledge and wisdom from facing these things. 

What if you avoid the 5th Commandment, or the Ten Commandments altogether because you cannot fathom a God who would command or demand that you "Honor..." a parent who was unworthy. I don't need to share the sordid possibilities for the reasons your stomach is churning right now while you read those questions - you carry them with you and replay them on the screen of your mind's eye like a home movie you'd just rather not ever watch again but can't bring yourself to discard. They inform a morbid masochism fueled by the confusion lodged in some stronghold establishing event you may never have had an opportunity to share on a therapists couch, a pastor's office, or even in the quiet times of conversation you have with your spouse.

You are not alone.

And you do not get a pass on the Fifth Commandment.  The command is not to 'obey' hurtful ungodly parents, it is to 'honor' them.

So what does it look like?  How do you do it?  Especially if the parent(s) are unrepentant and still unworthy and you've long since lost any hope for wholeness in this area.  I once spoke to a brother's question posted on Facebook regarding just this, and although I can't remember everything I wrote that day, the substance is along these lines every time I have the conversation with another hurt soul:

You honor your parents by becoming all that God meant you to be.  You keep the focus on you and healing the harmful outcomes of the damaging experiences you had.  You honor them by becoming a person that any reasonable parent could be proud of.  You bring honor to their name and history in spite of their hidden or obvious unworthiness.  You honor them by pushing into God for all that He is worth, letting Him walk you into that dark closet of skeletons and exorcising the demons by His Holy Light.  You honor them by learning where those hurts came from and how they played out in your walk.  You honor them by learning how God wanted you to be treated, and treating others His way instead of the way your parents raised you.  You honor them by walking others out of the same broken places you once were.  You honor them by giving consideration to where those hurtful experiences may have come from in their life, causing the caustic back splash into your childhood.  You honor them by forgiving them, truly coming to a place where you can say they did not do right by you, but you can no longer afford to cherish the anger and hurt engendered by those experiences.  You honor them by refusing to accept unacceptable behavior - from them, if they are still perpetrators - or anyone.  You honor them by healing and relearning how to live your life in healthy, constructive, loving ways.  You honor them by honoring yourself as a God created individual worthy of love and respect and kindness.  You honor them by refusing to reestablish a relationship with them if they are unwilling or unable to bring the price of re-admission.  You allow them the dignity of suffering for their own mistakes, and no longer carrying a burden of shame that was theirs unfairly thrown on you.  You honor them by not maligning or shaming them with your speech and written word, but speaking honestly and moving on from a foundation of truth brought into the Light.  You honor them because God, your true Father, chose them to be trusted with stewarding your life, He chose to knit you together in your mother's womb, and whatever failures they may have had as parents - God still saw and used the Good that He saw in them to bring your life forth into this world.  And maybe, just maybe, you can find it in you to trust that God as your Father had a bigger plan in the whole scheme of things than you could possibly imagine. 

Honor your father tomorrow and everyday, that it may be well with you and that you may live long in whatever land the Lord has given you.  Follow Paul's advice in Romans 12:18 "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men." (NASB)

I offer this link for a sermon on this commandment preached earlier this year by my current pastor Dr. Steve Elliott at First Alliance Church in Lexington, Kentucky:

http://sermons.faclex.com/2012/04/15/honor-on-command/

It is a sermon wrapped around the Fifth Commandment and it could be that there is a deep Word of healing for you in it, regardless of where you fall along the spectrum between Hallmark and Hell.  One of the most healing things I heard was where Steve delineates the difference we confuse about the words 'honor' and 'obey'.

Be blessed.

Independent Businessman

I'm distracted this morning from my personal devotion time because of the things within that were stirred by the Facebook post and comments in a friends' stream yesterday.  I made a brief comment on the post and then revisited it when several notifications popped up of further commentary.  I made an additional comment that has lead me to this place of discontent, not because my comment wasn't succinct or I was rude and need to apologize - but because it barely exposed the surface of the quagmire imposed by this tragic situation.  So this morning I was hijacked by the Spirit (who fully warned me yesterday this was coming), and I lay out what was given me to share.

Let me set the stage:  It was a news story where a 4 year old daughter was sexually assaulted and the father walked in on the event and beat the man to death.

Notice the sudden swell of various emotions within you that just accompanied that dry exposition of the facts.  Feelings are sign posts, signals, God given warning devices if you will, that some things need to be looked at.  Feelings are neither good or bad, it is what you do because of them that determines sin or glory.  Anger is normal and I daresay appropriate.  Sadness too.  Satisfaction or pleasure that the perpetrator got his just deserts.  Sift through all of them and separate the ones you identify if you are able.  Practice noticing your emotional reactions, it opens insight in to worlds unexplored.

Some of my readers already checked out for myriad reasons of their own.  That's fine.  The illusion of peace is a browser tab away, a channel flip, an early bedtime, or any other coping mechanism you routinely choose.  One of mine is the life choice of not watching news broadcasts, I stay focused on day to day life and the things I actually can impact for the better.  And sometimes its not the illusion of peace we're running to, it's the overwhelming nature of our own current situation which makes us completely unable to bear one more horrid thing bearing down on us in this broken world.  We're looking for bright and happy, not more tragedy when we're barely keeping ourselves from curling into a fetal position and weeping ourselves to dehydration.  That's fine, I pose no condemnation either way.

As I began reading the first of today's five Psalms, I knew I was out of sorts.  I read it twice trying to get focused, and still can't tell you what I read other than it being Psalm 13.  That's when this popped out onto my note pad:

• We spend our lives telling God to stay out of our business and then we cry out in distress wanting to know why HE allowed something tragic to happen and being mad that HE didn't protect us.  We give no account of man's free will or the consequences of humanity CHOOSING to sin.  God didn't do it - it was an independent businessman.

And that's the rub, we want independence.  We want to do things our way and I hear the rich baritone voice of Frank Sinatra proclaiming it strongly with his unique musical gifting and charisma, over the gentle but insistent swell of the orchestra building to crescendo behind him.  I love the song, it's beautiful music, but that message doesn't quite sit right when we read a headline like I set the stage with, does it?

I'm sure it's quite revealing about myself that I was understanding and even morbidly pleased with all the "I would have done the same thing" comments celebrating the perpetrator being killed on the spot.  I made a very self controlled comment about the effects lasting a lifetime and the sadness of living in a broken world where people are used and things are loved.  What got me fired up, not at the person making the comment mind you, but at the misunderstanding of the dynamics of the whole situation, was a later comment wherein someone said "thankfully the father caught him in time to save the little girl."


Not even close beloved.  It certainly could have been worse, or proceeded further into the violation.  But the traumatic damage of this situation is firmly established.  The devil has had his day and planted something that may destroy the child and family altogether. 

 Let me be crystal clear here, I am not a psychologist, therapist, or licensed clinical social worker.  I am however a man who has pushed into God for all that He is and is able to be as Jehovah-Rapha, The LORD our Healer.  I have walked the healing path of childhood sexual abuse without the loving help of my family of origin where the abuse occurred, or my second family of adoption who didn't know where to begin helping me face the trauma.  I speak of whence I've walked.  I share what I know and have read over the years because I believe there is "...no situation to difficult to be bettered, and no unhappiness to great to be lessened."  I believe that what others mean for harm, God can turn for Salvation.  I believe that we are blessed to be a blessing, and that 2Corinthians1:3-7 truly speaks directly to this situation:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation [comfort] also abounds through Christ.  Now if we are afflicted it is for your consolation and salvation.  And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.

Here's the tip of the iceberg from my comment in that stream: "...the child especially will carry distrust, violation of boundaries issues, confusion about her self worth, anger because it's next to impossible to sort the skein of tangled yarn caused by this event, and probably undiagnosed PTSD which manifests decades later though the signs will be with her daily. Not to mention her witnessing the killing of another human being (justly deserved or not she doesn't have the moral filters in place to comprehend it all)."  These signs are just the tip of the iceberg for most victims.  Sin takes a myriad paths beyond the entry gate and twists everything it can touch if only for the sheer pleasure of doing the will of its father the devil.

The only major blessing this child and family had in this circumstance is there can be no denial of the event.  Frequently adults or family members will attempt to deny what a child tells them when this type of abuse comes to light, and therapists call this the "Second Injury" because it makes the child doubt everything they thought they knew about the experience and therefore reality as a whole.  The pain of not being able to face the reality or repeated experiences of the abuse, especially if the child experiences the "Second Injury", can devolve into a cycle of disassociation that can lead all the way to dissociative disorders to multiple personality disorders, etc.  All because the adult cannot fathom the depth of violation they are being told about and choose to help the child - the whole thing is just too horrible.

And following close on the footsteps of their unfathomable horror is DENIAL about what their responsibility in the matter may have been.  They may or may not have had any attributive responsibility to the circumstances but shame and fear get mixed up and denial becomes a knee jerk detachment tool.  Remember, we all want to be Independent Businessmen, right?  I can't have any responsibility for what happened, and if the situation was horrid that would make me guilty of abuse by neglect - therefore they condescendingly ask in self protection something along this line: "are you sure that really happened baby?"  I'm always very hesitant to ask that question of my daughters after a story of any type...  I ask a host of other fact finding questions out, but rarely do I phrase my questions to cast doubt on what they're saying.

I tell you all that to lead you to this: the likely outcome the devil is aiming at here, even if it's just a small kernel within the heart of a redeemed believer in Christ, is hatred of God for allowing bad things to happen.  It is one of the biggest overall roots to people rejecting God as we think He is revealed in the Bible:

• God didn't do it, a human with free will did.
• God didn't allow it any more than a doctor allows sickness, a police officer allows crime, a fire fighter allows fires, a mechanic allows breakdowns.
• God isn't sitting on His radiant white throne looking down in judgement of the victim and capriciously deciding to hurl a lighting bolt into their life because of some hidden wickedness - He is in fact knelt down beside you trying to hold you in his loving arms as you both weep at the brokenness of humanity in being able to wreak this kind of destructive damage in a life He lovingly created.
• Being the victim is indeed partaking in the sufferings of Christ Himself, who was sacrificed as the spotless Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.  Not any fun at all, but there it is.

Prayer moves mountains beloved.  Trust the God who has shown Himself time and again to be a healer.  Lift the families of tragedies up daily, that they would see the loving hand of God rather than hardening their heart in bitterness.  "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." we are admonished in Romans 12:15.  That's easy, the problem I have is with Romans 12:14 "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse."  How can Paul write that with any integrity?  Because he knows how God changed him after traumatically persecuting the Church.  He knows the violence easily unleashed by humanity.  He knows what we read in Job 34:10 and 21-22:

Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity

For His eyes are on the ways of man, and He sees all his steps.  There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.

and furthermore Job 36:15 (ESV):

He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.

Beloved, He will lead us out of dire distress and into a broad place where there is no restraint as the next verses go on to describe, but only if we refuse to cherish anger and submit to His ways rather than continue to operate as an Independent Businessman.

Playboy Bunny - not so cute after all.

So my family went to the mall late this afternoon so Shonda could get a massage to ease her migraines that cropped up again late this week.  The Chinese acupressure guys do a pretty good job when we can make the time and have an extra $20.

So my daughters (who are 9 and 11 years old) and I are returning from Clair's and Build-a-bear where we amused ourselves while patiently awaiting the acupressure masseur to finish relieving my wife's meridian snags.  We're sipping on our drinks and looking at stuff when I stop at the watch vendor to look at the Zippo lighters they have spinning in their display case. 

Understand that I don't smoke, but I do like quality tools and there is no finer lighter in the world in my professional opinion as a gas line specialist.  I can check for gas leaks easy peasy quick as a wink just by running that rich orange flame around a pipe and fitting and voila' if there's a pin hole I find it - boom!  ROFL  My favorite line in the gas code book is "thou shalt not check for a gas leak with an open flame."  That line is in the code book for a reason: someone's done it and property was damaged or someone died.  There are other, less dramatic methods to finding leaks - but the truth is every old timer will tell you they've done it in a pinch under the right circumstances.  So I don't smoke but I do own two Zippo's and wear one on my belt every work day.  My current one has an Icthus logo with Jesus' name in the middle.  Ironic, I know.  Jesus is the light of the world after all, and working around smoking construction workers I get the chance to light the occasional cigarette with it and spark a conversation about why a non smoking Christian preacher has a lighter...  The secondary uses I find for it in relighting appliances, cauterizing wounds and such pale in comparison to those break time conversations where I'm able to talk about the Lord.

So back to my daughters and I at the mall, looking at Zippo's to purge the ambiance of Clair's from my mind:

In the course of  a few moments at the lighter case my 9 year old Kira spots the cute pink lighter with the bunny on it and promptly announces it  in her musically happy NOT AT ALL SUBTLE voice and draws her big sister's attention to it with smiling delight in her eyes that there are even 'girl' lighters.  "Look Ashley, they've got a pink one with a bunny - aawww it's soooo cute!!"  Ashley agrees that it is, in her introverted less than belligerent voice, that nevertheless conveys amazement with a lighter obviously affirming girls.  Which causes the clerk and his two actual customers to knowingly chuckle at the uncomfortable circumstance I've unwittingly walked into.  So Kira inhales to begin her barrage of questions and I quickly and efficiently head her off with: "Girls, I'll explain the bunny lighter to you later, at home - not right now... do you understand me?"  Which elicits nods and 'yes sir's' from them and more muffled chuckles from the clerk and customers whose body language and eye contact fully convey that though they don't envy me, they would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

So we return home, I've mowed the lawn, momma's cooked supper and we're nearly finished.  I recall the need to give them an explanation rather than losing a teachable moment so incredibly foundational to them growing into responsible, healthy women who truly know how to honor God with their lives and have healthy marriage relationships free from shame or guilt or condemnation.

Heavy.  Awkward.  Why did we become parents again?  Who am I as a man to attempt this conversation?  What kind of damage might I do here?  What do I say to keep from wreaking havoc and sowing mixed messages?  Why did we become parents again?  Why couldn't their momma have been there when it happened - she has no idea what I have to tackle here and it slipped my mind to pull her aside and prime the pump before attempting to put out this fire?

I stumbled into some kind of awkward intro wherein I announced that we needed to talk about the bunny on the pink lighter we saw earlier... and then I froze because I had absolutely no idea where to begin.  I held eye contact with my wife who, looking into the windows of my soul, realizes everything and more than I wrote in that last paragraph and that I'm stuck.  Shonda, not being a stranger to seizing teachable moments herself, morphs into a petite Linda Carter and then spinning with sound effects only we superhero parents can hear transforms into Wonder Woman right before my eyes.  She lasso's the girls attention with this question: "Do you girls see that V on daddy's shirt?  What does that mean when you all see that particular V?"  To which the girls chime "Valvoline." and "Valvoline Oil."  Shonda explains that the V logo represents something, a company, a line of products used in cars and racing engines all over the world, and that when people see that logo it means something, they recognize it if they have any familiarity with oils and car maintenance products.

I love my wife.  She opened the door for me and set the stage better than a troupe of experienced stage hands supporting a complex theatre performance in between scenes.  And the girls may be able to look back in decades to come and realize she was the real life Wonder Woman they've only watched on DVD.

I was able to pick right up and loose my momentary stage fright, speaker's block, man treading on dangerously thin ice paralysis... whatever you want to call it.  And then she was Shonda again, without the super bracelets, coronet, and red white and blue bathing suit/unitard thingy.  Ahhh the mystery that is Wonder Woman...

I explained in simple terms the whole of the Playboy and Playgirl culture, what the bunny represented, the unspoken messages taught by the magazines themselves and the attitudes of the people who wholly accept that logo, that lifestyle, that cultural attitude of empty freedom.  I explained that the whole package is a twisted claim of freedom and artistry in celebration of God's creation of human beauty to justify what is truly just worship of small g gods and goddesses of sex and beauty that leaves them enslaved.  We talked about faithful marriage such as their mother and I have modeled for 16 years, and the security that provides them as our daughters in comparison to the culture exemplified by that bunny wherein people are disposable and you just get a new one next month rather than work things out.  We talked about the images of the models and mannequins displayed throughout the mall, the clothes they modeled, and the unspoken yet incredibly powerful messages blatantly portrayed by all these things.  We talked about the women and girls we all noticed wearing translucent and nearly transparent blouses and shirts with only the occasional layers to conceal their bras, the fidgety tendency to tug and pull at pants and shirts that just don't cover parts of your body you don't want viewed.  They were chiming in and pointing out things they saw that they didn't think were kosher, and seeing the whole spectacle through eyes that had been opened for the first time.  And they found affirmation that beauty is indeed wonderful, but that it should not be merely outer adornment and physical beauty - but that of the inner Spirit welling up from within and creating a radiant and pure display of who they are truly created to be.

Never miss a teachable moment.  Good night friends.

Man's Part/God's Part (1)

 1Corinthians 10:13 (KJV)

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it

That's the version I memorized it in a few years ago (decades, years, who's counting?) and I quoted it to my 9 year old daughter yesterday when she began rattling off the reasons and justifications for the wrong thing she had just chosen to do.  My vivacious Kira is all about explaining the reasons in grand dramatic fashion.  Sometimes it's hard to stay focused on the discipline I'm trying to enforce because I'm fighting a smile or laughter at her joyful exuberance.  Other times I grind my teeth and growl out "Children do not exasperate your parents!  'cause I'm about to exasperate your butt!"  I know it's not a literal rendering of any of Paul's admonitions about family life, more of a mish mash kind of spur of the moment paraphrase.

It brings up conversations about sin and why we choose to do the things we choose to do...

And that's exactly where clarification is needed in the pulpits of the Church today regarding what sin is and what we do about it.  Not a condemning, shaming rail against mistakes in daily life with a forced altar call of false repentance at the end, but a thoughtful exposition regarding what is man's part, what is God's part.

I'm reading a mini-book titled "Paths to Power" written by A.W. Tozer and each little chapter he works to concisely delineate these things and correct our thinking to come into line with God so that we might receive both the blessings of obedience and the power bestowed for righteous living.

Be blessed friends.

Wondering Why They Hate You?

1 Samuel chapter 18 is a surprising chapter I read again today.  Followed by this verse later from Philippians 1:28 (ESV): "and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God."

1Sam18 reveals a jealousy that develops between Saul and David, but more than that for us it can bring an understanding of why people in our life may begin acting hateful and manipulatively toward us when we have done nothing wrong.  I think most of us have been there at some point.  If you haven't, well you probably will have a similar experience so put this post in you FRF (Future Reference File).  D R A M A, pure drama, when all we were doing was minding our own business and doing what we were supposed to do. 

I started highlighting in yellow (which for me is a color symbolic of caution or warning) at verse 9 where it says "So Saul eyed David from that day forward."

My next highlight was verse 12 where it says "Now Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him, but had departed from Saul."  

For those of you who like Twitter tweets more than Facebook or blogs you can check out now - that's the short substance of this post.  Thanks for joining me..

For those of you still here - now that we got rid of the bird brains let's continue :-D

Saul hatches a conspiracy to make David hated more and hopefully get him killed by the Philistines, Israel and Saul's worst enemies at the time.  Saul decides to take this successful, popular young man and marry him to one of his daughters - creating a public situation where the enemy will strike at Saul by killing his son-in-law.  Except David doesn't readily accept the first daughter, and Saul toys with David up to the last minute giving the first daughter to another of his associates, snubbing and simultaneously relieving David.

Saul's second daughter however, had it bad for David - and let it be known to Saul's servants who told daddy for her.  Saul revived his plan and describes the intricacy this way in v21 "So Saul said, 'I will give her to him, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.'"  Saul hatches the drama and gets the servants to join the intrigue to make it just that much more juicy. [sidebar: tell me this isn't like the conniving alliances hatched on 'reality' TV]  

David goes for it, except it all backfires on Saul and we read near the end of the chapter in verses 28-29 "Thus Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him; and Saul was still more afraid of David.  So Saul became David's enemy continually."

Think about it.  Without explanation a person hates you without cause [you're in Good company when this happens according to John 15:25 where Jesus quoted from Psalms 35:19 or 69:4], or sets their goal as taking you down a peg or two.  Could it be you've begun moving in God's anointing and just doing the next right thing and He's making the success fall in place?  Beloved, God is your rear guard - keep your eyes on Him and press on toward the mark of the high calling you have received.  Make it your goal to be characterized by Colossians 3:23-24 while you leave verse 25 up to God.

And for you Twitterites who sullenly stayed on for the rest of my blog... the world wouldn't be as beautiful without birds.

Dignity For Tired Soldiers

Dignity in a world that so frequently denies yours in a myriad ways unspoken and spoken, acted and neglected.  What would it look like to you to be seen as dignified, worthy, loved?  That's the key to the name of this Blogspot and maybe someday if the Lord should see fit to use me as a Church planter that will be the name of my Church family.  In my heart I think it always has been. 

So by the time we reach 1Samuel chapter 30, David has long ago been anointed king over Israel, and had his final falling out with Saul, the Lord's first anointed king over Israel.  David has been harassed and pursued and refused to lift a finger against Saul in spite of  having the opportunity to slit his throat silently at least once.  That's all changed here at the end, and David and his army have agreed to join with forces to fight against Saul, in a political alliance with other rulers.  The Philistine rulers however refuse to include David's 600 Hebrews for fear they will turn coat and sabotage them from behind while they face off against Saul.  So David and his army have traveled to the battle site and established camp and after being released from their alliance with Achish they struck camp and traveled 3 days from that rejection and returned to their hometown only to find it has been invaded and burned and all the people taken captive.  There's a whole sermon hidden right there in that phrase 'people taken captive' - I won't lay it on you tonight though.  Everybody's gone, the men are tired and unreasonable and begin talk of stoning David.  David does what David was good at doing, he inquires of the Lord and the Lord tells him: "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all." (1Sam30:8).  We're on at least day 3 here since any reasonable rest, the men are distraught, David saddles them up (maybe a bad assumption since the text doesn't say - maybe he actually SANDLES them up - see, it just doesn't have the same ring does it?) and heads out.  200 of the men are so tired they just can't go on.  They stay at Brook Besor.  David pursues the Amalekites with 400 men and the short end of the story is they overtake the enemy and spend almost a full 24 hours in a rage of butt whoopin' and taking no names.  Some of the enemy are quick enough to escape, but all of the people are recovered and loot from the enemy besides.  So they bundle it all up and head back to Brook Besor where instead of a joyful reunion, greedy selfishness and better than thou attitudes [the English Bibles usually translate that as HAUGHTY] kicks in with "all the wicked and worthless men of those who went with David." (1Sam30:22).  That begs the question "how many wicked and worthless men were there?"  Not all of them surely. 

And that begets other questions: Q-But why were they there?  A-because David's a winner and everybody likes to be on the winning side [how many Peyton fans will no longer be Colts fans this fall?  Just trying to slip in some perspective from current events folks.  I openly admit I quit watching NBA when Jordan retired (the first time) I wasn't a Bulls fan without the dynastic trio of Jordan, Pippin, and what's his name?].  And Q-Why did David keep them around? A1-Cannon fodder?[wrong century I know]  A2-Because they were ruthlessly efficient fighters?  A3-Because of their charming personalities?[yeah right, they packed their rocks in their saddle/sandle bags when David convinced them to saddle/sandle up]  or A4-Because they lived where David established his hometown headquarters and had to put up, shut up, or get out?  I can't truly put my finger on that one though it may just be #2 and/or #4.

But I digress.  The ruffians decide "Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except for every man's wife and children, that they may lead them away and depart." (v22).  Ouch!  They're saying: Hey, we put up while you all wussed out and stayed by the water here soaking your sore feet, good, now you'll be able to walk on somewhere and start over...  Be honest and ask yourself if you've ever said the same in a similar circumstance.  I have had the thought if I haven't spoken the hateful words.  David, who has been tried in a number of fiery situations already, keeps a cooler head and offers the right (righteous) perspective in v23 "My brethren, you shall not do so with what the LORD has given us, who has preserved us and delivered into our hand the troop that came against us." Laying down the law in v24 "...as his part is who goes down to the battle, so shall his part be who stays by the supplies; they shall share alike."  Do you hear Paul in 1Corinthians12 weighing out our roles and positions in the Body of Christ here and declaring in verses 25 & 26 "...there should be no schism [division, separation, mutually opposed parties] in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another...if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it."

And so David gave dignity to soldiers who had reached their physical limits and could not go on.  How often does that happen?  Not often enough I'd say.  And so I ask again:  What would it look like to you to be seen as dignified, worthy, loved?   

The answer is as different as each of you reading this question.  The answers change with life situations. For some of us maybe those answers never change because down deep we've suffered wounds which served as our fiery furnaces of purification and we've had the dross boiled away to reveal that shining pure answer.  I will seek to share answers that give dignity, affirm our worth, and let us know we are loved.  I don't claim to have all the answers, but I know the One who does.  Maybe He'll share... ya' think?