Child Musings

There is little sand left in the hourglass that symbolizes our oldest child’s time at home. This month, we experience a dress rehearsal of life when she departs for college. Haleigh left today (Friday) for Wilderness Trek; she'll return for a ACU Volleyball Camp in Abilene the second week in July, followed by a two-week session at Camp Deer Run. This fall, Haleigh begins her junior year of high school. It won’t be long.

For those of you who are friends on Facebook with my middle daughter, Abby, yes, I did see the list she posted for the Top 10 Things she wants to do before she dies. The good news was the number one thing she listed was become a Christian. The bad news was the number two item she listed: get a tattoo. On the bright side, I guess number two could have been much worse. However, I must confess both to fit her to a tee.

My son Timothy has given me a new line to use on my wife. One night this week, I was lying down in bed with Timothy and Annie watching a ballgame. Judy had been at the store and, returning home, she came back to tell the children “Goodnight.” Upon her entrance, Timothy squealed, “My favorite woman!” Sorry son, I'm going to co-opt that line. I'm also going to play hardball. Behind your back, I'm going to remind Judy, "A son is a son until he takes a wife."

June—A Refreshing Month

In some ways, June assumed the personality of a sabbatical. I spent a week auditing a spiritual formation short course. Shortly thereafter, Mr. and Mrs. Duane Melton and children arrived for a two-week stay. I preached a couple of Sundays and worked several days in office, but a day off here and a vacation day there, plus a couple of Sundays off, and I entered July rested.

Most of my life I have enjoyed summer. The exceptions were my years in real estate and roofing. Both of those professions are marked with long, hot days in the summer. You sweat a lot in both as well. In real estate, it is because of spending so much time outside in a suit. In roofing, you don't dress as nicely, but the temperature can get up to 120° on a roof.

Typically, though, I have found summer to be a time for recharging batteries. Everyone moves slower in the summer. School is out, so that means I'm not teaching. I have taught Bible classes for either college freshman or high school seniors for almost the past 10 years. I enjoy it immensely, but I never take the allotted two days off per week during the fall and spring. I need a full day for my teaching duties, which means six days of work and one day of Sabbath during the school year. I guess this is my salute to the 10 Commandments.

As I mentioned, my sister and her family visited for a couple of weeks. They stayed one week with my mom and one week with my family. I always enjoy being with them. We have a lot of fun activities and also some significant downtime. I am fortunate to enjoy the company of all of my brothers in law. I have heard horror stories about those not as fortunate, and I shudder to think about what their lives must be like when they spend time with those with whom they are not close. Lissa’s husband, Duane, is very easy-going, fun, and has an optimistic, can-do spirit. We like the same types of movies and saw some good ones over the past couple of weeks.

The cousins got along well with our children. Even though Haleigh is almost 16, she still enjoys spending time with her cousins, the oldest of whom is 11. When she was the youngest, she experienced the same type of love and attention from her older cousins. It is neat to see this kindness experienced and then passed on.

Living so far away, my sister has not seen certain members of our extended family for years. Our cousin, Monty Edge, and his new bride Catherine, visited us over the weekend along with our aunt, Wanda Edge, our cousin, Teresa, and her husband, Gary. They had not seen Lissa in almost 20 years. Catherine had never met Lissa. As you might imagine, we had a wonderful time visiting with them, telling stories, reliving old memories, and getting to know Catherine and hearing stories of her experiences growing up in the state of New York.

We have been saving money the past couple of years to fly to Seattle during the Christmas holiday break and visit Lissa’s family there. If anybody sees a big-ticket opportunity, by all means e-mail us.

Five things I think I think (a tip of the hat to Peter King for this idea)

1. I finished two books recently that I would recommend. First, Grover Cleveland, written by Henry F. Graff. This is part of The American Presidents Series initially edited by the late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. If you desire to read about the U. S. presidents but do not have time to read the longer biographies, this series provides a helpful alternative. They are shorter but are still well written.

Cleveland was an interesting president for several reasons. He has been the only president to serve two terms, but not consecutively. As a younger man, he was elected sheriff in his New York county and, during his terms, personally served as hangman for a few criminals.
During his first term, at age 49, Cleveland married the 21 year-old daughter of his deceased law partner. This would probably be considered illegal today, but in 1886 the public looked at it more like “train up a child in the way she should go, and when she grows old she will never depart from you.” Actually, by all accounts, the marriage was a happy one.

Cleveland is generally considered in the second tier of great presidents. Books from this series can be found on-line at Amazon.com or at other stores. I found my unabridged audio copy for $3 at a Half-Priced bookstore.

2. Another book I have recently finished is The Preacher and the Presidents. Written by Time magazine's Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, this book seeks to tell the story of how evangelist Billy Graham has known every president from Harry Truman through George W. Bush. Indeed, some presidents Graham knew intimately, literally serving as their religious pastor.

Since the subject matter of the book relates to preaching and presidential history, two of my favorite subjects, I naturally found the book captivating. You may not find it as interesting as I do, but it was a best seller on the New York Times bestseller list confirming that a number of people at least wanted to own a copy. This was another audio book I found on sale at Half-Price books.

3. I saw that McDonalds introduced a new $4 Hamburger. “Welcome to McDonalds Let Me Take Your Order…” is taking on a new meaning, as they will be selling burgers made from Angus beef—for $4.00. Either things are not as bad as we are hearing in our economy, or we, as a society, are still driven by our desire to consume and not by saving money.

4. Thanks to all of you who, in the comments section of my blog or in personal e-mails, expressed kind thoughts the past week about Matt and Samantha’s story. They were wed last Saturday afternoon. Except for the one officiating the ceremony, I personally thought the wedding was beautiful.

5. I don’t know if you heard of the tragedy in Bolivia this week. Our former sponsoring church is supporting a work in Bolivia whose youth group was headed to a retreat. There was a terrible crash. Three young women were killed and others were critically injured. Please be praying for these folks. The following is a link to the blog that is being posted concerning events as they unfold: http://cochabambayouthgroup.blogspot.com/

Grace Hurts

This section did not make the cut for my Sunday morning sermon. Not because it is bad, I am sure it is quite excellent! :) Rather, it did not seem to flow with the rest of the sermon. I am preaching out of Titus Chapter 2 about Paul's admonitions, through Titus, to the old and young men of the churches in Crete.

TV commercials today make us want to think that “male problems” are those that call for solutions from Viagra. When Paul talks about male problems, he's talking about challenges of the spiritual dimension—issues such as self-control, dignity, and integrity. Basically, he is saying, yet again, our living should match our saved state.

The motivation for Paul’s solutions to male problems is rooted in the concept of grace:

11For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good (Titus 2:11-14.)

Philip Yancey, in his book What’s so Amazing about Grace writes about an insight shared by the Christian counselor, David Seamonds. Seamonds has written that the majority of emotional problems among Christians is due to their failure to allow themselves to accept, on an emotional level, the good news of God’s grace.

They understand intellectually that God has offered them unconditional love, grace and forgiveness; however, that data is not connected to the emotional part of their being. Consequently, these Christians cannot find within themselves the capacity to offer unconditional love, grace, and forgiveness to other people. Their emotional lives are stunted; their spiritual lives are diminishing.

I think Seamonds is on to something. I am not sure all of the factors that are involved, but I have a theory as to factor.

I was sitting in a Bible class a few weeks ago in Winters, Texas. The class was led by someone who moved there after I had left three years ago. I had met him once and could not even remember his name, but his class is a good example of how anyone can take the Word of God and bless you life.

In this Bible class, the teacher was talking about grace. He was talking about our tendency as human beings for legalism. We typically want rules in our relationships with others.

As the conversation was developing, a light went off in my head. Evidently, it went off in the head of another participant, because he articulated what I was thinking.

With rules, you are protected in dealing with other people. When I was teaching at ACU, I tried to carefully craft a syllabus that explicitly communicated my expectations for the students and the consequences for not fulfilling my expectations.

I did this for many reasons, one of which was that I realized I did not have time to deal with 50 to a 100 students on an individual basis. Communicating clearly with a syllabus was the best way I could construct guidelines, which would make the decisions in most situations for me. This meant there would be less chance I would feel hurt for letting a student down or feel guilty about a student who was disgruntled with me.

I don't apologize for this. Teaching a class in an academic institution is a task. The student’s academic record is a product. A school or university must, to some degree, be task oriented.

The same is not true in the life of the Church (or family for that matter.) We are much more oriented toward relationships. Nevertheless, sometimes, maybe most times, we do not deploy grace in our relationships because we feel rules, regulations, and legalism protects us from being hurt. And it does.

Grace hurts. (Love hurts too; just ask Nazareth.) We tend to shy away from doing that which hurts us.

What makes us different from God is His abandonment of self when it comes to self-protection. God does not allow fear of being hurt to prevent him from offering us grace.

Now, you may be asking what this has to do with Titus chapter two. Simply this. This same aversion to risking grace causes us to limit ourselves from behaving like Christ. Self-preservation becomes a habit. Rather than selling out and becoming like Jesus, demonstrating his qualities, we too often just cannot let go. We don’t want to get hurt. (Especially we men!)

Here is the irony. In seeking to avoid the pain of grace and gracious lives, we “booby-trap” our lives. We engage in behavior that often generates more hurt than we would have experienced surrendering to Jesus.

When I was a boy, I had bad allergies—worse than now. Shots offered relief. I hated shots. Shots hurt. Unfortunately, without shots I had to carry with me a box of Kleenexes and/or handkerchiefs wherever I went. Not only was this embarrassing, I felt miserable. Finally, my mother convinced me to accept the temporary pain of the shot for the gain of a more enjoyable life.

Following Jesus is the same way. There is pain in denying self. Sometimes it is self-inflicted, sometimes it is inflicted upon us by others. However, a life lived like Jesus is more in line with the way we were created to live. Living like we were created to live is infinitely more enjoyable.

Have a great weekend!