The Spirit of Adoption

When I was a kid, my sister would sometimes tell me that I was adopted. In retrospect, I think that she was really just expressing that she didn’t want to believe that she and I were blood relatives. After awhile, she may have said it simply because she had learned that the idea horrified me. My parents assured me time and again that I was not adopted.

Looking back, it occurs to me that it shouldn’t really have mattered. I had a loving family, whether that was because they were my blood relatives, or because they had chosen to take me in, it was clear that they loved me. One of my teachers in high school had an adopted daughter. She knew she was, and she had learned to adjust to it. Every so often, somebody would make the mistake of trying to tease her about being adopted. She had a standard response: “Yes, I am adopted. My parents chose me; your parents had to take what they could get.”

That’s actually a powerful statement. The first time I heard that, I actually wished that I had been adopted, even though I probably wouldn’t have ever picked up that little bit of philosophy along the way if I had been. Someone who is adopted may never understand the particulars of their biological family: why they were put up for adoption, what the situation was that their birth parents felt that they didn’t want to raise that child, or whether it was done in the belief that somebody else would be better capable of bringing the child up; there a number of possibilities that the adoptee can never fully appreciate, even if they get a chance to sit down and talk it out with all parties concerned. Yet, no matter what reason the biological parents had for not raising the child, there was a loving family willing to take in a child that was not related by blood and love that person as their own.

Unfortunately, there are some children that never do get adopted. I have a nephew like that; my sister became a foster parent for a while, and, even though the teen-ager that was placed in her home rotated through several foster families before he outgrew the system, he still calls my sister “mom,” and made a point of introducing his fiancé to her before he got married. Whether they live out their childhood in an orphanage, or in a series of foster homes; these people still have worth. Just because the family that they should have had never found them, it doesn’t mean that they are any les valuable than the rest of us. Things happen; there will always be those that seem to get the short end of the stick at every turn.

Even though I was raised by the family I was born into, I know what it is to be adopted into a loving family. In Romans 8:14-17 the Bible tells us that we are the sons (and daughters) of God, and that we have not received the spirit of bondage, but the spirit of adoption. The Spirit itself bears witness that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs. Galatians 4:4-7 is similar, but explains that God sent His Son to redeem us, so that we could be adopted into God’s family.

This adoption is available to all. Whether it is to those of us that grew up with our natural families, or those that have been adopted before, or even those that have never really had a family, God created all of us, and He would love to welcome you into His family.

Losing a Friend

My cat died this morning.

That may not sound like a big deal to some of you, and I can understand that, but it is to me.

Several years ago, I bought a house. The house that I bought had been used as rental property for a number of years before I moved in. Not too long after moving in, I noticed scurrying sounds in the attic at night. At first, I thought that a bird had gotten into the attic somehow, and I went up and searched for it, even though I wasn’t entirely sure how I would get it out if I found it. I never found any bird, though. Over time, the scurrying noises got louder, and more frequent. One day, I turned on the microwave, only to have several mice come scurrying out of it. Then I began to understand the scurrying sounds I had been hearing at night. I went out and bought several traps. Of course, I did the research. I found out that mice aren’t really big fans of cheese, they’d really rather eat peanut butter. So, I loaded up the traps with peanut butter, and set them out. The traps worked very well, at first. I was emptying traps on a daily basis. After a while, though, the traps seemed to become less effective. For a while I only had to empty traps three times a week, and then it got to the point that I wasn’t emptying traps at all. Unfortunately, I was still hearing the noises, so I knew that we still had mice. Cash was not in abundance at the time, so I didn’t want to call an exterminator, so I prayed about it.

One night, I and my two sons came home from an evening out, and I paid no attention to the stray cat camped out on our porch. I went into the kitchen to get a glass of milk before going to bed, and my younger son came in, grabbed a hotdog out of the fridge, and started feeding it to this cat.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at him. I know better than to feed a stray animal; once you feed them, they are very difficult to get rid of, but my son was young enough to not understand that.

My son looked at me as though my understanding was deficient, and said, simply, “He’s hungry.”

About this time, it occurred to me that this cat might be an answer to prayer, but I had to object to the hotdog.

“Well, you don’t give a cat a hotdog.”

“Well, we don’t have any cat food.”

“No, but we do have tuna.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

I let the cat finish the hotdog, but he still looked hungry. It occurred to me that a hungry cat might make for a better mouser, but I opened a can of tuna anyway.

After eating the hotdog, he polished off the entire can of tuna. My son was right; this cat was hungry.

Within three weeks, we no longer had mice.

We had some discussion about what to call this cat. I started calling him Lucky, because he was predominantly black. My son wanted to call him Butler, because he was a tuxedo cat (if you aren’t familiar with the term, Sylvester on Loony Tunes is a tuxedo cat. Basically, a black cat with a white bib, giving the appearance that he’s wearing a tuxedo). My older son didn’t really care what we called the cat, but eventually he decided that the cat was lucky that we let him stay with us, so Lucky became his name. Two or three times, during the first few weeks with Lucky he brought me the back end of a mouse. I always thought that a cat was supposed to bring the whole mouse to acknowledge the leader of the pack, as it were. I don’t know. It seemed to me that he was bringing me the part of the mouse that he didn’t want anyway. I don’t think that would have gotten him very far in a pack of cats. Somebody told me later that if a cat brings you a gift like that, you should pretend to eat it, and never, ever let the cat see you throw away that gift; it makes the cat feel unappreciated. I made a point of thanking Lucky before throwing the mouse remains in the trash, but I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to let him see me dispose of his treasure. Perhaps that’s why he stopped doing it.

My sons have grown up, moved out, gotten married; I have two grandkids now.

Lucky has always been a very docile cat; well, almost always. There was a dog that lived two doors down for a while that used to harass Lucky on a regular basis. That’s what dogs do. If this dog did it when I was around, I would chase her out of my yard. One day I was coming home from work, and, I don’t know what happened, but I’m driving up the street, and I see my cat chasing this dog down the street.

Even more recently, the neighbor’s preschooler was in the yard, and Lucky came up for dinner. This preschooler grabbed Lucky’s tail before I could stop him. I thought this kid was going to get hurt. Lucky didn’t even yelp. He just looked at me as if to say, “Please rescue me.” I tried to explain to this preschooler that it isn’t a good idea to pull an animal’s tail. I don’t think I got through to him, though. I took Lucky in the house, and Lucky avoided that particular kid for a long time thereafter.

Lately, Lucky has been slowing down. I chalked it up to age. I don’t know for sure how old he was, but he was not a kitten when we got him, and that was over twelve years ago. I think he’s around eighteen, which is 126 in cat years. Over the weekend, I found him napping on the bath mat, which is fine; I understand that it’s warmer than the cold tile floor. While I was watching him, though, he stood up, wet the mat, and then lay back down in it. That’s when I knew that he needed to go to the vet.

I took him to the vet yesterday. The vet quickly ruled out diabetes and hyperthyroidism, and started worrying about kidney failure. I thought he wouldn’t have been able to wet the mat if his kidneys weren’t working, but I guess there are varying degrees of kidney failure. In any case, he was dehydrated and anemic. She put him on an IV to try to deal with the dehydration, unfortunately, that exacerbated the anemia, which we weren’t aware of until lab results came back anyway. It’s the iron in the red blood cells that carries oxygen to the cells; anemia makes the heart and lungs work harder to deliver the oxygen to the cells. With the dehydration, though, the effect of the anemia wasn’t as severe, because a larger percentage of the blood is red blood cells (only because a smaller percentage of the blood is water than should be). Rehydrating poor Lucky, though, dissipated the red blood cells, forcing his heart to work harder. This morning his tired body just gave out.

In any case, this was a cat that was an answer to prayer, and that taught me a little something about making sure that one’s offering is something valuable to the one making the offering. Sometimes it’s more important that the offering be valuable to the giver than to be valuable to the recipient.

Sinner's Prayer

John 9:31 says that God doesn’t hear sinners. Isaiah 59:2 says that our sins have hidden God’s face from us, that He will not hear. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned. We can conclude from this that we are all sinners, and, as such, God cannot respond to us. God doesn’t hear the prayer of a sinner.

That sounds pretty bleak, doesn’t it? If God won’t listen to us because we are sinners, then how can we even get forgiveness? Yet we know that God is a merciful and forgiving God, so, somewhere in there, something has gotten convoluted. Let’s look at some other scriptures.

In Luke 11:11-13, Jesus talks to a group of fathers, and asks them if their children asked for food, would they give those children stones, serpents, or scorpions? He goes on to make the comparison that God knows how to give good gifts to His children. Obviously, Jesus wouldn’t have made the comparison between children asking their natural fathers for things, and the fathers taking care of their children, and God giving gifts to His children, if God wasn’t listening to us.

John 3:16 says that God so loved the world… Every one of us. Even the sinners. Jesus didn’t come to earth to be sacrificed for our sins so that God would ignore us. Jesus would have never been born if God wanted to ignore us.

In James, we are told that we have not because we ask not. What kind of sense would that make if God wasn’t listening anyway? James goes on to say that when we do ask, we ask amiss, that we ask for things just for the sake of satisfying our own lust. Now that sounds like the prayer of a sinner.

Remember Janis Joplin? A lot of you are probably not old enough to actually remember her, but you have probably heard of her, and maybe even heard some of her music. She sang a song many moons ago called, “Oh, Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz?” In this song, she talked about a number of things that she would like to have (and probably could have bought for herself with the money she earned as a rock star), but that she allegedly wanted God to get for her. Of course, the song was satirical, but it seems to me that is the ultimate sinner’s prayer.

In any case, you have probably heard of the Sinner’s Prayer. The idea of the sinner’s prayer is to express repentance, and ask God’s Spirit to come into your life, to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I’m not a big fan of rote prayers, myself, and I’m not sure who it was that decided that we needed one for a person just coming to know Christ. I should explain: I believe that God is a one size-fits-all-God, but, with that one exception, one-size-fits-all just doesn’t. There are a lot of one-size-fits-all solutions that work for most people in most situations, but any two people coming to know Christ are in two different situations. Yes, the basics are going to be the same: Express repentence (hopefully the individual already has actually repented), ask for forgiveness, and direction and help to do what God would have you to do. Some people, though, are going to need other things besides. To be honest, I think that each individual needs to decide for themselves what they want to pray for, with the understanding that the basic needs have to be in there, but then let them pray from the heart, and not recite some prayer that was written by somebody else.

In Earth

In Mathew 6:10, when Jesus was teaching what has become known as the Lord’s Prayer (sometimes referred to as the ‘Our Father’), Jesus uses the phrase, ”Thy will be done, in earth, as it is Heaven.” As a child, I always found that phraseology odd. Of course, George Carlin pointed out once that we sometimes use the words “on” and “in” interchangeably, even when we really shouldn’t. His example was: “Are you ready to ride on the plane?” “No, I’m going to ride in the plane. Let Evil Knievel ride on the plane.”

Still, more recently it was pointed out to me that we are, essentially, earth. In Genesis we are told that God created Adam from the dust of the earth, and then created Eve from Adam’s rib (the world’s first clone?). Presumably, all of us are descended from them. I say presumably because the Bible never specifically says that Adam and Eve were the only people that God created, it just never specifically says that He created others—but, if He did, I would think that He would have formed them from the dust of the earth, also.

Now, in Corinthians, we are told that we hold this treasure in earthen vessels. This also confused me when I was younger. One person tried to put my mind at ease by saying that it was simply trying to make the point that the ‘treasure’ is worth so much more than its container, and said that it was like trying to carry gold dust in a paper bag. I can relate to that, because I knew a guy several years ago who was sort of an undercover security guard. His job was to carry large sums of money from point A to point B, but his employers figured that an armored car was not only expensive, but draws attention to the fact that large sums of money were being transported. So, what they had him do was wear jeans and a T-shirt, and carry money in brown paper bags. He had to make several trips each day (carrying several thousand dollars each trip), but, the entire time he worked that job, no-one ever caught on to what he was doing. I think that the analogy runs deeper than that, though; it’s referring to the fact that our flesh is essentially an earthen vessel, which, in this life, is used to contain our souls. The treasure spoken of earlier is a reference to the Spirit of God. It stands to reason, since our flesh and blood bodies, which were formed from the earth, cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; only our spirits can.

Of course, Isaiah 64:8 also talks about the fact that we are clay, and that God is the potter. He fashions us as He wishes—at least, as much as we will let Him. He hasn’t taken away our free will, but He will help me bend my will to His, if I ask Him to, and if I will let Him do it.

So, in Matthew 6:10, Jesus is actually telling us is that we should be praying to God that He would help us to perform His will in our own bodies, as we would do His will in Heaven after we leave our physical bodies behind. That can be a tough thing to do, because the flesh doesn’t want what the Spirit wants. That’s a struggle that we will fight every day that we draw breath.

A New Inheritance

I have posted about the Prodigal Son before, but I wanted to get into a little different aspect of that parable. At the beginning, it says that the younger son asked his father for his share of the inheritance, and then journeyed to a far country. I think that we should consider that as kind of a strange request. Generally, a person doesn’t inherit anything until at least one of their parents is dead; how does one even calculate what half of the estate would be if the father were dead? Anyway, the father managed to work out something, so that the younger son could get his inheritance, and walk away happy.

Now that younger son takes his inheritance, and travels far away, and he wastes what he has on riotous living. Soon he has nothing. Of course, he wouldn’t have anything to speak of really if he had stayed with his father, but all of his needs would have been met, and he would still have an inheritance coming at the end of his father’s life.

So, he comes to the realization that his father’s servants are living better than he is, and, although he realizes that he has no right to even ask to be treated as a son again, surely there is enough love left that his father will hire him to work for him. Of course, when he returns, the father immediately reinstates him as his son.

Now, one of the arguments that I have heard is that once one becomes a son (or a daughter), then one will always be family. That is true. Of course, just because one is a relative (by blood or by adoption) is doesn’t necessarily follow that one will collect an inheritance. If the prodigal son’s father had died while the prodigal was still in that far country, well, he had already received his inheritance, he wouldn’t have received anything more. Quite frankly, no one would have even known where to look for the younger son. The older son would have been the sole heir of the estate, even though he would not have been the only son.

In the parable, the inheritance represents what God has for us; it represents our salvation. The younger son received salvation, but then he went and just did what he wanted to with it, and gave no reverence to God for it. He wasted it; at some point he no longer had it. When he repented, and returned to his father, he gained salvation all over again. Keep in mind that, at that time, he hadn’t done anything to earn his salvation; he had only repented of the life he had been living.

The father rejoiced, because his son was home. The father said, “My son, was dead, and is alive again.” Is it not clear that if the son had died living his own way, that he was dead to God? It would have been worse for him than if he had never known the Father. I think that it is significant, too, that if you look at Luke 15 (the chapter where the parable of the Prodigal Son is), the other parables told at that sitting all have to do with lost items. The is the parable of the lost sheep (which in this case was found, but there is no guarantee that it would be), and a woman that had ten pieces of silver, but lost one, and rejoiced when she found it (don’t you wish that every time you lost money, you were able to find it again?). Jesus was teaching us about repentance, but also that, just because we have salvation now, it doesn’t mean that we can’t lose it. In these three parables, the lost were all found, because they were parables. Real life doesn’t always work out that nicely; just ask Esau.

Love Through the Eyes of a Child

This was E-mailed to me:

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, 'What does love mean?' See what you think:

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.'

-Rebecca, age 8

'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'

-Billy, age 4

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'

-Karl, age 5

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'

-Chrissy, age 6

'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'

-Terri, age 4

'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'

-Danny, age 7

'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss'

-Emily, age 8

'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'

-Bobby, age 7

'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,'

-Nikka, age 6

'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.'

-Noelle, age 7

'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'

-Tommy, age 6

'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'

-Cindy, age 8

'My mommy loves me more than anybody you don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.'

-Clare, age 6

'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'

-Elaine, age 5

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.'

-Chris, age 7

'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.'

-Mary Ann, age 4

'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'

-Lauren, age 4

'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)

-Karen, age 7

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.'

-Mark, age 6

'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'

-Jessica, age 8

And the final one

The winner was a four-year-old child whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry'

Just a few comments about the above: I personally almost always have a hard time knowing what to say at funerals. To say, “I understand exactly how you feel,” is a cop-out, because I have no way of knowing how someone else feels. Even if I have had a similar loss (which I generally have not), it doesn’t necessarily follow that the loss hit them the same way it did me. I hope it is okay if I just help the family cry…

As far as Mommy seeing Daddy on the toilet and not thinking that it’s gross, part of me hopes that it’s just that Mommy has gotten good at hiding her feelings…

I don’t think I’ve ever seen stars come out of anybody; that sounds like somebody’s learning life lessons from cartoons…

I’m not convinced that getting hand-me-downs is really an expression of love, but if the person receiving the hand-me-downs thinks that is love, then I don’t want to disillusion them.

Puppies lick peoples’ faces after having been left alone all day because they miss them (and, yes, that is because of love). Try not to leave the puppy alone all day any more than you absolutely have to, though, because they can learn not to love you….

To learn to love better, start with a friend that you hate… Not to nitpick, but I have a hard time with the idea of a friend that I hate… It’s a good point, though, if you can learn to love someone that you truly hate, then it should be easy to love the people that you really get along with. For most of us, that takes a lot of prayer. It is a commandment, though. I know from experience that people that rub me the wrong way become much less abrasive when I start praying for them (and a lot of times, that’s more because Jesus changes me than because Jesus changes them).

Finally, I definitely agree that you shouldn’t say, “I love you,” unless you mean it. I think, too, that if you mean it, you should say it a lot, because people do forget. Sometimes saying, “I love you,” is a reminder to the person saying it, as well. I know God likes to hear us say that we love Him. Matthew 18:3.

Asleep in the Ship

Something that has always bothered me about the story of Jonah: In Jonah 1:5, it says that Jonah fell asleep in the bottom of the ship. During a storm. The text indicates that God sent the storm specifically because of Jonah. So here he is, on a ship, running from God, and God sends a storm after him, and he falls asleep. The other men on the ship woke him up, and wanted him to pray to his God. It seems that he almost missed the point.

There is another story in the Gospels about a man sleeping in a ship during a storm: In Matthew 8 (and Mark 4), it says that Jesus and the disciples were crossing the sea in a ship, and a storm hit, but Jesus was asleep. The disciples woke him up, in much the same way that Jonah was awakened, and asked him, “Don’t you care that we’re all going to die?” (my paraphrase). Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith, and then he rebuked the wind and the waves, and the storm cleared up. Then the disciples marvelled, saying, “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the waves obey Him?”

The thing that has always bothered me about the story in Matthew, if the disciples didn’t think Jesus could calm the storm, then why did they bother to wake Him up? Of course, maybe they felt like the men in the book of Jonah, they just wanted Jesus to pray to His God, that God would save them. Either way, it seems obvious that they clearly didn’t understand who He was, yet.

Of course, Jesus wasn’t worried. He knew that He was doing God’s will, and He knew that God wasn’t through with Him yet. He knew that His fleshly existence wasn’t going to end by drowning. Jonah had no such assurance, though. Jonah was completely aware that he wasn’t doing God’s will, and at least a part of him was hoping that God was through with him. Perhaps Jonah was just so accustomed to being in God’s will, and under God’s protection, that it didn’t even occur to him that he might die in the sea. Even that, though, seemed to bother him less than the idea that his misdeeds might cause others to die. He told the men of the ship to throw him overboard (apparently not quite brave enough to throw himself into the sea), and once they did that, the storm cleared up.

Jesus once said that He was going to give us the sign of the prophet Jonah. Of course, He went on to talk about Jonah being in the belly of the whale for 3 days and nights, and said that He would be in the heart of the earth for the same time period. Apparently, there was more to the sign than just that, though. Both Jesus and Jonah were able to calm storms, and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of other people.

I think that it is significant, though, that Jesus rebuked the disciples for fearing the storm. He called it a lack of faith. Previously, in Matthew 6:25-34, He talked about the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin, and tomorrow, they are cast into the fire, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these. He told the disciples then that they shouldn’t be worried about temporal things, what they should eat, or what they should wear. Does this mean don’t buy groceries, or do laundry? Of course not. It does mean that we don’t need to worry about those things, because God knows what we need before we are even aware of it. I suspect that if we just stopped buying groceries, then God would just let us starve. It does mean that He’s going to make sure that we get what we need. Notice I said ‘need.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean that He will give you money to buy food; He may simply open the door to a soup kitchen or charitable food pantry. He might even want you to fast more often (of course, if you aren’t fasting now, than any fasting would be fasting more often). The important thing is not to worry about, just trust God to take care of it. Again, in Matthew 10, Jesus tells us that God is aware of it every time a sparrow falls to the ground, and that we should not be afraid, because we are of more value than many sparrows.

It doesn’t mean that life will always be easy, but it does mean that we have a promise that He will always hold us, at least as long as we continue to want to be held.

Everyone Stumbles

I have blogged before on the subject of none of us being perfect, but I was reminded today that everyone stumbles occasionally. I think that’s interesting, because I have been listening to Natalie Grant’s song, “I Will Not Be Moved.” The chorus of that song says, “I will stumble, I will fall down / But I will not be moved. / I will make mistakes / I will face heartache / But I will not be moved. / On Christ the solid rock I stand / All other ground is sinking sand / I will not be moved.”

Proverbs 24:16 tells us that a righteous man falls seven times, and gets back up, but a foolish man only falls once. Well, okay, I’m paraphrasing somewhat, but the idea is that it isn’t about how many times you fall, it’s about how many times you get back up. When you stop getting back up, that’s when you have a problem.

Of course, part of the process is repentance. Some people think that repentance is simply asking for forgiveness. It’s not. Repentance is like a U-turn: Having come to the realization that one is headed down the wrong road, one turns around and gets back on the right road. Should God forgive someone who isn’t sorry for what they did? If one were sorry for what one has done, wouldn’t one take steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? Don’t misunderstand me; I realize that many people make the same mistakes over and over again (been there, done that).

Let’s suppose for a moment that the sin that we are talking about is drunkenness. Our hero (and you won’t often hear me refer to a drunk as a hero) realizes that he has a problem, so he gets rid of all the booze in his house. That’s a good start, but he continues to hang out at bars with his buddies. Most nights, it doesn’t take very long before he doesn’t feel very sociable drinking ginger ale, especially after the third or fourth glass. After several months, he comes to the realization that, although he has “repented” of his drunkenness, he is still getting hammered three or four nights a week. He may feel completely justified in saying that he has repented, but, let’s face it, he hasn’t changed very much. What he hasn’t come to understand, yet, is that the time for him to decide whether or not to have a drink is before he steps into the bar. It’s pretty much inevitable that, if he goes in, he’s going to eventually talk himself into having “just one.” It’s equally inevitable that the one drink will talk him into a second one, and so on.

Now, you may think that I’m down on alcohol. I used drunkenness as an example because I think that we can easily see that progression. Maybe your problem is pornography, and you need to get the internet out of your house, and make sure you aren’t going anywhere that might expose you to your vice. Maybe your problem is soap operas, and you need to get rid of your TV, and arrange your beauty shop appointments later in the day (and, no, I don’t think all soap opera addicts are women, or that all women who are soap opera addicts go to beauty shops; I’m just saying). There’s a scene in “Jungle Fever” where Wesley Snipes’ character, an architect, objects to being assigned a white secretary. His bosses are a little surprised at this show of bigotry, and remind him that they can’t hire and fire based on color, only on qualifications—they would get in hot water with the EEOC. As the movie progresses, though, we find out that it isn’t a problem of bigotry: Snipes’ character knows that he has a weakness for women that are not his color, and he is trying to protect himself and his marriage. That was a show of wisdom on his part, and maybe, if he had been more open with his bosses about why he felt he needed a secretary of color, they might have been able to work something out, or at least made sure that he never wound up working late with her and nobody else around.

My point is, everybody makes mistakes. God forgives mistakes. God can even forgive the same mistake a number of different times. If one makes a mistake and realizes that this circumstance represents a weakness in one’s own spiritual armor, then one needs to take steps to protect oneself in the future. That is part of repentance. On the other hand, if one finds oneself making the same mistake over and over and don’t feel that it indicates a personal weakness, then one might want to consider the possibility that one is related to Cleopatra, because she was the Queen of Denial.

What Man Has Wrought

Some years ago, in my younger days, I saw a movie with a subplot about some people that worshipped a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. During the course of the movie, the hero jumps on the motorcycle, starts it, and rides away. These people grab their guns and start to shoot at him, but their leader stops them with the words, “No! You might hit the Lord!” Some of my friends found that line to be absolutely offensive, but I personally thought that line was hilarious; it strikes me as funny that anyone would worship something that they could destroy. As far as that goes, why would you consider something man-made as being worthy of that kind of reverence?

Yet it has been known to happen. In Isaiah 44 there is a discourse on how silly it is for a man to cut down a tree, then carve an image from the wood, burn the rest of the wood to heat his home, or to bake bread, and revere that idol as though it had power over man, instead of the other way around. It even talks about the fact that this man cannot even conceive of the idea that he has a lie in his right hand.

Most of us are far too sophisticated to fall for such a thing, and yet, we value our cars, our homes, cell phones, gadgets, etc. Maybe worship is the wrong word, although many of us would be lost without our things. They are just things, though. In the book, Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank Gilbreath, Jr. he mentioned that, growing up, his father used to hold occasional fire drills, but the way his father ran the drill, it wasn’t enough to get out of the house safely in the prescribed amount of time; each family member also had to bring something. It wasn’t supposed to be something valuable, but something that would make it easier to pass the time waiting for the insurance company to replace the valuable things. The author said that his mother kept a book under her side of the bed just for the fire drills. His father, though, wanted every one in the family to understand that things are just things, and even the most valuable things can be replaced. Granted, an antique dining room set would not be replaced by one with the same dollar value, but you can get a new dining room set, that you might be more inclined to actually use (so it might have more actual value).

Luke 16:11 says, “If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” I think what Jesus was doing, was admonishing us to understand the true value of things. We sometimes get caught up the idea that something is more valuable because it is old, or because it is made of rare materials, but a tool is only as valuable as what it can be used for. A Rolls Royce may have a six-figure price tag, but a Pinto will get you from point A to point B just as well. As far as that goes, if you have the proper license, a Harley Davidson would, too. The important thing is to keep things in perspective. When you get right down to basics, the real value of an object depends on what that object can be used for.

It Is Appointed Once to Die

It is appointed to a man once to die. Some people believe that is an absolute; in other words, Lazarus died once, but Jesus resurrected him, so He either has been translated, or he is still alive on this earth, somewhere. Certainly it is a fact that Jesus only died once, and later He ascended into Heaven. I think that it’s safe to say that has more to do with who He was than that He was appointed once to die.

Well, to be honest, I’m not sure that the rule is absolute. For one thing, Enoch and Elijah never died, so there are at least two exceptions. It seems to me that, if some men are allowed not to die at all, then it is not a stretch of the imagination that some men might die twice. Even if I did believe that the rule was absolute, I would have to presume that Lazarus was translated, rather than still breathing. I think a two-thousand year old man would attract some attention. If he is still alive, then I hope that he will read this and contact me, because I’d love to sit down with him and spend a few days (or weeks) getting him to tell me what he has seen.

Let us consider, though, Enoch. We are told in Genesis that Enoch walked with God, and then he was not, for God took him. In Hebrews, we are told that he was translated that he should not see death, because his faith pleased God. The Bible doesn’t tell us what Enoch did that he so pleased God, other than the simple statement that he walked with God. Considering how many other people in the Bible have walked with God, though, without being translated, Enoch’s walk with God must have been pretty extraordinary.

On the last day of Elijah’s life on earth, Elisha refused to be separated from him, even for a moment. Twice the sons of the prophets asked Elisha if he knew that his master was to be taken away from him that day, and Elisha responded, “Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.” The Bible gives us a number of examples of the kind of things that Elijah did in his lifetime, but the fact that everyone in Israel with the gift of prophecy knew that it was his last day on earth tells us something about the kind of man he was.

Of course, Lazarus was not the only one in Scripture that was brought back from the dead. In 2 Kings 4, Elisha revived a boy that had died suddenly. In 2 Kings 13:21, a young man was revived by touching Elisha’s bones. In Luke 8, Jesus revived Jairus’ daughter after she died. There was a young man that Jesus brought back from the dead during his funeral procession…Interestingly enough, out of all of these, Lazarus is the only one mentioned by name (of course, the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is the only parable that has a character with a name—I don’t think that is a coincidence, particularly since the tag line for the parable talks about one being raised from the dead).

The bottom line is, that in general, any given person will die only once. I guess it would be safe to say that it is only possible for a man to die once. God, however, does the impossible on a fairly regular basis, and to resurrect a person from the dead would then make it possible for them to die again. I personally think that I would rather not be resurrected than to have to die twice; I just don’t think I would want to go through that again.

The Hem of His Garment

I was asked to layread yesterday. The passage that I was asked to read was Matthew 14:32-36. The passage read immediately before that was Luke 8:43-48. The passage in Luke talks about the woman with the issue of blood that was healed because she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. Some people may need to be reminded that it wasn’t the HEM of the garment, it was the HIM in the garment. In any case, the passage in Matthew talks about other people, many other people, touching the hem of His garment and being healed. I have read that passage many times before, but it never occurred to me until yesterday that there were lots of other people crowding Jesus as he went His way in Luke 8, but only the one woman got healed. Many people in Matthew 14 got healed. Why the disparity? Because of faith. The woman in Luke 8 believed that she would be healed. Those around her may have believed that Jesus could heal them, but they didn’t act on their faith. The people in Matthew 14 had the same kind of faith that she had.

In 2 Kings 5, there is a story of a man named Naaman, who was a Syrian with leprosy. Naaman’s wife had a Hebrew servant girl who told them that, in Samaria (capital of Israel) there was a prophet of God who could heal Naaman. Naaman went to the King of Syria, who encouraged him to go, and gave him a number of valuables with which to buy Naaman’s healing. When Naaman got to Elisha, the man of God would not take anything for the healing, but told him to go dip himself seven times in the Jordan River. Naaman went away angry, and talked about the rivers in Damascus that were, in his eyes at least, better than Jordan. One of his servants implored him, and reminded him that had come all this way to seek a healing, because Naaman believed that this man could heal him. If the prophet had told him to bring a hundred Philistine scalps, or perform some act of great courage, wouldn’t Naaman have done that? But, because the man of God said, wash, and be clean, you’re going to go back to Damascus with your leprosy? So Naaman turned his chariot around, and went back to the Jordan River, and dipped himself seven times, and was healed.

I bring up the story of Naaman to illustrate the difference between having a belief and acting on faith. They are very closely related, but they are not the same. Hebrews 11 is full of reminders of men of faith, and each time, it tells us what each of those people did that shows us the faith that they had. Naaman went to Samaria believing that he could be healed, but he had to take action on that faith before he was healed. The woman with the issue of blood acted on her faith, and she was healed. The people around her believed, but they didn’t take action. James 2:17 says, “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” Let’s be honest about it, you can’t show somebody what you believe until you act on that belief. You can say, “Well, God knows my heart,” and He does, but, in all honesty, do you want Him to know that you believe, but you aren’t willing to act on what you believe?