Beneath The Dirty Hood

Might as well admit it

A typical question.  I have a friend who says he doesn’t want to become a Christian because he’d have to give up drinking.  The speaker was showing how to talk to people without arguing.  Fine, tell him every morning to get his bottle out and set it on the kitchen table and worship it.  Bow down to it, talk to it, ask for its help during the day.  Because that’s what he’s really doing, trusting it above all else.       

Afterwards, a friend was telling me about recently moving to this area and how hard it was on his daughter.  All she knew was what she was leaving behind.  She had no way to imagine what was to come, how what she was leaving behind would be replaced.

"The Lord Jesus wins my heart in His humiliation; He satisfies it in His glory. A won heart is not necessarily a satisfied heart. But if a heart is truly won by the Lord Jesus it never will be satisfied without Him. No heart that is won is ever satisfied but in the company of the One who won it. Absence does not 'make the heart grow fonder'! You only discover in absence what you have gained in presence. "—Hungry Heart #7–19

Maybe it won't

RIGHT AFTER THEY BOUGHT their tickets and made their plans for the spur-of-the-moment four-day getaway, they knew it was coming.   He had wanted to get off just with her before the hectic-ness of the new business started.  He researched and planned and hunted for a good deal and found it.  Then, there it was, interrupting their short but joyful anticipation.  The projected path was right for their beach, right in the middle of their time.  Should they cancel?  Five days out; these projections are never very accurate.  Four days out, last chance to cancel; the hotel guy said it’s not even a hurricane yet.  He canceled.  Looking at the news a few days later, he wondered which picture of “tourists camped like refugees” they would have been in.  Were those people already there when it formed, but they still stayed?  Did they make the trip anyway, knowing a hurricane was heading their way?

SOMETIMES YOU SEE stuff coming.  All the facts are there, enough to act on, but you just get paralyzed ‘cause you don’t wanna believe it’s true.  For me it’s happened with job changes.  It takes time to accept it, and I don’t want to do anything or make plans until I do.  Sometimes I’ve walked around for days not believing it’s happened.  Meantime, the clock is ticking and I’m only making things harder on myself for refusing to accept reality.  For some maybe it’s health or finances; eating or drinking or smoking this all the time will affect your health; debt has to be paid back.

And the biggie…

How to attract customers

Fear, but don't

IT SEEMS pretty common; I do it all the time.  You have to care what people think, right?  OK, so maybe there is a warning about how caring too much can actually be fearing people, and that it’s a trap, and it makes you give in to evil people, and can put your wife at risk, and it makes you keep your mouth shut when you should be speaking up, and it makes you sneak around, and act wimpy, and it’s illogical, and hypocritical, and leads others astray and causes you to be confronted.  And it makes you do terrible things that you know are wrong.  But, outside of that, fearing people isn’t so bad.

THEN THERE’S fearing God.  The idea is mostly in the Old Testament.  In the New Testament you see over and over “don’t be afraid” when people are confronted with angels and God.  It’s almost as if He has to first convince us to fear Him so we’ll be humbled, but then when we are humbled, He says don’t be afraid.  But you don’t get the DON’T until you ARE. 

SO WHAT CAN HAPPEN if I don’t fear people, but fear God?  When the carpenter Jesus proved Himself an incredibly better fisherman than the professional Peter, Peter was absolutely astonished.  He was rocked by the awesome power and holiness of the ‘amateur’ and in front of a big crowd of people, the professional fisherman fell down in fear at Jesus’ feet.  Then, in his fear, he was told, don’t be afraid, and he and his friends left everything and followed Him.  And their fear/don’t fear spread to many after them and after many generations, to me.  It’s a long chain that’s going to keep going, and I’m one of the links.  So, how much is fearing people worth?

If doctors working on bodies, how much more...

Michael Collins on a C-Span2 rerun was explaining how 100+ hour weeks that doctors in residence training sometimes work can be a good thing.  He said, “It makes you selfless.”  He said when you put on the white coat and say I want to do this, you have to treat it as more important than anything else.  More important than family, being tired, or personal desires.  He said when a doctor gets into private practice, there’s no one looking over your shoulder telling you to make sure of this, or follow-up here, or order this test.  It has to come from within you, and 100+ hours a week helps build that into you.

Seeing the eternal

Rick Warren (via MMI) and the Wizard of Ads seem to see the same thing.  Rick:

What happened is the mainline churches cared about the social morality and the evangelicals cared about personal morality. That's what happened when they split. But they really are all part of the total gospel – social justice, personal morality and salvation. And today a lot more people, evangelicals, are caring about those issues.

The Wizard:

Advertising consultants, instead of asking, "Who is your target?" why not ask, "Who are we hoping to attract?" Instead of asking "What is our objective? ask, "How are we hoping to serve?" Prepare yourself for strange and revealing reactions to these questions because while it's fashionable to spout about having "great service," few want to truly serve.

Business people, do you want to attract multitudes? Develop the heart of a servant – one who truly loves – and you will quickly become beloved. The world has masters aplenty; it is servants who are in short supply.

I'm not the first to note how words and actions reveal the heart. Luke tells of a dawn two thousand years ago when Jesus walked grass still wet with dew. After choosing from among a great crowd of followers the twelve who would accompany him to the end, Jesus stepped forward and spoke to the waiting throng, "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

Now let's look at Jesus' actions…"Minister" was more of a verb in his day…(In John 13:) "… so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him." The twelve were aghast. Foot washing was like scrubbing a public toilet or scraping gum off the bottom of bus benches. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" Jesus asked them. "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."

Just speak from your heart about what you think

He wasn’t referring to talking with someone about Jesus, but he could’ve been: 

Just remember that when you start this, what's in your heart, you know, don't paralyze yourself by trying to remember what you know. Don't paralyze yourself by trying to remember the arguments that you've learned in your head. Just speak from your heart about what you think…

Dwight Eisenhower did the same thing when he was getting his military education.  He studied hard, but tried to not over-study, so that his mind was not paralyzed with facts, but was free to think and respond to the test scenarios he faced.  Maybe it’s not so much about possessing the facts, as about the facts possessing you.  When they do…

How to slow down ID theft

Business of Life has some practical tips (via 43folders).  A couple:

• When next you order checks, have only the initials of your first name printed. If someone takes your checkbook, they will not know if you sign your checks with just your initials or your first name, but your bank will know how you sign your checks
• Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in  your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call  and cancel.  While you’re at it, make a photocopy of your passport.

"But I don't watch that show"

(...overheard from a 4-year old refusing to wear Bob the Builder underpants)

About 10 minutes

IT WAS LATE.  I felt numb.  Spiritually numb.  Well, give Him 5 minutes, at least.  But, mostly it was for me.  I needed a breath of fresh air.  It was dark downstairs and I left it that way.  My eyes got used to it as I sat on the sofa.  The quiet felt good.  It quickly became like I could hear Him breathing in the stillness.  It takes the silence to hear what’s always there.  A bunch of stuff had gone wrong, and she had said, is He trying to tell you something?  So, when I had settled into the quiet, I said in my heart, are You?  Not a voice but a thought went thru my mind: not by might nor by power but by My Spirit.  It was very quiet and immediate. 

PART OF ME THOUGHT, well how do you really know that’s Him? but only a part and only for a second.  Then in my heart I asked, anything else?  Very quietly and immediately: cart before the horse.  “Cart before the horse?”  My spirit sighed.  I knew it was true.  Do you ever feel when you plan and think and work hard that you’re not praying enough, and when you pray you’re not planning and working hard enough?  I never feel successful in balancing the two.  And the imbalance seems always on the planning and working hard side. 

BUT DON'T YOU HAVE TO think and plan and work hard?  Again, very quietly and immediately, like a soft breath thru my mind: wait.  I knew what that meant.  The times when I feel the most alive, the most dependent and in-step with Him, are the times when I’ve been talking with someone one-on-one and it’s about something potentially significant and I’m listening and I don’t have anything to say, but I know there’s something there to say.  And I wait.  And make myself willing to not say anything.  And then He says something to them, but it was my voice, and I don’t really remember what I said, but I know it wasn’t me.  And I wish I could live every moment like that; totally dependent on Him.  And it wasn’t my might or power and I waited and didn’t push my cart ahead of His horse. 

IT TOOK ABOUT 10 MINUTES.  I thought, He had to do that fast because I haven’t been giving Him much time to talk to me lately.  Now what?  Another spirit sigh.  Slowly off the sofa.  Up the stairs.  In the bed.  Next to her asleep.  Thank Him for her.  She cried the next morning when I told her about it.  And my regular reading for the morning was here.