Think About the Good Stuff

Words are powerful things. They can build up or tear down. Words can change a person’s life – for good or bad. I am very careful with my words to Joy – one because she just inspires sweet words, but also because I don’t want to imprint her heart with negative words.

Words are under much scrutiny today. Speech writers plan every single word a politician says (if they stay on the script). Universities have a list of “trigger words” that must not be spoken lest someone is offended or traumatized. There are words that our society has declared unspeakable – words that meant something completely inoffensive just twenty years ago. Our culture has its ears on high alert, like radar scanning the air for every utterance of potential offense. You must carefully measure every word before you speak these days. Perhaps King Solomon was on to something when he said, “Let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2). The less you say, the less risk of saying the wrong thing.

David presents a different principle: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14). David doesn’t concern himself with how men perceive his words, He wants to speak in a manner that pleases God. He knows that the words of his mouth are the evidence of his relationship to God and they are rooted in the mediation of his heart, his most private thoughts.

Words that please God come from a heart that thinks about God. Do you need some inspiration? Spend some time in the Psalms – the mediation of David’s heart. The words of the Psalms reveal David’s deep love for God. His thoughts range from praise and worship to honest lament and raw emotion, but he always comes back to what he knows – God is trustworthy and loving. God is faithful and just. God is gracious and merciful. God is . . . and that’s how you turn the thoughts of your heart – and the words of your mouth to “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy” (Phil 4:8).

So what will you think about today, Beloved? I’m setting my mind on the good stuff – a little girl and a big God.

Hebrews: The Faith of a Harlot

I have a list in my Bible taken from the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel of the most unlikely people God chose to use in Israel’s history. Abraham was a liar, twice putting his wife’s life in danger to save his own skin. Jacob, Abraham’s grandson followed in his footsteps as a liar, a thief, and a cheater. Judah cheated his daughter-in-law Tamar out of her rightful place in the family. Tamar tricked Judah into sleeping with her (which he willingly went along with) and impregnating her with twin sons, one of whom, Perez, is in the lineage of Jesus. There is Ruth, a despised Moabitess (a people of mixed heritage), David, an adulterer and murderer, and Solomon, the product of David’s affair, who was a womanizer and idolator.

And let’s not forget Rahab, whom the author of Hebrews identifies as “the prostitute [who] welcomed the spies” (Heb 11:31). Some have tried to clean up her reputation and claim she was “an innkeeper,” and she may have been, but it was a side gig to her regular job as a prostitute. Why, if we’re talking about the Son of God, would the Bible include such unsavory characters? Because liars and adulterers and thieves, and cheaters, and murderers, and womanizers, and idolators, and – yes, prostitutes need Jesus. Just as drug addicts, alcoholics, homosexuals, abortionists, abusers, war-mongers, and rapists do. So do housewives, company presidents, preachers, police officers, school principals, grandparents, farmers – well I think you get the picture. There’s not a soul alive that doesn’t need Him. And the beauty of it is he will never refuse anyone.  He said, Whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). That’s good news for those of us with a “colorful” past – or present.

I think there is another reason for including these people. It’s in the introduction the writer used for every person in this chapter. “By faith  . . .” Rahab was everything God’s Law stood against, but Rahab had faith in God. And faith changes everything. Rahab the prostitute (and Gentile) became the heroine of the Jewish nation and the great-great-grandmother of King David. Faith turns the unlikeliest sinners into saints – even better – into the image-bearers of Christ (Rom 8:29). Rahab assures us that no one is too far gone for God. Not your spouse, neighbor, or hard-headed kid. Not even you, Beloved.  All it takes is faith.

When You Feel Yourself Falling

I lost my balance this morning. I felt myself tilting backward so I aimed for the wall behind me. When my back made contact, I immediately stopped stumbling. I let my body fall against the solid structure of the wall and it held me upright until I could regain my footing. If the wall had not been there, if it had not been a firm edifice, I would have hit the floor and probably caused some bodily damage at my age. I’m so grateful that wall was there for me to lean on.

I was talking to a friend recently about how the world had changed so much in just my lifetime. We’ve seen incredible advances in technology, education, health care, and pretty much every area of life. But we’ve also seen a drastic downturn in morality, responsibility, and integrity. It’s enough to make your head spin – and throw you off-balance. How do you and I regain firm footing in this chaotic environment? Two things come to mind.

Solomon – the great king of wisdom said, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight (Prov 3:5-6). To keep our balance you and I must trust in and lean on God. The idea is the same as me leaning into the wall to keep from falling. God is the only secure place to stand when everything around us is in a state of flux. How grateful I am that God does not change (Mal 3:6).

The psalmist declared, “When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ Your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought Joy to my soul” (Psalms 94:18-19). In all the confusion that surrounds us, there is one constant you and I can trust: God’s love. Just as I leaned against the wall for support, I lean against Him, the one sure and solid force that I can trust. I regain my balance in His goodness, kindness, grace, and never-ending, never-failing, ever-faithful love.

It really is a challenge to stay stable in this unstable world, but it’s not impossible when you lean on and trust in God and His love. Beloved, when the world around you is spinning, nothing and no one is more secure and sure.

What You See is What you Want

If you’re of my generation you know whom I’m talking about when I say, “What you see is what you get!”  Flip Wilson created his female character, Geraldine, who uttered that famous catchphrase as “she” danced to show off “her” full figure. Vision is a powerful tool to draw people in. Advertisers depend on it. Beautiful women sell men’s shaving cream.  A buff, handsome man in a flannel shirt sells paper towels. One of the most iconic images in advertising is the Gerber Baby whose face sold countless baby food products. That smile and expression grabbed mothers’ hearts, hoping to bring the same to their babies’ faces. They paraphrased Geraldine, “What you see is what you want.”

Satan counted on that too when he enticed Eve to take the forbidden fruit. And, of course, it worked. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it” (Gen 3:6).  What Eve saw became what she wanted and she fell – and took the entire human race down with her. (Adam’s role in this is a whole other post.)

The start of sin for all of us happens when “our hearts are led by our eyes” (Job 31:7, paraphrased). Sin happens in much the same way as advertising: “We see it, we want it, and we buy it.” That’s why advertisers – and satan – put it in such appealing packaging. But sin also happens because we are looking for it.  James pointed out that temptation and sin tap into the evil desires in our hearts.  (James 1:14). Perhaps that is why the Psalmist said that he would “set before my eyes no vile thing” (Psalm 101:3). Consider that verse in a world where “vile things” are available at the tap of a finger. If you want vile, you can get it any time of the day.

How do we break that sinful pattern? We “guard our heart” by “letting our eyes look straight ahead and fixing our gaze directly before us” (Prov. 23,25). At what? David knew. “I have set the Lord always before me” (Psalm 16:8). If your eyes are always on the Lord, He will be the desire of your heart. And what you see is what you want.

Listen!

She was in trouble and she knew it. She turned her face away from me. “Joy, I need you to listen to Nana so you can get out of time out.” But she refused and stayed in her chair for another minute. I can’t count the times I’ve said: “Listen to me!” How often do you think God says that to us?

Believe it or not, listening to God is not difficult. Everything He wants to say to you and me is written in His Word. So often when we read God’s Word or hear it being read it comes across like the grown-ups in a Charlie Brown special. “Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa.” Solomon knew what it meant to listen to God. Grab your Bible and read Proverbs 2:1-5 – I’ll wait for you.

Solomon offered several keys to listening. (Yes, this passage is about wisdom, but the principle applies.) Accept the Bible as the true, authoritative Word of God. That means that the Bible calls the shots. If the world or your flesh says “do this,” but the Bible says “don’t” the Bible wins. Store up Scripture –That memorization. You don’t have to have it word-for-word, but have enough that you can use it when you need it – cause you’re gonna need it. Ask God for insight and understanding. I was not a Bible geek until my 40’s. I got a tiny taste of the depths of the Word and I wanted more. So I asked God to make me hungry. Twenty years later and I’m still ravenous. But I had to decide it was worth it. I had to regard it as a hidden treasure to be mined. I had to invest time and effort in it. I had to get up early and turn off the T.V. I had to put down the phone and pick up The Book.

There’s one other key to listening that comes from Paul who said, “the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4). You and I have to shut down every other voice but the voice of truth.

Eve listened to the serpent. Adam listened to Eve. Neither of them listened to God. Beloved, who are you listening to?

When Life is Meaningless

“What is the meaning of life?” I asked the man sitting across the table. I was interviewing him for an assignment in my apologetics course in college. My interviewee shrugged and said, “I don’t think life has meaning. You are born an accident and you do the best you can to not screw anything up before you die.” “That’s pretty sad,” I thought to myself. But his answer made sense because he was an atheist. His whole focus was on the span of time between his date of birth and his date of death. It was all about him. He reminded me of someone in the Bible – King Solomon.

Solomon was the son of King David. The Lord granted him extraordinary wisdom to rule the nation well. His great wisdom made him hungry for knowledge, which is not a bad thing, except he decided to “test [himself] with pleasure to find out what is good” (Ecc 2:1).  He said, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure” (v. 10). And his conclusion? Not as good as we might think. Why? Because everything was all about and for himself.

He “built houses, made gardens, bought men and women to be slaves, owned huge flocks and herds, amassed riches, had hosts of entertainment, and a thousand women to feed his sexual appetite. All of this was “for myself (v. 4-8).” He also gained a pretty big ego saying, I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me” (v. 9). Yet, when he “surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless” (v. 11).

When life is all about self, life is meaningless. That’s why my friend had such a sad outlook. But when our lives are about the glory of God, we find real meaning and purpose and passion. A life lived for self is wasted. A life lived for God is full and rich. That was what Solomon realized when he said, “Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc 12:13). It was the wisest thing he ever said.

In the age of “selfies” is it any wonder that life feels so meaningless for so many? How about you, Beloved? Is life all about the unholy trinity: me, myself, and I? Maybe it’s time to change your focus.