Night Crawlers

There are some things that my beautiful wife does not appreciate in the same way as myself…pickled herring, cold weather, cold toes on her back, dirty socks left in the middle of the living room floor, night crawlers in the refrigerator.  Sarah does an amazing job of concealing her joy, using leery eyes of dissent, upon finding a new or gently used box of night crawlers in the refrigerator.  “Ewww, Ryan, You know how I hate night crawlers in the refrigerator!”

“Hey, don’t accidentally eat those!...I need those to catch some (one…if I am lucky) delicious Walleyes…and then I can clean them on your kitchen counter!”

There was a short window of time, when I chose to appeal to my better graces, and attempt to keep the night crawlers in another cool dry place in our home.  The garage would get too hot in the summer…the bedroom was cooler, but I didn’t anticipate it being a good idea to keep night crawlers within 10 feet of the bed, so I opted for the laundry room.  It was perfect…cool, dry, and much more spacious. This allowed me to expand into raising my own night crawlers, thus saving money and refrigerator space.  I invested in a nice 6”x8” Styrofoam box with elastic lid straps…filled it with night crawlers that I found after a heavy rain…added bedding and food and stored it on the cement laundry room floor.

“I don’t like worms in the laundry room!”

“They are not just worms! They are night crawlers...and, hey, at least they aren’t in the refrigerator!”

“What if they get out?”

“There is NO WAY they are going to get out…it’s not possible.”

Then…one morning, I was awakened by my red faced bride screaming “IT ISN’T WET LAUNDRY,” while spearing me in the side with a finger as sharp as a dagger.

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought I was walking on wet laundry…it wasn’t wet laundry,” she seethed.  “It was worms!...You said they wouldn’t get out!”

My mirth quickly ended upon finding how many of my precious night crawlers had been crushed by foot of my dear, unsuspecting wife.

I was certain that they wouldn’t get out.  I was wrong.

In John 13:31-38…Jesus predicts that Peter will deny Him before that night is even over…Peter declares “Never!” Peter was certain that it wouldn’t happen…yet…he was wrong, just as I was wrong.

Now I keep night crawlers…in the refrigerator.

Traded

“Hey?! Where did you get that Dr. Pepper?” I asked.

“My friend bought it for me, because I had no money,” my son replied. 

“Where did you get those Skittles!?” I asked.

“My friend gave me a dollar, and I bought them at the concessions stand,” he answered. 

“Where did you get those Fritos!?”

“I traded the drink box from my lunch for them.”

“Where did you get those fruit snacks?”

“I traded my Clementine for them.”

“What did you eat for lunch?”

“Ummm….Fritos and fruit snacks…”

“That’s not a lunch!...What did you eat yesterday for lunch?”

“…Ummm…apparently nothing…”

“Why don’t you pack a lunch and eat a lunch?”

“I don’t like what we have to pack in a lunch.”

My son loves to eat…donuts, potato chips, ranch dip, pizza, cheeseburgers, chicken wings, cookies, Cheez-Its, Doritos, Salami…if it’s cold, cheese…if it’s cold, toasted bagel…if it’s hot…cream cheese…if it’s cold.  He does not like to eat…anything else.

Seriously!? What kid doesn’t like a peanut butter sandwich?...apparently my wife and I have generated one!

This has been an ongoing problem that my wife and I have been wrestling with him about.  Some of it was our fault for getting upset at finding out how he had been bringing his lunch back home and throwing the uneaten sandwich or bagel in the trash.  “Why are you throwing away your lunch?”

“I don’t like peanut butter sandwiches…I don’t like warm cream cheese on my cool toasted bagel”

“Then stop bringing it! You are wasting food!”

So now…he doesn’t eat…or at least he trades his cheese stick or Clementine for a bag of chips.

In John 13:13-30, we find Jesus predicting the betrayal that he will suffer at the hands of Judas.  Judas, has been with Jesus for three years…and yet, the importance of who Jesus is and what Jesus is about to do is lost on him.  Judas has something before him, that is good…in fact, great! Yet, he can only see the other items that he wants…money…prestige…high position.  Thus, Judas trades Jesus…for a bag of money.  Judas trades something good…for something empty.  He trades something “good for him”…for garbage.

Truth be told, I see the same in me.  I know full well, the rich, deep value of Jesus…and still, I find myself trading what I know is good for something empty.  I find emptiness in my anger.  I find emptiness in my gossip.  I find emptiness in my criticisms, selfishness, and apathy.

We do not have to trade Jesus for something empty…rather, we can embrace Jesus, and all that he brings.

Full Extent

Mae West is quoted as saying, “If a little is great, and a lot is better, then way too much is just about right!” However, I would have to argue…after attempting to put 17 gallons of gasoline in the 16 gallon tank of my truck…that more is not always better.

When it comes to eating , there are some things that I can have more than enough of, before ever taking the first bite…olives… sauerkraut…liver… cows’ tongue…(I have pledged to never eat anything that can taste me back).  Yet, there are some things that I can’t ever seem to quite get enough of…ice cream…potato chips…pie…coffee.

My dad tells a story of when he was a boy. He was visiting his sister and brother-in-law. During the visit, his brother-in-law asked him, “Would you like a piece of pumpkin pie?”

“Do pigs wallow in the mud?!...Yes!”

His brother-in-law cut a generous slice from the freshly baked pie and asked my dad the question, “Do you want the big piece or the little piece?”

“The big one!”

His brother-in-law proceeded to lift the “big piece” onto my dad’s plate leaving only one, lonely piece of pie.  Half a Cool Whip container later my dad finished his big piece of the pie only to be offered by his brother-in-law, “Want another piece?”

“Sure!”

With nothing remaining but an empty Cool Whip container and a crumby pie tin, my dad encountered a pumpkin pie to its “full extent.”

In John chapter 13:1-20, Jesus does something amazing.  It says here in this passage that he now demonstrates the “full extent” of his love.  After saying this, Jesus then proceeds to get down and wash the feet of his disciples.  Jesus has loved people, especially his disciples, all along, during his time with them.  Yet, we find his love takes a huge step forward, and now he demonstrates his love in the fullest possible way!  Jesus empties himself…humbly gives himself up for them…he takes the role of a servant as a precursor of how he will empty himself on the cross and serve them by taking all of their sin upon himself.

That is love…to the full extent! It’s crazy! It’s incredible! It’s complete.

In this case, “A little is great, a lot is better, way too much is the full extent!”

Unexpected

Life is full of unexpected events…like coming home to find a little doggie loggie, waiting for you at the top of the stairs.  You find the unexpected at school, when your 4^th grader brings her lunch box home…”Oh wow! You remembered to bring your lunch box home! How nice! Good job!...Ummm…Where are your shoes?”

The unexpected finds you when the teenager, driving in the lane next to you, decides to change lanes… without signaling…while texting something very important to the passenger sitting next to him.

You don’t expect to wake up to your children yelling, “The oven is on fire!” on your 16^th wedding anniversary. You don’t expect to have a Razor Scooter left behind your truck tire, nor do you expect to find someone else’s mail in your mail box.

The other day, I was battling through a runny nose and repetitive sneezing.  I enjoy sneezing.  It feels good.  It’s cathartic. Despite sensing the sneeze coming, I was still a bit surprised, as an unexpected glob of mucus and spit, shot out of my mouth and onto the floor of the public establishment, where I stood.  What do you do with that!?...Walk away and pretend nothing happened.

I should have seen that coming…

But I didn’t.

In fact, so many of our unexpected events have subtle pieces of evidence as they approach.  Most of the state of Minnesota was expecting a Super Bowl birth by the Vikings last week.  Boy were we surprised when the Vikings were throttled by the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-7.  Let’s be honest, we should have seen that coming.  This has happened 6 times in my lifetime.  The evidence is there…it has happened before…it will happen again…we should expect it!

Sometimes we say to “Expect the unexpected”…but doesn’t that then make it expected?

In John 12:12-36, we find a huge crowd of people who share the incredible expectation of the arrival of the Messiah…the person who is going to, finally, free them from their oppressors (The Romans) and re-establish the “golden age” of Israel…like what was experienced during the reign of King David.

Yet, they are shocked, when they find out that their expectations will not be met.  In fact, not only will Jesus not take their earthly throne…he won’t even fight.  Instead, He will die.  Jesus, then, calls them to serve Him in the same way that He served them….to die to what they want…to give it up…because there is something bigger…something better coming.

My expectations are often way off base…much like the expectations of the Israelites.  Yet, often, through my unmet expectations, I find that, perhaps, Jesus is doing something much deeper and greater.

One thing we CAN expect.  Jesus gives life…perhaps not how we expected…but He does give life…an abundant and eternal life.

Vacuum

There was a time in my life, when I was the father of only two children.  You would think that fathering two children would have been easier than fathering my, now, four children.  However, that is not the case, when one of the first two children is a terrifying, three year old with the destructive mindset of a gremlin.  It was not uncommon to hear the words “Mom! Isaac is chasing me with a dangerous knife!”

If my memory serves me correctly, in a short window of time, Isaac’s destructive behaviors were expressed by stepping on ink pads and then making footprints across the brand new basement carpet, chiseling a hole in the linoleum with a screwdriver, pocking holes in the kitchen floor with a “dangerous knife”, coloring the white changing table with crayons, chasing her sister with that “dangerous knife,” and finally throwing the vacuum cleaner down the stairs.

There is a saying, “You can either have nice things…or you can have children.”  It appears that we have chosen children.  Even if you didn’t know we had children, someone could walk into our house and immediately conclude, “Oh…you must have children.”

“Yes we do! How could you tell?”

“Oh…just the broken window, that hole in the drywall, the tear in the recliner, the broken picture frame hidden in your closet, the broken brush in the garbage, the loose toilet seat in your bathroom, the dent in your front door…”

“I see.”

Isaac’s streak of terror didn’t go without reprimand, yet often, the consequences seemed to go without effect…until now.  Isaac has transformed into a nice young man who, now, occasionally apologizes for breaking things!  Oh, how far we’ve come.

After Isaac threw the vacuum down the stairs…and had received his consequence…he returned to the scene of the crime...and began laughing.  With his older sister standing next to him, he gazed down the stairs, to where the broken vacuum lay, and laughter came from his belly. He said, “That was funny Hannah!”

Despite the consequences of his actions…somewhere deep inside he felt, “That was worth it!”…which pretty much meant, “I did not enact the most effective of consequences at that time.”

What Isaac did was wrong…but there is a story of a woman in the Bible (John 12:1-11) who did what was right…even when all others around her thought it was wrong.

In the story, Jesus is only a few days from his arrest and execution. There we find him eating a meal with friends and followers.  While he was there, a woman named Mary takes a bottle of perfume, valued at thousands of dollars…and she dumps it out on Jesus.  All of disciples and others, who are gathered, get in an uproar, “What are you doing? Don’t you know the value of what you just had?”

The answer, of course, is, “Yes…she knows.”…but she also knows that Jesus IS WORTH IT!

Throwing a vacuum down the stairs? Not worth it.

Giving Jesus anything and everything…totally worth it.

Biscuits

I commonly cook one meal a week for the family…usually a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night.  When it is my turn to cook, I default to my specialties…such as those high quality meals that only Dad can do the right way.

I might boil Oscar Mayer wieners…grilling is too risky when trying to make the perfect, “kid friendly” supper…too dark and you are a terrible cook because you burned them…

“They are not burned…they are just well done…plus it’s Black Friday…and I thought it might be nice to start a Black Friday tradition…well done wieners every Friday after thanksgiving!…kind of like Christmas cookies”

…not done enough, you may break a tooth on the frozen center.

I also might cook up some mean pancakes and waffles…and by mean, I mean… pancakes that are so mean they will tear you up on the inside and we won’t see you come out of the bathroom until Tuesday morning mean.

The best meal I have ever cooked, was a Dominos Pizza…I suppose, technically, I didn’t cook it…but I did place the order…choose the toppings (cheese), and hurry home with the prized supper, before it got cold.

Last week, I expanded into new territory.  It was Saturday night…and the menu had been planned…biscuits and gravy…but the best cook in the house (not me) was out of commission and it was time to send in the backup.  I knew that going into the “game” and taking over the role as “starting cook” was not going to be easy…so, I rallied my inner Case Keenum and went to work.

Step one: Panic.

Step Two: Check if the sausage was still frozen, and not too late to order pizza.

Step Three:  Panic again…but show no signs of strain…“I’ve got this dear…don’t you worry about a thing…Ummm…How do you make biscuits?”

Step Four: Read biscuit recipe on Bisquick box.

Step Five: Ignore recipe instructions.  In large mixing bowl, mix all ingredients together with electric hand mixer…until bad smell and smoke emit from mixer.

Step Six: Make a mental note to replace the hand mixer.

Step Seven: Take runny biscuit batter and place on a cookie sheet. Bake until biscuits turn a rich, brown color and resemble a blob of spilled, butterscotch pudding.

Step Eight: Scramble to begin cooking the sausage that was forgotten until now.  Realize that the biscuits will be done before sausage and gravy…turn up heat to max and bring in hand held propane torch to speed the process.

Step Nine: “Sarah!?...How do you make gravy!?”

Step Ten: Ignore wife’s instructions. Make gravy like you mix drywall joint compound.

Step Eleven: Listen to the children’s words of affirmation and joy…

“What are these?”

“Biscuits.”

“They don’t look like biscuits…they look like…”

“That’s enough!...we don’t need to hear what they look like!”

“What’s this?”

“That’s gravy.”

“It looks like that stuff you patch the holes in the wall with…”

“It is…eat up!”

I don’t think the children really intended to speak such negative words about my cooking…but all of us say things, at times, without realizing the consequences of what we are saying…don’t we?

It was my lovely bride who spoke up at this point and said, “You know children…if I had cooked and heard the words that you shared just now…I would feel pretty bad.”

First born: “Sorry, Dad”

Second Born: “Sorry, Dad”

Third Born: “You know Mom…no offense…but I like Dad’s biscuits way better than yours…”

Fourth born: “Do I have to eat supper tonight?”

In the Gospel of John, chapter 11, verses 49-53, something absolutely incredible happened.  It has finally come to the point that the Jewish leaders have had enough of Jesus and are ready to get him out of the picture.  The High Priest at the time, Caiaphas, said to the rest of the ruling council…“It is better that one man die for the people than the whole nation perish.”

What is so incredible, is that Caiaphas had no idea, as to the depth of what he was saying…and that by his actions…God was, indeed, going to save the entire nation…and the rest of the world too.  I don’t think my daughter, or any of my children, really meant any disrespect to anyone…but their words certainly carried a larger message.  Caiaphas had no idea at the size of the message that he had just conveyed either!

It, indeed, was better that one died…and in that death…and resurrection…Jesus brought something that only He can bring…Atonement! Salvation! Freedom!

Thanks Caiaphas!...and thank you Jesus!

Kick to the Teeth

I woke up this morning with pain in my lower back.  I stepped out of bed and was reminded of the heel pain I have been dealing with for the last few days.  Once I was able to get vertical and head out of the bedroom, the realization of my stiff neck and headache hit me.  I must have slept wrong on my flat, lumpy, supposed to be soft, feather pillow.  As much as I refer to it as “my pillow” I don’ think it has the same attributes of a My Pillow.

I was reminded of a few years back; when I was struggling through a bout of plantar fasciitis…which is a fancy name for…foot pain.  I recall hobbling around the house…limp…limp…limp, while grumbling, “oooh…ouch…eeeeh.”  This pattern continued much of the morning….limp, “ouch”…hobble… “eeeeh”….stumble…“ugh”, until I reached my chair and sat down…“ahhh.”  After listening to my groans and watching my movements, my then 4 year old daughter finally spoke up and said…   “Dad…you should just die!”

Wow!...I gotta admit…that seemed a little harsh.  Wouldn’t “Dad…you should go to a doctor,”…or even “Dad I am sorry you are in so much pain.”…but die!? Really!?

So I asked her, “Die? Why would you say I should die?”

She replied without hesitation, but with just the slightest, “Dad you are so dull” tone…“Because if you die…then you get a new body!”

Ok…I didn’t see that one coming, but…she was right.  Granted, she had no idea what that would really mean for her…but she was right…if I died, I would receive a new, perfect body…because Jesus conquered death and sin.

In John 11:17-44, Jesus stood face to face with death and gave death a mighty blow, right to the teeth.  His friend, Lazarus, is dead…in fact, had been dead for four days…he was a rotting corpse.  Jesus looked at death…and recognized it for what it was; a picture of the corruption that God never intended.  Jesus then called Lazarus forth, kicking death in the teeth and setting up the final blow, which will be his own resurrection.  Because of how Jesus conquered death and sin…my daughter was right…even though I die, one day…yet will I live…and I will live with a new, resurrected body.  That is a promise not just to me.  It is a promise to anyone who believes in Him.