The King

 

“Hooray! Dad’s HOME!!”

These were the cheers that filled my ears for years as I entered my home.  Whether having been gone for a week on a ministry trip, or just the afternoon at the office, it was a common experience to be celebrated upon walking through the door.  My children would scream my name. They would chant. They would run to me and jump in my arms…sometimes 2 or more at the same time.  I was the hero of the home!  I felt like a king! After I was able to peel the hanging children from around my neck, I would gather them together and give them hugs and kisses.  I would wrestle with them on the floor.  I would sit in my chair and they would hop into my lap and I would ask them about their day.  With a smile on my face and contentment in my heart I would take my book from the end table…flip up the foot rest of the recliner and lean back to relax while doing some reading.  My four children would continue to run around the house screaming songs of joy and celebrating Super Dad’s arrival. 

It would happen that about this time I would look over toward my beautiful wife who was standing in the kitchen working hard to cook supper. I would smile at her and our eyes would meet, and seeing the look in her eyes…I would swallow hard…put down my book…lower the foot rest…raise the recliner back and stammer nervously…”Ummm…how was your day Dear?”

“…” silence, “…”

“ummm…do you need any help with supper?”

“No…just engage with the children and keep them out of the kitchen while I finish up.”

Interestingly, things are now different in our home.  I am no longer celebrated in the same way as I once was by my children.  I cannot pinpoint the cause of the transition, but somehow in the age of preadolescence, I lost my coolness.  As I enter the home today, I find that my children…at least the ones that are home…have their faces glued to their phones, laptops, tv’s or pillows. 

“Hey kids!” I exclaim excitedly.

“Uh.” One may reply.

“How was your day?” I ask.

“I dunno.”

“What don’t you know?”

“I dunno.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I dunno.”

It is obvious that things have changed.  Perhaps I am not the father that my children expected me to be, or perhaps I was not the kind of father that gave them everything that they wanted and more. 

“Dad can we have Doritos?”

“If by Doritos you mean nacho flavored corn chips placed in an all white bag with bold black lettering…then sure…when it goes on sale.”

Perhaps it was moments like these that let my children see that I may not be who they want me to be. 

In a much grander scale do I see the remarkable moment of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, (Luke 19:28-42).  Here, Jesus enters the city on the colt of a donkey, and he is celebrated as the coming King of Israel.  As the crowds were calling out “Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” some of the religious leaders call on Jesus to make them be quiet.  At this point Jesus says that “If they remain quiet…the rocks will cry out.” I have often overlooked the significance of this statement.  Jesus is the King of Kings.  He is creator God.  He is coming into the city that he created among people that he created and if the people will not acknowledge him as King…then the very earth that he created will cry out and proclaim the truth of who he is. 

It would be as if my Microwave began to celebrate my arrival into my own home upon the silence of my children. 

May we come to see who Jesus really is.  He is the creator. He is the Savior. He is the King!  May we cry out in praise to the King!

 The Trap

I once played high school football…that is if you count 9^th grade C squad as “high school football.”  I had spent the previous two years honing my football skills, which consisted of…hitting other kids very hard…over and over again.  That was the full gamut of my football abilities.  Despite the lack of an array of skills…this is what I loved most about football.  I knew the bare bones minimum about the game. 

Since my 7^th grade team, I was regularly placed on both the offensive and defensive lines.  This was likely because I was the tallest player on the team…but with the simplicity of play of 7^th grade football…it could have been my inability to comprehend much more than basic play.

On offense, my sole job was to push my opponent…and to know which way to do it.  If I pushed to the left, the running back would go to my right and if I pushed to the right the running back would be running to my left…simple.  While on defense, I was given the simple task of ripping the guy in front of me to little tiny bits and pieces…and then…attack the quarterback.  The coach noticed that I was too dense to know which player was actually the quarterback, so I was instructed to attack the guy with the lowest number.

The game of football was great!  Every play was another opportunity to destroy any opponent that stood in front of me. 

In 9^th grade, things began to change.  My coach asked me to start “reading” the offense and shifted me to linebacker.  He liked my aggressive play…but he was unaware of my poor reading ability…not only in class…but especially on the grid iron. 

“Ryan! You can’t always attack the quarterback! There are times when you need to drop back and cover the receivers or tight ends!” 

“But coach…the quarterback has the lowest number.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

My coach also began to make changes on offense.  He introduced me to what was known as the “trap.”  He instructed, that when the ball was snapped, I was supposed to leave the opponent in front of me and run to my left.  This struck me as very counter intuitive.  If I left the guy in front of me, there would be no one to stop him from attacking our player with the lowest number.  Additionally, he instructed the guys on the other side of the line to let the linebacker come through the line untouched. 

I became convinced that this 9^th grade coach was not going to see another season of football…he was an idiot…a lot like my 4^th grade teacher.  In fact he had the same name as my 4^th grade teacher. Now that I think about it…he WAS my 4^th grade teacher.

“Ryan…when the ball is snapped…I want you to leave your place…run to your left and smack the guy that will be standing right here,” he stated as he pointed to a specific point left of the center. 

“But coach…”

“No buts…just do it…”

We practiced the play for the remainder of that week and when our next game rolled around, sure enough he called for the “trap.”

The ball was snapped…I did as I was instructed and ran to my left, feeling very uncertain as to what would transpire.  I apprehensively left my opponent and ran to my left.  Just as I reached the point where the coach had pointed a linebacker appeared.  His eyes were like snake slits focused on digging his fangs into our own low numbered guy.  Just before the two of us met, I saw his eyes become hard boiled eggs of surprise as I blindsided him into the next county.  (Just to be clear…we were already in the next county).  As I blew him up, our running back exploded through the gap that was left behind us and scampered for a 65 yard touchdown.

It was at this moment that I went from believing my coach’s words to trusting in them.

Paul reveals a similar transformation in 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16.  Here Paul expresses a powerful exhortation to these people who have not only “heard” the message of the Gospel and believed it…but they were transformed by it.  Oh, may we become like the Thessalonians, who not only believe in the Word, but are transformed by the Word! 

May the Spirit of God transform our hearts to become “owned” by the Gospel of Grace.

 Starfish

 

Boldness can come in many forms.  For example, an overconfident 17-year-old boy might respond to his mother’s request to clean his room  or be grounded…with, “Oooo, scary!” in a mockingly shuddering tone. 

Bold? Yes.

Smart? No.

Rude? Absolutely.

Boldness could be seen in a Green Bay Packers’ fan braggingly strutting in front of a Vikings fan, boldly calling, “In your face!” after the overrated “blind rat” quarterback accidentally finds the cheese headed receiver in the end-zone…all hypothetical…of course.

Bold? Yes.

Smart? No.

The Result? Vikings win.  All losses are quickly wiped from my memory.

Other bold comments might include telling a pregnant woman that she looks, “terrible,” “tired,” “sleep deprived” or any statement drawing any attention to her physical growth.  Sometimes it is just better to not be quite so bold.

In 2013, my family visited one of the many water parks in the Wisconsin Dells.  These parks are nothing but cesspools of recycled water sanitized with heavy doses of chlorine and algaecide.  These parks are filled with daring and downright scary opportunities to approach death by plummeting into bacteria filled waters at inhuman speeds and death defying angles.  Somehow my brother-in-law convinced my 6-year-old daughter, Carissa to engage in the highest, steepest, scariest and most dangerous slide in the park…the Durango Drop! (cue the dramatic Indiana Jones style music).

As you approach the yellow, 350 ft., fiberglass chute of doom, you will find the warning signs.  “People with heart conditions should not ride,” “Pregnant women should not ride,” “Cowardly people should not ride,” “People with sensitive skin should not ride,” the lists of warnings seem endless.  After an infinite climb of the switch backed stairs, a red suited lifeguard, who seems to care more about their own perfect tan, than the well being…or age…of the would-be riders, gives instruction to each rider.  The words come in a monotone robotic voice, “Cross your feet and cross your arms over your chest.  Do not sit up during the ride and never uncross your arms or your feet or you may die.  Have a nice ride and enjoy your day on the Durango Drop!”

My 6-year-old daughter sat down at the top of the near 90 degree drop of the yellow shaft.  She crossed her legs.  She crossed her arms.  She laid back and began to slide down…at which time…in a panic she immediately uncrossed her legs, threw her arms out to each side, stretching to try and slow her decent, while sitting up to somehow flee from her imminent demise.  It was at this time that I, standing near the bottom, looked up to the top of the slide and saw what looked like a tiny starfish accelerating through the stream of water toward me.

As she splashed and tumbled to the bottom, she is pulled out of the water by another bronze skinned and red suited teenager.  The teenager set her back on her feet and pushed her in my direction.  She approached me like a drowned and drunken cat that had just climbed out of the muddy waters of the Mississippi. 

“Oh hello, Daddy!”

“Wow, Carissa! That was you going down that big scary slide?”

“Yes, Daddy!”

“Are you going to go again?”

“No, Daddy!”

I fear that perhaps I have been guilty of misunderstanding what boldness really is, especially in the context of Paul’s call to boldness in the Scriptures.  For most of my life, I have believed boldness to be an ability of a person to tell another person, with attitude, what they think, or what they believe, or what they think that you should do.  This boldness seemed to avoid taking into account how the other person may feel or think in response to the message or the attitude in which it was given.  I often see politicians attacking one another in aggressive boldness that is cutting and demeaning.  I have observed professional athletes present themselves in an elevated and egotistical boldness that leaves me un-attracted to associate with their fandom.

I believe that my daughter gave me perhaps a more accurate picture of the beauty of boldness.  Here, I saw a 6-year-old girl approach something very scary and intimidating and not back down.  If I had been there at the top of that slide, looking down…especially as a 6-year-old…I am quite certain that I would have turned around and gone right back to where I had come from. 

She did what was scary, and yet, was bold enough to tell me that she was unwilling to do it again.

I believe that the boldness that we see in Paul, Silas, Timothy and the Church in Thessalonica is in no way an arrogant, prideful, rude or in your face boldness. Rather, I see in their boldness of speaking the Gospel…a boldness to love in the gentleness of a mother and as one who cares as deeply as a father.

May we come to speak the Gospel with this kind of boldness.

 The Chore

When I was growing up, my older brother and I had to do ALL the chores in our home. It was he and I that had to feed the pigs and water the pigs and mow the lawn and wash the dishes and dry the dishes and put the dishes away and haul wood into the house to burn for heat.  My older brother and I were the ones who had to dig a 6ft x 8ft hole, 6 ft deep into the ground and then fill it with garbage…and then light it on fire.  My older brother and I did EVERYTHING! Our little brother and sister did NOTHING! I was pretty sure that my mom and dad didn’t do anything either.  When it came to laundry, house repairs, auto repairs, sweeping the floors, cooking, earning money and the other stuff that sometimes happens in a home…they just happened by themselves without anyone having to do them.  That is how it was in my home as I was growing up.

I remember telling my mom and dad at one point in my childhood, “I can’t wait to have kids of my own!”

“Oh really!? Why is that?” My mother asked.

“Because then I could make them do all the work like I do.”

My parents both laughed.

And they laughed.

And they laughed some more.

I have come to see that my perception and the reality were not aligned at that point in my life. I have come to see…that my older brother didn’t do anything either.

Now that I have children of my own, I too require them to do chores.  It is only fitting that I make them do all of the things that my parents made me do….except digging a large hole in the ground for burning garbage.  I am pretty sure that is illegal…and would be highly noticeable to the neighbors…and local law enforcement.  Any holes will have to be dug in the basement…under the cover of night. 

In my early parenting years, I differed from my own parents in that I attempted to divide all of these chores evenly among my children…as it seemed that that is what a good, highly-educated parent would do.  This is no longer the case.  I now assign jobs with whoever is nearest me, or who I see first or whoever has most recently upset me.

Like my own days as a child, my offspring also carry an aversion to chores.  Additionally, their perception about such chores is rock solid as a pogo stick in a rowboat. 

Just this morning I asked my son to do a job.  Not only was he the first child I saw, but he was also the one who stole my Snickers bar.  Upon the request of the task, you would have thought that I had asked him to dig a 6ft x 8ft hole 6 ft deep…with a teaspoon…in the basement of course.

“Ugh! Why do I always have to do it!?” He raged.

“Because you need more responsibility in your life!” I rebutted.

“My sisters do NOTHING around here!”

“I know…but you are the ONLY one I can trust with this job.”

“What!  That’s dumb…anyone can let the dog out to go potty.”

“Exactly!  See how simple it really is? Now stop acting like you need to climb Mount Everest, barefoot and without food and let the dog out.  It takes less than 60 seconds…I’ve timed it.”

He did it.  The dog did it.  It was over…until next time.

It astounds me how quickly we can lose sight of reality.  I am, likely, the guiltiest.  My perception of the events in my life can so easily become skewed.  It is at times like these in which I feel that everything in life is terrible and my world is collapsing around me.  Certainly there are some real sad and destructive events happening worldwide from, wars and famine and infanticide and violence and hate.  I believe that what God says is true…”the world is wearing out like a garment.”  Yet, there continues to be an ever present unchanging reality and that reality is that God is in control, He has a plan and He has a purpose…AND…He loves us more than we can ever imagine. 

Paul calls believers to the realities of life in 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10.  Paul wants the believers in Thessalonica to hold to the Truth…the Truth about God and to not be swayed by the perceptions of the world or the false perceptions that we often allow to misalign our thinking.

May we come to see the reality of God’s Truth!

A Good Story

Once upon a time…I loved a girl and I asked her out…she said no… months later she finally said yes and a couple of years later we got married anyway.  That is a true story and a good story!

Everyone loves a good story, especially when the odds are stacked against the protagonist and yet you see that person, often the underdog, come out on top and encountering a wonderful end to the story.  I think that this is what makes a work of fiction, such as The Lord of the Rings so enticing and true stories like Louie Zamperini’s WWII survival story so inspiring.  To see Frodo Baggins faced against all of the evils that Mordor has to offer and still find victory in the cracks of mount doom or Louie Zamperini’s incredible survival of over 40 days at sea and years in Japanese concentration camps, to not only survive, but to find a “good ending” years after the war.

God is writing a good story in everyone who believes.  This is what Romans 8:28 is really hitting at.  To those that love God, He is writing a good story.  Yet, in every good story, there are chapters of difficulty.  Some of my chapters are incredible, in which my marriage, the birth of my children and killing a grouse with my bare hands are all included.  Many other chapters are challenging and difficult to endure.  These are the chapters where I find myself as an exhausted parent wondering if I am doing anything right…or is it normal for a 3 year old boy to chase his sister around the house with a “dangerous knife.” These are the chapters where I get angry over spilt milk.  I don’t know who coined the term, “There is no use crying over spilled milk,” but they are wrong…I cry every time milk is spilled or eggs are cracked and wasted. 

Good chapters may include promotions, restored relationships or winning tickets to the World Series.  Bad chapters could be found in the death of a loved one, a dreadful diagnosis or a depression that you just can’t seem to climb out of.  The lists of either are endless. 

Yet, in the end, we will find an incredibly wonderful chapter.  We will see a chapter that is better than the destruction of the One Ring, (in the Lord of the Rings), or the forgiveness that Zamperini offers to the Bird, (his perpetual torturer in the Japanese labor camps).  At the end of God’s good story we will find the last chapter, which happens to be the best chapter ever written.  It is in these last lines of the story were we find the redemption of mankind become complete and the restoration of the earth take place.  We find a New Heaven and a New Earth being created for those who have said yes to the story of God and yes to the gift of forgiveness and righteousness found only in Jesus.  Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians reveal a good story and a good ending that is promised to all who believe, even though their story contains difficult chapters (i.e. Acts 17:1-9).

May we come to embrace God’s good story…His Gospel…and trust Him to write His story within the chapters of our lives. 

 Winning

There is something wrong with me.  Sure, I have plenty of physical ailments and blemishes.  My elbows hurt, my back hurts and I can’t see as well as I used to be able to see.  I have knee pain, very little hair and spots on my skin where there previously had not been spots on my skin.  However, these are the “wrongs” that I am referring to.  There is something else.  I have a problem in my thinking.  I am not sure where it came from, but it has plagued me for decades. I have an unhealthy NEED to…WIN!

It is absurd.  In 3^rd grade I remember running races every day at recess against other 3^rd grade boys.  I would beat most of them, though there were a few, namely, Tommy, Brian and Mike that were just flat out faster than I was.   I usually tried to avoid racing against those boys and opted for other competition that was known to be slower.  Why?  As I already stated…I wanted to win.

I raced every day, until one day when I lost to Kris.  Kris…was a girl.  I therefore hung up my Buster Browns and turned to other areas of competition that I could be victorious at. 

One of my next endeavors consisted of standing in the Elementary School lavatory, where I allowed other boys to punch me in the gut.  It was a game of endurance.  Two boys would compete side by side, willingly taking punches to the stomach, until one of the two would quit. 

I was once again reasonably competitive at “Gut Grinding,” perhaps because of my amazing abdominal fortitude…or my lack of a prefrontal cortex.   I won most of these head to heads. Day after day I took a walloping…until…I vomited and the competition ceased, because when vomiting occurs…there are no winners.    

Life was constantly placing competition before me.  I turned my family supper time into a race to who could consume the most slices of pizza in the least amount of time.  Needless to say, I was a champ.  The other 5 members of my family couldn’t hold a candle to my ability to bite, swallow, bite swallow.  There was neither room nor time to taste and chew.  I could easily gut 4 slices before my mother and siblings could finish their first.  The only one who could maybe hang with me was my dad…but he would cut me off way before I was ready, “If you touch another slice, you won’t be able to sit down for a week.  Now take a breath and let some other people eat.”

I wanted to win at everything, wrestling, cribbage, foosball, battleship.  Sadly, this is still the case today.  As an adult, my oldest child accused me of cheating at Candy Land, but seriously…can a 4 year old really be trusted?   

Somewhere along the line, winning had become a barometer used to measure my self-worth.  If I could win…then I had value.  It is not just me…it seems that winning has saturated our society.  We want to be the best, to outdo others, to prove that in some way…even for a moment…”I am better than you…thus I must have more value than you.”

This Sunday, an estimated 100 million Americans will gather in front of big screen TV’s and a plate of chicken wings, to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles.  In regards to this game, I believe that there are three things that you can be certain of. 

1.      One team will be victorious.

2.      One team lose.

3.      There is a greater victory in this world than all other victories combined. 

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes about the greatest victory that has EVER been known to mankind…the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  What is even more astounding about this victory…which is TOTALLY INCREDIBLE…is that for those who choose to put their faith in Jesus Christ…THEY TOO…will get to share in that victory.

This blows my mind.  Though I had done nothing to earn or achieve this victory, I can enjoy this victory FULLY, by simply putting my faith in Jesus and trusting him for my salvation…for my victory. 

As you watch these NFL teams strive to win, may you be reminded that those who are in Jesus…HAVE ALREADY WON! Good luck doing that Mr. Mahomes.

 Mini-Me

There was a day when my son wanted to do and look just like me.  It comes naturally to most boys.  I remember strapping on a construction apron and hanging a hammer on my side to look like my dad.  He thought this was great until I began aggressively hammering on the coffee table and fake wood paneled walls, leaving numerous divots all over the surfaces.  In some ways I still want to look like him.  I wish I could grow the full manly beard that he wears…save however, white “Santa Claus” look of it.  In other ways, I would rather, he look like me, and strap on his tool belt and come and help me repair the broken drywall in my basement cause from my own children’s abuse to my home.

When my son was 4 years old I would load him up in the truck and tote him around town with me tending to numerous life tasks and errands.  There were two primary reasons for the necessity of these moments.  First, spend quality male bonding time between father and son.  Second, get the rambunctious rule breaker away from his stressed out mother for an hour or so, which intern helped her regain temporary sanity.

On one such occasion, we entered into the local Napa Auto Parts store, and perched ourselves on the bar stools at the tall counter.  I hiked him up and planted him atop one of the stools, slid one over for myself and began requesting our needed car parts.  As we waited to receive our brakes and calipers, one of the Napa store workers approached with two identical Napa Auto Parts racing caps and put one on each of our heads.  My son was ecstatic, not only did we wear the hats home, we wore them as we worked “together” on replacing the brakes on the station wagon.  My wife was also ecstatic, though having nothing to do with the hats and everything to do with the adding of another hour or so of sanity to her life as we stayed in the garage.  Over the next several years my son would run into his room and don his Napa cap every time he saw mine resting upon my head. 

Today, my son looks more like me than perhaps ever before, although he would never be caught dead wearing the same Napa hat…but I still do.  He probably wishes that he could grow facial hair like mine…as I still wish that I could grow facial hair like my dad.  In many ways, the fact that he is a physical representation of me is beyond his control…genetics takes the major credit for that.  Looks however, are much more than mere appearances.

In fact, when I see my son make a choice that reflects good judgment, i.e. respecting his mother, I see that he looks like me by holding to the values that I have attempted to instill in him.  I think this goes deeper still, as I consider that these are the same values that had been instilled in me…and the values that had been instilled in my father as well.   When my son chooses to live in such a way that reflects me…he looks like me…his father.  Additionally, when he lives in this way it also reflects my father and his father.  His life reveals the person he is following.

In the same way does the way that I live reflect who I am following.  As we look at the concluding line of the Lord’s Prayer “…for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen,” Matthew 6:13b, I see that my prayer reflects not what I want, but rather what God wants.  When I can allow the Holy Spirit to align my heart with the heart of God, I will see that as I live this life, my desire is to reveal His kingdom, His power, and His Glory.  May I grow to look like HIM…the Lord and Savior of my life and the world…Jesus Christ.

May you seek the transforming work of the Lord in your life to make you into a “Mini-Me” of Himself.