Short End of the Stick

                                               

Somewhere in medieval Europe two merchants bartered trade goods. Lacking currency and literacy to record the exchange, they fashioned a square stick with notches in it. Each notch representing a unit of value and the agreement marked so that they could split the stick so that each had a record for future settlement. The merchant with the greater value of goods got the long end or “Stock” and the one who owed a debt got the short end. Over time anyone not satisfied with the results of a trade would lament getting “the short end of the stick”.

Back in the 70’s dad and I bartered work for pay and I argued about, well, almost everything.  After protesting about my end of a deal, Dad quickly set me straight. He let me know that, “While the stick isn’t as long as you wanted, I have never given you the short end of the stick and you know it!” Dad lived out that principal with his church, his family, the Marines and his work. His example still provides a ruler for me these 40 years later. 

Nancy and I had roles in the reconciliation of marriages of four couples over our 34 years together. However, today we find ourselves supporting three wives as they consider dissolving their marriages due to a history of getting the Short End of the Stick from their husbands. All three men have perverted perspectives about how much they should invest in their family.

Okay, if the ‘Stick’ illustration doesn’t resonate with you how about a Voltmeter? That’s right the meter on your car’s dashboard that tells you the status of the charging system. For you wanna-be motor heads, simplistically, the electrical system on your car has a battery to store power, an alternator to make power off the revolutions of the engine and all the electrical components. The meter looks like this:

When the needle is straight up it says the system is replacing the 12Volts required and just a bit more. When it runs at almost 14Volts it is replenishing all the drain of the electrical components and recharging the battery. If the needle points to 10 or 11 Volts you have a discharge occurring, excessive drain, and unless things get better, you’ll be sitting along the side of the road. The car may still be together and look like a car buts it’s became a pile of parts at that point.

Your family needs 12Volts from dad to keep its lights on but that’s all 12Volts will do. Never confuse the minimum needed with generosity-it’s just enough to get by. Like the car battery, you kids and wife need 14 Volt effort to meet a temporary crisis and still recharge for tomorrow. If all you give is 10 Volts of effort then your marriage, you family, will soon be sitting on the side of the road going nowhere. It may still look like a family but it’s just a pile of parts too.

Okay so sticks and voltmeters don’t work for you, let’s go with words because they are powerful. Here are a few that show the stark, profound difference between the three levels of effort and investment:             

10 Volts	12 Volts	14 Volts
The Short End	Not an Inch More	The Longer End
Miserly	Fair	Bountiful
Pernicious	Wholesome	Extravagant
Neglectful	Attentive	Pursuing
Malevolent	Appropriate	Benevolent
Selfish	Considerate	Selfless
Demanding	Cooperating	Serving
Unfaithful	Faithful	Devoted
Disrespectful	Respect	Adore
Vindictive	Forbearing	Forgiving
Strict	Orderly	Indulgent
Manipulates	Participates	Leads
Burden	Duty	Opportunity
Deceptive	Honest	Integrity
Broken Promises	Needs Met	Dreams made

Now go back and instead of reading across the rows, read down the columns. Start with the center; the 12Volt column.  If you think being described with these words is good enough, I challenge you to consider if that is all you want from others. Then read down the right-hand column, the 14 Volt group, and most of us would hesitate to claim those adjectives but we may well ascribe them to the great people in our life and the deity we worship. Finally, read down the left hand column…Pernicious….Malevolent…Vindictive…Manipulative…and on the list goes describing the robbers and cheaters clothed in “Family Man” suits.  These rationalize, “that’s good enough for her.” They justify with, “that’s all I got when I grew up.”  The 10 Volt column is an ugly string of descriptives and far too many men operate in that column their entire lives.

Generosity begins beyond needs, past 12 Volts. It operates past the earned, deserved or rights. Beginning where self starts to die and sacrifice becomes routine; when dad’s end of the stick is no longer the long end. Generosity may be the most God-like quality man can emulate.

Surprising how many of us guys think ‘good enough’, 12 Volts, ½ a stick, is good enough when it really means we are doing only what we must do, have to, or legally obligated to. These dudes have rotator cuff soreness from patting themselves on the back.

Shocking, how frequently we encounter males with a slop bucket of poor excuses and stinky reasons why they’re entitled to cheat their brides and kids of anything more than a short ended stick, while cloaking themselves in a veil of respectability and decency. I was born 150 years too late. These ‘takers’ should be thrashed with their own stick and set in stocks in the public square with a sign over their heads-10 Volt loser.

#38 Character, everyone needs some, nobody should be one.” January 2015

#38     “Character, everyone needs some, nobody should be one.”                              January 2015

LT is one plucky gal. Okay, not an adjective common to our lexicon of descriptions so if I add spirited, audacious, or bold you can add it to your vocabulary.  I fondly admire this quality about my wife’s sister-in-law (please, don’t let LT know I admire anything about her; it’ll disrupt four decades détente). I’ll wager that RT married her for a list of reasons with pluck at or near the top.  A fairly active Facebook friend, there is no ambiguity about LT’s values as evidenced by her posts. Many months ago, LT shared a Facebook post of Micah 6:8 and I have been chewing on it ever since.

Micah 6:8   He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

 

About a month after that post my bride and I attended a surprise celebration at Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy to honor RT’s thirty years of service.  RT has risen from staff to The Right Reverend, Mon senior, Ph.D., Dean, President, CEO or whatever the hallowed halls of academia call him there; he’s the boss.  While listening to the remarks of his friends, peers, board, staff and family, Micah 6:8 was unsaid, but mingled with the many kind words. As the event concluded and RT took the podium, the seeming coincidence of LT’s earlier post and a celebration of RT’s work life no longer could be considered an accident.

RT is a student of history so in keeping with his discipline, we look to the background of Micah’s book. The prophet is a contemporary of Isaiah and witnessed a dark chapter in the account of Israel between 750 B.C. and 686 B.C.  He both presents the prosecutor’s case against the nation to explain its defeats as well as foretells a greater glory to come. In the middle of this he tells the folks that God has already told them how to act in the clearest of terms.

                             …act justly …love mercy …walk humbly

To move to modern vernacular, Micah may have written:

…just do the right thing…cut the guy a break…get over yourself.

Act Justly

Everyone has values but unfortunately a growing number among us have poor values.  A core commitment to ‘do the right thing’, the righteous thing, the intrinsically correct thing, at every opportunity, is rare in our world today. While most might do right when someone is watching, C S Lewis wrote, ”Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching”.  

In addition to doing the right thing in secret, there is doing the right thing no matter who we interact with. This encompasses matters of race, religion, creed, color, gender and any other trigger to a common prejudice. A high threshold of ‘right’ is found in answering whether everyone you encounter is treated identically.

Acting justly includes the battle of greed with generosity.  Growing up, if I whined about dad’s pronouncement of justice in our home, Dad reminded me that in all our transactions I never got the short end of the stick.  He’d say, “Maybe the ‘stick’ isn’t as long as you thought it should be but I have never given you the short end of the stick.” God’s measure of right includes a component of generosity that exceeds the minimum requirements of a contract. God is at his nature, generous, and if we claim to follow him the fruit of generosity should be handed out to everyone we meet.

Score one for my Dad and RT. The story of my father’s life, all those testimonies about RT and decades of observations prove a life of acting justly by these two men.

Love Mercy

Receiving mercy is not getting the punishment your actions dictate. For example, somebody has a right and an opportunity to punch you in the mouth for some reprehensible remark you’ve made and they forebear from doing so. Giving mercy is deciding to withhold justifiable wrath. Loving mercy is a commitment to a world where mercy is given freely.  Christ adds a practical reason to live a life of mercy:  Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy    Matthew 5

Forrest Bailey, was merciful. If he had not been merciful, tons of punishment would have been administered for my behavior over the twenty-one years we shared.  Understanding God’s mercy in Sunday school wasn’t hard after experiencing Dad’s mercy at home. Just like Christ’s admonition, dad was even more merciful when his kids were, themselves, merciful towards each other. Candidly, I was often more considerate of, more merciful with, my work staff than my own family.  My failures are made clearer by men like my dad and RT who seem to understand this breakdown but somehow avoid it.

There is one more facet of mercy to consider. A manager frequently receives a rebuke from their superior[s]. A merciful manager absorbs, like a car’s shock absorber, the intensity of the reprimand to isolate their people from the destructive elements contained therein. Being the shield means you get the dents, being the shock absorber means you get the bumps, and loving mercy means, like Christ, you takes the punishment without complaint to love mercy.

Forrest bore the weight unfair rebukes and they took him to his early grave at fifty-five. Being the shock absorber brought four heart surgeries from my thirty years in corporate America and RT readily confesses the ‘dents’ from shielding his flock from the predators throwing rocks at them.

Walk Humbly

The most profound part of that command is ‘walk’; not talk humbly. Humility can only be walked, patiently lived out, displayed in deliberate silence. Anyone who proclaims their humility is at once eliminated from this exclusive attribution. The label ‘humble’ can only be conferred upon you.

Like most things we classify as virtues, humility is often thrown into the box of things we consider so far from our reach that we relegate these qualities to people so pious, so other worldly, that we consider them eccentric at best and out-of-touch, more often. In this way we absolve ourselves from ever attempting to reach, put on, many virtues. Let’s be honest, it’s little more than a lame excuse to be content with status quo.  In truth these qualities are obtained by an intentional life of practiced discipline. Said a little differently, what we frequently choose to call a virtue is just a behavior that takes a measure of practice, over time, with discomfort, to include in our repertoire.

What humility often looks like is a process in decision making where you acknowledge the reach of the decision, determine the scope of people affected, calculate the impacts and consider the interests of each group as important as those of the decision makers. Admittedly, all but unheard of in modern corporate settings. It sounds like, “Who else is going to be affected by this change that we haven’t considered yet?” or “How can I help my staff grow in their career and financial future?”  “What can we give up to lessen the impact?” Closer to home humility says, “What’s best for my family?” “What is best for my spouse?” or as simple as “Where do the kids want to go this weekend?”

Humility links arms with mercy and never says, “This is just like the last time you screwed up!” or reminds a child or spouse of a failure in the past to manipulatively shame them into obedience. No, humility chooses overwhelming love to cover a multitude of sins.

Score three for Dad and RT.

No, there was no coincidence between the Facebook post of Micah 6:8 shared by plucky LT and the celebration of RT’s thirty years at CVCA.  Micah’s words resonated with LT because she has been holding hands with that verse for almost forty years. The words ring loudly with me because they remind me of my father’s legacy and challenge me to live in concert with them for my remaining days.

#6 PRIDE AND HUMILITY #7 GRACE, #8 CARPE DIEM 2009

#6                                   Pride and Humility                                               January 23, 2009          

 I fired a customer the other day. This is not such a remarkable event in these days of credit crisis but the reason I have thought long and hard about it is the reaction I saw on the customer’s face as I made our position clear.  Clearly, it has been a long time, maybe decades, since anyone has told him that his business is no longer welcomed.  While his own introductory comments revealed his realistic evaluation of the cracks and fractures in his business model, when it came time to hear my decision in light of those facts he reacted defensively.  He is a very smart man and he knows full well why I did what I did but the injury to his pride, his ego, his view of himself was something he was not prepared for.

There are millions of people facing financial damage, if not devastation, and every one of them can at least partially understand what quantitatively occurred but that understanding breaks down when they try to accept it on a personal level.  For me one of the components of having my financial bum kicked is accepting that I have no guaranty of affluence just because I follow Christ and have an impressive job title. Stuff happens. My customer and I have had to swallow our pride and it takes a big squeeze of ketchup to choke down that bitter pill.  For the last year I have been chewing on what humility means and how do I get it. Now I know what God was preparing me for.

Proverbs 11: 2     When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

Proverbs15: 32 He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.  33 The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor.

 Humility is such an important quality to find contentment and to live in proper alignment with folks around me. It is not gained without painful discipline over a protracted period of time. I desperately want to find it and be changed by it.  Maybe the following passage should be my training manual for the next …rest of my days. 

Isaiah 53 (New International Version)

1   Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2  He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  4  Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;  the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.   6    We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;   and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7  He was oppressed and afflicted,  yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,   and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,  so he did not open his mouth.  8  By oppression and judgment he was taken away.  And who can speak of his descendants?  For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9   He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,    though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10  Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,   and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,  he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.  11  After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied ;  by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12  Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong,^h because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.  For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

# 7                                           Grace                                                 2/5/9

 Grace is such a familiar word to church folks. So familiar our auditory screens filter out its meaning most of the time we hear it because it has been used in millions of doctrinal arguments - in my lifetime. Grace is universally understood to be God’s unmerited favor towards mans demonstrated in salvation. 

Ephesians 2:8 (NiV) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

The singing group Newsboys [see Real Good Thing below} says it’s the stuff we get even though we don’t deserve it and Mercy, on the other hand, is the stuff we don’t get even though we deserve it. To me, Grace was meant for salvation. It’s what man needs to step out of eternal darkness into eternal light. Take off the black cowboy hat and put on the white one. You get the idea.  I always thought it took a dump truck sized load of Grace for this transformation to occur and a handful of the stuff to live every day as a follower of Christ. The writer/theologian Dallas Willard changed my mind. The apostle Paul chipped in some support as well:

1 Corinthians 15:10 (NIV) But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Willard, in Renovation of the Heart, flatly proclaims that the saints require more grace than the sinner because they daily depend on him - for everything. The saint wakes up and refuses to put his feet on the floor until he is surrounded, enveloped in God. He day is motivated by Grace and dedicated to the Giver of Grace. This is dependence is not a drain or burden or bothersome or in some way diminishes what God has available for others. It is the relationship He is calling us to. It what was meant to be since he planted a garden in Eden? This Grace is bigger than a catalyst for a single transformational moment. Its production is a result of the very breath of God. He makes it all the time and it is as natural to him as producing love.

           I don’t know about you but I have a huge knot on the middle of my forehead from the 2x4 I just got smacked with. Paul had his thorn in the flesh and I have my goose egg…

9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)

Anybody got an Ice bag?

Newsboys Real Good Thing Lyrics:

Chorus
when we don’t get what we deserve

that’s a real good thing
when we get what we don’t deserve
 that’s a real good thing

VERSE
born to sin  and then get caught
all our good deeds don’t mean squat
sell the Volvo,  shred the Visa
send the cash to Ma Theresa         
great idea, the only catch is
you don’t get saved  on merit badges-

 Chorus –

VERSE

doctor’s coming looking grim

"Do you have a favorite hymn?"
check your balance through the years
all accounts are in arrears
guilt is bitter, grace is sweet
park it here  on the mercy seat

 Chorus -

Lyrics: Steve Taylor & Peter Furler / Music: Jody Davis & Peter Furler            © 1994 Ariose Music (adivison of Star Song Communications, admin. by Gaither Copyright Management), Warner Alliance Music, Soylent Tunes & Helmet
Publishing    Lyrics: Real Good Thing, Newsboys [end]

8                        2/11./2009                                                   Carpe Diem

Don’t Look Back and, while you’re at it, Don’t Look too far Forward

Today, my wife and I actually had time, and the discipline, to kneel and pray for a couple minutes before we launched into our Wednesday.  Wish I could say that more often than I can. Simply acknowledging a powerful Father and benevolent Creator reminded me how important focusing on just one today at a time is when the stuff hits the fan.  Revisiting all the economic calamities and political folly of the past few months has nearly destroyed my faith in the future of our country-nearly to the degree my net worth has been decimated. On the other hand, spending any time trying to figure out what my financial future may look like is as pointless, with all the uncertainties multiplying the variables to be included in the equation, as trying to see where our country is headed. 

Come to find out the ancient Greek Horace may have been through a recession or two because he is famous for his 23 B.C. lyrics in Odes :

 …et spatio brevi spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas:  carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

Loose translation:

Scale back your long hopes to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have {already} fled.  Seize the day and place no trust in tomorrow

Horace must have had his 401K wiped out and his home drop in value. While The Christ had neither, he does a better job of cautioning us about fretting about tomorrow:

Matthew 6:34 (The Message) "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

I like the encouragement about God helping me deal with whatever ‘cause I got lots of whatever to deal with. The old KJV version of the same verse plainly reminds me that today will be bad enough, thank you. 

Matthew 6:34 (King James Version) Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

The good doctor Luke quoted Jesus’ caution about looking back as well:

Luke 9:62 (The Message) Jesus said, "No procrastination. No backward looks. You can't put God's kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day." 

Maybe The Message translators read Horace? Anyway, the KJV version puts it plainly enough for me to cipher.

Luke 9:62 (King James Version)  And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Christ used examples from the agrarian life to illustrate his point and the farmer in me connects on this level. Good instructions for how to ‘plough’ [plow] the field before me. I remember how I used to mess up the furrows if I keep looking back at the plow I was pulling behind the old Oliver 88 tractor. I had to keep my eyes forward to keep the furrows straight. Yet I needed to keep a steady hand on the lever that adjusted the plow depth, always adjusting for soil conditions, so I did not pull up some of that miserable brown clay that wouldn’t grow anything but velvetleaf weeds. My job was keeping the nose of my tractor pointed straight and focusing on the job I was doing at that moment. Hey, that works for a bank executive too! Don’t look too far forward and don’t get stuck looking back.

Once a farmer, you’ll never forget the can smell of newly turned dirt … that was always such a hopeful aroma.

#s 1-5 October 2008 -January 2009 Courage, Dont stand Alone, O' King, Hearing, Heart Disease

This is part of a numbered series of writings that began with the financial meltdown in October 2008.  If you wish to receive the entire series or no longer wish to be copied, contact chiefcredit@tcfbank.com

 Foreword

As the markets began their melt down in earnest last year, and men’s hearts melted right along with them, I began seeing the effects in my mirror each morning. Discouragement was drawn in the lines in my face and I crawled into a hole and pulled it shut behind me. In an effort to understand what was going on I started tapping on the keyboard of my computer. Taking a chance, these musings were sent to a safe, select few. That distribution has grown and now includes a few dozen readers and those they forward them on to.

Several of you have requested back copies or lost copies and a few have requested a single complete collection for their study. Okay, here it is. In the future I will place each new addition in this file so a complete set is always ready and can be requested. 

 #1                Courage in the middle of a storm                    October 13, 2008

I have spent a lot of time lately watching the markets implode, looking at the faces of the people I work with and trying to buck up their courage by reminding them that this deep downward cycle is just a another deep downward cycle. It may be worse than anything we have seen in 25 years but it is still just another cycle.

Have you seen the movie "Master and Comannder" with Russsell Crowe. In the middle of a horrible storm, a ship sinking storm, he is leaning out over the windward side of his ship as the leeward side has its rail in the water, holding on to a line while peering through the storm in search of his enemy-the dreaded French.   It is either a picture of courage or foolhardy behavior. I choose to think of it as the former. He is not distracted by a terrible storm and stays focused [okay, maybe obsessed] on his primary goal-scuttle the French!

I have a couple take-a-ways from this picture lesson.

Jesus Calms the Storm    Matthew 8 23Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. 24Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!"  26 He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.  27The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"

First, the Lord we serve can calm storms of any type. They are all in his hands. We are all in his hands if we allow him.

Pressing on Toward the Goal  Phillipians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16Only let us live up to what we have already attained.  17Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. 18For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Second, Press on! There are always distractions, fears, failures. The courageous press on toward what really matters in their companies, families and their faith.

 ________________________________________________________________________

#2                         None of us can stand alone                                                10/22/08

Romans 15:30   I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.

Well, I am back at it again. I need prayer as the enemy attacks me on every side during these times of extreme stress. It is amazing how many fronts the adversary can attack from.  I know that each of you are facing incredible tests nearly every day and believe you are alone in the fight.

I challenge each of you to lift up your friends in prayer each day and never assume they are okay just because they have not reached out to you. Each of us needs a brother who has our back when we are in a fight. The secondary outcome of these prayers is the big arms of the God of the universe picking you up as you bring others to him in prayer.

_________________________________________________________________________________

 #3                         October 31^st, 2008                     Oh King, live forever.......

 This week’s installment comes a little late [for those of you who keep track of such things]. I have been in a manure-icane, a crap-nado, a doodoo deluge, a stinkstorm so I have fallen behind on my periodic posting. My wife is reading the book of Daniel for a bible study so I thought I’d load the book on my Kindle ™ to tag along with her.

The first two chapters tell of the early days of his involuntary service to Nebuchadnezzar, we will call him ‘Neb’ for brevity sake. We all serve masters that seem to be or are at cross purposes with our faith yet we all called to serve, right now, where we are. Daniel’s acts of service saved the lives of his three Hebrews bros and the lives of numerous unbelieving “wise” men. These acts contributed to the preservation of a nation that would someday return to its homeland and to this day testifies to the verity of God’s promises.

Let me try to bring this into a tighter focus:
We serve without knowing what is produced by our service to the King…boss…supervisor…CEO

• God has a very clear, precise purpose for us-right now
• We may be savings lives [Dan 2:24], jobs, families, or even souls by being obedient in service

Can you walk through the terrible circumstances in your life, work, relationship, finances, disappointments, punishments…etc. and can you serve the king while trusting God for eternal productivity?

Can you answer the king when he calls for you from down the hall [Daniel 6:20-21] for the twelfth time today and cry out in worship and obedience to the Almighty …”Oh King, live forever!”

 ________________________________________________________________________

#4                         January 7, 2009                         How will they Hear?

Today was one of those very rare days when I met my wife’s expectations. My old friend, Pain, greeted me when I stepped to the floor as usual and most of you would be shocked to know that I am not very warm or engaging in the early hours of the day and I was about forty minutes behind schedule because I am certain it can’t be time to get up if it is still dark outside. Anyway, before I left for work I stopped to have a brief time of prayer with Nancy. No big deal really. We didn’t weep or talk in tongues and we didn’t take an offering or baptize anyone-we just prayed.  Before anyone nominates me for sainthood you should realize that me stopping for anything once my head is focused on work is an exception to the rule. Please note the date above and you’ll see the Bailey’s are like everyone else when it comes to New Year’s resolve.

“Lord, help us see you throughout our day…” Other than some specific petitions about our daughter I don’t remember the rest of the prayer that I mumbled over my French toast and grape juice.

Hitting the road I fell back into my routine of fretting over the headlines broadcast over satellite radio on the Bloomberg channel #130 and cussing the drivers who can't seem to deal with winter precipitation like I can with my V8 4x4 SUV. By the time I reached the Stevenson Expressway the day was already sliding into the loss column and then I remembered my words of prayer. … “Lord, help us see you throughout our day”…   “Okay God, how do I do that in this traffic mess with all these knobs all around me”, I pleaded and immediately realized how stupid that sounded so I turned the radio off to have ‘a little chat’, as they say.

 In the silence my thoughts were drawn into focus as I considered multiple lanes of traffic jammed with folks racing to their place of commerce. Everyone moving at various speeds in differing degrees of hurry to frenetically chase life to its very end.  Even as I cursed the futility displayed all around me the people somehow looked different now. No longer countless clumsy commuters but six lanes of speeding souls with similar fears and dismay and all surrounded by the compassion of a Savior desperate to speak hope and peace into their day.  “Well, God, how is that going to happen?”  I complained. “That’s where you come in, Tim”, was the reply I heard in my head as Romans 10 came to mind.

Romans 10:13  for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."  14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

No, my feet do not look any better but my role on this orb is clear.   Speak, show, and support the Good News to everyone I can. 

#5                                            Heart Disease                                      1/12/9

                                          
As I write this, a 34-year-old man I work with is in the hospital to have a heart valve replaced. I had the privilege of sharing Aaron’s priestly blessing with him [Numbers 6:25] before his first procedure this morning.  Most of you know that I too have gone under the surgeon’s knife, on several occasions, to address my heart disease. In both of our cases something was terribly amiss and the doctor’s knew that the most radical surgical procedures were necessary to address this condition.

Describing Heart Disease is simple when you describe this organ as the pump in your chest. Anything that reduces its pumping capability is included in the description of the disease so bad valves, clogged plumbing, irregular pulses and eventually aged mechanicals all come into play. We are all very familiar with the symptoms of Heart Disease because we’re reminded of them constantly when we go see our doctors and they ask us those questions we have memorized by now. Shortness of breath, abnormal EKG, irregular hearth rhythm, and, of course, angina pain are the things we are asked about for they provide the best tell tale signs that something is amiss in our pump room. The causes of this malady are well known too and DNA remains the best predictor of difficulties down the road. 

          What about the Heart Disease described in that big black book getting dusty on your coffee table? How do the multiple writers depict a diseased heart in their contributions to the 66 books contained among its pages? Hard, deceptive, stubborn, calloused, proud, unyielding, haughty, astray, and unbelieving are listed throughout scripture as well as melting, faint, terror filled and a host of other symptoms.  Anything register as a familiar symptom in that list? We all have Adam’s DNA so the family tree is working against us too.

          How about measuring your heart against the character and qualities of a properly functioning heart those same writers gave us as clear indications of what a good heart acts like. Humble, pure, upright, undivided, contrite, steadfast, loyal, integrity, wisdom, joyful and sincere are repeated throughout the book as the tests of a healthy heart. Does your heart function in that fashion?

          In prior notes I have confessed to you that, like St. Paul said, “I am the chiefest of sinners” and in these matters it is no less true. I have two kinds of heart disease.  

 

Psalms 51:10  Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within  me.