#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.