Don’t forget the trash

Here’s a progression of leadership that I find interesting, not that you have to be recognized “leader” in this sense to make the lessons noteworthy.  This is, however, a true countercultural mindset that I personally find very informative and challenging.

And David realized that the LORD had confirmed him as king over Israel and had greatly blessed his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.

In other words, one of the main reasons God blesses me is for the sake of His people.  (Wait…you mean it’s not about me??)

Jericho, and other ruins

When I was a teenager, I was part of an organization called Young Life.  We used to sing a song, “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came a-tumbling down, dooby-down, dooby-down, doo-wah”.  (Okay, so it was the 70’s.)

It was a fun song, and planted a little church history in our brains, I suppose.  The account is of the well-known story of the Israelites walking around the walls of this pagan city out of obedience to God, and on the seventh day, with a fair amount of trumpet blowing, the walls came a-tumbling down.  The city was captured and utterly destroyed, except for the family of one woman, a prostitute who had risked everything to help the Israeli spies.

Love notes, and other uses for dust.

As a teenager, I learned the basics of cleaning house.  Mom “made” us do our own laundry (thanks, Mom, so very, very much!!), and we were responsible for keeping our own rooms clean(-ish).  Dusting was part of it, and if you ran out of Pledge, then a damp rag would suffice.  

They say “practice makes perfect”, so leave us say I am a less-than-perfect housekeeper, much less. Whoever comes to visit should leave the white gloves at home.  Never quite sure what you’ll find under the bed either, and a flat dusty surface is for writing love notes,…isn’t it?

My not-quite-Heloise skill doesn’t make me less appreciative of God’s perfection, however.  Case in point, I love this description of the Baal vs. Yahweh encounter.  The prophets of Baal do all they can, and more so, to get their god to light the sacrificial fire on their alter, yet have nothing to show for it but raw hamburger.

“What we have here is a failure to communicate…”

Ever know someone with “a chip on their shoulder”?  One story has that phrase originating from the idea of two boys picking a fight with each other, the one putting a wood chip on his shoulder and daring the other to knock the chip off, thus initiating the knock-down-drag-out. 

The problem with chips on shoulders is that they tend to fall off on their own, starting fights when none were intended.  For example:

Just one. Pleeeeeeeeze?

There are times when it seems like just a couple of well-placed lightning bolts would solve quite a few of the world’s problems.  Or at least a few of mine.  Of course, that’s just another one of a gazillion reasons why I’m not God, and a good thing, too.  Irritating, frustrating, and irrational people are, you know ,…irritating and frustrating, and can make one question one’s own rationality.

I should know, having been one of “those people” myself, more times than I probably care to admit.

Many years ago, author Joyce Landorf coined the phrase “irregular people” in her book by the same name.   We all have them, as described above, and also as stated, we have all been one at some point, or will be.  It goes along with that truism:

Usually, a few bug guts on my windshield aren’t terribly inconvenient; although they’re ugly, I can still see to drive my car.  That is, until the sun hits them just the right way, then …

…and suddenly, driving becomes a hazardous enterprise!  Really, the responsible thing to do is to pull over and clean off the windshield.  Otherwise, I’m not only endangering myself, but those in the car with me and other drivers sharing the road.

Irregular people do that.  They can muss up my vision–my perspective, intentions, goals. And if I allow it, even my physical health, and more importantly, my heart.  

That’s one of (the many) reasons why this was written into eternity for us:

“Guard your heart above all else,
    for it determines the course of your life.”

Naturally, bug guts come in all varieties and colors: offense and unforgiveness, unmet expectations, unfair or harsh criticism, and worse things I care not to put in print.  Then there are the times (oh, this is hard one!) when I realize that it’s my emotional guts on someone else’s windshield.  It’s one thing to forgive someone else–how mature and altruistic of me.  It’s quite a different challenge to ask someone else’s forgiveness.  Saying “I’m sorry” may be a bit of a lost art.  I’ll admit I’ve gotten quite good at it through the years, and I’m still learning.  It sure can go a L-O-N-G way in helping clean up the other party’s visual field, though.

It’s fairly easy to put off the cleaning process, especially when we’re in the fast lane of life, until by God’s grace His light hits our lives and we’re stunned by how much we really can’t see.  Best to pull over, STOP, get out of traffic,–whatever that looks like for us individually–thus protecting all involved.  

Guaranteed, the ride will be much more enjoyable when the view is unobscured.

Proverbs 4:23  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

“I don’t do windows”…bad idea

Windows, what a pane!  (Couldn’t resist.)  Most of the windows in my house are really old and are not the “easy-to-clean” type they make now.  Actually, I’m waiting for someone to invent a self-cleaning brand, sort of like the self-cleaning ovens, which I also do not have. 

It just gets to the point where, when the evening sun tries to slants through from the west, it hits the dust and grime and you can’t really see out of the window, but you can sure see the dust and grime on the window.  And really, there are some pretty nice things to look at in my yard, if I do say so myself.  Amazing what a little Windex does—transparent is a significant improvement over opaque, (unless, of course, it’s the bathroom….y’know.)

Even more so with my car windshield.  Sometimes I just

Harmony, in any language.

One of Bob’s brothers was a army paratrooper out of Fort Bragg.  He then went on to get his M.Div. from Fuller in California.  So somewhere along the way he was dubbed “the warrior priest”.  (We still have a couple of his army jackets—your tax dollars at work…)

Evidently, English is not an easy second language to learn, but Richie mentioned how difficult it was to learn Greek and Hebrew.  I can only imagine the hours he spent at a desk pouring over books and notes.  It had to be an intentional positioning of his body and mind to make sense of all those squiggly marks!

So I have an increased respect for those who delve into the classic languages, and those who have sacrificed much more than time to bring us the Bible in our own tongue.  Through the years, even I have picked up a few words here and there. I have a sweet gold necklace that Bob’s mom brought back to me from a visit to Israel that is my name in Hebrew.  (At least, that’s what she was told; for all I know it could say “go home, Yankee pig”, but that’s beside the point.)  Years ago, I