I enjoy the internet. But like everyone, there are times when it frustrates me. It is one of the most enabling inventions ever. It has never been so easy to access research, relationships, and retail. But there are times when things don't work properly. It is so frustrating when it takes too long to check your bank account, buy a car, send some pictures to a family member, and finish that TV episode you missed... all at the same time. How many times have these words left your mouth, "C'mon... What is going on? Why is Facebook so slow today? This is as bad as dial-up." We are easily frustrated. But one thing has changed in my life. I don't get too upset with the glitches anymore, unless it is imperative that I get something important done now. But I don't freak out when my profile isn't loading properly. Why? Because I understand some things about FB. They want to succeed. They care about the experience of their members because they need members. So, when things are slow, or outright glitchy, I just figure they are working on things, or upgrading the site to make it more useful. It is like when the transportation department improves the roads while traffic is still active. Are there inconveniences that go with that? Yep. Is it frustrating? You bet. Does getting upset make the glitches go away? No. Will we be satisfied with the ultimate product? Some will, and others will not. But knowing there is an end goal helps me accept the present trouble. Sometimes Facebook announces changes they will be making. Then there are times when they change things up without warning us. You can often tell when there is a change coming. Things get a little glitchy. In those times, people posting things like, "Is anyone else having trouble with FB today?" Within a day or two, I notice new helpful features on my FB page. Sometimes they are controversial or even downright scary. I am sure there are people who leave because they don't like or trust the changes. But, before you know it, everyone is clicking the new LIKE button. Change is difficult. We like to stay in our comfort zone. The unknown can be scary. But change is normal and necessary, even if painful. All change is not good, but sometimes we make an enemy out of the process. God is busy bringing change to our lives. Sometimes He specifically tells us what changes are coming. We don't always like what we hear. We don't want God to rearrange our profile. We are comfortable with the way things are in our lives... even if we aren't satisfied. Sometimes we resort to bargaining with God, arguing with, or even threatening Him. We may even form a group of friends to protest the hard thing that God is about to do. Not a good plan. Most of the time God brings change into your life without giving you a heads-up. But you will know that God is working, because life will get messy... glitchy, if you will. It is probably good that God does not always tell you what He is about to do in our lives. Frankly, you wouldn't be able to handle the information. Foreknowledge like that would likely crush you, or scare you off. So God adds features, or moves things around, or removes things in your life. Again, in this scenario, people react differently. Mostly people get frustrated because they equate glitches with trouble rather than transformation. Try not to see life glitches as evidence that you are cursed, but as indicators that God is doing something positive in your life. We must believe that God is not only worthy, but also trustworthy. Job, who went through more change than most of us will ever experience said, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.Praise the name of Yahweh.” (Job 1:21) You may not see the changes immediately. But God never works without a purpose. And His purpose is always good for His children. No, I don't trust everything FB does. Sometimes it is just messed up. But I know this about God, "He causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." (Romans 8:28) Now, back to see if that YouTube video is done buffering.. GRRRRR! Find more of David’s work at Heart Of Ministry. In our culture, people ask questions without truly expecting, or caring about a real answer. One of my favorite examples of this is when people ask, "How are you doing?" Honestly, most people don't really want the true answer. They just want to hear, ‘Fine,’ and move on. I dislike this superficial aspect of our lives. Yet, I'm sure we are all guilty on some level. Because let's face it... we aren't usually 'fine.’ We live in a complicated world that is ripping us apart. ‘Fine' is often the least accurate of all the words that could describe how we are at any given point. I get it. Many things with which we are struggling are not easily remedied in the checkout line at the grocery store. So, when asked, "How are you?" we only have time to grab our change and get to the car. Another problem is, some things are just too deep and private to share with the delivery guy. And even if you told the convenience store clerk your issue, she isn't prepared to help you. But all of those issues do not give us the right to lie through our teeth When I feel that something is wrong, I ask, "How are you doing?" You might say, "I'm good." I then follow up with, "But really... how are you doing?" You may tilt your head, smile and say, "No. Really. I'm fine", after which I say... "Don't lie to me. How are you doing?" Trust me... If I don't want to know. I won't ask. If I ask, it means I really want to know. To know does not mean I can fix it. But it does mean I can pray about it, give some feedback, or just listen. I actually love it when people answer with, "Do you really want to know?" Yes. Yes I do. At a restaurant once I asked our waitress how she was doing. She kind of stuttered and said, "Well, I just got here. So we will see." I got the feeling that something wasn't right. The meal progressed. She seemed distant, at times acting like we were an inconvenience to her day. She messed up my drink order. Others had to help fill in when she didn't bring certain things to the table. In the end, she even gave us the wrong bill. Overall, it was a poor experience for us. We left the building. But before we left the property, I sent my wife back in to let the manager know about the situation. The reality is, the server didn't have to see how her day was going to progress. She had recently lost her baby while it was in the crib. Her therapist suggested she be around people to get through the loss. She was at work to cope. That wasn't going very well. The manager apologized for the situation, and I left my contact info to offer the server in case she wanted to talk. There probably isn't a scenario in which our server would respond to a stranger's question about her well-being with an open answer about the loss of her baby. Maybe it is our fault for making "How are you doing?" the question of choice when we meet someone. Maybe we should ask, "Hi, what is your favorite color?" Then everyone could be honest. Or maybe, we should only ask when we truly want to know. And maybe we should be honest about our needs. Even if she had said, "I could really use some prayer right now about a personal situation", the spiritual ball would have been rolling. Satan would be put on notice, God would be invited into the mix, and human relationships would be legitimized on a whole other level. So much can happen when both parties mean what they say. I’m not encouraging nosiness, or airing out dirty laundry to strangers. This is simply a call to be human today. To be who we were meant to be. Because you never know what someone else is going through, but you can bet it’s something. Scripture is full of admonition to share life with other believers. Jesus was the Master of relationships because He designed relationships. Here is the instruction He left for us, “This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) Find more of David’s work at Heart Of Ministry. Sometimes people talk about having a ‘pet sin’. This is that one thing in their life that they know is wrong, but they continue to do it either because they can’t stop, or they like it that much. They might otherwise be living a really clean life, but they have this one ‘pet sin.’ But having a ‘pet sin’ is like having a ‘pet rattlesnake’. Eventually it will strike, and you will die from it. In any given room of people you can ask, “Who here has a sin in their life?” Most hands will go up. But the reality is that no one has sin. Yep… you read that right. Not one single person has sin in their life. It is an illusion. We don’t have sin. Sin has us. The enemy has figured out that if he lets us think that we can control sin, we will try to manage it. But trying to control sin is like trying to control African trypanosomiasis in your body. “A.T.” is better known as ‘sleeping sickness.’ This disease is often acquired by a bite from an infected tsetse fly. “Symptoms grow progressively worse and include physical problems as well as irritability, psychotic reactions, aggressive behavior, or apathy which can sometimes dominate the clinical diagnosis. Without treatment, the disease is invariably fatal (nearly 100%), with progressive mental deterioration leading to coma, systemic organ failure, and death. Depending on the type of sleeping disease, an untreated infection will cause death within months, or after several years. Ironically, sleeping disease is treatable in almost all cases if caught early enough.” [Wikipedia] You wouldn’t want a pet rattlesnake. You wouldn’t try to manage sleeping sickness without medicine. But you may think that you can control your sin. Sin is a poisonous destroyer. It will strike at the most unpleasant time and destroy the lives of anyone near it. We should treat sin like the fatal disease it is. One does not gain eternal life by fighting sin. But neither does one gain eternal life who plays with sin or does not deal with it like the poison it is. I’m not going to give you a list of sins to avoid or fight. You know what is right and wrong. As a believer, you have the Holy Spirit inside guiding you into all truth and convicting of sin. The first command and warning regarding sin was given in the Garden of Eden. God told Adam, “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:17) The apostle John talks about our relationship with sin, writing to the early Christians, “Look at how great a love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children. And we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know Him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure. Everyone who commits sin also breaks the law; sin is the breaking of law. You know that He was revealed so that He might take away sins, and there is no sin in Him. Everyone who remains in Him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you! The one who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who commits sin is of the Devil, for the Devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the Devil’s works. Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. This is how God’s children—and the Devil’s children—are made evident.” (1 John 3:1-10) Today, don’t play around with sin. Don’t try to manage it. It will bite you. That poison, left untreated will most certainly eventually kill you. Thank God for the glorious gift of the blood of Jesus, which if applied to your life, will certainly heal you. Find more of David’s work at Heart Of Ministry. There’s something about watching the best teams go after the greatest prize. I did that last night. My favorite team was not in the championship game this time, but the game itself was hard fought and became a classic with the lead changing hands 13 times in the first half as Wisconsin and Duke went to the locker room tied at halftime. There are always stories inside the big story of the title game. This year the biggest story within the story was of one Jahlil Okafor. He is a freshman who has played like a seasoned veteran all year. Okafor is a smart player who played in the competitive Atlantic Coast Conference all season without fouling out. He was expected to play a major role if Duke was going to beat the giant-killer Wisconsin, who had toppled the 38-0 Kentucky Wildcats just two days before. In college basketball a player is basically allowed to break the rules four times and stay in the game. If you commit a fifth foul, you are out of the game. Okafor was called for 4 fouls. When a good player gets into foul trouble, a coach will take them out of the game and put them on the bench so they can be used at a more critical time. Okafor was on the bench for 18 of the 40 minutes of the game. He basically missed half of the game. He never found his rhythm. Regardless of the validity of all of the calls, this young man who many say was the most valuable player in the whole tournament could only contribute to his team for about half of the game. I never saw his team members give him a dirty look for letting them down. I never saw the coach berate him for sloppy defense. I never heard the crowd boo him for his mistakes. He was on the bench in large part because he didn’t play as well as he could. He later said, “My teammates were telling me to stay focused and stay in the game.” Stay in the game? He was on the bench. His friends had confidence in him even though he sort of took himself out of the most important game of their lives. His team rallied around him, stepped up their game, and won the national championship. When they won, he won. They all participated in the tradition of cutting down the nets. The team won, which means Okafor won. We have all been Jahlil Okafor in our lives. Every one of us has broken the rules. Some of us have broken more of God’s rules than others. Maybe we have found ourselves benched because of our foolish mistakes. We want to participate, but our actions have disqualified us in some way. Perhaps during this time you have been the focus of glaring eyes or harsh words by people you thought were on your team. This is not how it should be. You feel bad enough for messing up, but then you feel worse because those who should be lifting you up are tearing you down even more. We have all known an Okafor in our lives. I’m sure you know a Christian in your life who has messed up so bad that they find themselves on the sidelines, unable to contribute to the team as they would like. How will you treat them? Will you let them know how much they are letting you down, or will you encourage them to stay focused and stay in the game? When someone messes up in front of everyone, you don’t have to keep reminding them. They usually feel bad enough for letting the team down. What they need is to be lifted up. The apostle Paul understood this principle though he never saw a basketball game. He wrote to the early Christians, “Brothers, if someone is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so you also won’t be tempted. Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each person should examine his own work, and then he will have a reason for boasting in himself alone, and not in respect to someone else. For each person will have to carry his own load.” (Galatians 6:1-5) No, my team didn’t win the championship. But Christ’s team does win the trophy. It is up to us to encourage our struggling teammates toward the prize. Today, lift up someone who finds themselves on the bench because of their mistakes. Find more of David’s work at Heart Of Ministry. It is a lot easier to ruin a friendship than it is to build one. If you’re old enough to have a friend, you’ve probably lost one. The older you get, the longer the list grows of people with whom you entered into a friendship bond but for various reasons those relationships came to an end… sometimes an abrupt end. Frankly, we probably use the word ‘friend’ a little too loosely. We throw it around like our social reputation depends on it. Over the last few years a phrase has been turned into acronym. ‘BFF’ stands for Best Friend Forever, but it might as well stand for 'Best Friend Fellowship' because some people have multiple people in their life who are their 'best friend'… which seems impossible to me, but anyway. Whether we like it or not, the idea of friendship has evolved. Social media has accelerated the evolution of the concept of friendship. Facebook decided to use the word ‘friend’ to describe anyone in your contact list. That’s fine if someone is actually your friend in the flesh and blood world. But now if someone from the other side of the world likes a few of your posts and wants to keep up with your online activity, they can request to be your friend. If you accept, they become your ‘friend’. That’s it. The only requirement for ‘friendship’ on Facebook is two clicks… one by the one wanting the connection, and the other by the one accepting the connection. I wonder what effect this is having on the idea of friendship in the general culture. As easy as it is to become a ‘friend’, it only takes one click to end a Facebook ‘friendship’. I really wonder what that does to the friendship culture in society. It is actually a pretty close representation of the fragile nature of friendship. It really is easier to end a friendship than to create one. There seems to be less of an interest in restoring broken friendships today. The more friends we have, the easier it is to discount the ones we lose. But we as Christians should be people who value friendship enough to invest in the making of a friend, and in the keeping of that friend. Yes, it is work, and it is painful. But everything of worth is. The danger is that we develop shallow, ‘throwaway’ relationships. Our friendships become an inch deep and a mile wide. We need to seek relationship sustainability. The Bible gives us much wisdom about friendships. Here are three ways you can improve the quality and longevity of friendships in your life. · Choose your friends better – I’m not suggesting you run a background check on all potential friends. But understand that you have to be choosy in order to be healthy. “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’” (1 Corinthians 15:33) · Categorize friendships more honestly – If you label several people as your ‘best friend’, you have sent mixed signals to all of them, and created an environment that will almost surely breed jealousy. “A man with many friends may be harmed, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24) · Cultivate your friendships – Friendships are like a garden in which you grow relationships. Cultivation involves preparing yourself for friendships, and then caring for the friends in your life. This will entail feeding relationships. But sometimes it involves culling or ‘thinning out the herd’ for the health of the rest. “The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive.” (Proverbs 27:6) Today, value your friends, and those who may become your friends. But be wise in how you interact with people in your life. It takes more clicks to create a friendship than it does to delete one. Find more of David’s work at Heart Of Ministry. |
AuthorMy name is David, and I want to know God more, and help other people find Him. Archives
March 2019
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