Easy Button

Flashback time.  And granted, some people who read these devotionals didn’t grow up in Memphis…or just didn’t get into it (like my wife)…or whatever the case may be.  But I understand that some people won’t realize that for a LARGE part of the Memphis and the Mid-South, the world used to stop every Saturday morning at 11:00.  It didn’t matter what you were doing before that, or what you had planned that afternoon.  Watching wrestling on Channel 5 was what you did at 11:00 on Saturday morning.  The manly soap opera that was Channel 5 professional wrestling.  Jerry “The King” Lawler, “Superstar” Bill Dundee, “Dirty” Dutch Mantell and the whole gang doing their thing every week.  And I fully acknowledge, the actual “rasslin’” that happened in the ring was just something that helped space out the good stuff – the actual “rasslin’” was mediocre at best.  Nothing great about it at all…some body slams, a few punches, and finally someone interrupting the match by running in from the back.  But the good stuff was the microphone time.  The interview times when THIS guy told the world what he was going to do to THAT guy on Monday night at the Mid-South Coliseum.  “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart (a title I always wanted for myself) would come out and insult the “good guys”…and then, oh help him, and then he would taunt the fans in the stands while talking to Lance Russell and Dave Brown.  And he always knew EXACTLY which phrases to throw out there to get them riled up.  And it wasn’t just Jimmy Hart.  But it didn’t matter if it was Andy Kaufman, or “The Universal Heartthrob” Austin Idol, or Hulk Hogan – they would turn to the crowd and call them a bunch of idiot, beer-drinking rednecks and oh, the outrage from the crowd was so loud that you’d have to turn the TV down.

Do we do that in arguments with each other?  Co-workers?  Friends?  Family?  Spouses?

Do we dig up that one issue, that one insult – that one thing that we can’t get past – and when our frustration with the other is at its peak, we drop that one thing on their head that’s sure to get the audience riled up?  Something that happened years, maybe even decades ago?  The easy button topic that gets drug up like a worn out old circus act…”oh great, here’s THAT again”.  People will disagree, that’s just how it is.  We’re all individuals, and we all have opinions on how things should be handled, or done, or not done, or spent, or not spent.  But at what point does it get so far beyond a discussion about politics that we’re drudging up something that I’ve held against you since high school?  And as usual, I’m not sitting in a glass house chucking rocks at my readers.  I absolutely do it.  Some guy at works makes me mad, and I drag up stuff he did 10-12 years ago.  Some guy’s name from church comes up, and it’s “well, this one time, I sat there and listened to him just make jokes about this other guy – everything from how he looked to what he was wearing”…yeah, you read that right.  “this one time” And it’s the first thing I go to…it’s something that I need to work on, I know.

The Bible has a lot to say about forgiveness.  To name a few (In the essence of space I’ll ask you to look them up, I’ll not copy and paste them all here), Matthew 5:23-24, Matthew 18:21-22, Luke 17:3-4, Acts 7:59-60, 1 John 1:9 – just to name a few about God’s feelings on how we should forgive others.

But to me, one the most powerful is Matthew 6:14-15. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  That seems pretty self-explanatory to me – and very powerful.  And to go along with that one is John 8:7…a woman caught in the act…brought before Jesus…”If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And I have a whole different devotional around this one.  But for now, the point I’d like to make in this context is the Whisper I’d like you to listen for in this devotional.

Listen for the Whisper that says, when the One without sin had the chance to throw the stone, he didn’t.  She was caught in the act.  Some suggest she was set up simply so she COULD be caught in act so that the Jewish leaders could use her to trap Jesus.  But the answer Jesus gave them was that the guiltless one could throw the first stone…and when all of the guilty men dropped their stones, the one guiltless Man among them, offered forgiveness.  “Go and sin no more.”

The One entitled and qualified (by His own answer) to throw the first stone, did not throw a stone at her.  She was caught in the act…it was a softball lobbed up to Jesus.  But He didn’t push the easy button.  He didn’t go to that old reliable argument starter about calling the Jewish leader hypocrites.  And later when hanging on the cross, what did He offer?  What did He ask for?  Forgiveness.  Forgiveness offered to the thief hanging beside him, and forgiveness asked for those that taunted and crucified Him.  He knew their sins.  He knew why He was hanging on that cross – but instead of dragging all that out and throwing it back in their faces, he offered the same thing He offered the woman caught in adultery:  Forgiveness.  (I’m hearing the chorus of Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter” somewhere in the distance…”I think it’s about – Forgiveness, forgiveness, even if...you don’t love me anymore.”)

So the next time you face the temptation to blow the dust off that same tired old Easy-Button argument, don’t be Jimmy Hart.  Don’t go to that one thing that you know will get them riled up.  Don’t be so consumed with winning an argument or beating the other person, that you fail to remember that Jesus has forgiven you…and you are the one that caused His need to die on a cross.  Just like I did.  Just like the person you’re arguing with did.  Just like we all did.  And if Jesus can forgive all of us, and we’re willing to accept His forgiveness, then we need to be resolved to forgive each other.  And once we’ve offered them forgiveness, we can let go of the Easy Button “crusher” argument-winner and focus on working through whatever differences we’re facing at the moment. 

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

We Were Soldiers Once - The Epilogue

As I look back over the totality of these 7 devotionals based on the movie “We Were Soldiers”, I wanted to go back to something I said in the very first sentence of the very first one – and then elaborate on it a little more than I did at the time.  I guess to make my own Alpha and Omega statement.  I started this series of devotionals saying, The movie “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson is one of my favorite movies, and at the same time one of the hardest to watch.

I want to revisit that one of the hardest to watch statement.  We hear stories that our grandpas tell about the war…if they ever talk about it at all.  We see stories on the news.  We read stories on the internet.  We read the books.  But grandpa always leaves out the grossest parts.  And books are easy to put back on the shelf.  Like I did with We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, I closed the cover and gave it back to my father-in-law.  “No thanks, that’s making me too uncomfortable to keep reading it.  Oh, I know you were there and lived, but it’s makes me uneasy and depresses me to read about it.”  So we close the book, and we change the channel, and we walk away.  Clear our minds of the disturbing things we were reading.  But the thing with reading is that if we want to get through a bad part and get on with the story, we can gloss it over.  Skim it and hit the highlights.  Like driving by a really bad car crash without looking, we can see enough to get the general idea of the bad stuff that happened but not get a good enough look to make us squirm about it later.

With movies, you can’t skim.  You can hold your hands over your eyes and peak through your fingers if you want to, but movies show us things we can’t unsee.  We forget words…the specific words that make us the most uncomfortable will be forgotten by tomorrow.  But seeing men suffering the atrocities of war in graphic realism can’t be unseen.  And I don’t mean the overly-done, artificially-excessive special effects that we see in some movies like the Matrix.  I’m saying it’s really hard to forget unsettling realism like we saw in the beach storming scene in “Saving Private Ryan” and some of the napalm scenes in “We Were Soldiers” and the whole movie “The Passion of the Christ.”

Yup, I said unsettling like the whole movie “The Passion of the Christ”.  I’ve only seen it twice.  More like once and a half.  I went to see in the theater, and later recorded it when it was on one of the movie channels on some “Free Preview” weekend, where I saw part of it then while I was putting that recording on DVD.  Why is it unsettling?  Because it’s very easy to be clinical and distanced and even supernatural about it and say things like “Jesus died for my sin,” and “Jesus died for you” and go along with my happy, Christian life.  Because He’s God and He rose from the grave, so everything’s all good, and there’s nothing here that makes me uncomfortable – but when it comes to seeing him beaten by the Roman soldiers and the skin ripped from His bones as He was being scourged…and seeing the nails driven into Him and then lifted into the air on that cross…seeing the crowd taunt and tease Him as He hung on that cross being tortured to death.  If you’ll pardon me saying so, it makes it all just a little too…human.

For me, anyway, far too often I have this “Superman” mentality about Jesus on the cross.  “Nothing hurts Him, He’s Superman!”  But He wasn’t some comic book superman on that cross…He was just man.  Dying a cruel, tortured death.  God come to earth to live out the law and be sacrificed to fulfill that law.  To accomplish perfection.  And when we talk in the Christian Code, if you will, like I said before it’s all nice and detached and almost cliché.  And I can cheat a little more on my submission to God.  And I can get a little more liberal in my “Oh that’s covered by Grace, so I’m ok” interpretations on justifying my actions.  And I can feel a little more comfortable treating my fellow man like they’re not worth my time or my trouble or even a second glance when it’s superman up there on that cross.

But when the 100% God is also 100% man – and I can see that with my own two eyes.  And I see His blood.  And I see His pain.  And I see His suffering.  And I see what He went through for me…and it’s not in that “hands over my eyes peaking through my fingers way” that I usually try to look at that part, I’m convicted.  When I see those images on that screen of the very real torture and very real crucifixion that Jesus went through, I see myself standing in front of a mirror…but instead of my face, I see the culmination of every sin I’ve ever committed.  When I see those images on the screen, and Jesus’ death becomes, not just a story in the Bible that we tell our kids, but when the images on the screen make it seem “real” for the first time – I see every bad thing that I know about me.  It’s magnified, and I see it more clearly than I’ve ever seen anything about myself.  I’m convicted, I’m stung, I’m guilty, I’m ashamed, I’m unholy, I’m unworthy, I’m a sinner, I’m dirty, I’m a liar, I’m greedy, I’m selfish, I’m hateful, I’m unforgiving, I’m …I’m the one hammering the nails into His hands and His feet.  It’s all my fault, and I’m the worst of everything I ever was.   

Listen for the Whisper that tells you…yeah, you’re every bit of all of that.  And He did it anyway, because He loves you that much.  And, Hallelujah, because He did…you’re none of that anymore!

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

We Were Soldiers Once Part 7

As Jim Morrison once said, “This is the end…my only friend, the end.”  Part 7 of the “We Were Soldiers” series of devotionals.  Although in the spirit of full disclosure, and like Yoda told Obi Ghost Kenobi “no, there is another.”  But since I said in one of the other devotionals that it was a 7-part series, I’m going to cheat and call the next one an epilogue.  That way, they still maintain their continuity.  As a Star Wars fan, I’m keenly aware that the past stuff has to line up just right with the new stuff or folks lose their minds.

But in this final (but not quite final) “We Were Soldiers” devotional, I want to look at something Mel Gibson’s character told his troops.  As they were preparing to deploy (same gathering when he said that he wouldn’t leave any of them behind from the second devotional) he tells them all “I will be the first on the battlefield, and I will be the last one off of that battlefield.”  Then as the first helicopters land at the landing zone, they show a close-up of his boot.  Zoomed in really tight, we see it step off the rail and onto the ground.  And after the final battle has been won, and the men are going back to base, we see him sit on the helicopter and another close-up of his boot as he lifts it back off the ground and onto the rail.  He was the first one on the battlefield, and the last one to leave. 

Sounds like someone else I know.  Someone that called himself “The Alpha and the Omega”.  The First and the Last. 

The First:  He was there at the Creation…Genesis 1:1, In the beginning there was God…”elohim” – the plural God.  Three-in-one God.  “Father, Son and Holy Ghost” God.  John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  The Last: Matthew 28:20, the last verse and the last thing Matthew records Jesus telling the apostles, I am with you, always, until the end of the age.  And of course, the Book of Revelation – the final battle where we are shown that Jesus will reign forever.  He’s creating and new Heaven and a new Earth.  He was there at the beginning, and He will be there at the end…or the New Beginning.  He forever was.  He forever is.  He forever will be.  “I AM”, can you dig it?

When Moses was told to go free Israel, what did he say?  “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” (Genesis 3:11)  But God told Moses that He would be with him, and Moses immediately went?  Nope, Moses talked about being slow in speech, and that he didn’t even know who to tell them who sent him.  In Judges 6, Gideon argues and argues and argues about how weak he is and SURELY God doesn’t want HIM to free Israel from Midian.  And God keeps telling Gideon that He’s with him.  And we see that over and over and over throughout the Bible, and those hard-headed folks just never seemed to get it.

And neither do we.  Despite example after example.  Despite the words of Jesus telling you that He’ll be with you.  Despite Jesus telling you that He will ask the Father for the Holy Spirit to be with us (John 14:16).  Despite ALL that…we don’t listen either sometimes.  We think we’re all alone.  We think that nobody is there to help us get through whatever it is we’re facing.  We struggle through whatever it is, wading deeper and deeper into the water, steadily doing our best to drown ourselves…because “I’m all I’ve got!”  No you’re not.  Just like Moses wasn’t, and just like Gideon wasn’t, and just like The Running Man, Jonah wasn’t.  God is with you.  1 John 4:4 “the one that is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Listen for the Whisper that is Genesis to Revelation…66 Books of Jesus telling you that “I will be the first on the battlefield, and I will be the last one off of that battlefield.”  There will be many battles.  Some larger than others, and not all of them will be battles you will win.  But through every single one of them, He’ll be there with you.  Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last.  “I AM.” Can you dig it?

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

We Were Soldiers Once Part 6

Part 6!  I guess you know you’re getting close to the end when the devotionals start NOT being about some dramatic scene or intense images, but about the music.  But that’s where we’re at.  So read on and deal with it! HAHA!!  I’m kidding, of course, but seriously we ARE talking about music this time. 

Specifically, the song “Sgt MacKenzie” by Joseph Kilna MacKenzie.  (I had to check Amazon on that one, even I’m not THAT good!)  If you google the song, you’ll see the word “haunting” show up a lot.  In an extremely thick Scottish accent, and written for the memory of his grandfather who was bayoneted (that’s actually a word) to death in World War I, MacKenzie sings from the point of view of the fighting soldier.  “When they come, I will stand my ground. Stand my ground, I’ll not be afraid.  Thoughts of home take away my fear, sweat and blood hide my veil of tears.”  As the first helicopters are leaving the base, the song is played.  It’s ominous and foreboding.  The first line is “lay me down in the cold, cold ground” and you know that bad things are ahead.  Musical foreshadowing, I suppose.  But when the music starts, you just want to yell at them to get off the helicopters!  No good is coming from this.  The song speaks death.  And everyone knows it…and there’s so much sadness, it makes you just want to cry simply hearing the song.

But then a whole movie later, the American troops are storming the base camp of the enemy at the top of the hill – and they play the same song.  Helicopters are flying in and blowing up the enemy stuff, and Mel Gibson’s troops are gunning down everything in sight, and the exact same song in playing over the footage.  “Lay me down in the cold, cold ground” and “When they come, I will stand my ground. Stand my ground, I’ll not be afraid.  Thoughts of home take away my fear, sweat and blood hide my veil of tears.”  Only now it’s not foreboding.  Not ominous.  Nothing bad happening here (to our heroes anyway).  The exact same song, and it’s now a song of courage …of valor…of overcoming …a song of victory.  And now they’ve won the battle, and there’s so much joy and feeling of relief that it’s all going to be ok.  After all the fighting and conflict and most of all death, there’s victory and triumph, and it’s all going to be ok after all.  And now the same music that made you cry before from the sadness makes you want to cry even more from the joy of victory and overcoming the enemy.

It’s funny how that happens.  The same song in two different situations produces tears for completely opposite reasons.  Like that one song written in 1779…well, not that ONE song written in 1779.  I’m sure there were several written in 1779.  But there’s only one Amazing Grace.  First-time believers responding to the call of the Gospel, the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the self-awareness of the sin in their lives will break down to tears.  So filled with guilt and sorrow.  So sorry for the way they are.  Fully realizing that Romans 5:10 says we were enemies of God.  Broken and contrite hearts begging Jesus for forgiveness and desperately wanting to be washed in the blood and made clean and Holy.  “that saved a wretch like me.”

And then there’s some dear old granny.  She’s lived long and seen much.  She’s lived through depressions and World Wars.  She’s seen death.  It’s taken friends.  It’s taken family.  It’s taken her spouse.  And soon it will take her.  And she hears Amazing Grace at church.  And she cries.  She weeps tears of joy…and of courage…and of overcoming.  Because she’s been through the many tangles, toils and snares.  And Grace has brought her safe thus far, and Grace will soon lead her home.  And she cries the tears of the victor that has overcome the enemy.

Listen for the whisper…”how sweet the sound”.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

We Were Soldiers Once Part 5

We Were Soldiers Once, Part 5.  The government is using a taxi company to deliver the “we deeply regret” letters.  Good ol’ government.  Draft you into war, then send someone else to tell the family that you’ve died.  But in one scene, a taxi driver stops at Mel Gibson’s house to ask directions – his wife, of course, thinks the worst and then jumps all over him “do you know what you did to me?!”  The typical “I thought you were about to tell me that my husband was dead!!” reaction I would imagine.  He tells her “ma’am I don’t like this job,” and you realize that the guy on that side of the fence has his own struggles.  We feel her anger and outrage, and with that one look he gives to her, and the little head hang as he turns to leave, you realize that this guy has an awful job.  We complain about our jobs, and here’s a guy that goes to work KNOWING that he has horrible news to deliver.  He needs help, and he deserves sympathy.  He knows that with every letter he holds, there’s a dead soldier attached to it, and a devastated family in his future.  A family that may forever associate his face with delivering the tragic news.  And every single day, he has to get up and force himself to go to work in order to provide for his own family.

How often do we see people – see their appearance, hear 10 seconds of a conversation and jump to conclusions about their predicament?  Decide that those people are just trash?  Or that guy’s just useless?  Or that person just is perfectly content being in that situation?  “If they cared at all about being”…you name it…out of a job or overweight or addicted to drugs or living under an overpass, “then they’d obviously do something about it!”  Wouldn’t they?!  Of course they would…and why would they?  Well because we’ve decided that they would.  Because we’ve seen a short snapshot of their condition and judged them and their position and decided that they must LIKE being where they are or otherwise they’d fix it.  So There!

But identifying a problem and fixing a problem are two drastically different ideas.  When I’m driving behind a pickup truck on the interstate in Memphis, and his driver’s side front wheel comes off and starts bouncing across three lanes of traffic, while his truck, that has suddenly become a tripod (to borrow a Ron White line) is sparking down the road – true story, by the way – well that’s an EASY problem to identify.  “Hey buddy, here’s your problem…your wheel and tire are bouncing off south toward the wall at 50 miles an hour while you’re still going west, albeit MUCH slower!”  But fixing his condition is considerably more complicated.  And not likely to be one he can fix alone.

But we don’t look at that side of it.  Rarely do we walk a mile in their shoes.  We’ll scream that at anyone who judges us, surely – but rarely do we look at others like that.  What got you here?  How can I help you get out it?  An addiction problem?  How about finding someone to talk to – get some accountability.  No, not some court representative that threatens you into giving it up.  But someone that cares about you.  Someone that will be concerned when you stumble…and will be there to help you up.  There’s a line from an old song by the band Poison (“Something to Believe In”) that talks about a suicidal Vietnam Vet…”their bullets took his best friends in Saigon, our lawyers took his wife and kids, no regrets.  In a time I don’t remember, and a war he can’t forget.”  He didn’t choose his path, but like I mentioned in the last devotional, he now finds himself dealing with a situation that he was drug sideways into.  Kenny Rogers said that it wasn't him that started that old crazy Asian war.  But millions are struggling after fighting in wars they had nothing to do with.  And struggles take on many faces…drugs, weight problems, anger issues.

We need to learn to not yell at the taxi drivers.  We need to quit “yeah right”ing at the “Homeless Vet, God Bless” signs we see along the roads.  They’re all God’s children.  They all have a story.  And their story may not include lucky breaks, happy endings, or quick fixes.  But their story is one that God knows.  And when Jesus says in Matthew 10:30 and Luke 12:7 that the hairs on your head are numbered…he’s not just talking to you.  Listen for the Whisper that tells you that He’s talking about them, too.  And instead of looking down our noses or judging their plight, we need to realize that.  “Whatever you did for the least of these.”

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

We Were Soldiers Once Part 4

So now we’ve arrived at Episode 4 based on the movie “We Were Soldiers”.  Episode 4 is The New Hope, right?  Wait…wrong movie.  Anyway, I want to mention 2 scenes from “We Were Soldiers” to start things off.  When the first helicopters land on the battlefield, the American soldiers immediately see enemy soldiers all over.  The fighting starts to secure the area.  One American squad leader takes off running after an enemy scout to try and catch him.  The scout just keeps running farther away.  The squad leader keeps yelling to his squad to catch the scout.  The whole squad is running and chasing.  Pow!  Then it’s ambush.  Squad leader dies.  Several soldiers die.  They’re cut off from the rest, and it’s just really bad all the way around.  The next scene is from later in the movie.  The enemy is trying to overpower the Americans with sheer numbers and getting in really close.  The enemy has decided that American artillery is extremely effective, so they’ll get so close to the Americans that it can’t be used.  The enemy is breaking the American perimeter along the entire line, and Mel Gibson orders “Broken Arrow” immediately summoning all available air support.  The little radio guy is calling out coordinates, and the planes are dropping napalm and everything.  But then he calls out a wrong coordinate and a napalm bomb gets dropped on some Americans.  Mel tells him to shake it off, and keep the air support coming.  He reassured the guy that he didn’t have time to dwell on the mistake…if he lets that one mistake freeze him, then they would all die. 

What’s the common thread?  One person makes one poor choice, a mistake, maybe even just an accident…trying to do good, but just slipped up and all sorts of extra dominoes start falling.  And once the mistakes are made…the accidents happen…you can’t take them back.  Once they’re made, they’re made and the consequences will be what they are.  And, yeah, sometimes you end up being the one paying the consequences for someone else’s mistake.  You were over here minding your own business.  Blam!  Here’s some junk to deal with.  Sometimes it’s little things like things at work.  Sometimes it’s big things…car accidents…medical mishaps…fluke situations…and you’re not cleaning up a hassle at work, you’re piecing together life after death.  But how long do we stand there complaining about what got us here instead of just dealing with it and moving forward?  To point some generic fingers, there’s a guy in my office that will call me over to see something quirky with how our program is behaving.  “See, when I do this, it does this…and when I do that, it does that.  Have you ever seen it do that?”  Well, no – but apparently this one is doing it, so I suggest not doing that.  “Well that’s just weird!  When I do this, it does this…and when I do that, it does that.”  And instead of just grabbing the bull by his proverbial horns and just avoiding the “when I do that it does that” scenario, he’ll go back and forth between the two probably a dozen times just griping that it happens every time it happens.

We’re given freedom from our past in Jesus.  The mistakes of our past are remembered no more.  Does that mean that in the near-term of our human existence that we won’t feel grief or anger or confusion – or a combination all three and then some extras just for good measure – as we sort through putting the pieces back together?  Of course not!  And it would be silly to realistically expect someone to do that…especially if it’s dealing with a death – or the breaking of trust between husband and wife – or best friends.  On a semi-tangental (another made up word, sorry) side note, in “Revenge of the Sith” Yoda (the little green used-to-be puppet, who is now computer animated) tells Anakin (Darth Vader to be) when discussing death of someone close to rejoice with those that have become one with the Force.  ”Mourn them do not.  Miss them do not.”  And sometimes as Christians we’re kind of trained into thinking that we’re doing something wrong when we selfishly wish that our loved ones were still here.  Jesus wept.  It’s ok to miss someone.  But back to the larger, central point, it’s not an issue of making or someone else making mistakes, it’s moving forward now that they’re made.

In the Lion King, Rafiki is the little witch doctor monkey…I’ve always called him “the drunk monkey” because of his odd behavior and crazy cackling.  But when Rafiki comes to Simba (who has run away after blaming himself for his father’s death) to tell him that it’s time to be the king he should be.  Simba brings up allllll of the stuff that went wrong before.  And Rafiki responds by cracking Simba across the head with his stick.  Simba aks, “What did you do that for?!”  And what does Rafiki say?  “It doesn’t matter.  It’s in the past.”  It doesn’t matter how we got here.  Here is where we are.  This is the situation we have to deal with.  I think it sounds vaguely familiar to John 21.

Peter has spent 3 years following Jesus around the area.  “Jesus, if that’s you walking on the water, call me out there, because I want to do whatever you do!”  “Oh yeah!!  Trying to arrest MY Jesus?  I’ll just hack off your ear!”  “I’d NEVER deny you, Jesus!”  Before the rooster crows, you’ll deny me three times.  “Nuh-uh!  No, I won’t!”  Then he did.  Three times.  Just like Jesus told him he would.

Judas was so overcome with guilt for his betrayal that he tried to give the silver back, but they wouldn’t take it.  So instead, he bought a field and hung himself on it.  Peter probably didn’t feel much better.  After three years, and all the healings and witnessing and walking on water and “Nuh-uh! I’d never deny you”ing…he denied Jesus anyway.  He did it even though he was warned that he would do it.  (and somehow we think our witnessing for Jesus will always be perfect?)  But what happened after?  In John 21 Jesus comes back to Peter after the resurrection.  I can only imagine (to borrow a line) what Peter felt.  I mean, what do you do?  See Him and throw your arms around Him thankful He lived like He said He would?  Do you feel the immediate guilt of denying Him?  I say “immediate”, I would have beating myself up over it from the time it happened until I saw Him again.  Are you scared that He’s going to be mad that you denied Him?  21:7 tells us that Peter jumped out of the boat to swim to shore to see Jesus…I guess that should be our reaction, too.  But did Jesus brow-beat Peter?  Pull a Fred Sanford on him?  “You big dummy!  I told you that you’d deny me!”  Nope.  Didn’t even mention it all…and neither did Peter.  Jesus just told him, “If you love me, feed my sheep”.  Peter, we are where we are.  So let’s start from here and go where we go.

Most of us know 1Peter 5:7 that says the devil is a roaring lion seeking to devour.  (And to quote the President) “Let’s be clear about one thing.”  The devil will use bigger, more elaborate traps that using an enemy scout to lead you to an ambush.  Be on your guard.  And just like the separated squad had Mel to come save them, we have Jesus.  But even on your best guard, you’re going to have to deal with a mistake. 

Listen for the Whisper that tells you that sometimes we have to deal with a mess.  Sometimes it’s a big mess that had nothing to do with us.  And yes, there will be a time to be angry and disappointed and sorrowful and regretful and all that.  Then we need to pull ourselves together and get on with the “dealing with it” part of it.  Jesus didn’t beat Peter up over his one mistake, and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up either.  Or others.  I know some mistakes are harder to get over than others…especially when you’ve been dragged sideways into dealing with one because of something stupid that someone else did.  But to be effective Christians, we have to practice forgiveness, and yes that includes forgiving ourselves.  Like the radio operator with the mistaken coordinates, sometimes things go badly wrong…but we have to shake it off as best we can and get back to making things right.  It’s not our mistakes that define us as Christians.  It’s how we move forward after them that does.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

We Were Soldiers Once Part 3

This is the third devotional in a looks-like-seven-part series based on the movie “We Were Soldiers”.  In this devotional, I want to look at several times in the movie when, in the middle of the fight, Mel Gibson’s character, Colonel Moore keeps getting orders to leave the battle.  To be airlifted out on the next helicopter.  But instead of being eager to get out, he’s determined to stay as long as it takes to win the fight.  Ignoring and openly refusing to obey several direct orders to return to base on the next helicopter.  In the movie, the reason is that Headquarters doesn’t want to lose Colonel Moore and wants him out of what they consider a lost battle before it’s too late.  But instead of getting out, he stands beside his men and fights until the battle is won or he’s killed trying to win it.  But he refuses to jump on a helicopter and run because things look bleak.

How often do we do that with the world?  We get upset about elections, or tragedies involving kids, or the seemingly ever-decreasing morals in this country and refusal to accept that there IS a right and wrong.  Sometimes we start feeling overwhelmed.  “The world’s winning.”  Are we constantly looking for the helicopter out – “The world is too far gone, I just wish Jesus would hurry up and come back and get me out of here.”  Are we looking forward so much to when we’re called home, that we’re like the ostrich with its head stuck in the ground (they don’t really do that) trying ignore what’s happening around us?  Are we like the five-year-old that doesn’t want to hear that it’s time to clean up his room, so he sticks his fingers in his ears and yells “La-la-la-la!  I can’t hear you!  La-la-la-la!” not realizing that by doing that, he’s only making his parents angry?  Because that’s almost a perfect analogy.

We’re to “work ‘til Jesus comes” – not throw our hands up and just wait for it all to be over.  The Bible is clear that God wants us to work to make this world like Heaven.  We’re even told to pray “Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”  But sometimes we don’t feel like we can make a difference.  “What can I do?  This whole place is going to pot, how can I stop it?”  Congratulate the devil if you’ve ever had that thought.  Because he’s succeeded in making you think that you’re doing it alone – when you’re clearly not alone.  God is still God over all.  Jesus still died to make you Holy.  The Holy Spirit is still active trying to help sanctify you.  And billions of Christians in the world are praying for God to heal our planet.  War, pollution, religious indifference…it’s all the same.  They’re all symptoms of a broken planet.  So do we roll up our sleeves, and say “Ok God.  I’ll need a lot of help, but I’m going to try to fix as much of this as I can!”  Or do we see just how big we’ve let the mess get and just say “Ok God.  Even YOU can’t clean this up…just come rescue me out of this mess.  I’ll be over here with my fingers in my ears la-la-la-ing while I wait for you to get here.”

Hal Moore didn’t give up, and he didn’t get overwhelmed – he fought with his men and beside his men until the battle was won, and then and only then did he leave the battlefield.  Now don’t get me wrong – if God shows up in a helicopter and orders me to get on, I’m not arguing with Him.  But until then, we have work to do.  God created this world and gave it to us.  Then look what we’ve let happen to it.  When Cameron breaks something or spills something – I’m (finally now getting some patience and am) able to say “hey, things happen” so long as he’s trying to fix it.  If he’s spills half a gallon of chocolate milk in the floor, my expectation is, however, that he run and get a towel and try to fix the mess – even if he calls me to help.  Not to stand there staring at it waiting for me to come in and clean it up myself after I’ve heard the commotion and come to investigate what’s going on in the kitchen with all the racket.  So if God’s given us a planet, and Satan has done a wonderful job spilling chocolate milk all over it – are we going to try and clean it up or are we going to just sit there and look at it waiting for God to come fix it Himself?  I think the “good and faithful servants” are the ones that realize that God gave this all to us.  And then trusted us to take care of it…and they do what they can to fix as much of what’s wrong with it as they can.

Listen for the Whisper that says that there’s chocolate milk all around us that needs cleaning up.  Maybe it’s cleaning up part of a polluted world – or working to keep it from getting worse.  Maybe it’s a lost soul that you know that needs to be washed in the blood and made clean.  Maybe it’s a group of people that are supposed to be different from the world…but instead they relish in all the worst of what the world offers while they justify their actions or lie to themselves about what it means to be a Christian.  Not enjoying the beauty of God’s Creation, but enjoying the perversion we’ve twisted it into being, and you have to be the one in the group to stand up and say “guys, this isn’t right…we’re not supposed to talk/act/be like this.”  Don’t just sit around waiting for God to come fix it or to just miracle you away from it.  “We’ll work ‘til Jesus comes…THEN we’ll be gathered home.” Pretty sure that’s the right order – even if the song doesn’t use the word “then”.  In 2 Timothy 2:15 Paul told Timothy to “Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker”, not “make every effort to ignore as much of the bad stuff as you can for as long as you can, and hope God will come get you so you don’t have to look at it anymore.” 

“Well done, good and faithful servant!  You were faithful in ignoring the few things that I entrusted to you as they slowly decayed into ruin (partially due to your own complete lack of concern about it), and all you were willing to do to fix it was wish for me to hurry up and come back so I could clean it all up myself.”  Is that really what we expect to hear Him say?  Revelation tells us that Jesus will create a new Heaven and new Earth – let’s try to make His job a little bit easier by working to make this world and the things in it more like Heaven while we’re waiting eagerly for His return.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com