Go Back Jack and Do It Again

Let’s start today’s devotional like a preacher – that is to say open with an old joke.

A farmer's in the middle of a flood. The river is overflowing, with water surrounding his house up to his front porch. He's standing there watching the water rising, and a guy rows up in a boat.  The guy says "Jump in! I'll take you to safety."  The farmer crosses his arms and says stubbornly, "Nope, I put my trust in God."

So the boat goes away.

The water rises so high that the farmer's climbing up on his roof when another boat comes by.  The man says to the farmer, "Jump in! I'll row you to safety.  "The farmer struggles up on the roof but again says, "Nope, I put my trust in God."

So the boat goes away.

The water rises so high that the farmer is standing on the very top of his chimney with barely enough room for both feet with water completely surrounding him and still rising…when a helicopter flies over and drops a rope ladder. The pilot yells down to the farmer "I'll save you!  Climb up the ladder."  The farmer says as he’s falling into the water, "Nope, I put my trust in God." 

So the helicopter flies away.

 The water keeps rising, and the farmer drowns.  He gets to heaven, and God sees him and says "What are you doing here?"  The farmer says "I’m wondering the same thing!  I put my trust in You, and You let me down."  God says, "What do you mean, I let you down? I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want me to do?!"

What more did you want me to do?  In Joshua 6, God tells them to walk around the walls of Jericho.  Do it once a day for 6 days, then on the seventh day, do it seven times.  Then have priests blow the rams’ horns.  When you hear the rams’ horns, pretend you’ve heard the secret word and “scream real loud”.  And all of Israel said, “Really?  Walk some laps, toot a horn and yell at the wall?  That’s your plan, God?  Have you seen that wall?  It’s a big wall, God.  Not quite sure that walking around the wall is going to do much except reiterate to us how big it is.  And we’re also pretty sure that a horn concert for the wall and some Braveheart-type yelling at the wall isn’t going to do much either, but whatever you say, God.”  They did, the wall collapsed, and Israel defeats Jericho.   

2 Kings 5…Naaman…Commander of the Syrian Army gets leprosy.  He goes to his king, who sends an email over to Israel’s king and tells him that they’ve heard that maybe Israel’s God can help.  Israel’s king thinks it’s a trap.  But good old Elisha, who asked for and then got double the spirit that Elijah had, says to them, “God’s got this.”  So Elisha tells his servant to go tell Naaman, “Go wash in the river seven times, and the leprosy will wash away.”  And Naaman gets mad.  “Who are you, and where’s Elisha?  And what do you mean just go wash it away?  It’s leprosy, mon frère!  It isn’t going to wash away.  Seven times or a hundred and seven times isn’t going to matter much.  It’s LEP-PRO-SEE!  You can’t scrape leprosy off even with Lava Soap, and that stuff could take the fish stink off of Jonah!  And it’s not even like it’s even some grand quest to go find some miracle cure – just go wash in the river!  Bah!  What kind of stupid cure is that?  But fine, whatever, I’ll play your silly little game!”  And Naaman goes and washes seven times.  And what happens?  2 Kings 5:14 says that his skin became as smooth as a young child’s.  Had it happened today, I have no doubt Naaman would have bottled it and sold it on a late night infomercial.

Meanwhile, on the Numbers 21 channel, they had just gone to commercial at verse 7 with the Israelites being bitten by snakes.  They were dying left and right and begging for help.  Coming out of commercial, God is telling Moses to put a snake on a stick and have the people look at it to heal the snake bites.  So Moses builds a bronze snake and puts it on a pole and tells the people, “God says he will heal you of your snake bites and all you have to do to get this miracle is look at the snake.  You don’t have to call now.  You don’t have to send $19.99.  You don’t need to send 5 UPC symbols to Battle Creek, Michigan.  Just look at the snake.” And Israel (I feel sure) said, “Really?  Folks dead all over and you expect us to believe that just LOOKING at some snake-stick is going to heal us?  I think I’m delirious and losing consciousness, Moses, because I’m just hearing things now.  I mean, I really think I just heard you tell me that looking at a snake on a stick would heal me. Riiiight.”  But what happened to those that looked at the snake?  They lived.

Then there’s the Thanksgiving sermon over in Luke 17.  Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem…He’s somewhere between Samaria and Galilee, and there’s ten lepers.  They see Jesus coming and start yelling to Him, “Have mercy on us! Heal us!”  And what does He tell them?  Does Jesus say, “Presto Chango No Mo’ Lepro”?  Nope.  He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests.  The Bible says they go, but it doesn’t record conversation.  I’m sure it was more of the same for the first little bit.  “Oh sure, Jesus, we’ll walk over there and show ourselves to the priests.  Why not?  They’ve not told us before that we have leprosy.  They’re not the ones that ran us out here and called us unclean.  I’m sure they’re gonna LOVE us just walking up in the middle of everything just to show them our leprosy…AGAIN.”  And then one notices that as they’ve walked on, they’ve been slowly getting better.

And what does Jesus tell the one of the ten that came back to thank Him?  “Your faith has made you well.”  And therein lies the point of the whole devotional with all of its silly made-up conversations.  We shouldn’t just sit back, doing nothing and wait for God to fix things for us.  Listen for the Whisper that tells you to not just “Humpf” up with our arms crossed, sit on the couch, and refuse to budge until God fixes our situation.  Maybe He’s given you several windows to jump through.  Maybe He’s sent 2 boats and then a helicopter of opportunity for you to use.  But you didn’t want to walk around the wall for a week because it seemed unproductive for crumbling your wall (but it will).  Or didn’t want to try and bathe away leprosy because the problem you have isn’t something you think can wash away so easily (but it will).  Or you refuse to look at a snake pole to be healed because something as bad as your snakebite won’t be healed by looking at some stupid pole (but it will).  Or maybe you refuse to go show your problems to anyone, and there’s no point in going and showing them again because simply doing what Jesus tells you won’t fix your problems (but it will).  Instead you wanted to just sit there and wait for God to miracle you out of whatever predicament you’re in.  Maybe like Salvation, God wants to see if you’re serious about believing Him.  Sure He could just snap His fingers and fix your problem.  And sometimes He does.  And sometimes He asks you do something that seems insanely ineffectual simply to make sure that when it’s all over, there’s NO doubt who it was that solved your problem.  Because then you’ll say, “You’ll never believe this, but…” and then you’ll give God the glory when you tell someone how you were rescued.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

With A Little Help From My Friends

What would do if I typed out of tune?  Would you stand up and walk out on me?  Well, if you call yourself my friend, that is?  What about if I ran onto hard times?  Would you come over and help me out?  Would you offer me money – either by offering it directly to me or just quietly, behind-the-scenes taking care of some bills for me?  If I needed help after an injury or a surgery, would you offer to come mow my yard?  Would you even pick up the phone to check on me?

No, I’m not making a checklist of those that have or haven’t ever done that for me in the past.  I’m talking about Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.  Who are they, and what do they have to do with anything?  They’re Job’s three friends.  As a whole, if you’ve been to church or read the Bible much at all, you’re more than familiar with Job and his struggles.  But what about his “friends”?  Have you ever given them much consideration?  We will today.  And you can decide if you’d want friends like Job’s.

We pretty much all know this one, so we’ll fast-forward a bit.  Job’s covered in sores.  His wife is telling him to “curse God, and die” (Job 2:9).  His friends come and see him, but they see that he’s suffering and want to “give him space”.  So they wait a week, just sitting with him, before they say anything.  And when Job finally feels like talking, he opens up in Chapter 3 and wishes he was never born or died at birth, or would just die in general like his wife suggested (without the “curse God” part).  And sitting with him for a week and hearing his wailing and wishes for death, Chapter 4 begins as Eliphaz offers one of those “could be encouragement, could be a little shot at Job” statements.  We like to do that with our friends, don’t we?  But it’s a “hey, Job…all this time you’ve talked about God and encouraged others, and now it happens to you and where’s your faith?”  But just in case Job missed that Eliphaz was doing it, Eliphaz takes the chance to encourage and starts pointing fingers.  “Hey, Job!”  (and to interrupt at this point, is anybody else hearing Paul McCartney in their heads right now singing “Hey! Job…don’t be afraid”  ok, never mind.)  But yeah, “Hey, Job!  Don’t you know that we’re just pottery, and God is in control of it all?  I mean, even by whining about it, you’re acting like you’re smarter than God when he chooses one vessel for noble purposes and whatnot.”  Because THAT’S what Job really needed.  No encouragement.  No lifting up.  No “we’ll get through this.”  Just a “well, you DO realize that in the grand scheme of things, none of this matters to the flow of the world, right?  Because God is still God, you’re just Job.”  Thanks, Eliphaz…by the way, nice name.  Not quite what Job said in Chapter 6, but he still calls them out for not standing beside him when he needed them.  Good ol’ Eliphaz.  A friend is sick and needing help, and his first friend dumps some cosmic, theologic, relevancy on him.  Thanks a bunch, Eliphaz…isn’t your mom calling?

Then there’s Bildad.  Surely after hearing the first one beat Job while he’s down and hearing Job’s “gee, thanks, guys” reply, Bildad will step up and take up for his friend.  Nah.  Bildad wants to gets judgmental.  “now, Job, you DO realize that all of this is happening because of something you did wrong, right?  I mean, God’s infinite wisdom like Eliphaz mentioned aside, bad things only happen to people that deserve it.  You DO know that, right?  I mean, you’re Job, and you’re a really good guy…but surely you’ve got something in the closet to deserve all of this!  Some alcoholism…something…you beat your wife, right?! That’s it!  I mean, you’re in a bad way and all…but I have to reserve my pity, because God’s punishing you for something!”  Gee, thanks for the sermon, Bildad.  That’s makes me feel a ton better now that I know you think I’m hiding some sin from my friends.  A week ago, I was a great guy…charities, helping people, offering wise advice…now I’m deserving all of this stuff.  Thanks.  Oh, and for the record, I’m not hiding anything.  “Sure you are, Job!  This doesn’t happen to good people!!  I mean, c’mon…haven’t you read John 9 that will be written in a thousand years or so?!  Even these disciple people asked Jesus about a blind guy which of his parents sinned…so you HAVE to have done SOMETHING!”  That’s really helping a bunch, Bildad.  I’m feeling better already.  Isn’t Eliphaz’ mom calling you two knuckleheads?

Then Zophar – who maybe might have learned something from watching Eliphaz and Bildad – steps in and pulls the classic “man, it would be SO much easier to understand why this is happening to you if God would just tell us why it was happening…but maybe you better just be safe and repent for something.”  And Job says, “what?”

And they pretty much repeat that pattern a couple of times until God sorta pulls the Eliphaz card Himself and asks Job who he thinks he is to demand answer and explanations from God.  But through the whole of the book…not once do Job’s friends offer to carry his burden. Not once do they offer to help him.  They’re there with him, and quick to offer advice that doesn’t help anything.  But where in the entire book of Job did they actually help him with anything?  They must have been pretty close to Job – I mean, they sat with him for a week in silence with him, after all.  But where was the actual help?  Probably wouldn’t appreciate it if our friends did that to us, but do we do that to do them?  I asked earlier if you’d want friends like Job’s, and I’m not sure that I would.  Would you want a friend that tells you that it doesn’t really matter because we’re just a blip on the universe’s radar?  Would you want a friend to keep arguing with you that the bad stuff happening to you is your fault?  Would you want a friend that just sits with you and whines about God?  I don’t really need any of those three to be perfectly honest.  And I hope that I’ve not been that kind of friend to somebody.  And yes, I know I just wrote a “We Don’t Need Another Hero” devotional  making Eliphaz’s point exactly, but the fact that it’s biblically accurate doesn’t mean that’s what a friend needs to hear when they’ve had the blocks knocked out from under them, and they’re hanging by a very thin thread.  A story about the 2 sparrows sold for a penny or the hairs on their head being numbered might serve a little better as a biblical truth.

But to look a little closer – why did Job’s friends act that way?  Proverbs 19:4 says, wealth adds many friends, but a poor person is separated from his friends.  So was that possibly part of the problem with Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar?  Is it that they used to be friends of the guy everyone in the whole countryside loved and respected…but now…now he’s that homeless guy with the sores?  Is there a little finger pointing and whispering down at the Uz-Mart (Job was from Uz) because they’re associated with him?  Is it the fact that now everyone is gossiping about Job these days, and there’s a negative stigma attached to being his friends?  Are they being harassed to get the “real story”, and so now there’s some animosity toward Job for dragging THEM into HIS problems?  Are they a little upset because Job losing his own status means that they’ve lost their status – a status that maybe had nothing to do with them in the first place?  I don’t know.  We’re not given their statuses in the Bible.  But maybe their actions toward Job are what they are because their hearts weren’t where they should have been as “friends”.

Listen for the Whisper that tells you to not be like Job’s friends.  When you have a friend that needs help, don’t show up blabbering at the mouth griping about God or the ex-girlfriend/boyfriend or pointing fingers at them.  What they need is help getting through the rough patch they’re going through…not Dr. Phil analyzing the “why” of their issues.  Be the friend that Jesus describes in John 15 willing to lay down his life for his friends.  Sometimes when we try to use our mouths to say something helpful, we mess up and say something stupid.  I think Job’s friends would have better friends if they would have just continued to sit quietly with him.  Not once did they offer to pray with him…which would have been more helpful than any accusations they continued to make.  So remember the kind of friend you’re supposed to be as a Christian.  Being a Christian is what we’re to be no matter what we do…including being a friend.  Be a Christian friend that knows how to help.  Let your friendship speak with actions.  Don’t wait for them to ask, but volunteer “what do you need me to do for you this afternoon, so that you can go handle (whatever it is you’ve been forced to deal with)?”  Give a hug, let them be reassured that you’re there for them…then just shut up if there’s nothing good to say.  Don’t help them run down their ex-girlfriend because “we always thought she was a this and whatever, and we always knew she’d run off with what’-his-name.”  Don’t blame them for their husband leaving.  Don’t tell them that it’s their own dumb fault that they’re sitting there with a broken leg for trying to clean the ceiling fan by standing on the foosball table, so they can figure out all on their own how to mow the yard while they’re sitting in the wheelchair. 

None of that is Christian.  Lift them up by lifting them up in prayer.  Help them out of the mud they’re stuck in.  Don’t grab handfuls of it and throw it at them or anyone else.  Colossians 3:17 offers the best advice on how to be a Christian…whether that be a Christian dad, a Christian co-worker, a mad Christian in traffic…or a Christian friend:  “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”  If your method of helping a friend doesn’t fit that mold, maybe you just sit with them quietly.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

Forest For The Trees

Anybody who’s ever done any hunting or fishing has their own personal, quirky “you won’t believe it” hunting or fishing story.  My dad’s hunting story happened while he was muzzleloader hunting years ago.  He was sitting up in his stand all deer-hunter-like.  A deer came out into the open and stood there broadside for the perfect shot.  Dad took aim – and he was a great shot – and pulled the trigger.  The gun roared thunder, fire and smoke (the best part of muzzleloader hunting, if you ask me).  And the deer?  Oh, he ran away…White tail flagging its warning as he ran away unscathed.  Dad was thinking “surely I hit it”.  SO he climbed down from his stand and started looking around where he had seen (and shot) the miracle deer standing in the clearing.  Blood?  Blood?  My kingdom for some blood!  But, no, there was no blood.  It was apparently truly a miracle deer…or a zombie!!  It was a perfect shot, so it must be dead – and yet it ran away without a single drop of blood.  So as he was standing where the deer was, he turned and looked back toward his tree stand.  And right in a direct line between his stand and the “deer used to be here” spot, there was a small sapling tree.  “No way!” And sure enough as he walked around to his deer stand side of that little tree, there was his lead muzzleloader ball imbedded cleanly in the tree.  The only thing that stood between his deer stand and the deer was one little tree that he hadn’t even noticed as he had taken aim at the deer.  And that little tree stopped the bullet, and saved the deer’s life.  (Unless it was a zombie!!)

On a somewhat related but totally different note, there’s Jim Croce.  The American Folk singer who sang “Time In A Bottle”, “Alabama Rain”, and “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” and had the thick, bushy Super Mario Brothers mustache before Super Mario Brothers mustaches were cool – THAT Jim Croce.  Who was not, by the way, a zombie.  He died in a plane crash five days after I was born.  He was in Louisiana and had just finished a concert at Northwestern State University an hour before the plane crash that took his life.  The crash was ultimately blamed on pilot error by the NTSB.  The plane had apparently clipped a lone pine tree near the end of the runway and crashed killing all four people on board.  The report stated that the pilot failed to see and avoid objects, and that the plane failed to achieve an altitude sufficient to clear the tree.  And the most sad and tragic part of the whole crash?  The investigators reported that the tree that the plane clipped was the only tree for hundreds of yards.

And a tale of two trees – like the devotional on the Tree of Life way back when – is what we have here.  One tree saved the life of a deer.  Another tree killed four people.  Both trees were alone in their surroundings.  Both were completely overlooked.  Two people with their eyes on what was lying beyond didn’t see the tree that was right in front of them.  Listen for the Whisper that sings in a George of the Jungle sorta way telling you to “watch out for that tree.”  Don’t be so focused on the “what lies beyond” and miss the tree.  Don’t miss the tree that causes you to stumble and miss your target.  The temptation that starts you down a road to addiction.  The person needing help that you overlook as you look way off into the distance.  Don’t miss the tree that creates an unchangeable outcome.  The tree of brash behavior.  The tree of unchristian living – of non-sacrifice that you don’t see in your own life.  Paul had a thorn and prayed for it to be removed.  God told him no, but Paul was aware the thorn was there.  Like the tree that stopped dad’s bullet, they don’t have to be big trees.  And like the solitary pine tree that killed Jim Croce, there doesn’t need to be lot of trees to cause you problems.  You can’t always remove the trees…but you need to be on the lookout for them just the same.  Avoid them if you can.  Ask for help climbing them if you can’t.  But watch out for the tree.  Heaven is our goal, but the devil is trying for all he’s worth to trip us up.  A tree to block the Gospel message…a tree to turn you from God.  Lots of different trees out there, but all it takes is one to change something forever.  Watch out for that tree.

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com

I Need a "Do Over"

I’ve read that ADHD folks like me are accident prone.  As a class of people on the whole, we’re just clumsy.  I guess because we can’t pay enough attention to walking to be able to do it without complications.  And as for me, although I don’t like to admit it, I just make a ton of mistakes.  Writing these devotionals has been enormously taxing on me, since I have a bad habit of thinking MUCH faster than I type.  And so I type things – or write them out long-hand – and end up leaving out half a dozen randomly-scattered words (you’ve probably seen some go out that way).  So I type these, let them sit and ferment for a bit, then go back and fix all the words that I’ve left out.  Because, like I said, I don’t like to admit it – but I do make mistakes.  And as if to prove my own point, in proof-reading this first, short paragraph, I’ve fixed four “left out” words.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” But I look at some of the bad things that I’ve seen happen lately.  Either by bad personal choices, or accidents that couldn’t be changed or avoided.  And families are devastated.  Sometimes people die.  Innocent people driving on their way to a family vacation get caught up in an accident that they couldn’t avoid or foresee.  And I find myself scratching my head and wondering how God is working for good in a tragedy like this.  But I’m not alone.  And I suppose our ability to find a “good” depends a great deal on our perspective (and our relation to the tragedy).  But I was reading lately, and of course it was good, old Peter.  Brash, quick-acting, think-it-through-later Peter that made me realize exactly what God means that all things work for good.  And the scene dissolves movie-style and the film becomes sepia-toned as we fade back to that night…

Jesus on trial (I know you know this one, so I’ll be brief) and three times Peter denies knowing Jesus at all.  “no, I’m not one of his disciples, I don’t even KNOW this guy!  Cursing, cursing!” (Mark 14:71)  And that’s the example I always think of when my faith falls short.  Peter walked with Jesus for a LONG time, and when push came to shove Peter denied knowing Him at all.  And, boy, that sounds pretty bad.  But what might have happened had Peter stood strong?  It might have been Peter hanging on one of those three crosses that day.  Jesus in the middle, and instead of two thieves, it was Peter and the mocking thief.  And how does that change things?  Well, there’s at least one thief that Jesus told would be with Him in Paradise that wouldn’t have.  One thief mocks Jesus, the other sees Jesus for who He is.  If Peter is on that cross, then maybe that redeemed thief never finds his salvation.  So there’s a “good” that happened.  The sermon on Pentecost in Acts 2 followed that.  Then Peter raised Dorcus from the dead, and Acts 9 says that people all throughout Joppa heard of this and believed in the Lord.  Then Peter has a vision of clean and unclean animals telling him that the gospel of Jesus Christ was for everyone – not just the Jewish Nation.   So when Cornelius the Centurion sends for Peter, he goes.  And baptizes Gentiles into Jesus Christ’s body.  I would certainly call that a “good”.  Somewhere between 64 and 68 AD (we assume), he wrote 1 and 2 Peter – which include some of my favorite Bible reading.  Including one of my favorites for those that doubt my beliefs – 2 Peter 1:16 “For we did not follow cleverly concocted fables when we made known to you the power and return of our Lord Jesus Christ; no, we were eyewitnesses of his grandeur.”  I just love Peter.  I’m not alone, I know…but man, when I look at where I’ve been, and where I’ve changed from there…man, I just love Peter.

So Listen for the Whisper that tells you that all things work for the good of those that love God.  That doesn’t mean that only good things will happen, but that God can take anything and make something good come out of it.  My dad died of pancreatic cancer – but not before he found Life.  Saul persecuted a young church – and then died in Rome feeding that very church.  Peter stood there watching Jesus on trial and denied even knowing who he was…and then took off like a man possessed.  Bad things happen, and people make bad choices.  But don’t sell God short in His ability to use those circumstances to His glory…because in the end, it’s about His glory…it’s not about you.  My mistakes may not make me look good, but if will just get out of the way when they happen, God can use them to do great things!

~Dwayne

ListenForTheWhisper@comcast.net

http://listenforthewhisper.blogspot.com