Bell's Palsy; Day Three

            During the second day, I realized that I was going to have trouble eating. I had experienced some difficulty late during the first day, but I woke up and my lip control had deteriorated a bit more.

            Now I had an eye patch. Which looked rakishly adventurous. The patch held a ‘cotton round’ (used by women to apply or remove makeup) that kept my eye lid closed to prevent dry eye. Actually, that was a necessity. Without the patch to keep my eye closed, it was not more than a minute that my eyes would both start tearing up and I’d have to hold my left eye closed with my hand. I began to wonder: if I have to wear a patch for up to several months, what will that do to my vision?

            The other part of wearing the patch was the immediate effect: I was now functionally blind in one eye. Very inconvenient. Not only had I lost depth perception, but my right (uncovered) eye is not my dominate one. I did try driving and found I could do it. But I had to borrow technique from my old roommate back in college who once had a job teaching legally blind people how to drive. 

            Back to eating. I drove myself over to another breakfast appointment and found that I could not eat very nicely so had to figure out how to smoothly slide my bagel around my lips and not bite myself. It was tricky. Drinking coffee was a challenge, as well. I slurped more than I was comfortable with.

            At the same time, I realized that my speech was beginning to slightly slur.

OK, this is problematic for a guy who makes his living talking with people, frequently over a meal.

Later that day, that was confirmed as we had a dessert date with another family in the church. This time, cheesecake and coffee. Again, had to angle in the bite of cake so it would get past the unhelpful slack lip and then chew without anything falling out.

Symptoms are getting worse. I did talk during the evening and found my right (unaffected) left facial muscles were getting tired trying to accommodate and pull the other slack side along.

I found that my articulation improved when I took my left hand and pushed my cheek up a bit.

As our hostess was a nurse, she let me know that I would likely have symptoms for several weeks and should make plans now.

Being a pastor who preaches means that I could not, in the immediate future, do my job directly.

Bell's Palsy; Onslaught

So, this is different and I thought I should write about it.

I have been diagnosis with “Bells Palsy.” Wikipedia has a nice article on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_palsy) which even my attending physician recommended.

First Day: About 4:00 PM, as I was sitting down to watch the season opener (Tigers vs. Twins; Go Tigers!), I was eating some potato chips. I noticed that I could not taste the salt on the chips on the tip of my tongue. At the time, OK, that was odd but did not rise to any level of concern. Later that night, as I was brushing my teeth, I was rinsing and realized that I could not spit with any control. It was as if my mouth was numbed from Novocaine, but without any of the tingle. Again, an odd thing which I did not pay much attention to.

Second Day: I woke and realized that I still had the numbness and started to be vaguely concerned. I had a breakfast appointment and thought that maybe whatever was going on would work itself out like the hundreds of odd little pains and phenomena of being in late middle age.

            I got to breakfast and ordered oatmeal. As I began to eat, I realized that I was having trouble with lip control and there was danger of some of my food escaping my mouth. As I was sitting there, I realized that my left eye was not acting properly, either. At that point, it came together: left tongue tip, Left lips, LEFT eye – and it seemed to be spreading. If you are a male of A Certain Age with a family history of heart problems, you are trained to be very sensitive about bodily phenomena occurring on the left side.

            So I left the restaurant and immediately headed home. I got there and after a brief discussion with my wife (“This is what’s happening. Am I being overly sensitive or particularly wise?”) we decided to get over to the emergency room. We went to the Wm. Beaumont facility in Troy and they took my story seriously.

• Lack of control in left face: lips and eye lids
• No pain or immediate discomfort
• No gross weakness on one side
• No mental confusion (or, at least, no more than usual ;-) )

They listened to my symptoms, took an EKG, and then walked me over to the ‘serious’ side of the emergency floor – which I took as Not A Good Sign.

            I got into a gown and a physician and a resident came in to see me. I kinda liked that because that meant I had a real experienced physician, as well as one very recently trained who was likely eager to impress the older one with all their fresh knowledge. The older gal had me tell my story again and the younger one performed a series of tests to determine if I had any gross weakness on one side compared to the other. No differences.

Was I numb in any affected area? No, I could feel touch and other sensations on my face.

They checked my ear canal. Apparently, there is a herpes variation that can cause numbness like this but will leave some lesions inside the ear. Nothing there but the wax that is usually present.

The older physician did most of the talking and was observing my face. She said there was a noticeable lack of movement on the left side.

At this point, it seemed like they had pretty good certainty. There was no stroke; there was no “T.I.A.;” episode; there was no sign of herpes; and all the symptoms pointed to “Bells Palsy.”
In summary, Bells Palsy is a 'diagnosis of exclusion:' if it clearly isn't A, B, or C - it is D. It is a viral attack on a specific nerve (7th cranial) that causes inflammation and therefore, loss of muscle control. It is temporary, usually (!).

I was told that, at the bear minimum, the best I could hope for was recovery within ten days and the symptoms could (would?) get worse. Likely recovery would be in the order of a few weeks.

However, in the meantime, there were some things I could do. The physician immediately gave me a few steroid-like pills and prescribed a “21-course” over the next few days. As this condition is believed to be due to inflammation, the steroids (acting as an anti-inflammatory role, rather than preparing me for a career in major league Baseball) can be helpful. She recommended I take care of my left eye as there is danger from it becoming exposed and dry; to massage the left side of my face to try and retain muscle tone; and to follow up with my primary physician (with whom she went to medical school) within the week.

That was my first day. 

Pornography From Another Perspective

So let me just start out by saying that the title of this entry is a bit edgy for even me. Pornography is an uncomfortable and awkward topic. And my thoughts here are likely going to be uncomfortable, awkward, and provocative for some folks.

Some years back, there was a “disturbingly candid” essay by a pastor in the Christian periodical, Leadership about his struggles with pornography. There were several noteworthy insights about pornography from this essay, but I’m going to focus on just one.

The insight is that the pastor was attracted to these images because they were unreal. The women in the pictures never had bad days, they were never anyone’s daughter or mother, never crabby or demanding, always suited his moods, needs, and wants. There were no mood swings. They were always respectful and encouraging. They were unreal.

Dan Phillips (via Pyromaniacs 29Mar2011) continues this thought: “That is why so many women resent actresses and models, in general. It isn’t catty pettiness or smallness. It is that they know how visually-tempted men can be, and they know that they can’t compete with a fantasy …”

In other places, the unreality of these women has been exposed by the use of photographic manipulation and the recognition that, at the best, merely one to two percent of women have – at any one point in their lives – ever looked anything like the images that are displayed. The vast majority of real women just do not look like that. The women in the pictures are unreal.

Any so-called ‘relationship’ the man viewing these images had with these women was fantasy, wishful thinking, a daydream, a willing delusion. The whole basis of pornography is anchored to the pleasure that this fantasy creates. And none of this is really news. We understand male pornography pretty well.

But.

What about female pornography?

Hold it – what?? Is there such a thing?

Most certainly. The mistake is to think that female pornography is about beefcake male models at Chippendales. That is a significant minority of what I have come to recognize as female pornography.

Let’s back up and take a 50,000 foot view. What is it that makes images of naked women a starting point for male pornography? It is because they are images. Men tend to be far more visual in their ‘attractiveness’ criteria. Men are attracted to visually pleasing women. To be blunt, men want to have sex with a physically attractive woman.

Now let’s look at the other side. Are women attracted to visually pleasing men? Sure, but that is not nearly as strong an attraction as to emotionally pleasing men. Stereotypically, women want romance, conversation, emotional connection, relational intimacy, and so forth. To be blunt, women want to have sex with an ‘emotionally attractive’ man.

So what is female pornography?

Where can women readily gain access to depictions of emotionally attractive men? Where can they perceive of men who are always attentive, relationally intelligent and engaged? Men who express unconditional love, romance, and excitement?

Romance Novels.

Romance novels are full of men who are unreal. The males in romance novels speak and act very differently than the vast majority of real men – men who actually exist.

A real man comes home from work sitting at a desk where he can’t be as active as he should be and so has put on some pounds. He’s battled the actual job, fought against the tyranny of an idiotic organization, and run the gauntlet of stop-and-go traffic for an hour. He comes home and is exhausted, grumpy, and wound up. He is curt and needy. He’s unreasonable, to be sure. And when he crawls into bed with his wife after the two of them have had a couple of tense moments during the evening, he still wants to cuddle – on his terms – which ultimately means sexual intercourse.

Traditionally, the man in the romance novel is not like this at all. He looks like Fabio-Robert Redford-Brad Pitt-George Clooney. He leaves work in the middle of the day at a moment’s notice and rushes to his lady-love to assure her that he really, truly, deeply loves her and engages in generous slow-motion cuddling for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. This is not a man who really exists. He is a fantasy. He is not real.

By the way, the current version of the romance novel male circles around vampires, shape-shifters, etc. Oh, and let’s not forget the male homosexual market.

Romance novel readers Love That Man. They buy books to relive this fantasy experience again, and again, and again, and again … Sound familiar? There are A Lot of books being sold to support these female addictions. Whatever else you may call them, romance novels are clearly making a lot of money. To top it off – they are displayed and on sale by the yard-length shelves at Walmart, Target, Kmart, and other fine ‘family-friendly’ stores all over the country.

It is more than interesting for me to observe that digital book readers (such as Kindle) are much more popular among women. The technology of the digital tablet is partly fueled by the market demand for electronic books. “Romance readers buy in volume and velocity, making them optimal digital readers.” I am reminded of a quote that I heard in the early 1990’s. It went something like this: “All emerging publishing technology (books, photography, movies, radio, VCR-DVD, internet) has been propelled by two forces: religion and pornography.” Think I’m making this up? Check this out: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/157/angela-james-harlequin-ebook. 
Kindle technology and female pornography – linked at the hip.

Yes, Virginia, there is female pornography. I hope your mother is having a responsible conversation with you about it. Just as I hope that your daddy is having a responsible conversation with your brother about pictures of naked women. And that is pornography from a different perspective.

Weird “Christians”

Generally, those in the pastorate very much want to interact with people outside their church. We see ourselves not only as helpers but also as those with the ‘treasure in jars of clay.’ We want to help and we have something of value that we want to share. But it gets weird, in some cases.

We got a call from a guy some time ago who initially asked about the church but then had very specific questions. The call was initially fielded by our church secretary who took the name and number of the caller and said she’d gotten rather flustered by him. The questions were getting specific and she did not feel confident to address them.

So I called this guy. It was a very unpleasant conversation with this guy insisting that churches don’t do the things in the Bible. His grammar was poor and his manner both abrasive and confrontational. At one point he said that we should never do things that are not in “the book.” So I asked him about democracy, automobiles, and English – all things that are not in the Bible that he himself participates. Not many people like being drawn into a debate like this. I’m one of those, as well. It went like that for ten minutes.

Finally I asked what church he regularly attends. He said he goes to lots of churches. But I asked; do you attend any one church regularly? No, he replied. I offered, "Then you yourself are not obeying the fellowshipping commanded in the book of Hebrews." (Hebrews 10:25). He was quiet for a second and I followed up with the fact that his whole conversational posture here was argumentative. He denied that – of course – and insisted that he was “just asking questions.” I don’t know about you all, but somebody who tells me they are “just asking questions” is not “just asking questions.” Every lawyer knows that hostile cross-examination is always done “just asking questions.”

He had a theological hot button about being saved. How did it really happen? I quoted the epistle to the Romans – one of the most powerful discussions on our need for salvation in all of scripture. But that wasn’t "good enough" (scripture isn’t “good enough?”); at the same time, he insisted that I find a place in the Bible where people were actually saved because they believed on Jesus and were baptized. I countered, if the Apostle Paul says that’s the way it is, then it is true. The Bible doesn’t have to provide an example – why do you insist on that? Again, a moment of silence.

He sounded like a “discernment” guy and his whole ‘conversation’ was about telling rather than listening. I gently confronted him on his tone, his attitude, and his judgmental posture and suggested that if he wanted to actually engage the truths of scripture then he would need to do more conversing (that is, listening) than broadcasting. That didn’t seem to be likely so I told him that he would not be interested in coming to our church.

I have no doubt that on some discernment website or blog, this nutcase will state that I or my church do not really believe or practice the Bible.

What is really annoying about people like this is their assumption that they know more than they do. Reading the Bible is fairly easy to do for a literate person – fully understanding it takes a lifetime of rigorous, detailed, and humble study. Those who have actually done that report that the Bible is richer, deeper, far more complex and nuanced than they ever imagined when they began. “Great is the mystery of godliness.”

But for people like my caller (and other so-called ‘discernment’ crusaders), the truth is simplistic and must correspond only with what they wish to believe. They can’t imagine that they might be wrong. Humility is not a virtue and certainly not a characteristic they possess. In fact, actual ignorance and lack of education is held up as a strength. These are weird people.

But what is even more worrying is that there are many contemporary ‘Evangelicals’ who can’t tell the difference. I mean, as an example, people who don’t know the difference between a Benny Hinn (heretic) and Charles Stanley (good guy) – they’re both on T.V. It turns out that actual and real discernment among most Christians is not that common. What passes as ‘discernment’ on the internet is a dressed-up version of old-school Neo-Fundamentalism. You know who those are: the people who don’t seem to be for anything but are very much AGAINST nearly everything. I am concerned because there are a lot of shallowly-planted followers of Jesus who actually can’t tell the difference between real discernment and the angry discernment.

So, what can be done? Is it hopeless? Is there any way to beef-up the true discernment of the average American Evangelical? What do you think?

Nearby Miracles

I was thinking about the nature of miracles recently. And I'm not the first to consider this. I'm of a 'scientific' mind and understand how the world of things work. So when God works unexpectedly in creation nature (water to wine, stopping the sun in its apparent path, making dry land in a sea, healing of incurable disease, etc.), that's pretty impressive. Those are feats of God's work that are pretty rare and usually far off, however.

But I'm coming to be even more impressed with the miracles that are more accessible to us. The changes in human nature: a heart of pride turned to humility, relationships long dysfunctional brought to health, cold and calculating transmuted to sympathetic and sacrificial. These are things I get to see because the gospel of Jesus leads and invites us into those miracles. And they are very accessible: as close as our own soul.

In my experience, the authentic gospel of Jesus changes everything for the better.

GAMMZ-Collins Scale of Questionability

I was recently introduced to a new piece of research by the GAMMZ team. This is the "Collins Scale of Questionability;" a semantic exercise to identify and label levels of subjective social inappropriateness. While there are, within legitimate use of this tool, objective indica (it is, after all, behaviorally based); the tool best operates when applied to the subjectively precieved questionability of observed behavior. Here is the scale:

1. Interesting
2. Strange
3. Awkward
4. Fishy
5. Shady
6. Sketchy
7. Creepy
8. Stalker-ish
9. Crazy

The scale ranges from light to extreme questionability.
Note that it is tempting to see the phenomena of questionability in a linear and continuous movement. One of the key insights from the GAMMZ team is that the range of questionability seems to operate in a discrete manner. The phenomena, in movement, is  quantum-like in nature with observed behaviors instantaneously jumping from one level to another - occasionally skipping one or more levels in a single state change leap.

It should also be noted that questionability (of necessity) is a sociological phenomena in that it requires the norms of a group to operate, as well as the observation by a group to be recognized. There is the additional characteristic in that questionable behavior, once introduced into a group system, can become both contagious, and from that contagion, escalate to greater levels of questionability. Furthermore, the individual(s) engaging in questionable behavior is/are frequently observed to escalate their behavior upon the recognition by the larger group of the specific behavior as belonging to one of the levels of questionability.

I would like to thank the GAMMZ team for their work and insights in publishing this important research. The GAMMZ team involved in this research consists of:

• Lindsay Geverink
• Amy (wished to remain anonymous)
• Sarah Manore
• Kristi Metz
• Emily Zanke

Showing Up

Was reminded this morning of the old saying that goes something like this: "Most of life is about showing up."

We frequently mean that in a mental or emotional sense, as in: "I was there but mentally checked out;" or "I was emotionally unavailable." I remember hearing this most recently in the case of voting - encouraging younger voters to 'show up' in the political process by voting

But there is the basic sense that we tend to pass over and that is physically being there. "Incarnationally present," to sound technical. You can't even get to "mentally in attendance" if you are not physically there! By the way, no points if you counter with: "But what if I am listening to a conference call or webinar or ..." That's not the point.

So where am I going with this? Next time you elect to not attend church, realize that you are choosing to not "show up." Then tell me, with a straight face, about how much you love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Tell me about your commitment to the church as the family of God. Convince me of your engagement with the purposes of Jesus in the world. You have not shown up physically - it is Highly Improbable that you are showing up mentally, emotionally, or volitionally. Yep, most of your life as a Christian starts by showing up at your local church.

In the book of Hebrews we read "Let us not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Heb. 10:25). Sure, some Christians do treat the meeting-together pretty casually - but that is not the way it is supposed to be. It is an appropriate response to the gospel: now that God has drawn near, we should draw together. And if we don't; well, the next few verses say that will not be good.

Oh, and another ByTheWay, why would you think that "family/friends are in town" is a legitimate excuse to not come to church? If they are believers, they should come and worship with you. If they are not, then this is your opportunity to have an evangelistic impact. Either they come with you and see what Christians do, or they do not come and see that you are committed to the cause and work of Jesus in this world - both of those outcomes have evangelistic impact. Remember that most evangelism is not done by the professionals, it's done by the pew-sitters. But - of course - if you're not in the pew in the first place, well ...
So if you do not go to church, the message to your visitors is pretty clear: "I don't value being with the people of God."

Let's explore that notion of valuing visiting family more than God's people. Look again at the words of Jesus: Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matt. 12:49-50) - so who is your true family? Or, He replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice" (Luke 8:21) - who are your true relatives? Or, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26) - even using hyperbole, Jesus is making it clear: if some other loyalty is competing with your loyalty to God, you are not being a good disciple. Is there any doubt that Jesus well and truly loved his mother and siblings? No - of course not!

There are certain cultures within the world or sub-cultures within America that embrace the idolization of family. Remember that an idol does not have to completely replace the true God. If you place the idol along side of God, that 'implied equality' is still idolatry.

Back to church attendance - really, if our commitment to God is so weak that we struggle to do this very basic thing of giving one percent of our week to meeting with the local church, then we need to have a serious self-conversation about our devotion to Jesus.

=========================================
"One percent" - where did I get that? A week is seven 24-hour days: (7*24=)168 hours. I assume a two hour commitment to a weekly service. Two divided by 168 is (2/168=) .0119, or a bit over one percent (1.19%).

A Protestant 'Pope' Has Died

‎"If evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose." New York Times columnist David Brooks.
I learned that John Stott, leader of the modern evangelical Christian movement, passed away today. We - Evangelicals - grieve; but not as those who have no hope.
Many others have, and will have, much more enlightening and helpful things to say about John Stott, but my response is more personal. I can't say that I read everything that Stott wrote - far from it. But that which I did read from Stott was very, very good. I was impressed by the trajectory of his ministry. He, as an Evangelical, stayed within the existing Anglican communion and helped to fan a flame of revitalization and restoration within that movement.
I was able to meet him on one occasion while I was studying in England. While we lived there, we decided to make All Souls, Langham Place our 'home-away-from-home' church. Stott, former Rector at that church, came back to preach a brief two or three message series there during our own tenure. After one of the services, I was able to shake his hand and converse Very briefly. I'll be honest, my motivation to stand in line was mostly to get a chance to meet a Christian 'celebrity.' But while I was there, I watched him greet old friends from his days at All Souls as a local pastor. I realized that this great intellect, devoted follower of Christ, and influential leader seemed very comfortable as a parish pastor. I was impressed by him even more. It came time to shake his hand, he realized that I was American and asked what brought me to London. I explained briefly and after expressing interest, he went on greeting his former flock. Even that small interaction gave me a taste of his grace, wit, and 'pastoral touch.'
I got a taste of Stott's capacities by association - the people who were around him. During our few months attending All Souls, we became acquainted with a gentleman who served as Stott's Administrative-Aide-Compainion and I was struck by Stott's personality by extention: if this very clever guy was paid by Stott to just stick around and keep Stott company, Stott must be a pretty clever guy as well. The current President of John Stott Ministries is semi-roommate of mine from college days: Ben Homan (former President of Food For The Hungry) is a rather bright and accomplished fellow. If Ben is leading that ministry; it has Christ-centered depth, purpose, and integrity.
As I said, there will many comments far more insightful, informed, and intimate on Stott's life. But, as for me, I remember meeting a good pastor.
Here are some other comments:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/julyweb-only/john-stott-obit.html
http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2011/07/27/rest-in-peace-john-stott
http://westernthm.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/john-stott-rest-in-peace-1921-2011/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stott

Confident? Confident.

Here in the Detroit Metro area, over 500 like-minded churches as well as many para-church organizations are cooperating in the “EACH” campaign during the Spring of 2011. The EACH campaign will attempt, within the 40 days after Easter, to give Everyone A Chance to Hear the gospel in the Metro Detroit area. Now, there are going to be billboards, bus sides, advertisements, shirts, mugs, hats and all the accouterments of a Big Media campaign. There have been and will be more events, service to the community, compassion initiatives, and practical helps. But the reality of giving everyone a chance to hear is that it will most effectively be done as people have one-on-one conversations with others they already know. All the media stuff is merely a tool to facilitate those conversations.

As we chat with those we know about the Greatest Story Ever Told – the true story of Jesus Christ, we need to tell the Second greatest story: our own story. To help us do that, we have all been encouraged to thoughtfully consider our “two word story.” The idea is to use the same word with different punctuation. The first use of the word is with a question mark which will describe the uncertainty and need one had before coming to Jesus. The second use of the word uses a mere period to describe the certainty of that need being met in Christ.

My two-word-story is: "Confident? Confident." 
When I was growing up, I had a crises in confidence. Sure, we all did at that age, but I was particularly sensitive. As goofy as everyone else was around me, I was even goofier. I was clueless about life and how it worked – everyone else seemed to “get it” and was able to operate with much greater confidence. I was the poster-child for a “Loser.” But one evening I listened to a speaker at my church talk about confidence. Later I was able to chat with him and he asked me about my confidence in my relationship with God, the ultimate judge. I thought I might be “good enough,” but he pointed out from the Bible that really was not true. The only confidence I could have would be through Jesus. That made a great deal of sense to me. So I prayed to receive Jesus to overcome my sin and to guide me in my life.

From that time, my life – to be simple – just got better. My newly discovered confidence in Jesus allowed me to be confident in the other, less-important, areas of my life. I discovered not only a new hope based on the forgiveness of my sin; but also a new life of purpose, meaning, and guidance as I more closely followed Jesus; as well as a new community of care and friendship of other followers of Christ.

And that’s my two-word-story.

Platonic Realities

This is a different kind of post from my usual fare.
I have noticed something about coming to the midwest from west of the Rockies: I did not know what they were talking about.

Here’s what I mean. When I was in California, we enjoyed things like soft-serve ice cream, jelly-filled doughnuts, and when Christmas came around we would put tinsel on the trees – some people even “flocked” their trees, sprinkled them with glitter, and hung plastic icicles on them.

But now I am filled with a slight Platonic echo. Those things that I knew in California in my youth were but shadows of the real things.

Take soft-serve ice cream. What soft-serve is trying to replicate is the decadent dessert called ‘frozen custard.’ See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_custard. Frozen custard is a rich, delightful, frozen cream-based batch of wonderfulness that Dairy Queen only wishes it could reproduce. Frozen custard is what soft-serve ice cream wants to be when it grows up.

The same for the jelly-filled doughnut. When I lived in California, we had Dunkin’Doughnuts and (more popularly in the west) “Winchells.” Winchells was where the cops hung out. The west coast was not a real doughnut culture – not nearly the same as New England. But in high school, after a night of “TP-ing” (ask your friends who grew up in the ‘70’s about that), we’d go over to Winchell’s, get some doughnuts, and chuckle under our breaths over our exploits – knowing full well that three squad cars were represented in the room. Anyway, if we were feeling flush with cash, we might splurge on a jelly-filled “doughnut.”

But now I live in Michigan, in the metro Detroit area, and we have a lot of Polish people living around here. Before Lent, the Poles create a wonderous pastry called a “paczki” (pronounced “paunch-kee”) to be eaten on Fat Tuesday (sometimes Fat Thursday). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%85czki and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Thursday. It is, again, what a jelly-filled doughnut aspires to be.

Of course, living in a winter snow environment, I’ve now experienced the fun of seeing icicles form. I never thought about it until now but icicles don’t form in the cold of winter, they only form when it’s warmed up above freezing for a bit. Again, plastic icicles on the Christmas tree, or the icicle decorative lights during the Christmas season pale into silliness when you see the real thing: an ice beard bordering the eaves of a house, building, or church.

Finally, just this morning, Barb and I were out driving further north where a little snow had fallen the day before. As we drove past leafless trees, we noticed that they sparkled in the sunlight – they looked like they had pieces of tinsel or were sprinkled with glitter: very pretty.

=============================
So I suppose the point is, first, I never really knew what I was missing. I grew up unaware of the reality of frozen custard, paczkis, and snow effects. I only had the fake attempts. Sure, this would give people ammunition to claim that southern California is full of fake stuff. But I will tell you this for free, southern California does have real mountains, real ocean, real sand beaches, real deserts, real oranges, real palm trees, etc.

Second is this wonderful fact of life: Here I am in my mid-50’s and I’m still learning about stuff. That’s pretty cool.

I think I’ll celebrate by knocking off icicles from my eaves. 

Rob Bell Stuff ...

I've watched the Brashir interview (http://bit.ly/fGPBzm), the much longer interview in New York
(http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2011/03/rob_bell_on_uni.html); I've read critiques by people who have read the book
(http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/03/14/rob-bell-love-wins-review/, http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/love-wins-a-review-of-rob-bells-new-book, http://www.dennyburk.com/revising-hell-into-the-heterodox-mainstream/ - they are all negative, seem fair, and are persuasive) and a few things occur to me:
1) Rob Bell just doesn't think like most of us
2) His presentation is very attractive to those not committed to Christ
3) He absolutely refuses to be fit in a box
4) He does a lot of "deconstruction" of Bible, words, and ideas
5) He seems to put up a lot of "straw man" characterizations of things like God, heaven, hell, etc.
6) I am personally concerned about several of his statements that seem vastly different from the plain meaning of the Biblical text
7) He has a propensity for not answering the questions that are asked. I'm very familiar with this in the political arena but am personally very uncomfortable with this in the arena of theology.
8) Finally, let's say - for the sake of argument - that Bell is wrong on his view of heaven and hell. Yet those who have been at his church (people I personally know and trust) say that he is very good on other doctrines. If he is wrong on one thing then, it seems to me, he ought to be confronted on that thing. There are critiques out there that are 'out of scope.'
However, do not misunderstand me: if he is wrong, it is completely appropriate to criticize what he is saying.

Criticizing Preachers

As we have finished our ReFocus process here, one of the initiatives we developed was a “Sunday Service Excellence Team” that reviews our services and evaluates everything from the PowerPoints to the sound quality to the sermon presentation. That last part, sermon evaluation - has been particularly key as we do team-preaching.

 One of the issues that we’ve had to struggle with is the very nature of evaluating a sermon and the effect that has on a preacher. One of the lessons I had to learn while at my former church was

1) Don’t criticize a preacher within two hours of the sermon’s end; and

2) Don’t get “in the head” with silly stuff before a preacher gets into the pulpit.

I’ve tried to help the team understand the nature of preaching: that preachers get up there, pours out their souls, “leaves it all on the field,” and always gives ‘A’ level effort. After giving a sermon, the preacher is raw, spent, and frequently still running on adrenaline. That is exactly the *wrong* time to offer critique or challenge. But it is exactly the time when people feel compelled to do so.

Right here - I have to again beg the pardon for violating these rules during my time at my previous church. My pastors there helped me to understand and gain sensitivity to this matter of how to better express love and respect for the preaching ministry in the moment. They helped to understand that in the abstract and now I understand it experientially. I appreciate their patience with me.

 So we are going through this issue. It is hard.  I remember being ticked off by critique I received days after the “preach.” BTW, this is the first place I’ve heard the word “preach” used as a noun (as in, “That was a mighty good preach you did there, pastor”). Criticism of a sermon is an intensely personal thing. Most people who haven’t done it regularly do not understand this dynamic. Attempting to separate the message from the messenger, it seems to me, is a fool’s errand in the realm of preaching. All that to say that there is a real tension in evaluating and bringing critique to a sermon in both encouraging excellence and encouraging loving relationships.

 Of course, one of the ways to deal with this (as I’ve come to realize) is to understand the danger and mentally steel myself against the nonsense comments that can come afterwards. I was briefly toying with the idea of just exiting the sanctuary through the door that happens to be near the pulpit and going to my office to de-compress after preaching. That is not a good idea. But …

That got me thinking. I remember hearing of a former pastor at a previous church that would preach his sermon and then disappear right after the service. At the time, I interpreted the story to say that this guy didn’t have enough of a pastoral heart to interact with his flock during after-service mingling time.

 But now I wonder. I wonder if the ethos of that church - back in that day - was less loving and more critical. I wonder if that guy was acting out of emotional self-protection by getting the heck out of Dodge before some “well meaning” person told him - again and for the umpteenth time - about how he was a failure as a preacher because of some little inconsequential fault or disappointment. A pastor can only take so much of that before they start to hate the sheep that keep biting at him. So maybe that guy - to keep whatever pastoral heart he still had - ran away from the dangerous “post-preaching molestation time" as a self-preservation strategy.

I don’t know if that was the case at all. But I do know that criticism of a sermon right after delivery takes on greater force than the criticizer probably intends. Call me immature or not tough enough or inexperienced or whatever. But as I’ve looked into this with other mature, tough, and experienced pastors – they all tell me the same thing: criticizing a preacher after the sermon is very hurtful. Of course, let’s not forget that there are people who do want to hurt.

Anyway, all of that to say that I have learned that to keep my energy (and, yes, even my defenses) up until I’m done greeting and mingling with folks after a sermon. 

Perfection and Suffering

I was reading an old-school devotional book the other day, “Streams In The Desert.” It is arranged by days of the year, includes a small text of scripture, and a devotional thought. For the 2^nd of December, the text was a clause from Hebrews 2:10: “perfect through suffering.” The word, “perfect,” in Bible, doesn’t have the same force as the English use of the word. In Bible, the word merely means, “complete” or “aligned with the goal.”

But the text got me thinking about the nature of suffering as a passive spiritual discipline. Engaging in an active discipline of suffering CAN be appropriate: fasting, sacrificing, et al. The value of passive suffering is, of course, ignored in American Christianity. But Christendom has, for millennia, seen the usefulness of suffering to build character and form a healthy and thriving spiritual life. Why?

Suffering has several causes. 1) The natural consequences of our own foolish or sinful actions; 2) Attack of the demonic (e.g.: Job); 3) the corrupt and fallen nature of the world we live in.

In the first case, natural consequences, the world system is working just fine: we ought to feel pain and discomfort for wrong choices and actions. Suffering, like guilt, is a natural feedback mechanism of common grace that help to ‘perfect’ our character (1Peter 2:20).

In the second case, we are under attack and suffering unjustly (1 Peter 2:21-23). In this case, we are doing the right and good but we are still attacked and suffer from spiritual forces. Here, we can rejoice (James 1:2-4) because we should realize where the suffering is coming from and understand that it is actually a ‘reward’ – a back-handed compliment on our right choices and actions. As James says, this also works to ‘perfect’ us.

In the third case, we suffer unjustly or disproportionately due to the corrupt world. In the workplace; we do our job well. But unknown to us, someone is looking for a promotion. If we were made to look bad, it would improve their chances. We’re victimized and sinned against because of someone else’s greed or even the organizational culture. Rules that were intended to punish evil are twisted to punish good because the world system cannot discern good from evil and looks only at raw behavior. Again: you lose a promotion into a position where you would have performed very well to someone who sacrifices family on the altar of career. You are unwilling to do that, even though you would’ve done the job better. The other guy looks more “committed to the company,” but will eventually poison the organizational culture by destroying families and employees’ lives. I could draw out other examples from family, friendships, and community contexts.

All of this is not because you are ‘righteous’ or ‘persecuted;’ it is “just the way things work” in our world.

But in that last cause of suffering, we are being perfected; our character and spiritual life is being brought closer to an intended goal. This is because we realize that the suffering we experience (due to the world’s system) is largely a part of our poor affections. We see that we are tied to this world and hold on to it – after all, it’s what we know best. The world and what it says is still important to us, even when we know there’s another – better – way. We realize, when we suffer from ‘the way things are’ that we are too much “of” the world rather than merely being in the world.

As we see how messed up the world system really is, we should release our hold on it and become attracted to the alternative Jesus presented: the Kingdom of God. We start letting go of our old world-view and see a new world coming (1Corinthians 7:29-31). This is part of our perfection – giving up our affection for the world system (1John 2:15-17).

This is how suffering perfects us; it brings up the contrast and the decision point regarding our affections: either this world, or the Kingdom of God.

God's Love and Justice; Problem?

One of my online friends posted a blog about the "problem" of God's love. Now, my friend was - as a good blogger - attempting to make a point by making a seemingly controversial statement. His point was to revisit the seeming difficulty of reconciling God's love with God's wrath. That is, we read that God is loving and we look at Jesus, who is the exact picture of God (Heb. 1:3), and see love. Yet we also see cases in the Bible where God acts in wrath. "What's up with that?"

I've been doing some thinking and preaching on this matter lately so I responded to my friend's post. Here's an expanded version.

First, I think that "wrath" and "anger" are good words as they are used in the Bible of describing God's response to people's sin, transgression, and rebellion. But the real idea that must proceed God's "wrath" is the idea of God's justice. That is, God gets "angry" as a response to our sin. We sin, punishment is earned, and God is just and acts to appropriately punish. He is also "angry" in that we have (to our own hurt and/or the hurt of others) messed up his gracious intentions for his people. And - let's be Very Clear about this - when we say God is "angry," that is NOT like our human fathers when they went ballistic. He's not capricious or out of control. No; that's how the pagan gods act.

Anyway, I’m a little nervous when someone proposes that God’s love is a “problem.” I know my friend was jesting a bit; but – yikes!

The reality is that God is both loving and just. And this is where the wheels can come off the wagon. We must see God – as does inscripturated revelation – *first* as loving; and only then as just (in response to our sin).

This is the narrative of Genesis 2 and 3 and – very importantly – the message that God himself gives us about himself in Exodus 34:6-7.

So (in Gen 2) there’s Yahweh, loving and providing for us; then we (in Adam) mess it all up (Gen 3); then God starts “cursing” the parties involved. But Yahweh can’t even get through the first curse (!) before he holds out hope that humanity will get its revenge and tells us that Jesus is coming. Even as he curses Eve, he holds out hope for continuing existence of humanity through children. Even as he curses Adam, God says that Adam’s needs will be provided for through labor. EVEN IN GOD’S “CURSING,” God is persistent to bless his image-bearers.

Notice that in the Exodus passage (very important because it is the most quoted text of the Bible by the Bible), God ‘leads off’ with compassion, grace, patience, love, forgiveness, and ends with justice.

When we emphasize God’s justice before we establish his gracious provision, it seems to me that we are making an un-Biblical emphasis. God is love (1Jn 4:8b) first both in logical and narrative priority. Only then, as a response to our high-handed rebellion, he is just. In Biblical fact, God isn’t too ‘eager’ to express his wrath (Rm 8:22-23) – there seem to be other priorities that take precedence.

The remarkable thing is that, even though we were clearly enemies of God (Eph 2:3) and deserving of wrath; God chose to love his enemies (Eph 2:4) and, by grace (Eph 2:8-9), gave us every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3-14). Loving your enemies – where have we heard that before? Oh – hold on – Jesus said that (Lk 6:27,35).

It seems to me that’s what Yahweh is like. We don’t need to pit one characteristic against another (as my friend rightly condemned). I’m suggesting that we do need to begin with what God says.

Water Facts and Politics

I have just come across a very interesting set of statistics while reading The Economist (“For Want Of A Drink,” May 22, 2010, at 52). I was sharing this with some folks this morning as we were talking about the BP oil blowout near the Gulf coast.

Water is remarkable. Without it, life as we know it ceases. It has the physical property of becoming *less* dense as it cools allowing its solid state to float on its liquid state. Someone could correct me, but I believe that water is the only significant compound that does that. Water is, literally, "vital" to human existence. And with more humans on the planet, we need to find more water.

Everyone in grade school learns that the surface of our planet is made up of mostly water. There’s a lot of it – a lot! Strictly, it is a practically non-renewable resource as water is not easily made or unmade. While water may exist in several forms (ice, liquid, gas), there is only so much of it on the planet. We may get some deposits in the form of meteors, but we also lose some water to space, as well.

So let’s break down our water. Of all the water on our planet, 97.5% of it is salty. Let that sink in a bit. That means of all the water on our planet, only 2.5% is ‘fresh’ water – only two and a half percent. Water can be “de-salted,” but that is not easy and takes a lot of energy.

Now of that 2.5%, 69.5% of fresh water is locked up in glaciers and permafrost. So, of the fresh water that we do have, nearly seven tenths of it is not moving. So, of the 2.5% of all the water on the planet, only a bit over 30% is not locked up solid. Of the remaining non-solid water, a bit over one percent is on the surface – the rest of it is underground. Let me restate that; of the non-solid water, one percent is above ground and the rest is underground.

So the underground water is somewhat accessible and we get to that by sticking a hole into the skin of the earth and sucking it up or waiting for it to bubble up. We call those wells. Drilling for oil is roughly the same idea. Here’s our problem – most of the ground water that we tap in these ‘aquifers’ is being used up faster than it is being replenished by trickling back in. At some point in the future, all things being equal (yes, that's quite an assumption), we will suck the ground dry.

Let’s return to the surface. Not all is as it seems there. For of the 2.5% of the water on the planet that is fresh, and of the one percent of it that is either not locked up solid or buried in the ground, you are left with what is called “Surface and Atmospheric” water. As it is titled, ten percent of the S&A water is floating in the air. The rest of S&A water is divided up this way: 70% in lakes and rivers, 20.7% in soil moisture and wetlands, and under one percent is locked up in plants.

So the big picture to take away from all of this is that while the Earth has lots of water, it turns out that only a very small amount of it is easy to get at. By the way, we don't like it when we drain out big collections of water. The Russians have done a rather compelling job of emptying the Aral Sea and nobody else is happy about that.

So what’s the other side? Of the fresh liquid water from rivers, lakes, and groundwater; 67% is used for food production, 20% is used for houses and industry, 10% is used for power generation, and three percent just evaporates from reservoirs.

One of the problems with water is that it is not super easy to recycle it. A lot of farm and industrial water is used and then tainted with some nasty chemicals – it takes energy and/or time to clean it up. So that fresh water is both “used” and “consumed.” That is, being “consumed” (tainted), it can’t be released back into the general supply. We tried doing that for a while and then found that rivers were catching on fire. So that didn’t work out for us very well. We do treat sewage water, but only to release it *mostly* cleaned up into the general supply and let other biological processes clean up the rest.

I was born and raised in Southern California. As I learned about the history of my state it turned out to be dominated by water politics. How to get water from wet parts of the state to dry parts and, if at all possible (and it was) to ‘steal’ it from other states. Water is a Big Deal in California. My father was employed by the Water Resources Control Board in their huge California Aqueduct project. In a very earlier similar project, California actually accidentally created a huge lake in the southern interior now called the Salton Sea because of a water transportation accident. Lots of people need lots of water and California - especially the southern part - is defined by imported water.

Water, on a world-wide scale, may become one of the dominant political footballs of the next century just as it was in the last century in California. It will be an interesting issue to monitor.

Luke 11 - Deleted Scenes

I just preached on Luke 11, the first bit where Jesus again teaches the disciples about how to pray. He gives nearly the same model prayer that he did in his prior public teaching (recorded by Matthew). As before, I’m including some “Deleted Scenes” that were prepared for the sermon, but didn’t make the Final Cut. Now when I do this, I’m not – at all – implying that the information in these Deleted Scenes would make it into the “Director’s Cut.” Some of this was cut for time, others because they didn’t relate directly to the main message, even if it was initially interesting to me.

Before we get into looking at this verse by verse, I want to acknowledge that I get lots of help when I prepare a sermon. I say this because not only do I want to teach and preach to you about what’s in the Bible and what it tells us to do. But also because I want you to see a bit into how I come to these conclusions. Now, I don’t always do this as well as I should. But I thought I’d just take a minute to acknowledge help that I do get. After I study a passage on my own, I’ll then go to reliable commentaries to check my work and see that I’m on track. One commentary that I’ve been using a lot of is this one by Darrell Bock, a professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary. This thick book covers only the last half of the single book of Luke. The full commentary on Luke is two books this size. I’ll also use other commentaries to give me some other input. Here’s a commentary (The Interpreter Bible) that we had in the church library – I think it was donated – and I found it’s not that helpful. You just learn these things. Commentaries can be helpful to keep you on track – after you do as much as you can on your own – as well as pointing out things that you might have missed: which is mostly what is valuable to me.

This sermon was uncharacteristic of me because I dove into the Greek a bit. I try NOT to do that (even though many preachers do) for a variety of reasons. But in this case it was helpful. As you’ll see, I was tempted to put in much more “Greeky” stuff than actually went into the final sermon…

The language can fail us so we’re going to get all Greek-y. The phrase is “One day;” actually, the language gives more the meaning, “It unfolded…” giving this as more of an episode that played out. And that is much of the ‘feeling’ of Luke’s gospel; we get the feeling that we’re walking along with Jesus, seeing events as they unfold.

More Greek: “Lord~” is a ‘vocative’ – a calling, address; take a noun and use that to call out to someone. It’s like: “Ushers, would you come down?” or “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!” or “Private, you come here!” or “Lord, please teach us…”

Now there is this odd Greek grammatical structure of a past-tense combined with a command, or technically known as the Aorist-Imperative. Doesn’t that just bless your socks off? This grammatical structure is actually used as request to superior in this word: “teach us.” Usually an imperative is a command, but telling God, or any superior, what to do is not wise! So it seems that the Greeks showed respect by putting the command in the past. So a command, “you taught us” was understood to be “Please teach us.”

I spent some time talking about the New Testament use of the word “Abba” as ‘Father.’ I’ve discussed this before in this blog (http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com/search/label/father). In retrospect, it would have been helpful to clarify what I was trying to get across – something like this…

When we see that God tells us that he is our Father, does that mean that God is not our “daddy?” Certainly not! It is fully appropriate and supported in the Bible (think of some of the Psalms) to cuddle up in our heavenly Father’s lap, nestle into him, and have a good cry. This kind of casual or informal relationship with God is, it seems to me, clearly supported in scripture. But, again, what is NOT supported in scripture is this idea that God is our “buddy,” our “pal,” or our “mate.” There is much in the Bible that talks about what a proper and healthy Father-child relationship is like and none of implies that the Father and the child are peers. Any time we make God out to be that kind of he’s-just-like-me relationship, we’ve got it wrong.

At the same time, Jesus does say that he is our friend. But in any earthly friendship between two people, there seems to usually be a dominate person in the relationship. With our friendship with Jesus, he’s always the dominate person.

So, yes, a healthy relationship with God as our Father includes both intimacy and respect, affection and honor. God is our Father.

As to the point of our relationship with God as our Father…

I had a chat with my son, Theo, recently. One of the points I reminded him of was that I was extremely invested in his happy and successful future. That is, I cared a lot more for him than any – ANY – of his current friends at school or even here at the church. There is no one on the planet who loves Theo more than Barb and I. At the end, I hope it was clear to Theo that I had his long-term happiness and success in life in mind – and that is just not true of any of his friends in school or church. That’s a small part of the nature of God’s fatherhood of us: he is vitally interested in our lives and he knows what will make us truly happy in the long-term

I got to the section where Jesus says that if we ask, seek, or knock – we’ll get good things…

But what about this language? Is God a genie in a lamp and gives us whatever we ask? That seems very contrary to the flow of this story. That potential misunderstanding is corrected for us in Jas 4:2 – in our day, we must look at the whole Bible to formulate our theology. And, if we look carefully at the language, it is not saying that God will give you exactly what you asked for, but that God will graciously respond in terms of the request.

***

So that's my Deleted Scenes. Again, it's probably more helpful for you to listen to the sermon first (www.lbchapel.org/media.php?pageID=24) and then you'll understand the context of these 'scenes.'

Apostolic Suffering

I was reading through 2 Corinthians, chapter 6, this morning and was struck by the chapter and its application to my life – though I wasn’t expecting one.

The chapter begins with a call to salvation – which is a weird thing as Paul addresses the letter to the church; that is, believers in Jesus, the people of God, those who are saved. So, it turns out that the gospel may be applicable to Christians after all. Huh; go figure.

Then Paul moves quickly to a discussion of evangelism. Specifically, that he puts nothing in the way of anyone and engages in great sacrifice so that people might receive the grace of God. Of course, this is what the “seeker” movement has really been about for decades: making sure that the gospel of Jesus is accessible to all, without putting religious expectations (dress, old music, style of architecture, and even confusing words) in the way of those who God is bringing to himself. This is also very annoying to those who have been in the church for a Long Time and are comfortable with the way church was done in their youth, forgetting how radical some of those things were back in the day, and now unjustly critiquing young evangelicals today. I find that tragically ironic.

But here was the thing that arrested my attention. I’ve read verses four through ten frequently enough to dismiss this section of scripture. It just doesn’t relate to me. Even more: I most certainly DO NOT want it to relate to me! This is a section where Paul, in his on-going ‘discussion’ with the Corinthians about how much they disrespect him, speaks of his very hard life for the sake of preaching the gospel. He says – and we can believe him – that he’s (at times) been beaten up, thrown in jail, been in riots, worked very hard, lost a lot of sleep, and hasn’t had enough to eat.

Let me be blunt. I’m a rather “pain adverse” kinda guy. I don’t like pain and I avoid it. I don’t like adversity and my first reaction, should I encounter something that hurts, is to go away from it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll put up with pain, suffering, and hardship if I can see the ultimate benefit. For a minor example, I recently went to the dentist and (because I haven’t been for a few years) had a major cleaning done. The dental hygienist commented that she has to use anesthetic on most people going through these procedures but I seemed to be enduring the pain rather well. Folks, it wasn’t because it didn’t hurt. It was because my teeth needed to be cleaned and for the long-term viability of my dental health, I needed to endure this.

So I, in times past have read this (and other sections like it) and prayed, “Thank you, God, that I have not had to suffer like Paul did.” And as of this moment, that is still the case – no body’s beat me up, thrown me in jail, etc.

However, I will say that I have lost some sleep over pastoral concerns - as Paul relates. In addition, as the chapter continues, Paul says some other things have happened. He turns to what we would (and should) think of as positive things and yet Paul says he has to “endure” them: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, real love, telling the truth, and the power of God. Maybe I’m not getting this, but what I hear is that Paul is saying that not only must he endure the hard things, but he must endure the “good” things. What does that mean?

I wonder if what Paul is suggesting is that ministry is a disciplined activity. And that he must exercise discipline to be pure (for the sake of preaching the gospel), that he must exercise discipline to make sure his mind is clear and truly understands the gospel and scripture (for the sake of preaching the gospel); that he must be patient with difficult people and situations, be kind when he feels like being mean, yield to the Spirit when he’d rather act in the ‘natural’ man, exercise tough love when he’d rather just be ‘nice,’ and just be a “normal guy” but God keeps insisting that Paul must act in God’s power – all for the sake of preaching the gospel.

Then, and here’s where it got personal: Paul next goes through this list of human-related sufferings: that he is dishonored, slandered, treated as an obscure, dead, cursed, unhappy, and poor impostor. Yep, there were those who were coming close to calling Paul a heretic. 

Ouch – talk about criticizing the pastor!

Finally, Paul concludes his thought with a very interesting warning. He says that his heart was open to the Corinthians; he spoke freely with them and encouraged them to be free with their affections. But they would not. They were emotionally constipated and immature. Note that, specifically in the context of their emotional response of affection, he tells them to remove the restriction because they are behaving like children. The warning is that the Corinthians were in a case of arrested development. And, for a church, that is a Very Bad Thing.

Resisting Temptation

Back in the 4^th grade, we temporarily moved to one of the, er, interesting parts of California: Bakersfield. I started at a new school and had some very typical problems fitting in: I was from out of town, the Big City, everybody else seemed to know each other already, it was a very different kind of place than I’d come from, and then there was the problem of The Bully.

But I digress. I became friends with another boy whose name was Teddy. Teddy and I discovered we had similar interests and outlooks on life. His family was from the Philippines and I remember being amazed at their hospitality, generosity, and friendliness. To this day, I have a particular affection for Filipinos. So Teddy and I became thick as thieves, as they say, and we would look out for each other. Teddy knew who was who and what was what at the school. I was a tall kid so probably provided some cover for Teddy. Anyway, Teddy and I, with a few others, ran in a small pack: call it a mutual defense association.

At this point in my life, I can’t remember the boy’s name. But he was a sixth grader and apparently had as his Personal Calling Statement the purpose, value, and vision to make sure that all the students in our school were intimidated by him. When he saw me – remember, I was tall for my age – I popped up on his radar as an unidentified “bogie.” And his mission was to seek and destroy.

So one day, he confronted me during the recess period and uttered those words that an extremely insecure boy does not want to hear: “After school, I’m goin’ to beat you up!” Again, he wasn’t noted for his subtlety.

So for the rest of the day, Teddy and I planned our strategy to deal with this threat. It went something like this: “Wadda we gonna do?! Wadda we gonna do?! Wadda we gonna do?!” Now, and don’t miss this, there was never any this from Teddy: “Dude, that’s bad. Sure isn’t good to be you now. See ya later!” Teddy was my friend. My problem was his problem. Right there we could stop and this will be a great illustration.

But it was better than that. We realized that there were two exits to the school. One was the front and the other was the, er – yes – the back. So we made this plan. Once school got out, I’d hide – I’m not too proud to admit this – in the boy’s room. Teddy committed to going out and scoping the exits. If BullyBoy was in the front, we’d skedaddle out the back; and if he was in the back, we’d make our escape out the front. Notice, “OUR escape;” My problem was his problem.

It turned out that this plan worked very well. Teddy did an effective reconnoiter and located our threat force near the front exit of the school. We then executed a tactical exit strategy egressing from the rear of the school, suitably camouflaged by buildings, vegetation, and other terrain features. The extraction maneuver was successful and based upon our well-executed plan, we were able to successfully leverage our success when it came time to engage in diplomatic negotiations.

Here’s the point: Teddy helped me escape. He took my problem on as his own. He helped me find a way out in a very practical way.

So I think of God in that way. Temptation is my problem – God didn’t cause my temptation. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). Yet my temptation is a problem that God takes up as his own. God, even more so that Teddy, is my friend and wants to help me in very practical ways. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1Corinthians 10:13). God, not only looks out for another escape route like Teddy did for me, but this verse says that God will “make” or “do” a way of escape. I take that to mean that if way is not already there, “providentially,” then God will just create a way miraculously.

Of course, most of us don’t have the faith to look for that way when we are tempted. That assumes that we are actually looking for a way out of temptation. But that’s another conversation.