Awaken the Poor

I have often thought myself to be a disciplined man. I grew up under a strongly self-disciplined father who could and would lose weight on command, lower his blood pressure when needed, and reign in his diet like it was his job. Speaking of jobs, he is the hardest worker I know and is diligent with every moment.

So, when I came to passages in Proverbs about sluggards, I usually kept reading until I found something about the wise man or working man or disciplined man. But not today. The Lord had a different message in store.

Psalm 24:30 – 34

I went past the field of a sluggard,

    past the vineyard of someone who has no sense;

thorns had come up everywhere,

    the ground was covered with weeds,

    and the stone wall was in ruins.

I applied my heart to what I observed

    and learned a lesson from what I saw:

A little sleep, a little slumber,

    a little folding of the hands to rest—

and poverty will come on you like a thief

and scarcity like an armed man.

Immediately when I started reading this, houses in my neighborhood started flashing through my mind as if I were driving past them. I could see the thorns that have grown up around the house. I can see the ground covered with weeds. One house in four in my neighborhood are overcome with weeds, thorns, and are boarded up. I’ve seen brick walls torn down, windows shattered, and trees lying on roofs unattended.

But what follows, is maybe not what you expected. I don’t look at those things and then condemn the owners for their negligence and sluggishness. Instead, it struck me for the first time that poverty is a tool of the enemy that is waiting to strike. Those that slumber for a moment, who fail in their vigilance for a second will fall to poverty in a moment.

The answer, at least from this passage, seems to be a wake-up call. A literal call to wake up the poor. Awake! Awake! Arise my neighbors! Arise and sleep no more. No longer let the silent weeds grow up around us. Don’t ignore the broken windows. Awaken us, O God. Awaken us to see the devastation that has taken place, and put us in the vigilant place of prayer and action. Come and awaken our sleepy eyes. Let us see the Dawn of Your Justice rise in our neighborhood.

3 Tough Messages

The proverbs are rich with turns of phrase and rhyming of ideas. Often I look for threads of a theme between the proverbs in the same chapter, but often find that it is limited to only a few verses in a small neighborhood of one another.

There are a few themes, however, that run the course of Proverbs, and are worth taking to heart. The clearest theme, probably, is the idea that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The respectful reverence of the one who created us puts us in our place and its only in that place that we can begin to grasp wisdom. The next might be to get wisdom because it is of great value. We hear lady wisdom calling out to us, and are admonished over and over again to get wisdom and not sell it.

In addition to the clear themes about wisdom, there is one that is as pervasive, but less obvious. It is the theme of faith. Faith is what is required, I think, to demonstrate true wisdom. Or maybe, it's that true wisdom really is an expression of faith. After all, wisdom is an application of knowledge, and often times it's simply an expression of confidence that the same thing that happened in the past will happen again. That's faith. Certainly our faith can carry us to things that we haven't seen before, but so does wisdom. Wisdom tells you that if your dad was right about 90% of what you have experienced, you can probably trust him for another 10% of things, or at least 5%.

In Proverbs 19, there are three people whom we are told to respond to in different ways. Each of these requires faith. We are met with a poor man, our son, and a hot-tempered man.

In verse 17 we are told, "He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done." We meet the poor man. The thing about poor men is that they are needy. They need something from us. Usually money, or food, or a job. But the interesting thing here, is that if we give to the poor, we can trust that we are lending to the LORD. In other words, we are believing that the LORD will repay us for what we gave, and that with interest! It requires faith to be kind to the poor.

In verse 18, we find our son. Here we are admonished, "Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death." We have someone for whom we are responsible for training, not doing what they are supposed to. A difficult conversation is coming. Possibly even punishment. We are smart creatures, and we know that if we have to administer discipline we probably won't be liked very much. Nevertheless, this verse says that if we don't discipline we are letting him carry on toward his death. We didn't warn him that his disobedience will lead to his destruction. So, by adding faith to this verse, we convince ourselves that having tough conversations early, and being willing to enforce discipline will bring hope to our sons.

Lastly, in verse 19, we meet the hot-tempered man. The sage tells us, "A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again." I don't exactly remember this story, but it's written in the footnotes of my Bible. When we were on our honeymoon, we saw this drunk at the airport. He was throwing trash on the ground, and shoving items around that were bumping into people. He of course had no idea what a scene he was making. You could feel everyone around him was annoyed and bothered by his actions. His friend with him, though, was kindly apologizing for each incident. Then when it was time to fill out the customs forms and get everything prepared the friend was filling it out for him. But one thing was certain, this wasn't the first time, and it wasn't going to be the last. Faith here, requires that we believe that in rescuing a hot-tempered man does him no good. Sometimes we really have to discern that some need to feel the consequences of their actions that they may change. Cecil, a co-worker of mine, put it like this, "Hunger pains are some of the world's strongest motivators. Feeding people can be the worst thing you can do for some people."

Cecil's point is that if you continue to provide relief to people that can change and work, then you are keeping them from developing the skills they need to be independent. Paul the Apostle said practically the same thing. The tough part here is between these three verses. We must be discerning for verses 18 and 19, and yet kind in verse 17. May God grant us the faith to discern the correct course of action, and yet be kind to all along the way.

Losing Myself

Humility. The art of losing one's self (thanks, Hillsong).

C.S. Lewis (I'm told by John Piper and Brian Loritz) says that humility is not a beautiful woman saying she's ugly or a smart man saying he's dumb. Humility is a person who is more concerned about others than either his shortcomings or his strengths.

The most challenging part of this word for me is the fact that humility leads to confrontation in love. We often avoid confrontation either out of indifference or out of self-preservation - we still want them to like us. Humility says that I value this person more than I value my reputation. Therefore, I must be willing to confront them on this issue.

May the prayers of the Litany of Humility draw us into the heart of the one who thought only of the Father's will and the joy set before him.

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

To a Friend Who's Closer Than a Brother

This was a poem I wrote for David Montague a few years ago. I consider it still to be true, and the depths of what it means to create friendship:

To a Friend Who's Closer Than a Brother

In this world there seems to be
A closer friend than family.
Somehow they earn our deepest trust
Which never fades and never rusts.

But o how few are faithful friends
Who stick with us until the end
For seldom will a person die
Or for a good man give his life

So now I ask, "what is a friend?"
"And how do deep friendships begin?"
For me, I think, it goes like this:
Those men with words and works amiss
Are quickly stricken from that list.
But those whose tears and clinched fists
Fight with prayer against injustice
In my heart as a friend persist

But something dearer strikes the bond
Such simple things make us grow fond.
God's glue (it's called) takes many forms
From Gatorades to cleaning dorms.

It binds our hearts as we bind signs
To big gorillas for all to pine
"'Marry me, Anna.' What does it mean?"
As we, through love, let God's love beam.

Again I ask, "What is a friend?"
"And how do deep friendships begin?"
For now I know what there must be:
It isn't just proximity
In place or age or family.
But we must have ONE Bethany
Who calls our hearts that we may speed
Together toward our God and King.

The Precious Gifts of Marriage and Singleness

Christian parents are often heard at the Rehearsal Dinner of their children's wedding saying something to the effect of, "We have been praying for this moment for a long time." Most of us in this American society appreciate and recognize the gift of marriage. After all, a prudent wife is from the Lord.

But what about the gift of singleness? Do we really believe that God gives singleness as a gift (1 Cor. 7:7, Mt. 19:11)? If we do, are we believing and adding faith to this facts, and trusting that the singleness he gives us is a good gift? Are we honoring singleness as truly better than marriage?

These were the topics of today's sermon at Christ Community Church. If you want the notes for the outline of the sermon, let me know in the comments, and I will be glad to send you a copy.

Analyzing My Vote

With my only votes comprising of an absentee vote from Mexico, and an off the cuff vote in person, I decided to take this Presidential Election a bit more seriously. So seriously, in fact, that one of my personal goals for this year was to understand 27 key political issues. So, on the eve of the eve of the election, my wife and I used a method to determine our candidates that I would highly recommend if you have the time or interest. Warning: You very well may end up splitting your self up across party lines instead of down them.

Method:
1. Find some list of core issues which have the presidential candidates charted out on each one. Here's what we used.
2. Without looking at what each candidate said, answer each question yourself as Pro or Con.
3. After finishing, compare your answers to each candidate.
4. Take this as a percentage of the answers for which the candidate actually took a stand (ignore Not Enough Info and Not Clear. Also, correct "Now Con" to be "Con").
5. Review your top 2 candidates and ensure that the candidate with the highest score does not support any non-negotiable issues for you.

There was no surprise that my Yankee wife was heavily Democratic. What was interesting is that her second choice was the Green party! As for me, the surprise was an even split between the Republican and Democratic party, and a clear favorite for the Conservative Party's candidate.

We'll see if we follow these intuitions at the poll. Maybe my best choice will be wearing yellow boots to the church to cast my ballot.

Gnostic Miracles

But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.  John 10:38

In high school, my AP English Literature teacher and I had lengthy conversations over whether it was acceptable to believe Jesus just because of the miraculous signs and wonders he did. Because of this verse, I said of course it was acceptable. Jesus did mighty and powerful things to demonstrate his power to the Jews. Jesus was certainly a demonstration of the power of God. He did have a point, though, because as Paul reminds the Corinthians in his letter, Jesus' death was a stumbling block for those looking for God's power because he was weak. He was also a stumbling block for the Gentiles, because as they looked for wisdom they found what appeared to be foolishness in Christ.

Nevertheless, his miracles remain as a testimony to his power and divinity, as professed by the blind man from birth before the Pharisees (John 9:13:34).

But what would the Gnostics have thought? They of course, would have assumed Jesus' divinity and separated his nature from his humanity. After all, the spiritual self is the true, pure, and better self, according to this worldview. So what miracles were given them so that they might know and understand?

Here is a short list of the Gnostic miracles - the signs and wonders meant to convince us of Jesus' humanity:

1. Jesus was born of a woman.
2. Jesus turns water into urine.
3. Jesus eats a loaf of bread and 2 fish.
4. Jesus swims in the water.
5. Jesus sees a blind man.
6. Jesus endures a storm.

While this list is certainly facetious, there are many comments in the Gospel that do lead us to see Jesus as a man and not just a spiritual representation. This is a wonderful mystery. The details include:

1. Jesus really was born, and was laid in a manager. He likely did cry.
2. Jesus walked with his parents to Jerusalem. He grew in stature.
3. Jesus got hungry after fasting.
4. Jesus was asleep during the storm.
5. Jesus was often at peoples houses eating and drinking.
6. Jesus was thirsty and asked for water to drink from the woman at the well.

Let us look at the miracles and ordinary acts of this man and trust that he truly was God's Son - Emmanuel.