We live in a broken world full of broken people…… myself included. Because of this, things go wrong……. every day. When these things impact our lives or the lives of those we love, we worry. Worry can be painful our productive.

So……..how do we handle worry?

Years ago I made a list of things that I worry about. Since then I have added to and updated the list. I’ve even been able to take some things off of the list. My list is now 4 pages long…….. single spaced! I keep it on my cell phone so that I can worry efficiently anywhere I go.

Here is the top of page one of my list. Your list will be different. Please don’t send me corrections to my list……..it may not be perfect……. but it’s mine.

Salvation for my family
My children and grandchildren’s future
My family’s health
My company’s sales
Abortion
Hate in our society…. both on the left and on the right

The list has turned out to be extremely useful…… but not at all in the way that I expected. When I have some free time and feel the need to worry, I pull out my phone, call up the list and start worrying my way down page one. Without fail, before I reach the bottom of page one, I am exhausted or I lose interest. So…..I put away my phone and stop worrying. This is helpful.

The main benefit of the list, however, was completely unexpected. When somebody comes to me with some problem that they are worried about and that they are mad about and that they want me to worry about too, I think about the list…….. and where this new problem will go on the list. If it is a page one problem, I put it on page one and get right to work worrying about it. However, if it looks like it would fit on page four……… sometimes I put it on the list. You never know……pages one and two could get solved.

Realistically, though, I know that I’m not going to be giving much attention to page four. So……….. for most page four level problems, I just let them go and let somebody else worry about them.

My recommendations:

Don’t give up on page one. There are important things there that you can act on………important things that you can pray about. Page one contains the things that you can do something about……… in your life…….. and in your world. It contains the things that you can do to make your life……and the world……..a better place for all of us.

Don’t waste much time on page four. Check on it every now and then. Maybe something there needs to be moved up to page one………or maybe even deleted.

You can’t add a minute to your life by worrying about page four problems.

(Advice from God……..abridged).

I just read a post on Facebook.

It said:

I hate lard.
I hate buttermilk.
And I’m not wild about flour.
But……..I love biscuits.

My first son died of a GI bleed 16 years ago.
My youngest son died of cirrhosis 2 years ago.
My only remaining son despises me.
His wife is mad and will not let me see my granddaughter who is the one of the joys of my life.

And

I believe that God is in control of all of this.

I believe that God is in charge of this mess that is my life…… today………that he has things just the way he wants them.

I believe that God loves me and has a plan for me……..a plan for my good.

So……in light of what’s going on in my life today………. Do I trust God?

I have to……..what are my choices?

Plan A: (Job’s wife’s plan) “Curse God and die”.

This amounts to lashing out at my creator because I don’t like where I am today……….because I am unhappy with the mess. In effect, I am trying to punish God for the mess by withholding my affection……..my relationship. If I was God, this would work. But I’m not God ……..he is. Recall that he created all of this….and he can end it at his whim.

Plan B: (modern society’s plan). “Deny God”

Very similar to Plan A. This has the advantage of eliminating the foolishness of grabbing a tiger by the tail by eliminating the tiger altogether. And it works great…………. as long as science has all of the answers……..as long as Darwin is right. But it goes down the toilet (or worse) if Darwin and science have missed something……. and every day we learn something new that Darwin and science have missed. Plan B also goes down the toilet if science fails to explain key observations……..like what caused the big bang…….or all of that missing “dark matter”. It also goes down the toilet if this planet falls apart……….just take a look around.

Plan C: (God’s plan) “Trust me………I’m working on it.”

Just like the baker, God is up to his elbows in the lard and the buttermilk……..and right now it’s a little messy…….OK……maybe a LOT messy. As humans, we have a lot of trouble with this because we are constrained by time. We remember the past(at least some of it). We see the present(at least some of it). But, the future is hidden. All we see is the mess. But, God sees it all. God sees the billions of possible futures ahead of me………futures that will be determined by the thousands of decisions that I will make today. In my life every trial that I have faced has turned out well in the end………if I allow it enough time………if I allow God enough time. This calls for patience. And this calls for trust. I choose to give God my trust in return for his promise. What I get in return…….in the present………is hope.

I’m not after sympathy here……….. I’m exactly where God wants me to be………… and I’m headed for someplace really nice……..in a little bit.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God. NIV

It’s true.

I’m in charge……….to an extent……..and there’s the rub.

We spend a big part of our day trying to make a change. Today I’m talking about changing people……..influencing them. We like to believe that we have the power to influence others. As a matter of fact…….in my blog I hope to influence you to grow closer to Christ…..and in the process to be more effective in your life.

So……do we have the power to influence others?

Well…….it depends.

It depends on who and when.

You have a little influence on what others will do in the future.
You have slightly more influence on what others are doing now.
You have absolutely no influence on what others did in the past.

You have great influence on what you will do in the future.
You have great influence on what you are doing now.
You have absolutely no influence on what you have done in the past.

So……the order of the effectiveness of your influence is this:

What I am doing now.
What I will do in the future.
What others are doing now.
What others will do in the future.
What I did in the past.
What others did in the past.

In summary:

You are most effective in changing…..influencing ……..yourself.
Your efforts to influence others are severely limited.
Any attempts to influence the past are utterly futile.

We mess this up all of the time. We spend enormous amount of energy trying to change what others are doing and what they will do (just watch Fox and CNN)…….even though experience teaches us that we are not very effective at this. We suffer a lot of pain by ruminating over things that we have done in the past. We cause a lot of pain by punishing others for things that they have done in the past.

And………we ignore the changes that we can make to improve ourselves both today and in the future.

Why?…….it’s pretty simple……… it’s a lot more fun to beat the other guy up…….or to try to shove him into some pigeonhole…….than it is to do the hard work of changing ourselves……..the hard work of growing.

It’s a lot easier to pity yourself for the hole that your past has put you in……….than it is to climb out of it.

There are a few vital lessons that we can take from these facts.

Don’t beat yourself up for past mistakes….. there are no redos……..learn from them and move on.

Don’t try to punish others for things that they did in the past…….let them learn and move on.

It’s OK to try to influence others…….but be gentle. Be certain that you are motivated by love………and don’t get upset if they ignore you…….because that’s usually what they will do.

Finally, and most importantly, you should focus 90% of your energy on changing what you are doing and on what you will do…… because, when push comes to shove, that is all you can really control.

Work to build yourself into a better person…….today. You can find guidelines in the owners manual……the Bible. (Even if you don’t believe in God……..the guidelines are still very good.)

Plan for your future………and remember that your future doesn’t end in 30 years or so when you die. Like it or not……..your future is eternal………in spite of science, in your heart, you know this to be true.

And you get to choose what it will look like.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul, NIV

I believe in heaven, but not God.

I hear this a lot, not in so many words. But, if you compare what people say with what they do, that is the conclusion that you must reach.

If you ask people what happens to them after they die, most will say that there is something beyond death. They will describe it as a beautiful pleasant place where they will be reunited with family and friends…….a place where they will be happy. People who believe that death is the end….”You die you’re dirt” …..are rare. People who believe that they are going someplace bad are non-existent.

I’ll call this afterlife paradise. In one form or another, almost all of us believe in it. Yet, a great many people do not recognise a creator…….I’ll call the creator God. Today I won’t delve into specifics.

So……can there be paradise without God?

If paradise is real, and we almost all believe it is. How did it come to be? There is no spiritual version of Darwinism. There must be a power, a force, a creative energy behind paradise……..and that is a good working definition of God. There is no other explanation. You can quibble over the details of God’s nature….. but it is intellectually dishonest to look forward to paradise while denying its creator…….while denying God.

Most people who believe in paradise but deny God will give you a description of paradise. Most of the time it is a hazy, soft focus place that feels good and is trouble free. Some of the time it is remarkably detailed. It varies from a vague hope to a detailed construct. The person who describes it is either disengaged but hopeful, or has actively created the paradise that they want. Curiously, this “do it yourself” paradise always has one feature. It never requires the person who made it up to change anything about the way they live. They get to do whatever they be want…….both during this life……..and in paradise. Everybody else has to bend to accommodate them. Not only that……paradise must mold itself to the wants and needs of the person you are by talking to. If they are on the left……..paradise has gun control. If they are on the right………. it has a world class sporting clays range.

Realistically, as finite humans, limited by the restrictions of science and the physical world, we can neither dream up nor create paradise. If there is a paradise…….. then there must be a creator.

It will be awkward for you to enter, or try to enter, paradise while denying its creator.

It is dishonest to create your own version of paradise……unless you are, in fact, the creator, God. If you deny paradise and deny God, then you are at least honest and intellectually consistent………though you must live in a state of profound despair.

So…….

If you seek paradise…….. then you must seek the creator……..and the creator is either God…………or you.

Please know………..God is seeking you.

I have walked out of very few movies in my life. One of them was “8 Millimeter”, a movie about about “snuff films” starring Nicholas Cage. Needless to say, it was extremely offensive……..but, it contained one of the most valuable pieces of theology that I have ever run across. At one point Cage’s character says,

” When you dance with the Devil………. the Devil doesn’t change……you do”

This has to be one of the greatest truths……….one of the most valuable warnings …………of life. And yet we do it every day. We participate in something…….a small act of dishonesty, gossip, pornography. We say to ourselves that we aren’t harming anybody. We even have derogatory terms for those who avoid our “Petty Sin of the Day” (PSD). We can them prudes, Pollyannas, intolerant………and we enjoy a little dance with the devil.

The thing is that we ARE hurting somebody………we are hurting ourselves. Every little inconsequential violation makes the next PSD easier. Every PSD leaves a mark on our psyche. There are pornographic images that I looked at…….. willingly……..40 years ago that are still in my head. I will carry them to my grave. My little “dance with the Devil” as a young man has changed me forever. The same is true of the “little white lie”……….the pirated video……..the demeaning comment about a co-worker.

Each of these things changes us……..and they are cumulative. Furthermore, they accumulate in us, not just individually……….but also as a society. When I was in Junior high there was a TV series, “Mission Impossible”. In one episode the female star was shown from the back without a shirt or bra on. It was shocking, it had never been done on prime time TV……people talked about it…..and it changed us as a society. Today it is not at all hard to see full frontal nudity on your TV, in your family room at 7pm. There was a time when you turned the TV off, or sent the kids from the room when something objectional came on. When was the last time you did that?

You have changed.

And it goes further. I used to watch “Law and Order”. Then I noticed that Christians were usually portrayed as hateful, bigoted angry people and the LGBT community was usually portrayed as kind gentle people. The Christians were usually the “Bad Guys”. I occasionally see the show now and it has improved. But, anti-Christian bias in our society is growing. You Tube now blocks “Christian” as a keyword in ad searches. Yes, you read that right…….check it out.

We, as a society have changed.

We used to try to teach our children judgement. “Good judgement” was a goal to strive for. Today “judgementalism” is one of the great evils in our society.

The Bible is chock full of rules…….six hundred some odd of them ……….and we don’t like rules…… we chafe against them. And yet if you look at the main ones: Love God……Love your neighbor……the ten commandments……..they are there for our own good. Like the wall around the sheep pen…….. they are there for our protection. They are there to prevent our “dance with the Devil”………to prevent us from changing into something less than we were created to be.

Advice from one demon to another from “The Screwtape Letters”

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards will do the trick.

Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C.S. Lewis