Cindy and I designed our house from the ground up……Cindy more than me. We made some mistakes…….but, all in all, it has served us well. We and our sons have lived most of our lives in this house. There is a back hallway from the garage into the house. It is no surprise that this is how 95% of the people entering our house come in. There is even a plaque that says “back door guests are best”.

The layout of the house is open and expansive. The family room has a 25 foot cathedral ceiling and flows into the kitchen, breakfast room, foyer, and an open loft. The ceilings throughout the house are 9 feet. The only exception is the back hallway……the entrance hallway…….the first thing that you see. We specified 7 foot ceilings for the entrance hallway…..and for all of the rooms on that hallway. It is tight……almost claustrophobic. It is a place that you only go into when you have a job to do……like the laundry.

What……you may ask…..were we thinking?

The cramped entrance hallway opens into the large family room. The transition is stunning. The tiny hall makes the open spaces beyond it even bigger……and more inviting. Nobody “hangs out” in the back hallway…….ever. The back hall is just a place that you pass through to get to the nice places beyond. The claustrophobic back hallway sets up a contrast. It makes the open spaces beyond even more striking.

So…….back to old age. Cindy and I are in our 70’s. And, if you haven’t figured it out yet, we have been truly blessed.
But, what is old age about?

Pain…….just about everything hurts……especially in the morning.

Cancer

Heart disease

Liver disease

Osteoporosis

Dizziness

Declining senses of smell, sight, and hearing.

We write a lot of stuff down.

We often say, “I wish I knew what I know now but had the body I had in my 20”s”.

But, maybe this is a part of God’s plan. Maybe the shrinking of my physical horizons is like the back hallway in my house. God promises that when I die, the list of problems…….complaints…….that I just wrote down will go away…….forever. Maybe my temporary discomfort today is there to contrast with the physical joy of paradise. Maybe, my morning stiffness is like walking through my back hallway……..on my way to the family room.

From now on, this will be my meditation……..when I am dealing with the aggravations of old age. God is just getting me mentally and emotionally prepared……..for paradise.

Old age…….is just a place that you must go through……to get to the really nice place beyond.

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

David, Psalms18:19, ESV

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:16, ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Paul, Phillipines 1:6, ESV

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

God, Isaiah 46:3-4, ESV

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Jesus, John 14:2-3, ESV

I recently spent some time on right vs.wrong. I want to expand on that a bit. I think that our culture has lost its mooring to these two key principles. When I was a kid, we had a small black and white TV. Sometimes it worked. We had 3 channels and they went off the air at midnight. There were very few choices as to what to watch. But, the shows that we had were qualitative different from TV today. There were good guys and bad guys. The good guys were good…….all of the time. The bad guys were bad……..all of the time. In a word, our public media taught us about good and bad every day. Characters like Matt Dillon, Ben Cartwright, Mike Nelson, Mr. Rodgers, and Magnum, PI modeled right behaviour for us……..and we absorbed it. These were our role models. There were organizations that explicitly taught right behaviour……like the Boy Scouts.

But, over the years, these ideals……..these ideal role models have come to be seen as “one dimensional”, “niave”, “childish”, “uninteresting”. The good guys in our public media have been replaced by much more complicated characters. Some would say more realistic, more interesting………more like us. Indiana Jones, Han Solo, Jason Bourne, Brian Mills(played by Liam Neeson in “Taken”) are all modern good guys. They are all complex characters that model some aspects of right but also some aspects of wrong. But, when they do something wrong, at least it is justified in the pursuit of a “greater good”. But, sometimes they do wrong…….just to show us that it isn’t really that “wrong” after all.

What the media is teaching us is that the wrong that we do every day……..is justifiable, is common, is an effective problem solving tool. In a word, our media is teaching that you can do things that are wrong…….and still be a good guy. The trouble is that the list of acceptable “wrongs” grows every day. It has even become rude to point out wrong when we see it. We call this tolerance.

Walking into a store, filling a garbage bag with merchandise and walking out………not a crime.

Voting under a false identity………tolerated.

Dumping trash and toxic waste along our roads and waterways……common.

Killing your child as an exercise in reproductive rights.

Charging $100 for a $1 pill.

Wrecking a city……or our capitol……as a valid form of “free speech”.

Let me be clear…….these things are wrong.

But the list grows every day. What was clearly wrong yesterday is acceptable today. The pan of water that we are sitting in keeps slowly getting hotter. I can’t imaging what will be acceptable tomorrow.

So we are working against a strong societal headwind when we pursue “right” in the public arena. If you want to be ostracised, tell someone that what they are doing is wrong. But, we must. There are so many voices telling our young people that they can do as they please. And every time that these voices sell another “wrong” as “tolerable” they prepare the way for an even more wrong idea tomorrow. We need voices speaking out for “right”.

Where to begin?

The first thing we must do is to be sure that we have rooted out the wrong ideas that we have already come to accept. So here are a few tests:

Is it true, kind, and helpful?

Does it help me…..but hurt someone else?

Will I be able to look Jesus in the eye when I try to justify it?

When we fully understand and commit to “right and wrong”…….we will be in a much better position to “sell” these “old fashioned” ideals to a culture that has lost its footing.

On my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the scout law, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Boy Scout Oath

A Scout is:

Trustworthy,
Loyal,
Helpful,
Friendly,
Courteous,
Kind,
Obedient,
Cheerful,
Thrifty,
Brave,
Clean,
and Reverent.

Boy Scout Law

Love God……Love your neighbor

God’s Law

A great deal of the acrimony in our public conversation arises from our understanding…….our definition of right and wrong. Today I want to explore this idea.

Right/wrong is a concept that is an inescapable part of the human condition. It is part of our “operating system”……our “Read Only Memory”. In a word, it is written on our hearts. It is so essential, that the few people among us who operate without it are considered mentally ill…….sociopaths. And yet, for such an integral part of our being, we give right/wrong very little thought.

So what are the facts about right/wrong?

Right/wrong has an existence completely apart from us…….from our wants and needs, from our situation, from our desires and appetites. We serve right/wrong…..not the other way around.

Right/wrong does not change……..ever. It is not “a living document”.

Right/wrong is a concept that is universal because it is essential. It was put into us by our creator.

Right/wrong is just as critical to our function as our pancreas.

Right/wrong is not something that we created…….it is not something that we get to redefine…….it is not something that we get to fine tune to satisfy our current appetites.

Right/wrong is truth. It is the truth because it was put there by a higher authority…….our creator.

Right/wrong makes living in a society much smoother…….but that is not its primary function. Summary execution for traffic violations would make travel much more efficient…..but that would be wrong.

Right/wrong has a primary function that is much closer to home. Right/wrong is required for me to thrive. Right/wrong is required for you to thrive. That is why our creator gave it to us. Living your life outside of the confines of right/wrong causes untold suffering for you and for those around you. This suffering is not and never was a part of God’s plan for us.

There is a test that I try to use when I am getting ready to say or do something. This test, when I use it successfully, helps to bring my life more in line with right/wrong. This test is a key ingredient in living a full and satisfying life.

Three questions:

Is it true?

Is it kind?

Is it helpful?

Three yesses and it’s probably right.

One no and it’s probably wrong.

And that gets down to the meat of the problem. We are hard wired with the concept of right/wrong…….but we have free will……..we are not forced to adhere to right/wrong. We live in the most technologically advanced society that we have ever encountered. The list of things that are possible is exploding.

But…….right/wrong……. doesn’t change. For a growing segment of the world population, more consideration goes into the question, “what can we do?” than into the question, “is it right or wrong?” More and more our choices are driven by our appetites rather than our innate understanding of right/wrong.

I think we would come closer to thriving as human beings if we used the three questions as part of our daily decision making process.

I am convinced that the three questions will help bring us into harmony with the universal truth of right/wrong.

I am convinced that living my life in harmony with the concept of right/wrong is the key to thriving in a world that gets crazier by the day.

If only I can just pull it off.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

Solomon, Proverbs, 14:12, ESV

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Paul, Romans 7:19, ESV

“You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes,

Moses, Deuteronomy, 12:8, ESV

If you ask 100 parents what they want most for their children, 90 of them will say, “I just want them to be happy”. Most of what we do every day is aimed, directly or indirectly, at achieving happiness. So…..happiness is extremely important to us. Arguably, acheiving happiness is the greatest motivator in our lives.

What is odd, is that for something that we spend our entire lives pursuing, we really give happiness very little thought. Measured by how we pursue happiness, we really don’t even understand it.

So……what is happiness……..or, more to the point, how do we go about finding it? It is a bit more nuanced than you would think. It is not too hard to find someone who has acquired or done the things that we associate with happiness but who is unhappy. It is not too hard to find someone whose life has been stalked by tragedy but who is happy. I’m sure that we can both think of something that we have done…..or acquired that should have made us happy…… but didn’t.

I believe that there are three levels of happiness. We can pursue it on all three levels at the same time. But, more often, we begin at the simplest, most primitive level and then grow into more intense and satisfying levels of happiness……..at least some of us do. Unfortunately, a great many of us are so consumed with acheiving “entry level” happiness that we get stuck and never move on to greater happiness.

So…….entry level happiness:

This is the happiness of stuff and experiences. We identify some object or activity that looks appealing. We pursue it until we acquire it. Then we enjoy it……and we are happy. The trouble is that very quickly, the object/experience becomes normal…….and the happiness fades. We then choose another object/experience and pursue it. And we repeat this cycle over and over. The result is a series of waves of happiness interspersed with troughs of less than happiness. And some people spend their entire lives on that roller coaster. This is the guy who has a midlife crisis that the Corvette won’t fix. The best part of entry level happiness is that all we have to contribute……is money……and maybe some time. We don’t have to meet the needs of our stuff. We really don’t have to give anything of ourself.

Mid level happiness:

This is the happiness of relationships. We seek out like minded people and we become friends, husbands, and wives. This is far more demanding of us. In addition to money and time, we have to give a part of ourself to the other person. We have to take care of them. We have to meet their needs……in addition to meeting our own needs. The fact that this is much harder is evidenced by the fact the half of marriages end in divorce. Friendships don’t do much better. The beauty of the happiness of relationships is that, if we both pay our dues, we can enjoy a lifetime of happiness. A good marriage is the essence of this level of hapiness. The down side is that both of the people involved must contribute. Both people must make sacrifices. Both people must compromise. This also requires a degree of vulnerability.

Ultimate happiness:

This is the highest level of happiness…….the happiness of giving. It is a greater happiness than even a great marriage. But, the reality of it is that a really good marriage is suffused with the happiness of giving. This form of happiness is counterintuitive……..because it doesn’t require you to get anything back from the other person. If fact, the other person doesn’t even need to know that you made the gift. You give someone the gift of love, financial support, forgiveness, perhaps even your life. They may or may not reciprocate……or even respond. They may not even know. But, you will walk away happy.

The surest road to happiness……..is to love and care for another………even if they don’t reciprocate.

This is God level happiness…….Christ level happiness. This is the level of happiness that led Jesus to the cross……….to give us a priceless gift…….a gift that half of the people to whom it has been offered neither respond to, nor reciprocate, nor even acknowledge.

But, I can guarantee you this:

Jesus is happy.

‘There’s no misery in not being loved, only in not loving’

Rod McKuen

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus…..John, 15:13, ESV