I have a prayer list. I keep it on my cell phone. It’s a couple of pages long. I try to go through it every day………though some days I miss. This list is a bunch of requests. It is separate from my prayers of praise and thanks. It amounts to a long list of things that a long list of people need. There are people on the list who are family and friends. There are people on it who know somebody that I know. There are also people on it that I don’t even recognize……….I can’t recall how they got there. Many of these are people are friends of friends of friends.

I get up early and I pray for these people. And yet, sometimes, it gets a little mechanical. I wonder…….am I just reading a list? Sometimes it almost feels like work……..like a chore. Reading the Bible is easy. Prayers of praise are easy. Going down a long list of needs is harder.

And yet, the list is important. Before I even open my mouth, God knows every single item on my prayer list. I’m not telling him anything new…….I’m not telling him anything that he doesn’t already know. I’m not asking him for anything that he doesn’t care deeply about. I am not bringing God up to speed on conditions in his creation.

So……..what in the world am I doing?

The prayer list has two purposes.

The first is that it reminds me that I am my brother’s keeper. I am required to care for and look after my fellow man. I am required to care for those who care for me. But……..I am also required to care for those who despise me……..those who hurt me. And this is not easy. This is something that I have to be reminded of……..every day.

The second purpose is a little harder to get a fix on. If my prayer list is not uploading data to God……..then what am I communicating when I work my way through it?

I need to go back in my life to explain this. Our relationship with our parents is a reflection of our relationship with God. Often, to understand God, we can get a clue by understanding our relationship with our parents. My father died when I was in high school. My most cherished memory of my Dad was one night, standing by the washing machine in the basement. We talked……..it was nothing important…….small talk. We didn’t transmit any valuable information. What we were doing was sharing time. We were giving each other a little bit of ourselves……..bonding. And that is the second reason for the prayer list. It is a chance to spend time with your father……to share with him the things that are important to you………to bond.

I encourage you to keep a prayer list.

I encourage you to spend time sharing it with God…….every day.

If it seems a bit stale……don’t worry.

If you forget somebody……don’t sweat it.

God already knows every single item on your list.

He just wants to hear from you.

He just wants you to share a little bit of yourself with him.

It’s as close to a hug as you can get.

‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ 

God, NIV

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Paul, NIV

The Lord is righteous in all his ways
    and kind in all his works.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth.

David, NIV

At a recent Bible study, we were asked, “Why does God use broken people?” This question included a list of flawed people whom God used to accomplish his goals.

Moses, a poor speaker.
David, a murderer and adulterer.
Jacob, a liar.
Paul, one of the greatest persecutors of Christians.
Peter, who denied Christ three times.

The list goes on.

Finally I realized…….that the problem here lies in how we define “broken people”. Generally speaking, we define “broken people” as people who are more broken than we are…….people who are broken in ways that we find more offensive than the ways we are broken.

It occurred to me……..that God must use broken people to do his work……… because he has no choice. We are all broken. Intellectually, we have no problem with this idea.

But, in concrete terms…….how are we broken?

How am I broken?

I’d like to focus for a minute on our greatest individual failure…….the most glaring example of our individual brokenness. I’m challenging you to search out your own personal failure…… I’m challenging you to forget about the other guy’s brokenness and to take a good hard look at the biggest impediment standing between you and God.

This may not be much fun.

If you are a secular humanist……..an atheist…….then your greatest failure is your denial of God.

If you identify as a Christian……..but you keep your faith locked up in a box except for an hour every Sunday…….the rest of the week, you ignore God’s commands and pursue your appetites…….then your greatest failure is that you put your appetites ahead of God. This category may very well include the majority of Christians. Please don’t misunderstand me. The people in this category are Christians……..they are just broken……..just like the rest of us.

If you are a sincere, committed follower of God……of Christ, then it is very likely that your greatest failure is self righteousness. This category includes many if not most of the remaining Christians. How does this work?

We live our lives on a spectrum of “goodness”.

Satan…..really bad people……bad people……me…….good people……really good people…… God.

When we assess goodness, we almost always look at the people downhill from us on the spectrum. We focus on the flawed politician from the “other party”. We dissect his or her failures. We rarely look uphill…….at the “Mother Teresas” of the world. We do this, because this allows us to pontificate on how the “bad” people need to change. Looking uphill forces us to consider how we need to change.

And that is the lesson……..the challenge.

We need to spend our time working on our own brokenness. Because our only chance to grow as a person in general………and as a Christian in particular……..comes from whittling away at our own failures. Raging against the failures of others is great fun……but it is completely futile.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus, NIV

Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”

Paul, NIV

So…..you say that God is not listening.
You say that he never speaks to you.
You say your prayers go unanswered.
You say you don’t experience a daily dialog with God.

Well, if you are expecting the clouds to part and a 20 story tall head to speak to you in a Charleton Heston voice, you may be looking for the wrong thing. God’s voice is “written on your heart”. When he speaks to you, it is usually in the form of a gentle “tug” on your heart. This happens to all of us…..just about every day. We sometimes call it our conscience. We call it our morals. We sometimes say, “Where in the world did that come from?” Sometimes it is inconvenient, maybe even costly. We often ignore it. We often ignore HIM…….but that does not mean that he didn’t speak to us.

True stories:

I knew a man who was an alcoholic…….l’m sure that one of the times that God spoke to him was the last time he drank. There was a tug at his heart. It said “Don’t drink the vodka, it’s bad for you!” “It’s bad for your family!”

A husband and wife got way behind on their gifts to the church……and I mean many years behind. They talked, and prayed and decided to make a sizable “catch-up” gift. This was unusual, maybe revolutionary, for them. They just felt that “tug” on their hearts. Some time later, the pastor told them that the church had been in budget trouble. He had been praying for help. They thought…..”no big deal…..it’s a pastor thing”. Then he told them about the shortfall that he was praying over…………it was the same amount as their donation……. to the penny.

A guy wakes up at about 4am to do his daily Bible reading. He sees a Facebook post about a friend whose husband is in the ICU. Responding to a “tug”, he drives over to the hospital at about 5am. His friend is out front, in tears……..her husband had just passed away.

The problem between you and God may not be that he is not speaking to you. The problem may be that you don’t recognize him, ignore him, or even defy him.

God is talking to you. He is talking to me.

The point is that God often speaks to us through a little “tug” on our hearts. Sometimes the tug is a response to our prayers. Sometimes it is a response to the prayer of someone else…… possibly a stranger.

God speaks to us…..he answers prayers……. sometimes ours…… sometimes the prayers of a stranger.

God IS listening…….God IS speaking……..am I responding?……are you?

So, my challenge is this. Pay attention to that little tug on your heart. Test it against the truths in the Bible……..because we are masters at taking something that we want and convincing ourselves that it is something that God wants. If it is consistent with the Bible, then act on it. God will use your act……even if you never see the results.

I believe that someday, in paradise, somebody that I have never met will walk up to me. They will give me a hug and tell me how their life was changed for the better………because of some act……..something that I don’t even remember doing…….. something that began with a little tug on my heart…….. something that God grew into something big.

I am certain that I have failed many times to act on that “tug”……but I am convinced that when we do respond to the “tug”, God will use it.

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Moses, NIV

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Jesus, NIV

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Jesus, NIV

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

Isaiah, NIV

The image is Jesus…….working through a difficult, ambiguous decision……judging. Should the adultress be stoned?

In a recent post about the death of justice Ginsburg, I suggested a prayer:

“Lord, please bless and comfort the soul of justice Ginsberg and her family. Please guide our leaders as they choose a replacement for her. Give us a replacement justice who will love you, seek you, and follow you……….not me, not the Republican party, and not the Democratic party………but you.”

This prayer can be comforting but it can also be disconcerting.

What if God’s choice is the Trump nominee?
What if God’s choice is a Biden nominee?

First of all let me answer your first thought……and mine. The idea that we know God’s heart. In broad strokes, we do; but, in the details, we get lost. We know our own heart and we often paste our heart onto God. We tend to follow our own heart and attribute what we are doing to God. And, if that doesn’t work…..we just ignore God and do as we please.

I don’t know whom God would choose…..for president and for the supreme court……and neither do you. I know whom I would choose and you know whom you would choose.

Now, let’s return to the prayer…….and a hypothetical question.

If you knew with absolute certainty that God’s choice was the nominee of a politician that you despise, could you still pray for that nominee?

If you despise Trump, but knew that God wanted Ms. Barrett, could you pray that she be confirmed?

If you despise Biden, but knew that God wanted Biden’s choice, could you pray that RBG’s seat be filled by Biden?

Remember, as hard as this is, neither of us knows whom God would choose.

Take a moment and reflect, then answer the question. Understand….. This is a yes or no question. If you try to evade the question or qualify your answer, then your answer is no.

You see, this exercise actually has nothing to do with politics and the supreme court. Rather, it is an exploration of your loyalties.

It is a self-assessment of whom you actually worship….whom you actually follow…….whom you actually trust.

Do you trust yourself and your political party……..or do you trust God?

Whom do you follow? Whom do you worship?

I propose that in the hypothetical situation where you like candidate A and God likes candidate B………if you stumble over setting your desires aside and following God, then you trust, follow, and worship somebody other than God.

This is intellectually consistent…….if you are an atheist.

But, if you identify as a Christian, then you are in trouble.

If you are a Christian, but you cannot put God’s desires above your own, then you are putting yourself…… your desires……..above God.

Don’t feel bad……you are in good company. Probably half of Christians take their set of beliefs, attribute them to God, and then do exactly what they wanted to do in the first place.

To avoid this pitfall, if you are a Christian, you need to study God, follow him, and put these decisions in his hand……. especially when you discover that, on a specific issue, the “other” political party is correct.

Here is some bad news, no matter which party you support…….on some of these issues, the “other” side is correct.

On some of these issues, God is on the “other” side.

On some of these issues……… God is not on “your” side.

You must honestly ask:

Does God want more abortion…….or less?
Does God want more guns…..or less?
Does God want more social programs for the poor?
Does God want smaller federal government?
Does God want more or less taxes?
Does God want more or less regulation?

As you can see, your choice of political party, your decision as you vote, is far more complex than either party wants you to believe. You may have to decide which of these issues takes precedence. You may have to vote for the party that is closest to God on most of the most important issues.

What I can tell you is this. If you allow your interpretation of these problems to cause you to fail to follow God’s first two rules…… Love God…… Love your neighbor…….. If you allow anger and hate into your life over these issues, then you have failed as a Christian.

I would even go one step further. If you allow anger and hate into your life over these issues, then you have failed as a human being.

“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

A conversation between a religious scholar and Jesus about judgement, NIV

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Jesus, subordinating his desires to God the father, NIV

I am by nature a “fixer”.

Most men are……to one degree or another. Show a man a problem…….and he will respond with a solution……..usually in one or two sentences. For the most part, this works for me. For my wife…….. I’m not so sure.

The problem is that there are things that are broken that I cannot fix. Some times these are things that just cannot be fixed. Some times this is because of my limitations.

The friend with terminal cancer.
The committed secular humanist.
The life long drug abuser.
Global environmental deterioration.
The hatred that permeates our society.
The violence that we consume every night on our TV.
Fake information on the web and on the “news”.

I’m sure we could both add to this list.

One of the rules that I live by is this:

“When dealing with a problem……focus on the part of the problem that you can change (fix).”

But what if you….what if I…….cannot fix this one?

My next rule is this:

“Fix what you can…….pray about what you can’t fix…….don’t worry about the things you cannot change.

The Bible makes many promises. One of these is that God will make things right…….in the end. God will make things right……but on his terms and on his schedule. A great deal of the frustration that we experience arises when God doesn’t fix a problem on our terms and on our schedule. There are many people who have walked away from God because of this. There are many people who would rather trust science than wait on God.

An old fable:

There was a flood and a Christian prayed that God would save him. An army truck drove by announcing an evacuation, he stayed put and prayed…..and the water rose to his porch. A boat came by, he stayed put and prayed…….and the water rose to his roof. A helicopter came by, he stayed put and prayed…….and the water rose…….and he drowned. In paradise, he met Jesus. Jesus said, “Child, your faith during the flood was amazing!”
He said, “I prayed and prayed and you didn’t answer my prayer!”
Jesus said, “What are you talking about…….I sent a truck, a boat and a helicopter.”

God’s terms…….God’s schedule…….not ours.

Pray for the things that you cannot fix.

God will fix them……..but on his terms and on his timetable.

God is in charge……not you……not me.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Paul, NIV

“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”.

Jeremiah, NIV

Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

Luke, NIV

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

John, NIV

The big story this week is the death of justice Ginsberg. You can like her, or disagree with her, but there is no arguing that she was a larger than life supreme court justice. In her opinions and perhaps even more so in her dissents, she has left an indelible mark on our nation and on our society. Her focus on women’s rights has forever changed the position of women in American society……..for the most part for the better.

As a Christian conservative, I disagree with many of her positions, especially on abortion. As a civil society, we need to be able to disagree in a thoughtful respectful way. Her friendship with justice Scalia is something that we could all learn from.

We are headed into what will likely be an ugly election. If the past predicts the future, then we are headed into an even uglier confirmation process. This is the sad reality. This is how our elected leaders behave.

As a Christian, during this period, I will need to work even harder than usual to adhere to my “mission statement”……. Love God and my neighbor.

Please join me in this prayer:

“Lord, please bless and comfort the soul of justice Ginsberg and her family. Please guide our leaders as they choose a replacement for her. Give us a replacement justice who will love you, seek you, and follow you……….not me, not the Republican party, and not the Democratic party………but you.”

Amen

“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 

Jesus, NIV

“There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy.”

Jesus, NIV

Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Solomon, NIV

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;

Paul, NIV

We hear the word integrity a lot. I guess that we would agree that integrity is a good thing.

A life of integrity……a man or woman of integrity…….noble goals. But, just exactly what does integrity mean?

It means that all of the parts of a whole work together.

In people it means that all of the facets of our life operate together under a cohesive plan. In business we would call this plan our “mission statement”. I have heard it said that a really great mission statement is brief and covers everything. I once saw a photo of a car plant. Their mission statement was written in 3 story letters on the side of the building facing the parking lot. Every worker saw it on the way into work.

It said: ” Q 1 “
Short for “Quality is job one.”

This is not a car ad. I cannot tell you if the company has reached that goal. But, it is one of the best business mission statements that I have ever seen.

I believe that, if we are to live lives of integrity, we must have a personal mission statement. In reality people who do this are rare……..but you will know them when you see them.

Your mission statement should guide you through your life. It should shape every act……every decision that you make. The quality of your life, then, will be dictated by the quality of your personal mission statement. This is a big deal. It requires serious deliberation.

Bad mission statement……..bad life.
Good mission statement…….good life.

People of integrity have a good mission statement………and they follow it. I do not claim to have done this, but it is a goal.

What are some examples of mission statements?

Feed my appetites…….the most common
Be happy
Get rich
Get stuff
Take care of my family
Save the planet
Pursue truth
Do good

And my favorite

Love God and my fellow man

This was, in fact, the mission statement of Jesus.

Hard to beat.

My vision of paradise is a place where that is THE mission statement for everybody.

So, give it some thought…….a lot of thought.

See if you can find a mission statement that will govern your life. Then follow that mission statement to a life of integrity.

I promise you……… if you choose well, this will drastically simplify your life. This will lead you to the elusive goal that we all seek…….happiness.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Paul, NIV

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.

John, NIV

I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent.

Ezra?, NIV

Absolutes are always dangerous.

This one is true…… or very close to true.

Every American really likes at least a part of Christianity.

Everybody likes having the day off on Sunday. It may be the only one of the ten commandments that we will never consider abolishing. Everybody likes Christmas……at least the party and the gifts. Can you imagine a politician trying to abolish weekends and Christmas in the name of “separation of church and state”? It would make reforming social security look like child’s play.

On the other hand, there is a lot of the Bible that a lot of people don’t like. In our abortion clinics, Americans ignore “do not kill” about 3000 times a day. I can’t pick up my phone without seeing a friend share a Facebook post that is untrue……”do not lie”. We have a very real problem with “love your neighbor”…………especially if he or she doesn’t vote like we do.

Just about every one of us, even atheists, pick through the Bible and pull out ideas that we like. The rest we discard. How else can you explain pro-abortion Christians? We tend to accept the parts of the Bible that agree with what we want. In a way we create our own custom religion and use bits and pieces of the Bible to endorse the things that we already believe……things that we would have believed even if there were no Bible.

There is a James Taylor lyric:

“we got holy scriptures here that prove us to be right
In believing out loud what we wish to be true”

I’m not sure of where he stands with God……but I think he hit the nail on the head.

It’s easy to pat ourselves on the back for promoting the parts of the Bible that tell us that God supports us when we do what we were going to do anyway. Today, I’d like to roll back the rock and take a peek at the parts of the Bible that are often rejected.

Today I’d like to challenge you……..to have an honest look at the parts of the Bible that you might reject:

Recreational sex…….. The Bible clearly says that sex is to be confined to a husband and wife.

Homosexuality…….the Bible does not say that a man cannot love another man……..but it unmistakably prohibits same sex intercourse.

Abortion……..there is no question that abortion kills a child……the Bible prohibits taking an innocent life.

Charity………we are told that it is our responsibility to care for widows and the downtrodden, the guy on the corner with the little cardboard sign……….to visit those in jail.

Love……..love your fellow man………possibly the hardest command of them all. I’m not talking about loving your child or grandchild, who adores you. I’m talking about loving the unlovable. I’m talking about a Democrat loving Trump……a Republican loving Pelosi. How about loving a member of antifa? How about loving a Portland style anarchist?

Trust me……..if God can love these people, so can you.

So, my challenge for you is this. Study the Bible. When you find something that you don’t like……..and you will, don’t try to twist the Bible around until it supports what you already believe. Don’t try to make the Bible conform to your appetites. Instead, see if you can adjust your beliefs, your appetites, to bring them into alignment with the “owners manual”. This will not be easy.

When I hit an impasse, I go back to rule #1…… Love God……..and rule #2……… Love your neighbor. This always seems to clarify things for me.

“Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.”

Abraham Lincoln, commenting on the Bible

“Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

Moses, NIV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus, NIV

With the election coming, this post is timely.

First of all, I want to be clear about what I mean by a lie.

A lie is something that someone says that is factually untrue.

A lie is an untrue statement that is meant to manipulate or deceive you.

But, a lie can also be a lie of omission. If I make 10 statements, all of them factually true, but omit truths from the other side……and if I do it with the intention of misleading you and manipulating you, then the sum total of my work is a lie.

This bears repeating:

A lie does not have to be factually untrue. It only has to be intentionally misleading.

Journalists are masters of the lie of omission.

If you want to see a lie that is factually untrue, scroll down your Facebook page. You will find one on every other screen.

If you want to see a lie of omission, watch Fox or CNN.

Taken together these two categories of lies could very well account for half of the “information” that we consume every day. The people, the journalists, who spread these lies are highly skilled. They want you mad. They want you to attack THEIR enemy. They want to manipulate you into making their enemy into your enemy. They want to turn you into a “hater”.

Judging from the quality of our current public conversation, they have been highly successful. And it will just get worse until the election. Hopefully, this will improve after the election. However, it didn’t improve after 2016.

What to do?

First, we must critically assess the things that we are told. If a “talking head” or an internet post makes you mad, that is a red flag. The probability that you are being manipulated is very high.

The factually untrue statement is fairly easy to deal with. There are fact checking sites on the web. They are sometimes biased, but they are better than nothing. Use them on every post that you share, especially the ones that make you mad.

The manipulative but factually true lie, the lie of omission, is much more difficult. It is hard to spot, especially when it supports something that you believe, something that agrees with your appetites. We love the lie of omission, because it tells us that we are right and that the other guy is evil. The key to spotting the lie of omission is to look at the body of work of the journalist in question. If Jim Acosta has nothing positive to say about Trump, ever, then he is an omission liar. If Sean Hannity has nothing positive to say about Biden, ever, then he is an omission liar.

Ideally, we should stop consuming information that comes from factual liars and from omission liars. If we all did this, then their sponsors would go away and then they would go away. This is going to be hard to do without cancelling our cable TV subscription and our internet service.

This sounds hopeless; but, I find that when I am facing a confusing and difficult problem, there is often good advise in the “owner’s manual”, the Bible.

When all else fails…… Read the instructions.

Love God
Love your neighbor

When you are in the process of reacting to a piece of information, run it through those two filters first. Does YOUR reaction reflect both a love for God and a love for your fellow man? If not, you may want to change channels…..or better yet pull the plug and go for a walk, play with your child, pet your dog. Maybe you need to get a dog. Trust me, his reaction to the “talking head” is far healthier than yours.

An evildoer listens to wicked lips,
and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.

Solomon, NIV

No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.

David, NIV

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

John, NIV

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

John, NIV

But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person.

Jesus, NIV

I get up around 5am every morning. I go out on the patio, light a fire in the fire pit, and sip my first cup of coffee. I read the Bible, pray, and write these posts.

Yesterday, the sun rose on a cloudless, crystal blue sky……it was beautiful. Today, it is cloudy, threatening rain, and cool……almost fall-like……….it is beautiful. Soon it will be very cold with a light frost, and later……. snow………and that too will be beautiful.

We get deeply immersed in our to do list. We are so busy pulling on the levers…….running the machine that is our daily life, that we fail to sit back, take a minute and appreciate the beauty that is our world…….at least the part of it that God created.

Have you ever just sat on your porch and watched a thunderstorm? Better yet, I once experienced a hurricane, up close and personal. The power, the glory of it was awesome.

I have come to realize that nature, the direct result of God’s creation, is beautiful……all of it.

There is no such thing as a natural disaster.

A wildfire may destroy homes in California. A volcano may destroy cabins in Oregon. A hurricane may flood a city in Louisiana. The human stuff that is destroyed, the lives that are lost is tragic. But the storm itself, in its power, is majestic.

We get upset…….because our human plans are disrupted. We get upset……..because our man made stuff is destroyed. We forget that these “natural disasters” are one face of our creator. They are a reminder of his power and glory. They are a reminder of how small we are…….and of how inconsequential the things that we build are. In 1000 years there is not a thing that we have built that will still be here……..except, perhaps for our waste. If there are still people around, they may read about us, but they will not remember us.

So we need to decide what we will focus on as we go about our day….. the temporary life we are living and the stuff that we are accumulating and maintaining……..all of which will soon be gone……or the power, glory, and majesty that is our creator……who is eternal.

Do we focus on the lower eighth ward in New Orleans?
Or do we focus on the storm?

I can assure you that we will rebuild New Orleans. I can also assure you that it will again be destroyed someday. Katrina, or another storm with a different name will return every year for as long as this planet exists.

So…… where is this going?

There is a critical truth hiding here.

The conflict between our stuff and the storm is the same as the conflict between our temporary society and God’s eternal society.

Our earthly lives and our temporal stuff will not survive.
The storm will prevail.
God will prevail.

We have to choose which to focus on.
We have to choose which to put our treasure in.

In a way, we must choose which to worship…….the temporal…….or the eternal……………our stuff……..or the storm.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Jesus, NIV

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Paul, NIV

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end. The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will be established before you.

David, NIV

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

Paul, NIV