April 27, 2003: Praying Like A Child

I think I can speak for most teachers when I say that it is a pleasure to see a child raise his hand. It means he has something to say, that he is involved enough in what is going on to want to contribute. I've had the opportunity to teach children many times, and have decided that on any day I'd rather teach mischievous kids with lots of questions than well-behaved ones who stare at you in dull silence.

Sometimes kids say things that make no sense to me. When that happens, I try to keep in mind that whatever they said, it made sense to them. When I was a child, I probably said lots of strange things that sprang from my childlike grasp of reality. But even when I could not get my point across to an adult whose attention I craved, I could still tell whether or not he was taking me seriously. Every a child knows when he is being taken seriously - or silently laughed at by an adult who thinks he is stupid.

God takes us seriously, which is stunning when you consider that the distance between his understanding and ours is so much greater than that which exists between the wisest adult and the simplest child. We know he takes us seriously because he has told us to pray. Prayer is how we come and talk to him.

We are apt to botch prayer. James warns, "You ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures" (James 4:3). Even a good man like Job confessed, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me" (Job 42:3).

But botching prayer is no excuse for avoiding it. God requires us to contribute our bit to the heavenly conversation that brings him glory and joy. I like to think that the pleasure I feel upon seeing a young student raise his hand is a distant echo of the divine pleasure God experiences when we approach him in prayer. In your spirit, with a child's humility, raise your hand and God will call on you and you can talk to him. He likes that. He likes it so much he has commanded it.

April 20, 2003: No Cussing

While getting an oil change last week I struck up a conversation with a customer who told me (I think after she found out I was a minister) that she had given up swearing for Lent. I congratulated her. It is good not to cuss. I said something about hoping that she would be able to keep her momentum and not use bad language even after Lent was over.

Everyone benefits when people guard their tongues, because bad words pollute the air like exhaust from a diesel truck. Ephesians 4:29 says, "Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up." Bad words tear people down. They degrade both speaker and hearer, but "a word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver" (Proverbs 25:11).

Some years ago a cousin of mine met a woman who sparked his romantic interest. But the second time he met her with her he heard her use foul language, and his heart cooled on the spot. He knew that words reveal character. As Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34).

If there is garbage in your heart, it will come out in what you say. The best way to clean your mouth is to change your heart. But it is also true that the cleaning can work the other way. Guard your words, and you may well find that your heart responds by becoming a bit less trashy.

April 13, 2003: Organize

My mother kept a Booker T. Washington quote taped to the door or our refrigerator that read: “But gradually, by patience and hard work we brought order out of chaos, just as will be true of any problem if we stick to it with patience and wisdom and earnest effort.”

Mom used those words to motivate herself to keep the house clean. She always wanted things neat and orderly, but was never particularly good at getting them to be or stay that way. I inherited her genetic predisposition to clutter, and have passed it on to my sons. I am finding that the trait intensifies as it marches through the generations.

There are ways to justify sloppiness. When failing to bring order out of chaos, my mother drew comfort from another quote: "The cost of productivity is mess." (I think that was on the refrigerator too!) And she delighted in her personal interpretation of Proverbs 14:4: "The stall is clean where no oxen are, but much increase comes by strength of the ox." Granted - an oxen-free stall is nice and clean, but without those messy oxen the furrows don't get plowed and the grain does not get threshed. A clean stall is just a sign of sterile inactivity!

Well, as my mother and I would have to admit, that is not exactly true. I have known lots of people who are both productive and organized, and while I don't hate them, I do admit to being so jealous of them that it becomes my spiritual duty to restrain envy. They prove to me what I'd rather not believe: that order and productivity are in direct rather than inverse proportion. The more organized you are, the more you can get done. (Partly because you don't have to spend so much time looking for things.)

Order is good. The Apostle Paul told the chaotic Corinthians, "Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way" (1 Corinthians 14:40). If you lack the knack for order, you are not excused from trying to achieve it. You'll just have to go at it with more of Booker T. Washington's "patience and wisdom and earnest effort."

I better stop here and clean my office.