In Praise Of God’s Sunlight (May 25, 2003)
Don't you love the longer days at this time of year?
It is a genuine pleasure for me to see the sky getting light early in the morning, and to go for a walk when the sun is still shining past 8 o'clock in the evening. I just like it. I treasure a memory from my youth when I was in northwestern Montana and saw the sun set at 10 o'clock. My family knows that one of my life's ambitions is to see the midnight sun somewhere in Canada or Alaska - or Greenland for that matter - I don't care where, I just want to see the sun cast my shadow as the clock strikes 12.
I'm not alone in craving light like chocolate. I understand that research confirms what we know intuitively - that light keeps us from being sad. I once saw a picture of school kids in Canada receiving "light therapy" - basically they stood in front of a spotlight for a few minutes a day. It was supposed to keep them from getting depressed during the long dark winter months.
In the Bible God is revealed to us as light - all light. 1 John 1:5 says, "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." One of the intriguing elements of the New Jerusalem is that "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp" (Revelation 21:23). When we yield to God, the "Father of lights" (James 1:17), we are assured that we "are all sons of the light and of the day. We do not belong to the night or
the darkness" (1 Thessalonians 5:5).
Give thanks to God for the bright sun he made. Some day we will see how that sun has barely reflected the greater light of his glory, and we will understand how the pleasures of long summer days had merely hinted of the eternal joys at his right hand.
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Sunday, May 18, 2003
May 18, 2003: Enabler Parents
Columnist John Kass ("Teen stupidity brings a lesson never forgotten" - Chicago Tribune, May 16) talks about the time in high school when he bought liquor with a fake I.D. and sped off with friends to smoke pot, drink and party. The police caught him and Kass's parents had to go bail him out.
Kass's father did not speak to him for weeks. Finally when Kass begged his dad to talk, he said, "You bought whiskey. You had pot. You want to talk?"
"Yes."
"OK. First, do something for me."
"What?"
"Take this glass."
Kass took the glass from his father.
"Now smash it to pieces. Then put it back together, all the pieces together, so it looks brand-new, so it was never broken. Then you talk to me, OK?" And he walked off.
The next day he approached his son, and at long last they talked “about deceit, about consequence, obligation and shame. About drugs and alcohol, and how they rob you of control." When they were done, Kass's father said, "I love you, boy." Kass said, "I know. I love you, Dad." The shattered glass of broken trust was restored, but "slowly, piece by piece, not by talking but by doing."
Kass contrasted his father with the Northbrook enablers who are busy filing lawsuits to overturn the suspensions from school their daughters received for a liquor-fueled hazing incident. Some of these parents are using every resource available to try to shield their daughters from the consequences of wickedness. Apparently an effort is even being made to host an “alternate prom” so that the little malefactors, barred from their school prom, can still party in style. Makes me sick.
These Northbrook parents do not love their daughters. Kass's dad, however - silent, angry, full of stern wrath - knew how to love his son. The Bible explains the difference in Proverbs 13:24: "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him."
A pastor friend of mine said that when he was involved in student ministry at the University of Illinois, he noticed a recurring theme among students who had kept their virginity and sober lifestyles in the midst of an atmosphere hostile to Christian virtue. When he asked what motivated them, they tended to say things like, "How could I disappoint my parents like that?" or "My dad would kill me!" Those are good answers. If my sons are ever tempted to vice when their will is weak and their faith is foggy, I want this one thought to sound a siren-wail in their heads: "What would Dad think of me if I did that?"
Columnist John Kass ("Teen stupidity brings a lesson never forgotten" - Chicago Tribune, May 16) talks about the time in high school when he bought liquor with a fake I.D. and sped off with friends to smoke pot, drink and party. The police caught him and Kass's parents had to go bail him out.
Kass's father did not speak to him for weeks. Finally when Kass begged his dad to talk, he said, "You bought whiskey. You had pot. You want to talk?"
"Yes."
"OK. First, do something for me."
"What?"
"Take this glass."
Kass took the glass from his father.
"Now smash it to pieces. Then put it back together, all the pieces together, so it looks brand-new, so it was never broken. Then you talk to me, OK?" And he walked off.
The next day he approached his son, and at long last they talked “about deceit, about consequence, obligation and shame. About drugs and alcohol, and how they rob you of control." When they were done, Kass's father said, "I love you, boy." Kass said, "I know. I love you, Dad." The shattered glass of broken trust was restored, but "slowly, piece by piece, not by talking but by doing."
Kass contrasted his father with the Northbrook enablers who are busy filing lawsuits to overturn the suspensions from school their daughters received for a liquor-fueled hazing incident. Some of these parents are using every resource available to try to shield their daughters from the consequences of wickedness. Apparently an effort is even being made to host an “alternate prom” so that the little malefactors, barred from their school prom, can still party in style. Makes me sick.
These Northbrook parents do not love their daughters. Kass's dad, however - silent, angry, full of stern wrath - knew how to love his son. The Bible explains the difference in Proverbs 13:24: "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him."
A pastor friend of mine said that when he was involved in student ministry at the University of Illinois, he noticed a recurring theme among students who had kept their virginity and sober lifestyles in the midst of an atmosphere hostile to Christian virtue. When he asked what motivated them, they tended to say things like, "How could I disappoint my parents like that?" or "My dad would kill me!" Those are good answers. If my sons are ever tempted to vice when their will is weak and their faith is foggy, I want this one thought to sound a siren-wail in their heads: "What would Dad think of me if I did that?"
Sunday, May 11, 2003
May 11, 2003: Brute Force Obedience
At one point in C. S. Lewis' great novel The Screwtape Letters, the demon Wormwood believes that he has cause to rejoice. The new Christian whom he has been trying to tempt away from the faith is going through a period of spiritual dryness. Wormword boasts to his uncle Screwtape of his hope that "the patient's religious phase is dying away."
Screwtape writes back to rebuke Wormwood's confidence, explaining how God ("our Enemy") uses those dry periods to make a believer even stronger. He writes:
[God] leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best...Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
“And still obeys.” Sometimes I think the best obedience is that which we offer to God when there is no love or good cheer or spiritual energy to motivate it. It is like the widow's mite in Mark 12:42 - a small sum, but noted by our Lord for its greatness because it came from poverty. Recall that Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3). A broken-hearted, consistent self-discipline has a sweetness and a power that robust zeal can never match.
Often I have counseled with people who felt that they were sunk deep in a spiritual trough. My advice to them is neither earth-shaking nor profound: sometimes you just have to trudge through it. Read your Bible even if you find that it is giving you no help, say your prayers even when they seem pointless, give thanks to God even when you would rather just complain. Maybe the day will come when you can submit to God with gladness. Till then, submit to him out of duty. As the Bible says in Galatians 6:9: "Let us not grow weary in well-doing. For in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
At one point in C. S. Lewis' great novel The Screwtape Letters, the demon Wormwood believes that he has cause to rejoice. The new Christian whom he has been trying to tempt away from the faith is going through a period of spiritual dryness. Wormword boasts to his uncle Screwtape of his hope that "the patient's religious phase is dying away."
Screwtape writes back to rebuke Wormwood's confidence, explaining how God ("our Enemy") uses those dry periods to make a believer even stronger. He writes:
[God] leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best...Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
“And still obeys.” Sometimes I think the best obedience is that which we offer to God when there is no love or good cheer or spiritual energy to motivate it. It is like the widow's mite in Mark 12:42 - a small sum, but noted by our Lord for its greatness because it came from poverty. Recall that Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3). A broken-hearted, consistent self-discipline has a sweetness and a power that robust zeal can never match.
Often I have counseled with people who felt that they were sunk deep in a spiritual trough. My advice to them is neither earth-shaking nor profound: sometimes you just have to trudge through it. Read your Bible even if you find that it is giving you no help, say your prayers even when they seem pointless, give thanks to God even when you would rather just complain. Maybe the day will come when you can submit to God with gladness. Till then, submit to him out of duty. As the Bible says in Galatians 6:9: "Let us not grow weary in well-doing. For in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
Sunday, May 4, 2003
May 4,2003: Stray Comments That Get You In Trouble
Watch what you say.
Recently a young relative of mine got fired from a job she had just started because of a nasty little coincidence. She met an acquaintance at a fast-food restaurant and they talked about work. She happened to mention that her former boss was a moron, and she was relieved not to have to work for that jerk anymore.
It just so happens that her ex-boss’s wife was standing nearby and heard everything. She told her husband, who was a client of my relative's current employer in the same industry. He called them and said he would no longer do business with them. So they fired her.
The thing about that bad-luck story is that it could happen to just about any one of us. Who is wise enough to keep from saying stupid things in unguarded moments? Even one of our heroes, Billy Graham, was deeply embarrassed last year when his voice was heard on a 30-year-old Nixon White House tape uttering comments that were perceived as anti-Semitic. Who knew that those offhand remarks would come back to haunt him?
I myself have been haunted by careless comments I have made - things too embarrassing to reveal here - words the memories of which make me wince more than 20 years later. I take some comfort in knowing that I'm not alone. Though people can learn to control their passions and emotions and appetites, hardly anyone learns how to control his own tongue. James 3:2 says, "We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check."
Colossians 4:6 says, "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt." That is a good goal. Say this prayer today: "God, help me not to say anything that is hurtful, stupid or untrue. Let my conversation be just the way the Bible says it should be, seasoned with salt and full of grace."
Watch what you say.
Recently a young relative of mine got fired from a job she had just started because of a nasty little coincidence. She met an acquaintance at a fast-food restaurant and they talked about work. She happened to mention that her former boss was a moron, and she was relieved not to have to work for that jerk anymore.
It just so happens that her ex-boss’s wife was standing nearby and heard everything. She told her husband, who was a client of my relative's current employer in the same industry. He called them and said he would no longer do business with them. So they fired her.
The thing about that bad-luck story is that it could happen to just about any one of us. Who is wise enough to keep from saying stupid things in unguarded moments? Even one of our heroes, Billy Graham, was deeply embarrassed last year when his voice was heard on a 30-year-old Nixon White House tape uttering comments that were perceived as anti-Semitic. Who knew that those offhand remarks would come back to haunt him?
I myself have been haunted by careless comments I have made - things too embarrassing to reveal here - words the memories of which make me wince more than 20 years later. I take some comfort in knowing that I'm not alone. Though people can learn to control their passions and emotions and appetites, hardly anyone learns how to control his own tongue. James 3:2 says, "We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check."
Colossians 4:6 says, "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt." That is a good goal. Say this prayer today: "God, help me not to say anything that is hurtful, stupid or untrue. Let my conversation be just the way the Bible says it should be, seasoned with salt and full of grace."
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