Category Archives: Faith

Boredom: How to drive a stake through its heart forever

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Scrambled eggs.

I had scrambled eggs for breakfast  yesterday morning and did not enjoy them at all. Having survived cancer of the mouth and then radiation for the head and neck area some years ago, my present reality is simply that some foods are to be eaten for their nutritional value, not for their taste.

But lying in bed this morning early and reflecting on having to determine my own menu for the rest of my days and the necessity of learning to cook a few things since the Lord took my wife to Heaven recently, it occurred to me that I should learn how to make scrambled eggs more interesting.

And I will.

Now, I’m not entirely opposed to a little boredom now and then.  It can actually assist in the creative process. But for the most part I hate it.  Of all the people in the world who should despise boredom in their personal lives, preachers and pastors should lead the parade.

Boring sermons is certainly a matter of widespread concern, true, but I’m not talking about that.

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The world is always listening and watching.

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“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16). 

“And all the other prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25). 

You’ve been put on the spot.

Someone is challenging you, daring you, cursing you, or slandering you.  You squirm. Nothing about this is pleasant.  You try to think of an appropriate response.

Before you act, I have a suggestion.

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Reasons to believe: There are only ten thousand or so.

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“If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46-47).

I believe in God because I believe in butterflies.

I believe in God because I’ve seen a baby and held one and watched it grow into adulthood.  And I have seen him hold babies of his own in his arms.

I believe in God because I watched the sunrise this morning.

I believe in God because of a lack of turbulence.  As the earth spins around its axis, as the earth speeds around its orbit, as our solar system zooms through the galaxy, and as the galaxy tears across the heavens at enormous speeds, you and I don’t feel a thing.  We can lay a ball on the ground today and it’s still there tomorrow morning, unmoved.  I find that truly amazing.

I believe in God because of Jesus.

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Some harmless looking things can be deadly

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“For rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft, and arrogance like the sin of idolatry”(I Samuel 15:23).

“Oh, he’s so cute. Can I pat him?”

Our little daughter was fascinated by the large black bear that was crawling through the garbage cans near our house.  We were attending a weeklong conference at the conference center near Glorieta, New Mexico, and had noticed signs warning about bears.  Traps in the form of large steel drums had been set for them.  (They would be hauled back into the mountains and turned loose.)  This night, we had just returned from a two-hour service of worship and were going from our car into the duplex when we spotted the bear across the street.

“No, you may not pat him!”  The very idea.  We hurried inside and watched through the window.

What the child considered a teddy bear could have easily been a killer.

My sin was not a big thing.

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Don’t be afraid. Your life depends on it.

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“And the angel said (to the shepherds), ‘Fear not.’  And the shepherds said, ‘Are you out of your mind? We are frightened out of our skulls!!’

Okay, I made that up. But it makes sense to me.

Sometimes being frightened is the right reaction.  Being scared is not always wrong.

What scares people the most?  You might be surprised. It isn’t terrorism, earthquakes or tsunamis.

According to one report, it’s walking alone in the dark.

I remember a time when I was fifteen, walking home from my uncle’s house, maybe a half mile. The darkness was absolute.  I had to feel my way along the old country road. Trouble is, halfway home, I had to pass George Lawson’s house and he had a massive dog that was beyond frightening.  As I was approaching the general area of that house, I walked as quietly as I could.  Then, without warning, suddenly the dog was there, not more than five feet from me, splitting the night air with a howl that could be heard in the next county.  You’ve heard of “jumping out of your own skin”?  If it was possible, that’s what I did. I ran the rest of the way, taking my chances on staying in the road.

So, yes, walking alone in the dark can be a fearsome thing.

The Sunday Parade magazine, the insert that accompanies the Sunday paper, for January 18, 2015, outdid itself this time.  The cover article by Maura Rhodes asks in large letters no one can miss, “What are you afraid of?”

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On finding yourself in a burning building (or on a sinking ship)

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“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be…” (2 Peter 3:11)

The issue of faith–to believe or not to believe–says John Ortberg, “is never just a question of calculating the odds for the existence of God.  We are not just probability calculators. We live in a burning building.  It’s called a body. The clock is ticking.”  (“Know Doubt,” p.32)

Ortberg doesn’t mind mixing metaphors.  We live in a burning building; the clock is ticking.

So true.

Yes, and the Titanic which we call Earth is sinking (with too many people occupied with re-arranging deck chairs). The universe is winding down.  The sun which supports life on earth and is the center of our solar system has an expiration date, scientists say.

The physical creation has a known shelf life. (Note: “Known” refers to the shelf life, not to the expiration date.)

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No team wants a fan like me.

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I’ve never meant much to any team I’ve rooted for.

Once, when LSU was running toward the national championship in college football, someone asked if I had a school t-shirt. I didn’t, but went out and bought one.

That school makes no money from me. They do not know I exist. I’m on no mailing list for alumni or anyone else.  I just watch them on TV. I cheer when they win and hurt when they lose.

One evening this fall, LSU was playing Alabama and it was a huge game.  I cut off the television and went to bed at halftime.  Sunday morning, I got up and left home to travel to the church where I ministered all morning, and did not learn the outcome of the game until the afternoon.  Some fan, right?

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Show me your faith.

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“I will show you my faith….” (James 2:18).

We tend to think of faith as something intangible, something ethereal, not unlike a foggy mist which when approached seems to recede into the distance.

The Lord can see our faith.

And so can you, once you stop to think about it.

When four men brought their paralyzed buddy to Jesus and ended up tearing up the roof to get him into the house, Scripture says the Lord Jesus “saw their faith” (Mark 2:5).

And so, “seeing their faith,” the Lord forgave the paralytic of his sins and then healed him.

It would appear from Scripture that our Savior has a hard time turning away from faith.

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What we told the nervous singer

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“Sing unto the Lord a new song” (Psalm 96:1; 98:1; etc).

She has a marvelous voice, one anybody this side of Juillard would be proud to own.  When she sang in church with her musician husband, they blended wonderfully and blessed the congregation.  But she undermined her own effectiveness by her timidity, that paralyzing self-consciousness which froze her in place and refused to let her enjoy the moment.

Stage fright, we call it.

Who among us is unacquainted with that monster?

Most of us know precisely how she feels.

That’s why, on the final night of our meeting, as I expressed appreciation in private to this couple, I spoke to her quietly. “Can I tell you one thing about your presentation?”

She smiled shyly. “I know what you’re going to say.”

And she did, to a point.

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The Christmas some guys got together and did a man-thing.

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“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, wise men from the east arrived unexpectedly in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him'” (Matthew 2:1-2).

Only men would have done what the Magi did. Only a group of buddies, men friends all on the same page, all of them sharing the same drives and curiosities and interests, only such a band of brothers, would have gone to such lengths simply to see a Baby.

It’s a man thing.

If that sounds condescending to the women in the audience, I apologize, but it’s the truth.  Women talk about this all the time, how men do crazy things, disregarding the risk, seemingly not caring about the trouble they are causing for everyone who cares about them.

Women laugh about the typical male-epitaph which reads, “What’s the worst that can happen?” or “Hey, guys–watch this.”

First, why did they do it?

The greatest puzzle of the Magi story to me is not the star they followed (was it a comet or an unusual alignment of stars or something never seen before?), not their origin (were they from Persia? or somewhere else?), and not even the religious significance (did this really fulfill Numbers 24:17? were they astrologers? what does it mean?), but simply why they did what they did.

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