“Well, shut my mouth!”

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“I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees Thee; Therefore, I humble myself and repent in sackcloth and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).

Some things are so overwhelming and all-consuming that when they occur, they suck all the air out of the room and leave everyone stunned into silence.

Job received his comeuppance from the living God of whom he had spoken so freely as though he knew more about Him than he did.

As he ranted on and on, defending himself before friends acting as God’s prosecuting attorneys, at times Job became belligerent in declaring his innocence of any wrong which would have brought down divine judgement in the form of the various trials he was enduring.

Then God showed up and took over. In chapter 38, God begins asking questions like, “Joe, you seem to know everything; where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” Finally, in the opening of chapter 40, Job interrupts to say, “I lay my hand on my mouth!  Once I have spoken and I will not answer; even twice and I will add no more.”

But God was not through. “Now, Job, gird up your loins like a man and instruct me!”  (40:7) Oh my.

On and on the Lord went, blowing through like a storm (40:6), down through chapter 41.

Finally, He was through.

Whew, Job thought.  This was no fun.

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When a leader is a non-leader

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“So Moses arose with Joshua his servant, and Moses went up to the mountain of God” (Exodus 24:13). 

Always referred to as the servant of Moses, Joshua was used to taking orders.

That’s why, when the day arrived for Moses to announce that his work was done and God was recalling him and that Joshua would have to carry on (“Get these people into the Promised Land!”), he, Joshua, must have panicked.

For four decades Joshua has been warming the bench; now, he’s being sent into the game as the clock ticks down and everything is on the line.

What would he do without a boss over him, someone telling him what to do and how to do it, someone to whom he could report, who would grade him and pat him on the head when he did good or chew him out when his work fell short?

Throughout his life, Joshua had never taken the initiative in anything, but had followed orders.  In Exodus 17:9, the first mention of Joshua in Scripture, he leads a rag-tag army of ex-slaves against the Amalekites. However, on a distant hill, Moses was overseeing everything and giving guidance.

No one wants to follow a non-leader.  Readers will want to check out the final chapters of Deuteronomy and the early chapters of Joshua and count the number of times Moses, God, and the Israelites urged this surprised newly chosen leader to “be strong and of good courage.”

A leader must be strong to forge a path and take the heat and must be of good courage to endure the problems, headaches, and backstabbings.

It goes with the territory. As the saying goes, it’s why they pay the leader the big bucks.

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Burned biscuits always go well with a little grace

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“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person” (Colossians 4:6).

My friend Chet Griffin passed this on to me. My notes do not indicate whether he was the speaker, or this was something he was forwarding.

“When I was a kid, my mom liked to make breakfast for dinner every now and then. I remember one night in particular when she had had a long hard day at work, then did the breakfast thing for us.  Dad and I were seated at the table when she brought in plates of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and some extremely burnt biscuits.”

“This was so unlike my mom.”

“I sat there waiting to see if Dad noticed or would say anything.  Yet, all he did was to reach for his biscuits, smile at my mom, and ask how my day went at school.  I don’t recall what I told him, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that biscuit and eat every bite!

“Later, I heard Mom apologize to Dad for burning the biscuits.  I’ll never forget what he said.

“‘Honey, I love burned biscuits.’

“That night when I went in to kiss Daddy good night, I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned.  He wrapped me in his arms and said, ‘Your mama put in a hard day at work today and she’s real tired.’

“‘Besides,’ he said, ‘a little burnt biscuit never hurt anyone.'”

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My candidate for hypocrite of the year

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“Evil people and imposters will become worse (in the last days), deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).

Can we talk about imposters?

Specifically church-dropouts who say they love the Lord.

Nothing of what follows is intended to be mean-spirited. I will labor to make certain it doesn’t come across that way.

I’m not angry, just perturbed. I don’t want to banish anyone from heaven, from church, from “the island,” or even from this room.

I just want to say to certain ones, “C’mon, people. Get real.  You don’t mean that, so why do you keep saying it?”

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Some things we don’t do any more

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Consider this a tribute to the game-changers among us.

Not all the changes we call “political correctness” or “conventional wisdom” are bad. Some are lifesaving and possible evidence that we may be gaining some sense.

Smoking is good for you? Give me a break.

This week someone posted on Facebook an old cigarette ad in which Ronald Reagan, “film star,” is touting the advantages and pleasures of Chesterfield cigarettes.  Many an ad from the 1940s brags about the medical advantages of their brand of tobacco over their competition.

After burying millions of smokers, we no longer allow those advertisements with their false claims.

Any day now, the New Orleans City Council will pass a resolution outlawing smoking in bars and taverns in our city. That’s the final straw, and about the last place smokers can puff away other than in their home, their car, or their yard.

As a cancer survivor, I say “Good riddance.”  And don’t come in here with protestations that “well, non-smokers have the freedom not to breathe the toxic air.”  How ridiculous.

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Those inflexible people that can be found in every church

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“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart….”  (Acts 7:51). 

“No one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment and a worse tear results.  Nor do men put new wine in old wineskins….” (Matthew 9:16-17).

Let’s start with an intriguing quote from a great churchman….

“The church recruited people who had been starched and ironed before they were washed.”  –John Wesley

Not sure of the context of Wesley’s quote, but I like it because it so accurately sums up the situation of a small contingent within every church.  Now, I have to say this conjures up memories of my childhood.  Mom did her own washing and ironing, and often, to starch a shirt or blouse, she would soak it in a bucket into which she had mixed up the dry starch with water. These days, anyone starching at home uses a spray, I expect.

There’s nothing like a great starched shirt.  I love them. Alamo Cleaners of River Ridge, Louisiana, does them for me. My wife loves me but not enough to do that!

Now then, some church members have been starched and ironed before they were washed.  A great metaphor!  But what does it mean?

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Why join a church? (This generation of Christians wants to know.)

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“Take a census….from twenty years old and upward, whoever is able to go out to war in Israel, you shall number them….” (Numbers 1:1ff.)

The culture which sees no point in “a piece of paper” to make a marriage official just as easily dismisses the notion of Christians actually joining a church.

Can we talk about that?

A husband and wife who were regular worshipers with my church, but never actually  joined and became members, would sign their Christmas card, “Your common law members.”

A lot of churches are trying to build their ministries on  “common law” members. These people attend, profess a love for Jesus, and say they believe His word, but they make no commitment to the body of believers and put themselves under the authority of no leaders. They are free to come and go without being accountable to anyone.

Dating churches is all the rage these days.

More and more churches, particularly the startups seeking to appeal to this culture, are counting as “theirs” anyone who attends on a regular basis.  In the same way,  Christians are deciding they do not need to join anyone’s church to please God.

Actually, I happen to know the primary attractions to a paperless congregation The leadership loves it because they are not accountable.  With no membership to vote on decisions, they do as they please.  The pastor gets by with whatever he can convince his board is justifiable.

Show me that in the Bible.

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Short prayers.

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My brother in Christ Dr. Vander Warner Jr. got me started thinking about this by his recent article on “Short Prayers.”  (Do what I did and google it.)

Frank Laubach, literacy pioneer and beloved brother in Christ, used to call these “prayer arrows.”  Short sentences sent heavenward to praise, give thanks, intercede or summon the Lord’s assistance have a potency all their own.

The hypocrites think they will be heard for their “much speaking.” (Oh, I pray for two hours every morning. You mean you don’t?)

Professor Dan Crawford remembers someone saying, “A sentence prayer is not a life sentence.”

Pagans think they will be heard for their loud praying. (“God must be far off and we have to summon Him to draw near to us.”)  The Baal-worshipers on Mount Carmel are the poster children for this foolishness (I Kings 18:26).

The overly righteous think they will be heard for their religious praying.  (“Let me pile scriptural phrases on top of more scriptural phrases.  The Lord is impressed by that sort of thing.”) See what Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 has to say about this affliction.

Our Lord said, “Those who worship (God) must worship Him in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).  That seems to be the standard: My spirit with His truth. And definitely not, “My mindless body with someone else’s thoughts.”

The length of one’s prayer seems to be irrelevant.  Measuring our prayers (the time, the volume, the length) is an exercise in foolishness. Weighing our prayers on any kind of human scale ranks as the ultimate in silly.

When the sweetheart goes into her house at night, she does not gauge the depth of her fellow’s love by the length of his monologues.

Just speak to the Father.

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In case the Lord ever forgets me

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“The righteous will be remembered forever” (Psalm 112:6).

What do you suppose would happen if the Father in Heaven ever got Alzheimer’s?

After all, He’s really, really old, right?

Okay. Not going to happen, of course. My whimsy gene is just asserting itself today.  Scripture makes it plain that “He knows those who are His” (2 Timothy 2:19).

But it did start me to thinking….

What if the Lord really ever were in danger of forgetting me?

Well, the good news is He has these memory aids, mnemonic devices they are called, to guarantee that He doesn’t lose track of any of us.  And no, I do not mean God ties a string around His finger.  Something far better.

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What good does prayer do?

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“And He was giving them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not faint” (Luke 18:1).

At all times we ought to pray.

She knew I was praying for a certain family member who seems forever in some kind of predicament.  She asked, “Why do you pray?  I don’t see it doing any good.”

When I caught my breath–I could not believe a Christian asking such a question–I said, “Ask me why I breathe air.  It’s what I do to live.”

She did not let me off that easily. “Do you really think God is going to do what you ask? Is that why you pray?”

By now, I had settled down enough to try to verbalize a reasonable answer.

“That’s not up to me. How He chooses to answer my prayer is His business.”

“My job is to pray. To ask, intercede, to speak in faith what someone else needs. And so I ask for it.”

“How He answers is strictly up to Him. Or whether He even answers at all.”

Her question will not leave me alone. I imagine everyone who prays regularly–and keeps it up over the years, through good times and bad–has to answer this for themselves repeatedly, as well as for friends and skeptics alike.

It’s not as simple as it sounds. “Why pray?”

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