DO YOU GET IT?

 Proverbs 21:12 - "Ears to hear and eyes to see--both are gifts from God." NLT

I am really not a good joke teller. The same sense of drama and timing that serve me well as a preacher seem to detach themselves when I try to tell a joke.  I can get to telling the lead in too quickly and leave out a key detail . When I arrive at the punch line, it's not funny because I left something out earlier in the build-up.  Plus, the things that I find funny are sometimes irrelevant to the people around me.  Or unfamiliar with the the subject and so I have to explain so much before the punchline that the comedic moment has drifted away into an irrelevancy of its own.

Sometimes my jokes fall flat because the people hearing them simply have no sense of  humor or they're not listening carefully or they're simply too slow to get any joke.

It is frustrating to communicate to people who just don't get it.

It is even more frustrating to miss something because we just don't see it?

It is a gift of God in all communications when one has eyes to see and ears to hear.

WHERE DO YOU STAY?

“But the Lord was my stay.” Psalm 18: 18

It is starting to feel like a distant memory ... far too distant. A little over two weeks ago, while most people in my town of Landisville were really under still another massive winter storm, I was more than a thousand miles away in warm and sunny Melbourne, Florida.  Dianne and I were attending the Sent Conference, a networking and training event put on by the Commission on Church Planting of the Churches of God, General Conference.  In return for our time and participation, they housed us at the Crown Plaza-Melbourne Beach. We had a fourth floor room, with a balcony and a partial ocean view.  I breakfasted in the hotel's restaurant which stretched across the hotel's rear with a magnificent view of the ocean. Since I am an early riser, I enjoyed three spectacular sunrises over coffee, my eggs, and the morning USA Today.  The hotel provided us a cabana to break the wind and block the excess sun as we sat one afternoon on the beach.  A tidal current dropped millions of prime seas shells right in front of us that delighted Dianne and increased our suitcase weight.  

Because the winter storms in the north were paralyzing air travel, Delta was encouraging me stay an extra day, offering to rebook my ticket at no extra charge.  The hotel even offered me a discounted extra night.  Since I had an important breakfast meeting to host at home with representatives of the school district and area pastors, I had to reluctantly decline the offer.  (Reluctant may be too soft a word.)

Where do you stay?  In the journey that is life, where book yourself for rest and renewal and shelter?  Over the years, Dianne and I have become regular customers of Hampton Inns.  They are not particularly cheap--but they are comfortable, provide all the amenities we require for a pleasant rest. They have come to recognize me as a loyal customer and more than once have gone to extraordinary measures to make sure I am satisfied with my stay.  There have been times that I chosen (or had chosen for me) other accommodations that may have been convenient or cheap, but were not a place of rest and renewal.  And when the heat didn't work and the beds were too broken and the space too confining, they were an unexpected nightmare instead of a pleasant surprise.

David had a place to which he retreated for rest and renewal, for safety and sustenance.  That place was a person.  God was his stay.  He reminds us with this confession that the journey of life is challenging and depleting. Life can sidetrack us or strand us. A life that plans to be lived in connection with God is the only one that will sustain us. It is the only one that will allows us to safely arrive at our destination.

Where do you stay?

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

BONUS - THE WAY JESUS SEES THEM

From Joel McKeever, a cartoonist for the on-line Baptist Press

 

WHATEVER

 This post originally appeared in another blog of mine called EYES WIDE OPEN in October 2010.

Reading: Luke 9.62

Last week I heard someone say that “we live in the culture of whatever.”  Rather than make a decision we often say “whatever.”  Instead of engaging in conflict we simply announce “whatever!” and the walk away. That response is terribly annoying to anyone who is taking something seriously.  It is generally not very helpful.  Even now someone has read the previous statement and thought, “Whatever!”


People often describe this as fatalism. You really have no control over something and rather than become emotionally invested in the outcome, you shrug off the whole business by saying “Whatever!”

I don’t agree with this assessment. It is something far more problematic to our culture.  When faced with a choice or a challenge, we chose “whatever” instead of the discipline of intentionality and the boundaries of accountability.  In a culture that believes freedom means to do what I want when I want to do it and not have someone judging my choices, intentionality and accountability are unwelcome virtues.

Christians are sometimes guilty of embracing the culture of  whatever hiding their lack of planning or their lack of going deeper. They don’t say “whatever” but they claim that they are following the Spirit. It’s as if God has no plan, no design, no specifically desired outcomes.  In this context, God gets blamed for a whole bunch of nonsense.  It’s hard to find a whatever mentality in Jesus’ words, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Counting the cost says there is a cost worth paying. Something that has a cost implies intrinsic value. Having a value means that it can also be squandered.

“Whatever” devalues both the object of value, but it also devalues the person making the statement.  Whatever says, “I don’t matter, so whatever happens must be permitted to happen.”

Helen Keller’s parents, upon her birth with her blindness and other handicaps did not say, “Whatever.”  The Quakers and others who founded and operated the Underground Railroad before the Civil War did not simply look at the horrid plight of the Negro in the South and blithely declare, “Whatever.”  We did not watch the unfolding tragedy following last January’s earthquake and turn aside our eyes and hearts with “whatever.”

John F. Kennedy once famously declared, “Some people look at thinks as they are and say “why?” I look at things as they could be and say, ‘Why not?’ Note – not, whatever.  People often ask why to lament their state instead of initiating change. The why question can be a form of whatever if we do not use what we learn to change what is.

Christians understand that everything they do has eternal significance and the potential for life-changing impact.  As authentic disciples we would never embrace the uncaring, self-centered apathy of whatever!

(C) 2010 by Stephen L Dunn

 

LOVING PEOPLE - REALLY LOVING THEM

Reading: Luke 10:25-28

One of the great scandals of contemporary Christianity is what Craig Groeschel calls “Christian Atheism.” This is where we say we believe something and then live like we do not believe it. The lawyer of Luke 10:25-28 stands up and asks the quintessential question of a seeker, “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” At the end of the chain of discussion Jesus leads the man to the answer. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ In fact, Jesus punctuates it with, “Do this and you shall live.”

Even non-Christians know, and many practice, the latter half of that commandment. We call it the Golden Rule.

But for many persons, including many Christians, there is more intellectual assent than real life application. We know we should practice it, and we do … up to a point.

Up to the point when….

Demonstrating that love requires us to sacrifice a significant amount of time.

Loving them requires us to wade into the mess in which they find themselves living where we might get messy, too.

Loving them calls us to sacrifice something precious rather than what is convenient or superfluous.

Loving them demands us to see them as persons for whom Christ died rather than simply objects of our good works.

Loving them is met with rejection or contempt.

I am reminded that God loved a world where people were His enemies.

He loved a world that killed his prophets and dishonored His holiness.

He loved a world where people keep asking, no, demanding His help and then squandering the blessing.

He loved a world that He knew would crucify Jesus.

Love, genuine God-inspired and empowered love is unconditional and incarnational and sacrificial.

Any less is not really love. It is a counterfeit.

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

Originally posted at EASTER PEOPLE

GENERIC BRANDS

Reading: "Taste and see that the Lord is good." - Psalm 34:8

I am a diabetic.  As such I must watch my diet - by its content and its portion size.  I also a cereal lover. My favorite cereal, Honeynut Cheerios, is acceptable on my diet if I don't overdo it. They are not always, however, particularly inexpensive.

I am also a man on a budget. Dianne and I are trying to pay down some debts and also fund a mission trip this summer, so we are watching our pennies.  The other day I was doing the grocery shopping.

When I came to the cereal aisle, my eyes fell upon the store's generic brand of my cereal--Honey oat something or other. The carbs, sugar and calories were similar.  The price was almost two dollars less per box. I bought the generic.

Some generics are reasonable substitutes for the name brand.  But some are not.  "Honey oat whatevers" were not. In fact, I took a second look at the first bite to see if I had accidentally gotten a piece of the cardboard box into my cereal bowl.  Even with cold milk and my eyes closed, this stuff did not taste good. The penny-pincher in me will probably finish them; but I will not buy them again.

The real deal, once you have enjoyed it, cannot be matched by the generic.

A lot of us live spiritually in reverse.  We have only ever partaken of a generic faith rather than a genuine relationship with Christ. It doesn't cost as much and we don't know the difference.  We live on the cardboard substance of what should rich and flavorful.

It may be okay to consume generics for your pocketbook's sake, and generics may be nutritious if not passable as breakfast cereal. But for the feeding our soul and the nourishment of our lives nothing can ever be as good as the name brand - and the name is Jesus.

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

FORWARD PROGRESS

Reading: Philippians 3.12-16

The New Year has begun.

Did you spend any time reflecting on the past year and assessing your goals for the year to come?

Did you make any resolutions?

How many have you already broken?

I had a friend who intentionally avoided that exercise.  He said, "Every time I do it, it's just deja vu all over again. I always seem to be making the same resolutions with the same old outcomes."

I had another friend who went to the other extreme. His resolutions were revolutions.  If he ever kept them, his life would be radically altered.  The problem is that his intentions were to give intentionality merely lip service. He rarely had a game plan or a strategy. Nothing really changed.

Paul, sitting in an unlikely place - prison, made a resolution. It's recorded in Philippians 3.12-14.

^"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

But he also had a strategy.  It went something like this:

A REALISTIC ASSESSMENT OF THE PRESENT

A REMEMBERING OF OUR PURPOSE

A RELEASING OF THE PAST

A REFUSAL TO RETREAT

A RESOLVE TO PRESS ON

Forward progress leading to obtaining the prize. A great outcome of a worthy New Year's Resolution for any Christ follower. Is that what you are planning for in 2011?

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn. All rights reserved.

This devotional is a summary of a message I will preach at the Church of God of Landisville on Sunday, January 9, 2011.