What Lies Beneath...

The house that I grew up in was always pretty tidy. My mother and father were both organized and able keep the house looking great. Both of them had their bad habits: my mom would stuff the kitchen drawers with nick-nacks and odd items and my dad had a tendency to leave his black socks by the chair that he would watch television in. Still, we could have company drop in on a moments notice without being horribly embarrassed.

There was one corner of the house where that organization need not apply. My room was a source of great tension when I was growing up. I hated cleaning my room, and it was amazing how quickly I could get it dirty. I am not exaggerating when I say that my mom would have me clean it in the morning, and by lunch it was already a disaster area. My mom would just sigh and have me clean it again. It was a never-ending battle.

I had a simple rule when cleaning my room: cleanliness is removing clutter from the field of view. I can imagine that you can see where this is going. When I would clean my room, I would start by making my bed. A nicely made bed went far to making my room look spic and span, but there was really an ulterior motive here. With my bed made, I could gauge how far I would have to push my stuff under the bed so that it couldn’t be seen when walking around.

Other great ‘collection’ spots included putting junk behind my dresser. I could stuff tons of paper, wrappers, toys, cards, comic books and plastic army men behind that large piece of furniture and no one would notice. Then there were my dresser drawers: sure I needed them for my clothes, but they could hold a nice layer of ‘stuff’ and then I could put the clothes on top.

To the initial glance, my room looked decently clean. But upon closer inspection, it was an absolute disaster. Often my dad would come in my room, flip up the bead spread, and tell me to get to work. He also would pull my dresser away from the wall, and look in disgust at my mess. I would be on the verge of tears. I didn’t want to be messy, but I wasn’t willing to put in the energy and effort to have a truly clean room.

This messiness also contributed to the reason that my room would get so out of kilter so quickly. Without fail, I needed to go on a mission to find a toy or a comic book that was mysteriously ‘missing’. I would have to plunge into all of my stealthy areas on a reconnaissance mission. I would ignore the fact that I was exposing the messes that I had so cleverly hidden. After finding the object of my attention, my room was left in worse shape than before I started cleaning it earlier that morning.

If only I would have learned and taken the effort to properly clean my room, I could have saved myself hours of re-hiding effort. The fact is, that most of the junk I was holding on to would be trashed any way. Why bother holding on to it? If it was important, why wasn’t it put neatly in a place for easy access? My laziness had won the battle over common sense. I could write on and on about how much of a bad steward I was (and still am) with what I had been blessed with, but that is another article to itself completely.

I look at my life today and the skeletons that are hidden throughout the crevices of my existence and I wonder to myself: when God convicts me to clean things up, do I try to find new places to hide my sins, cover them with 'good works', or do I make the effort to really clean them? Externally, I look good, after all, I work hard live a good, loving, kind, helpful, life, but what happens when God scratches below the surface a little?

Spritually, how am I really any different than that kid who thought he was so clever in avoiding really cleaning his room? Does my anger still get the best of me at times? Does pride destroy my witness? Have I cleaned my life up very nicely, only to stand in horror as someone lifts up my 'bead spread' and peeks under? If I can’t remove the flesh that makes me sin, when will it unexpectedly rear its ugly head again?

God dealt with Aaron and Miriam when they challenged Moses’ position with God. The bible literally says that God burned with anger against them. I don’t want to have that written about me. The scripture goes on to say:

Numbers 12:10-11

10 When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam—leprous, like snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy;

11 and he said to Moses, "Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed.“

Aaron, pleads with Moses (‘my lord’ is not God in this case), to not hold their folly against them. Aaron’s immediate reference is this latest incident, but recall that Aaron was also the maker of the golden calf. The sin that Aaron didn’t fully deal wuth earlier came back to bring curses upon his household.

Unfortunately for my wife, my habits of ‘tidy-ness’ have continued into my adult life: my office is a horror that small children would shriek in terror at its very sight. I pray that my walk with God isn’t plagued by these same problems. I know that, with God’s help I have been able to truly clean up a lot of spiritual 'junk' in my life. It is never easy going through it, but the rewards on the other side are simply worth the effort.

So who's ready for some house cleaning?!

-Doug

Missionary Impossible

What do I really need? What would I really desire to leave after I have passed away? What can I live without? I was once on a mission trip to Guatemala and these questions really came to life for me. We were on a medical trip into some of the villages surrounding Guatemala City.

Our group had gathered numerous supplies for the trip. We were focused on helping children, so we brought vaccines, food products, clothes, vitamins, toothpaste, toothbrushes, toys, bibles, tracks, and puppets. I even bought a guitar that I planned on giving away when I left.

I was at one of the smaller villages around lake Atitlan, handing out care-packages with a little candy, toiletries, vitamins, some small toys, and some simple tracks, when I was struck hard by a thought. The image in my head sickened me and made me have to stop for a moment and come to grips with the realities of life.

I thought about these bags of carefully selected items and the love and care that went into preparing and delivering each one of them. I thought about the wonderful children that were receiving these bags and how these bags weren’t just a nice gift, they were needed supplies that these children were lacking. Then I thought about how long these supplies would really last and who was going to be there to fill their many needs after our mission trip was long over. It dawned on me that 90 percent of the items that we were delivering would need replenishing in only a few weeks. These supplies took our group weeks to obtain and prepare, and we would only be able to help a few thousand. The poverty we witnessed made me see how very few things in my life that I really ‘needed.’ My heart lowered. Was what we were doing futile?

Two distinct epiphanies came out of this heart-searching moment:

1) Poverty will always be amongst us.
2) Treat the causes, even while addressing the symptoms.

Jesus said this very thing in Mark:

Mark 14:7 (New International Version)
7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.

My definition of ‘poverty’ is a state of being where there is an inability to obtain the items needed for existence. An impoverished person is in need of aid from an outside source.

From a humanistic perspective, what are the basic human needs? Food, clothing, medicine and shelter all take top billing. These items are certainly necessary for daily existence, but none of them are the real issue. The humanistic view, in general, sees the immediate needs and tries to address them. This is, without a doubt, a necessary action: we need to handle the immediate problem. But is this really enough?

There is an old saying that was rattling through my head. It was something like. “If you feed a man a fish, and he will eat well for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he will eat well for a lifetime.”

Feeding, clothing, medicating, and providing shelter are worthy goals, but there needed to be more. We needed to know much more about them and be a part of their life, so that we could know the things that they really needed. We needed to do this in a way that didn’t imply that we were imposing our way of life on them, but rather, we were enabling them to live a better way of their own lifestyle. We needed to equip these people to feed themselves. We needed to break the cycle of poverty that has existed for generations. We also needed to equip them with hope.

This kind of hope can only come through the Gospel, but how effective can a group of foreigners, who spoke enough Spanish to get themselves in big trouble, be? Once (or, technically ‘as’) man’s basic needs are being met, then we can discuss eternal ones. We needed to train leaders with willing hearts to speak to their own people. Nurturing, equipping and educating are not bandages to their problems: they are long-term solutions that will perpetuate themselves, long after we were gone. It all seemed so obvious, yet I was oblivious to it until that very moment.

The mission’s organization, Missionary Ventures, which I went to Guatemala with, understood this far better than I did, or ever will, for that matter. What I was thinking in my head, was actually their primary focus and I couldn’t grasp this until I went there for myself. Through their efforts, and God’s blessings, they have been able to help local villagers open physician’s clinics, churches, shelters, schools, and orphanages. Their people were committed, loving, and courageous, I was honored to get to be with them.

When we were in Nebaj, a small village up in the mountains, there was an orphanage run by a single man. It had over 30 children in it. When he started, he could barely feed the four or five children that he had. This group looked at his situation and realized that his property was on a fresh-water stream. They also found out that no one in his village fished for food. The only fish they had was when they came down the mountain. They taught this man how to make a fish farm. He sold his fish in the market place. When I was there, he had enough money to feed, clothe and seek out other children. He was also building his second home (and a second fish-farm) to house more orphans. This man gave these children all of their basic needs, he taught them to read and write, he shared with them about God's love for them, and gave them love in ways that they could see God’s heart tangibly.

The changes in his life were monumental. More importantly, what will he leave behind? He will leave a legacy of love, and of breaking the cycle of imprisonment that these children were destined to. He has preached the Gospel to them, in ways that we will never be able to. The sources of his need were addressed and the symptoms went away.

If you are interested in missionary work, I would highly recommend looking this group up (Missionary Ventures), but they are certainly not the only ones with this heart and vision.

I loved my mission trips, but I hated what it showed in my heart. I repented and God’s grace, love and compassion has covered me. I am loved and so must I love. I pray that more of Guatemala would rub off on me when I feel the need to have more ‘stuff’. Please feel free to share your experiences.

In Christ
Doug

You Are Now Entering The Jungle

As a kid, my mom would often take me on a great adventure. Would there be lions, tigers, or bears? Oh yes, quite possibly: even a wild elephant, or a T-rex. Was there danger? That too: my very life could very well be in peril! What about enemies? Yes: ‘Charlie’, 'Jerry', or the 'Ruskies' might show up, other times it was Ninja’s, Martian’s, or even Slestack’s.

'Where did all of this occur?', you may ask. It occured on our trips shopping. You then might say shopping wasn't like this for you. For me, every trip was a fantastic journey into my little noggin. Be it Sears, Lazurus, K-Mart, or any other forsaken store that my mom would knowingly drag my sister and me into, she would go with a plan of purchasing clothes or other items for our family, or friends of the family: my agenda was to dream about all I could be.

We would arrive and my eyes would go wide. “Stay here! Don’t go too far away!” She would say in that authoritative voice which meant she was very serious, but with a smile that said I am saying this because I love you. I would blindly nod my head because I was already far away in my own gigantic world.

I still recount the smell of all of that leather, polyester, rayon, and cotton. In the large metal racks that were like rows of trees in the thick jungle, my mind would wonder. I would get inside one of these imagination stations and pretend I was hunting or being hunted. Sometimes, in the secret places inside these magical racks, there would be my spaceship and I was traveling to a distant planet.

I would be stirred by an occasional “Are you nearby Douglas?” My name went from 'Dougie' to 'Douglas' as a function of how much authority that my mom needed at the time. Reality was back in my midst. “Yes mom!” with a heavy sigh (here comes the other shoe). “Get out of the racks honey! Those are not toys.” Says who? I sure loved them. By whose definition of ‘toy’ was she referring?

In a voice of defeat I would say, “Okay!” Slowly I would crawl out of my spaceship: my best plans foiled by reason. But there was still the jungle to deal with. Making my way through the densest parts on my safari, I would move about from rack to rack. Hunting some nemesis of my small African village.

Reality would interrupt again, but this time it was me: “Where am I?” It was an odd question, indeed! I was in a jungle hunting an enemy with a nefarious face I had not yet seen. No wait! I am in the clothes section of a department store! The better question was not “Where am I?”, but rather, “Where was my mom?” Panic would settle into my bones and a timid “Mom?!” would come out of my otherwise rather boisterous mouth.

The cry would get louder “MOM?!”, I couldn’t see her, and I couldn’t see over the racks of clothes. Every turn I would make, I would run into another rack, impeding my path of movement as well as my line of sight. Maybe she left, I would think. Maybe she was angry and didn’t want to answer my cries of help. Maybe this was her plan all along: to leave me and live the better life that she earned by putting up with me for all of these years. I could feel my heart pounding harder and harder. Many times I felt like just sitting and pouting, but I had to keep moving. I am, after all, a survivor of the jungle.

I once heard or read somewhere that to survive a charging lion you don't need to run the fastest, you just need to not be the slowest! This day, I determined to myself, the lions will not be feasting on me (oh what about reality? where had it gone?). Lesser children would sit and cry, but I would keep in motion to maximize the chances of some adult noticing a kid whose attention span was completely lost.

“Honey?! Where are you?” It was the calmest, greatest voice that this child could ever hear: my focus returns.

“I am over hear Mommy!” With all my fear of being abandoned, and all of my wistful playing, I had wondered a whole two rows from where she was. You see, my mother always kept track of my sister and me. I couldn’t see beyond the racks that impeded my vision, but my mom could. She was looking out for me all along.

With a bag of purchased items, she would swoop down and hug me like it was years since we parted ways: home was in her arms.

How far is this from my relationship with God? Unlike me, He can see the proverbial forest from the trees, yet I don’t always look to Him for direction or as my true compass. I am prone to wonder. He too directs me not to go to far from Him, yet I scurry about, fighting my own dragons that curiously look like windmills.

Life distracts me, and I can’t always see Him. How many times has the panic of being lost, forgotten, overlooked, or abandoned crept into my life? But in those times when I find Him again, He is there waiting with a hug and a welcome like none other. Through my free will, God has allowed me and I am permitted to roam around, yet His eye has never left nor has He forsaken me.

Thank You, Lord! And Thank you, Mom!

-Doug

La! La! La! La! I Can't Hear You!

Playing was hard work when I was young. My friends and I would do things that involved a serious level of physicality: we would race our bikes to any destination, run from them to wherever, and make up games that required us to build, climb, run, roll, lift, kick, shout, and shoot. It was a rarity at the end of a summer day that my mother would refrain from instructing me to take a bath.

After my bath, the bathtub would need a bath too. We played hard and loved every minute of it. With all of that energy expended on playing, I rarely had the energy to do my chores. I would come home and the trash needed removing, or the lawn needed mowing and I was ‘too tired’. When I would get around to doing these things, it was like pulling teeth: I hated every minute of it. These tasks drained the very life from my bones, yet they were only a fraction of the effort that I expended in my adventures in playdom.

My attitude was often called into check by my parents, but for the most part, it was a losing battle for them. Few things would frustrate my mother more than the fact that she would have to tell me to clean my room. She was still flustered, even after I would obey and do it. There was a simple problem here: my heart wasn’t in doing these things. I discovered a technicality that worked with some things with parents, at least for a while. It was the ‘Oh I didn’t hear that!’ maneuver. Sometimes it was a deliberate boldfaced lie, but most of the time it was recognizing that they were going to ask you to do some work so you would do something noisy that would prevent you from hearing what they were saying or asking. The theory was that if I couldn’t hear the command, I couldn’t be responsible for doing it. My sister had similar joke about her car: she would say that her car was making a funny noise, so she’d turn up the radio and the noise would go away.

As funny as this is, I wonder how far I have come from this with the spiritual child inside of me. There are things in my Christian walk that I love and will pour my heart into: I love to worship on my guitar, I love teaching, and I love fellowship. There are other things that I know I am called to do, but I try to avoid. Prayer, quiet times, witnessing: all of which I do, but many times it is strictly dry compliance. I stink and fall at so many things in my walk. My heart is clearly not set on them, I will do them in obedience, but they are neither fun nor something that I would personally choose to do. Because my heart is not in these things, God sometimes needs to shout to get my attention.

There is a song verse from Out of the Gray that says something like this:

He is not silent.
He is not whispering
We are not quiet!
We are not listening.

Wow how true is this?! Just articulating this is a painful thing to me. I know God is talking and I am guilty as charged, but then I ask myself why isn’t my heart in these things and why does God have to shake me to get my attention?

I think insight comes in why my mom was so frustrated with my inability to clean my room on my own. It was easy enough for her to tell me to clean my room and punish me for non-compliance, but there was something more that she wanted. It was something that I believe that she could not put her finger on. My mom didn’t want to make a rule for me to clean my room. She wanted me to see my room like she saw my room: as the disastrous mess that it was. God made the law, much like my mom made rules, but God really wanted us to look at sin as He sees sin. Like my mom, God was trying to train my eyes/mind/heart to see what was wrong without the need for rules.

When we do things, are we doing them to make God happy or are we doing them because we see the need for them to be done? What is God trying to get you to see? Take a deep breath, listen, and let God replace your heart of stone with a heart of flesh.

-Doug

School Days

I taught a pre-k Sunday School class for about 15 years. It was one of the biggest highlights of my week. I never ceased to be amazed at the things that four and five year olds say and think.

One Sunday, a little boy stood in front of me, tugging on my pant leg until I could give him my complete attention. He straigthened up and proclaimed: 'Mr. Joseph?! I'm gonna preach to you, but I've lost my place so it is going to take me a minute!' Pulling out one of his parent's Bibles, Johnathon thumbed through the pages muttering 'Nope, it's not here!' until he would get somewhere around Psalms or Isaiah and proclaim: 'Okay! Here we go! You need Jesus in your life!' He would smile and shut the Bible and walk away. It was moments like those that made it all worth while.

There are, of course, those times when you must remind yourself that God has called you into this ministry. Days when you come home from church and just collapse on your couch, desiring to be undisturbed for the next sixty years. Little 'fires', if not put out properly, can become towering infernos! From children trying to draw new faces on other kids with markers to completely lost attention spans, all things are possible with twenty to thirty pre-kindergartners.

I imagine that God has these kind of days as well with us. I find it hard not to imagine God getting a chuckle out of Samuel thinking that it was Eli calling him out of his sleep. Or how Jesus smiled at Peter ‘s first steps on water. I can imagine the sadness of God when Solomon chose to ignore warnings of his impending folly. I think that God's anger was raised with the money changers as well as with the Israelites when they made a golden cow while Moses was on top of the mountain.

God knows us inside and out, and there is nothing you can say or do that He hasn't already taken into account. God's patience is immeasurable and thank goodness for that, because I would have run out of patience with me a long time ago!

I would do my best to try to love these children in my class unconditionally: we hate sin, not the sinner. This sounds great on paper, but it is not always an easy task, yet God does this effortlessly: He looks at us, all of us, both inside and out, and holds His hand out to each of us, even if we were the only one on the face of this planet, He would do the same. Sometimes true love requires, stern correction, but it is God's willingness to put His friendship with us on the line, to further our growth that shows how very much He cares for us.

God gives us insight into life, not for the purpose of manipulating us into worshiping Him, but out of love and for the purpose of strengthening us. His direction bolsters our spiritual growth and encourages us to go deeper in Him. He is not into popularity contests and abhors tyrannical rule. God's chastisement is for edification, not destruction. The proof of this is simple: God has everything! What does God have to gain by helping us? The Bible says that eventually, even the rocks will cry out praises to his name. He holds all the cards and owes us nothing, yet He quietly offers us place of royalty in His house! He leads his class by example and is the very best of teachers.

-Doug