Laying on the ground at the foot of the dumpster is a clear glass vase filled with a dozen red roses. Complete with all the greenery and Baby’s Breath, there is a red and black teddy bear lashed to the vase with sheer red ribbon. Tethered to the bear, a shiny helium filled Mylar “Happy Birthday” balloon, dancing in the breeze.

The roses are fresh. New. All that’s missing is the water. In the August heat, sans water they won’t be fresh for long.

People rescue dogs. And birds that get blown from the nest. What do you do when you find fresh roses next to a dumpster, dying of thirst?

I guess it’s their lucky day. I love roses. I used to work for a company that imported long stem roses from Ecuador. If I leave these beauties out here in the dirt, I won’t sleep tonight. So I take them in, re-cut the stems and fill the vase with water. They sit awkwardly on my table, rescued to be sure. Yet in a place they never expected to be.

Oh, that the roses would talk to me. Were they too little too late? Were they not enough? Were they an “I’m sorry I forgot your birthday and that’s why there’s a teddy bear on here, too?” Were they gladly received only to be tossed after a birthday party turned ugly? Or were they given to someone to whom nothing is ever good enough, a gift doomed to futility from the start?

Why on the ground? If one is angry enough to throw away a brand new vase of red roses why not give full vent and smash them in the dumpster? Why lay them on their side for a slow death? If you’re going to throw something away, why not all the way?

However it is, the roses and the teddy bear aren’t where they thought they’d be.

At some point in life, we all find ourselves in a place we never thought we’d be. Maybe we weren’t enough for someone. Maybe an illness steals our ability to physically enjoy our favorite activities. Or a pink slip downsizes us out of a career. Or maybe we derailed ourselves by our own bad choices.

However we ended up by the dumpster, we’re here.

People rescue dogs. And birds that get blown from the nest. And guys like me rescue roses on the ground.

God rescues people.

God rescues people. And it doesn’t matter where He finds us. By the dumpster. Or in the dumpster. Whether someone tossed us aside or we threw ourselves there, God rescues us.

The irony of being rescued from a place we never thought we’d be is that God will take us to places we never thought we’d go.

How wonderful is that?

Thank you, God, for rescuing us.

It’s our lucky day.

“And God showed His great love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

“The terms and conditions of a relationship determine the nature of the relationship.”

This is true. For example, think about the employers you’ve had in your life. Managers like to boast about having an “open door” policy. Yet it doesn’t take more than a week or two before you figure out there are two kinds of open door policy. The first one is a manager who invites your feedback, respects your viewpoint and values your contributions to the company.

The second one is a boss whose actions say, “My door is always open for you to come in and see my closed mind.”

The terms and conditions of a relationship determine the nature of the relationship. The manager who seeks out and values the input of the employees creates a relationship environment of team work and free flowing ideas. The boss who doesn’t creates a relationship environment of stunted communication and self-preservation.

The terms and conditions of the relationship determine the nature of the relationship.

When it comes to your relationship with God, whose terms and conditions are you operating by? Yours? Or God’s?

The distinction is crucial.

Some of us are operating by terms and conditions that view God as the divine policeman who waits for us to do something wrong so He can write us up. We live our lives walking on spiritual eggshells, afraid to risk or chance or dream for fear of messing up and incurring God’s wrath.

Some of us are operating from terms and conditions determined by our bad church experiences. People within the church have disappointed us. Or worse, wounded us. Perhaps pastors or leaders have abused our trust by taking liberties with their position. Living by these terms, we approach God with suspicion thinking it only a matter of time before He, too, will disappoint us.

Some of us are operating from terms and conditions imposed on us from our upbringing. Perhaps our parents’ view of God was extreme to one direction or the other. Years later, God to us is either a wholly unapproachable fire and brimstone Diety or our heavenly Fuzzy Buddy. Our terms and conditions have us viewing God as a single facet, ignoring the whole of who He is.

Some of us are operating from terms of guilt and shame. Our sins, we think, are impossibly large and unforgiveable. And should we manage to summon the courage to seek God’s forgiveness for these, we think it best not presume upon Him after that. For to do so would be asking one too many favors. So we live each day at a lonely distance from God, like a stray dog starving for attention, yet afraid to come close.

The terms and conditions of a relationship determine the nature of the relationship. When it comes to your relationship with God, what terms and conditions are you living by? Yours? Or God’s?

The flip side of Dr. Wakefield’s bookmark reads:

“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.” – Psalm 145:8

These are God’s terms and conditions for His relationship with us. God is gracious. He extends to us blessings we don’t deserve. He is compassionate. Which is to say He knows what we’re made of because He made us. And because of that He cares for us as a loving Father cares for his children. How would your relationship with God change if you understood His heart toward you is always gracious and full of compassion?

God is slow to anger. He is not a heavenly hot-head with a hair trigger. How would your relationship with God change if you understood God is patient with you?

God abounds in lovingkindness toward us. Lovingkindness. In Hebrew, the word is “chesed”. It means a “loyal love”. A love that won’t quit on you. A love that is bulldog tenacious. A love that latches on to you and will not let you go. Ever.

According to God’s terms and conditions, His lovingkindness to you is abounding. We don’t use that word often but it’s wonderful in context here.  It means to “exist in large quantities.” So to paraphrase God’s terms and conditions, “God is kind beyond reason, understanding beyond measure, incredibly patient and loves you with overflowing large quantities of tenacious loyal love that will not let you go. Ever.”

When we allow God to define Himself and His relationship to us by His terms and conditions we experience the grace, acceptance, love and freedom He desires for us.

Whose terms and conditions would you rather live with? Yours? Or God’s? You get to choose. I’d choose for you but I can’t. It’s up to you.

So I’ll just encourage you to make your own bookmark. And think about getting it laminated.

That’s what I’m doing.

“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.” – Psalm 145:8

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

It’s bedtime. Past bedtime, actually. Being a bad Dad or good Dad, depending on your perspective, I had allowed Annie and Emma to finish watching the movie they had started.

Thankfully, my girls don’t fight sleep. Most nights it’s an easy transition from eyes open to eyes shut. In fact, Annie falls asleep faster than anyone I’ve ever known. If we had a “who’s out the fastest” contest between Annie and any light switch in your home, Annie would win every time. She falls asleep so quickly that if I have a question for her I have to ask while she is still vertical. Because a microsecond after her head hits the pillow, whatever it is has to wait till morning.

Emma, the other half of my twin tornadoes, has her own routine to ease into sleeping. She changes it up from night to night, but mostly variations on a theme.

“Daddy, tell me a story.”

“Daddy, I’m thirsty.”

“Daddy, …. ” followed by a pause as she quickly tries to think something up.

On this night they are tucked in. We’ve said our prayers. Annie is out in .047 seconds. Emma is laying on her back, hugging a purple pillow with her left arm. What will it be tonight? A request for a story? A glass of water?

“Daddy, my ice is big again.”

“My ice.”

I’ve been following their thought trails now for going on 10 years. I know them. But I’ve got no clue how to track this one.

“Emma, what are you talking about?”

“Ughhhhh!!! Daddy! Don’t you remember what you told me?”

Remember what? Ice? Huh? Maybe it’s true. Maybe parenting makes us slowly lose our mind so we can’t remember what we’ve said.

“Honey, I love you but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Emma is exasperated now. I’ve seen this look on her face before. It’s the “my point is so obvious that I can’t believe I have to explain this to you because you’re the grown up and you’re supposed to get it” face.

She sits up.

“Daddy, you told me! You said that every day is a new day and that any bad things are in the past. So 12 AM is a new day so my ice is big again! It’s big! You know…thick!”

Click.

Several days before Emma was pushing the limits and I warned her, “Emma Elizabeth, you better knock it off because you’re on thin ice.”

And several days prior to that incident was a discussion following her being disciplined. I had explained to her that what’s done is done, she received her discipline and that Daddy wasn’t angry with her because it was all over.

“It’s in the past, Emma. And every day is a new day.”

Midnight marks the new day. And with the new day, “thick ice” on which to skate.

Emma had connected the dots. I was astounded and humbled in this moment. God is at work in my daughter’s life.

Wow.

The prophet Jeremiah put it this way, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope; because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24)

We are God’s children. And from time to time we all skate on thin ice. Thanks to God’s mercy, His compassion never fails. He shows it to us in many ways, not the least of which is to give us “big ice” at the start of every new day.

Which, as Emma will tell you, starts at 12:00 AM. Or midnight. Whichever you prefer to call it.

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

Purposely provoking her sister Annie to frustration. Lots of button pushing in her communication with me. A good measure of “I hear what Daddy is saying but I’ll do it when I feel like it.” Then, when called to accountability, blaming her sister or feigning poor hearing as excuses for her actions or lack thereof.

She knew better, but on this morning she was determined to live on the edge. 

As a farm kid, I remember seeing cattle in a great big lot with room to roam, yet insisting to stand right by the electric fence. Then having the nerve to look surprised when they got shocked.

On this morning, Emma seems bent on getting a close look at the fence.

After reprimanding her for poking her sister while they watched Scooby Doo, Emma stood up and looked at me. Determined to make this my fault and not hers, in a full lung bluster of self-righteous indignation she blurted, “I never want you to talk to me again!” With high drama she made her exit, stage left.

As a parent there are things we do to show our children we mean business. Yet if truth be told, we’re just freezing them mid-step or mid-stomp, hoping to buy time till we think of something to say.

“Emma Elizabeth! You get back here right now! One, two…”

What the heck? How should I address this? Think….think….

Emma came back around the corner. Jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, shoulders squared. She was ready for a showdown.

Then I looked in her brown eyes.

Anger, yes. But fear, too. A dash of confusion. And playing peek-a-boo behind it all, a soon to be 8-year old saying, “Daddy, I’m in over my head and I don’t know what to do.”

“Come here, Emma.” When we’re mad and deep down know we’re wrong, we don’t like walking toward accountability. Her steps were grudging.

“Emma, you said you never want me to talk to you again. That hurts my feelings.” Her eyes lowered. I had begun the familiar “you shouldn’t talk that way to me because it hurts my feelings” argument. The one that attempts to modify the offending party’s behavior by making them stare at the verbal martyr statue of ourselves that we sculpt right in front of their eyes. But somehow it just doesn’t feel right.

Is this about my feelings? Or about our relationship?

“Emma, if I could never talk to you again that would make me so sad. If I couldn’t talk to you again then I’d never get to say, “Emma, can I get you some ice cream?” or “Emma, do you wanna play the Wii with me?” or “Emma, I have a surprise for you!”

Speaking of surprises, I was surprised at what was coming out of my mouth. If this teachable moment is for Emma, why do I feel like the one learning?

“And I could never say, “Emma, wanna go to Krispy Kreme and get some donuts?” That would be so sad.”

Maybe God wanted me to give enough examples to get Emma’s attention. Then again, maybe He wanted to get mine. See, I’ve been a Christian for 40 years. I know God loves me. He has to love me. It’s in His job description. Yet my heart has always struggled with wondering.

I know God loves me…but does He like me?

Too often I’ve thought about my relationship with God from the bottom up. How it looks to me. Rarely have I looked at God’s relationship to me from the top down. How it looks to Him. Sitting on the edge of the bed, telling my daughter all the things I’d miss saying to her if I could never talk to her again gives me pause to think, that just maybe, God would miss not communicating with me. It’s a thought I want to hold, but am not sure how. So I just say the next thing that comes to mind.

“And Emma, I’d never ever get to say, “Come here so I can hug you…”

At the sound of those words Emma’s defiance melted. She threw herself into my arms, sobbing and bear hugging my neck.

In the middle of our anger and our frustration, even in the middle of our sin, we crave relationship. God’s response to our clenched jaws and squared shoulders is not to say how much our defiance hurts His feelings. His response is to open His arms and say, “Come here so I can hug you.” God does not force our obedience. He loves us into submission.

Walking through Wal-Mart later that day, Emma had to be corrected a couple times. Except this time after the teachable moment, she grabbed me and said, “Hold my hand, Daddy. Wrap your fingers around really tight, ok?”

And that’s how we walked. Her ornery streak still intact, but with a grip on her Daddy’s hand.

“Do you not know that it is God’s kindness that leads you to repentance?” – Romans 2:4

Todd A. Thompson – www.ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

One thing I show customers is what it can do with a stalk of celery. Everyone’s least favorite part of celery is the string. It’s difficult to digest and it’s also the bitter part of the vegetable. Yet run it through the Saladmaster machine and voila! It cleanly pulls off the sweet part of the celery that you’d want in your chicken salad while leaving the strings behind. Sometimes I crack the bad joke, “With Saladmaster, there’s no strings attached.”

Last week as I was cooking for some people, running a couple stalks of celery through the machine, it occurred to me that I wish forgiveness was as easy as this. A quick spin of the handle, leaving sweetness in one hand and bitter strings in the other. An easy way to separate the good from the bad. One to keep, one to throw away.

Genuine forgiveness is harder than that.

More often than not we forgive with strings attached. I will forgive…

…if

…when

…after

…until

…only

It’s curious in a sad sort of way, this business of forgiving with strings attached. Outwardly, we extend our “forgiveness” because it makes us feel better and look better to other people. We’re taking the high road, being the bigger person. Sometimes we even build imaginary martyr statues of ourselves; a tribute to our benevolent nature and a place where we mentally kneel and pay homage to the nobility of our pain.

Not only are the strings attached, we’re the one holding on to them. Which is to say we have a firm grip on our bitterness. There is something within that is loath to let go of a wrong done to us. We want the control. We want to reserve the right to pull back the forgiveness if and when it is no longer merited. We want to reserve the right to vindicate ourselves. We want to reserve the right to mete out judgment should God or the reproofs of life fail to punish our offender to a degree that satisfies our sense of fairness.

The very fact that we attach a condition to our forgiveness proves that we believe, consciously or otherwise, that we are in a superior position to judge the failures of another person.

Can I say it? When we hold on to the strings, it means we are not in touch with our own sinfulness.

It is inherent within our sin nature not to allow us to view ourselves with complete objectivity. Put another way, it is our fallen nature that prevents us from seeing how fallen we truly are. Our sin nature doesn’t want to admit that the hand holding the strings is unqualified to do so. Instead, it resorts to a sliding scale of holiness. As long as we feel we’re better than the person who hurt us, then we justify having the right to set the conditions for forgiveness to happen.

The problem with this mentality is that holiness is not a sliding scale. God says that His glory, His perfection is the standard. He put it this way, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) In the original Greek text, the word “all” means…(are you ready for this?)…all. You. Me. All of us. We all fall short. Which means none of us are qualified to hold the strings of unforgiveness.

God goes on to say something else. Something wonderful. He says that He “showed His great love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) If anyone has a right to hold on to the strings of unforgiveness, it’s God. Yet He willingly chose to forgive us, even while we were still sinning.

Lewis Smedes defined it best. “Forgiveness is giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” Giving up my right. Letting go of the strings of bitterness. Trusting God for His perfect justice as we thank Him for not holding the strings of unforgiveness when we sinned against Him.

God forgives us with no strings attached.

He wants us to do the same.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

 - Ephesians 4:31-32

A scene early in the film shows the drivers getting into their vehicles to start the race. Franco, the Italian race driver (played by Raul Julia), jumps into his Ferrari. He reaches up, grabs the rear view mirror and breaks it off the windshield. Tossing it aside, he says with great conviction,

“The first rule of Italian driving is a what’s a behind me is a not important.”

What’s behind me is not important. It makes sense if you’re a race driver. Beyond that, it’s still worth thinking about.

As we sit in the driver’s seat, all of us have three parts to our life experience:

Our past - Where we’ve been. The stuff we see in our rear view mirror.

Our present - Where we are today. The view through the windshield in this moment.

Our future - What lies ahead down the road. The unseen future God has for us.

Today we sit in the driver’s seat facing the future and we wonder what to do with what we see in our life’s rear view mirror. It’s a mix of successes and failures. Victories and defeats. Honors and embarrassments.

For most of us, it’s not the good parts of our past that hold us back. I doubt many people go to their therapists and say, “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I just can’t seem to get past being elected Homecoming queen.” No, it’s the bad and sad we tend to fixate on. The wrongs done to us and the wrongs we did to others.

How much time do you spend thinking about the imposed and self-inflicted pains from your past? Are they passing thoughts? Rare thoughts? Or are they thoughts that preoccupy you? Thoughts that consume you?

If you get in your car tomorrow morning, pull out on the freeway and drive looking only at the rear view mirror, how far do you think you’d get? Who likes to start their day with the sounds of shattering glass and crunching metal?

God understands that we all have a past. But I wonder… does He spend as much time thinking about it as we do?

And if He doesn’t, why do we?

God says that if and when we confess our sins, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) He also promises that we are a “new creature in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). By God’s definition, we are forgiven.

The problem of staring at the rear view mirror after God forgives us is that we begin to confuse our past with our present identity. We still see the image of who we used to be. The screw up. The rebel. The liar. The cheat. We feel the weight of our sin and in our soul pressed moments begin to doubt and wonder if God has really forgiven us. When our image of who we are comes from the rear view mirror, we can’t see through the windshield to our present reality and the future God has for us. The famous psychiatrist Karl Menninnger once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day.

Make no mistake. Satan doesn’t want you looking through the windshield. He wants your eyes glued to the rear view mirror. He’s not about to remind you that you are forgiven. He wants you to see yourself as the person you used to be, not the new creation you are. Satan can’t stop you from accepting God’s forgiveness. But he will work like hell to see that you don’t accept God’s acceptance. If he can keep your eyes on everything ugly in your rear view mirror, you won’t live like a forgiven person.

There’s a reason the rear view mirror is this big and the windshield is THIS BIG. Rear view mirrors are for glancing at, not staring at. Rear view mirrors are for perspective. A quick look once in awhile to remember from a grateful heart what God has saved you from. A peek to remember that by God’s grace, you aren’t the person you used to be. You are a new creation.

Time to stop staring at the rear view mirror of yesterday and start looking through the windshield of today. That’s where you’ll see all the people that need to hear the good news that God is here to love and forgive and accept them. Unconditionally.

Eyes forward.

“This one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:13-14

It’s really windy here in Lubbock. Which is to say the Pope is Catholic, water is wet, the Grand Canyon is deep, and the Minnesota Vikings still haven’t won a Super Bowl.

If Rodgers and Hammerstein weren’t able to obtain the financing for “Oklahoma!” they could have staged the musical “Lubbock” because the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain here most every day.

The 30-mile per hour gusts are pushing my car around as I’m driving down 19th Street to pick up Annie and Emma from school. I’m about to turn on Toledo when I notice a lady from a lawn service crew using a leaf blower on the sidewalk. Every twig and blade of grass, every leaf and speck of dirt she points her Black and Decker at blows out two feet, leaps up, does a seven foot back flip and lands four feet behind her.

I laugh and shake my head. “What’s the point?” When face to face with Mother Nature, sometimes it’s wise to concede to the greater power.

When we think about using a leaf blower in a wind storm, we ask “what’s the point?” Yet there’s something we do that’s equally foolish.

And tragic.

And life draining.

Something that should cause us to wonder, “What’s the point?”

Songwriter Bob Bennett put it best.

“It’s amazing how foolish I can be, to hang on to my sin when it’s forgiven me.”

I grew up in the church, was raised in a Christian home, graduated from a Christian liberal arts college, earned a seminary degree, have actively led and facilitated ministry both inside the church and in the workplace. I’ve been a preacher and a teacher. My head knows the right answers. At least many of them.

Yet as someone has said, the longest distance in the world is between the head and the heart.

Knowing you are a forgiven person and living like you’re a forgiven person is the distance between the head and the heart.

I can’t speak for you, but that’s been a struggle for me.

How many of us know in our heads that we are saved by grace through faith alone, yet our hearts can’t seem to shake the feeling that there must be some minimum level of performance required for God to be pleased with us?

How many of us know in our heads that God forgives us yet our hearts wonder if He does so only because it’s in His job description?

How many of us know in our heads that nothing can separate us from God’s love, yet our hearts are fearful that past sins make it impossible for us to be loved by God, let alone accepted by Him?

In my Bible I carry a bookmark given to me by Dr. Norm Wakefield. It reads, “The terms and conditions of a relationship determine the nature of the relationship.”

True.

So it boils down to this: In our relationship with God, whose terms and conditions are going to rule? Ours? Or God’s?

Put another way, isn’t it time we stop defining God by our experience and allow Him to define Himself and His relationship to us by His own terms?

God says those who have put their faith in Christ are:

Forgiven (1 John 1:9) Reconciled (Romans 5:11) Adopted (Romans 8:15-16) Heirs (Romans 8:17) Elevated (Ephesians 2:6) Never abandoned or alone (Matthew 28:20) Players in God’s divine drama (Ephesians 2:10) Proof of God’s grace (Ephesians 2:7) Forever loved (Romans 8:35-39) Eternally saved (Romans 6:23)   

And that’s just the short list.

After all those promises, God the Father pulls us close, looks us in the eye and says, “Now listen. You believe in me. And I believe in you. Don’t forget that you’re my kid. So when you wanna talk to me, don’t come here hangin’ your head. You come strong. Head up. You come talk to me with confidence because my grace is all over you. You’ll find everything you need right here in Me.” (paraphrase – Hebrews 4:14-16)    

In light of these truths, what’s the point of hanging on to our sin when it’s forgiven us? What’s the point of living in a past that God has forgiven at the expense of a future that God has redeemed?

If we haven’t done so already, it’s time to allow God’s terms and conditions to determine the nature of our relationship with Him.

When face to face with the living God, it’s always wise to concede to the greater power.

Because our leaf blower logic makes no sense against the wind of His truth.

“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in loving kindness.” – Psalm 145:8

In mathematical terms, pi is “a physical constant defined as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter”. It’s usually written out to 3.141, just three decimal places. Yet theoretically, there is no limit to the number of decimals it can be written to.

Being one who is mathematically challenged and believes the handheld calculator is right up there with fire and the wheel as significant in human history, several thoughts come to mind.

First…why?

Second…really. Why?

Third…”mental health counselor” and memorizing 100,000 digits don’t seem to go together.

Finally, the ability of the human mind. The most advanced computer on earth is like a Commodore 64 compared to our God-created brain. Some scientists speculate we use less than 2% of our brain’s capacity. Read the newspaper accounts of the wacko things some people do and 2% seems like a high estimate. Regardless, we’re all underachievers when it comes to using our brain.

I was thinking about Mr. Haraguchi’s feat of reciting 100,000 decimals and said to myself, “There’s no way I could remember a list that long.”

Maybe so. Yet I don’t seem to have trouble remembering long lists of other things.

Like the wrongs done to me by other people.

And I suspect I’m not alone.

Why is it that many of us can’t remember five items on a grocery list but we can recall in detail how we’ve been hurt by others over the years?

We’re fallen people. We hurt others and others hurt us. That’s life in a broken world. It took God’s intervention to give us a way to break that cycle. It goes something like this…

God’s perfect. We’re not. Our sin separated us from God. We can’t bridge that gap on our own. So Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, God forgives our sins. In turn, God instructs us to “forgive others as we have been forgiven”. That means forgiving with a willing heart. Or as Lewis Smedes so beautifully put it, “Forgiveness is giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” 

God says, “Forgive one another as I have forgiven you” (Colossians 3:13). He says when He forgives us that He “separates our sins from us as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12).  

So how does God forgive? He forgives and forgets. 

Not easy for fallen people like us to do. We may forgive, or at least try to. But there’s something in us that is loathe to forget. It’s as though we take the forgiven hurt and bury it in the back corner of our mind, but before walking away we pound a stake to mark the memory in case we want to dig it up again.

When we choose to repeatedly dig up the memories of wrongs done to us, either to satisfy our desire for revenge or to avoid taking personal responsibility for our own failures, we don’t allow God the opportunity to grow anything good from the pain.

Worse, if we hang on to our hurt long enough, it becomes our identity. I know people who’ve chosen to allow a wrong suffered 20 years ago to define their existence. They have chosen to be defined by their pain instead of experiencing the freedom of forgiveness. And it is a choice. When we dig up the memory of a wrong done to us, we’re the one holding the shovel.

There’s nothing easy about this. It is tearful, agonizing work. When Jesus said we need to forgive our brother 70 x 7, I think it’s because He understands that forgiveness is a process. When painful memories come to mind, we forgive. Again. Then give the pain back to the sovereignty of God. We give our pain back to God because He is the only One capable of bringing something good from it. When we trust God with our pain, it will never be for free. In His time, He makes all things beautiful.

Until that happens for you and me, let’s at least do our best to leave the shovel alone. If we can just stop turning the dirt over, God will have a chance to grow something good.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” – Ephesians 4:31-32

For him, it was. A rooster.

In a metro area of 3 million people I’m being jarred from sleep by a rooster. Try telling your 12-year old dog who’s never even seen a chicken that it’s nothing to get excited about.

The lot behind my house is known around here as a “horse property”. Even though the city has grown up around it, it’s still under zoning that allows for animals. This particular family keeps a cow or two, several horses, the occasional sheep and goat, and now apparently a rooster and some chickens.

Next morning at 4 AM, same Green Acres wake up call. This can’t be happening.

Didn’t hear the rooster again after that. Bumped into the owner a few days later. He said, “Had to get rid of it. Too many people complaining. So I just kept the chickens.”

One of the chickens thought the grass might be greener on the other side of the alley and made a break for it. She made herself at home in my next door neighbor’s yard and never left.

They call her “Henny Penny”. A beautiful bird, as chickens go. All black and all attitude. Henny Penny rules the roost. Which is impressive, seeing as how they also have three big dogs and a tom cat.

According to my neighbor Donna, “She flew in over the fence one day and just sat up in the tree. I thought the dogs would kill her as soon as she hit the ground. But she has no fear. She made a nest and lays eggs in the oleander bush. She hangs out with the dogs and comes in the back door with them to eat out of their dish.  The kicker for me was when I came out one morning and saw Henny Penny and the tom cat sitting next to each other on the porch. She’s got attitude for sure.”

Henny Penny’s a chicken. Which is a bird. Which is a cat’s lunch. So either Henny Penny has above average relational skills or she communicates an intimidating self-assurance. Watching her strut across my driveway from time to time, I can see why the cat would choose to peacefully co-exist.

Chickens aren’t what we normally look to as examples of bravado, but I’m learning something from Henny Penny. Something about confidence.
 
Life being what it is, we all get run over sooner or later. Maybe it’s a situation that didn’t turn out well and you’ve assumed the negative end result as your identity going forward. Maybe someone’s been giving you a verbal and emotional beat down over a long period of time and the only thing you feel confident doing is opening a bag of chips and hiding from the world. Maybe it’s something that’s your fault and God’s forgiven and forgotten but you’re stuck in the mud of your mistake; unable to forgive yourself. Whether the bus ran you over or you were driving when it crashed, you’re stuck. Spinning your wheels, pinned down by guilt and fear.

When we’re beat down, it’s easy to feel like we have nothing to offer. Humanly speaking, that’s true. The Bible says that “we all sin and fall short of the glory of God”. On our own merit, we bring nothing to God’s table. Were that the end of it, we’d all be doomed to a life of futility.

But God goes on to say that when we believe in Jesus and His sacrificial death on the cross, we are “a new creation”. We are no longer defined by our human failings. We are now defined by who we are in Christ; a person forgiven, saved, justified, and standing tall in the grace of God. Because of what God did we are “no longer under a spirit of bondage again to fear” but rather should possess the confidence of God’s children; fully adopted, fully accepted and fully loved. (Romans 8:15-17)

Henny Penny doesn’t act like a chicken.

Neither should we.

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.” – 2 Timothy 1:7

On the second night there, Collins went down to the hotel bar dressed in slacks, a nice shirt and a very expensive leather jacket. He was stopped at the door and told, “You can’t come in here without a jacket.” He said, “I’m wearing a jacket.” To which the reply came, “It’s not a proper jacket.”

Collins wasn’t allowed into the bar, but got the last word when he named his next and most successful album “No Jacket Required”.

Sadly, I know people who’ve had similar experiences when visiting churches. Perhaps not quite as bluntly put, but nonetheless the message was communicated as to what was proper. The choir may be singing, “There’s Room At The Cross For You”, but the feeling you get is only if you’re wearing the right kind of suit.

During my seminary days I was on staff at First Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. The sign out front reflected the mission of the church. “Gentle, Caring, Biblical”. One Sunday morning a man came in late to the service. Chet Farrington, the best church greeter God ever made, welcomed him warmly with a handshake and a pat on the back as he handed him a bulletin.  

The man sat down in the back row. His dress was outlandish. Almost cartoonish. A white suit with lapels that could double as airplane wings. Gaudy jewelry. A shirt so neon bright it seemed the reason for the oversized sunglasses he wore. And the finishing touch to his ensemble, a flourescent pink feather boa wrapped once around the neck.

It was hard for me not to stare. He looked so out of place. But whose problem was that? Certainly not his. I felt like he would get up and leave at anytime. But he didn’t. He stayed for the entire message before quietly slipping out the back.

I never saw him again. But I’ve always thought that Chet’s warm welcome made him feel comfortable enough to stay the hour. Whatever else happened in that man’s life, he heard God’s truth at that moment in time. A warm welcome made all the difference.

Friends, the mystery of God’s grace is that God showed His great love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Which is to say God didn’t wait for us to clean up and put on a Sunday suit before meeting with us. He knew there was only one solution to our problem. Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins. Because of that gift, we are freely invited and warmly welcomed to “come as we are”.

No jacket required.

“For God showed His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28

Before there was a universe with galaxies and black holes and white hot stars, there was God.

God filled this nothingness and there was no void, because God is all God needs. He is complete in and of Himself. He is in the best sense of the word completely and rightly self-absorbed in His perfection. Perfectly extreme and perfectly balanced. He is eternal perfection. Satisfied in Himself.

This perfect God, for reasons we may never know and if we could know would not understand, decided to create. He created the heavens. Space beyond our wildest imagination. He created day and night; the blazing sun and the reflective moon. He hung stars in the sky like so many lights on a celestial Christmas tree. He created the earth with layered atmosphere, expansive seas, and dry land. He made vegetation of every type. he made fish to fill the seas and animals to inhabit the dry land. Birds He made to soar and sing. He gave order and boundaries and His creation was a reflection of His perfect and wonderful nature.

Then God created man and woman. “Male and female He created them in His own image.” That’s what the Bible says. He created man and woman with physical bodies and spiritual souls, and He placed eternity in their hearts. A “God space” as someone has described it. A place in our hearts that only He can fill.

God created human beings to have a relationship with Him. A relationship of mutual love and joyful hearts. Not that God needed the company. He wasn’t lonely. Remember, God is all God needs. God created man and woman because He wanted to.

Unique to man and woman, God gave the freedom to choose. He gave them a will. He clearly drew generous loving boundaries of obedience that would maximize the joy and satisfaction of His creation.

Sadly, man and woman made a poor decision and disobeyed. It altered the relationship between human kind and God. It broke God’s heart.

Even if they wanted to; these humans were incapable of fixing the problem they created for themselves. It was up to God. And God doesn’t need to fix anything. He is everything in Himself. Perfection. God didn’t need those people who broke His heart.

He wanted them.

Man and woman’s disobedience, their sin, forced them to leave the beautiful garden they had enjoyed. Still, even though they left their garden, they were still under God’s sovereign umbrella. They could go to the ends of His earth and still they would be under His sovereign umbrella.

God is perfect in every way, including His commitment to His creation. Not one to walk away from a project, God is perfect in His faithfulness to His people. The path for His humans would be radically different than His original design, with lasting difficult consequences for His creation, yet God is sovereign. He will accomplish what He set out to do.

God, in His mercy, remained committed to His creation, including man and woman. He set in place a redemptive plan that would unfold over the course of human history. A plan to redeem that which humankind made a mess of. And in the process, He taught them about love and discipline, about faithfulness and forgiveness, justice and mercy, all the while pleading with His children to find their fulfillment in Him.

Along the way God sent messages to His people. Beautiful messages. Love letters, you might say. Letters scented with the fragrance of a jealous love. “Please return to Me. I’m all you’ll ever need. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

The message was always the same. Though He sent it in different ways. Sometimes He said “I Love You” in billowy cloud. Sometimes in a pillar of fire. Sometimes He dropped food from the sky and turned rocks into fountains of cold clear water. He parted seas and rivers for them and drowned their enemies. He gave and gave and gave, even though they rarely gave back.

God’s heart was broken many times. His lover was very fickle. One moment they pledged with passionate resolve their love to Him forever. The next moment they were flirting with gods who spelled their name with a small “g”. Sometimes they denied Him altogether.

Yet God is also perfect in His persistence. He never quits. It’s as if their stubborn refusals only fueled His love. God was determined to get His message across; “I love you and in Me alone will you find your satisfaction.”

“I love you. I always will. No matter what. There’s nothing you can do to change that. You can run away, but I’ll be looking for you to return. You can sin against Me and break my heart, but I’ll forgive you if you’ll just ask Me to. I don’t want your sacrifice. I don’t want your lousy 10%. I want you. All of you. Because I want all of you to experience all of Me. That your joy might be complete. For I am the great I AM. I am your God.”

That, in paraphrase form, is the Old Testament message of God’s love for us.

God’s message has not changed in thousands of years. He still pleads with His children to put their trust in Him. To find their joy and satisfaction in Him alone. To return to their first love. God is still jealous and forever creative in communicating His heart’s desire.

Friend, the fact is God loves you unconditionally. You can run away if you choose. Wherever you stop you will find Him waiting for you. You can hide. Wherever you hole up you will find Him with you. You can ignore Him, yet He will never stop paying attention to you. 

You are the object of His affection. He loves you with a loyal love that will not let you go.

Ever.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.” – John 3:16-17

For those individuals selected to be on camera with their item, the question they want answered is “How much is it worth?” Many nearly foam at the mouth in anticipation of the answer. Some people have paid a lot of money for their item and want to be told they made a good investment. Others have an antique given to or passed down to them. It has sentimental value because it belonged to their Aunt Mabel and they would never sell it because it belonged to her. At least that’s what they say before they find out the vase is worth $30,000. Then they start reasoning on second thought they were never really that close to Aunt Mabel.

What’s it worth? That’s the question. And it’s an important one. Not just in wondering the value of your grandmother’s antique ivory hat pin, but what are you worth? More accurately, where does your value as a person come from?

There are two kinds of worth: “inherent worth” and “imputed worth”.

Inherent worth is based on a quality.

Imputed worth is based on the value ascribed by another.

In my Bible I carry a dollar bill. Specifically it is a 1935 Series A Silver Certificate with “HAWAII” in black block letters stamped on the back. It’s a piece of family history. During World War II, three of my great uncles served in the military. Uncle Ev was an Army Captain in Europe, awarded a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. My Uncle Russ was on a destroyer in the Navy. My Uncle Al was in the Army in Hawaii. They didn’t see each other for over three years during the war.

In the spring of 1945, Uncle Al was back home on leave. The family was having a picnic at Sylvania Park in Fairmont, Minnesota when the news broke that the Allied forces had won victory in Europe. VE Day - May 8, 1945.

Having three brothers in the military, this was wonderful news. They felt they should do something to mark the moment so Uncle Al pulled out several one dollar bills which they passed around and everyone signed. The bill has signatures from 8 family members, including my Dad who was ten years old at the time.

The inherent worth of this piece of currency is one dollar. To the clerk at Circle K, it’s enough to buy an Icee. Yet to me, it’s worth far more than a dollar. The imputed worth of this dollar bill is priceless. I wouldn’t part with it because of the value I’ve placed on it as part of my family history.

When the question is asked, “What are you worth?”, God answers the question with, “You are worth the price of my only Son.” Humanly speaking, it’s a surprising answer. Because the people in question aren’t highly polished people of refined quality. On our best day, we’re a mess. We’re sinners. We all fall short of God’s standard of perfection. Yet God in His matchless grace says we are worth dying for.

Until we take to heart the fact that our worth is based in Jesus Christ and that our worth is imputed by God, we’ll never experience the peaceful security that God wants us to know.

The temptation is to believe God loves us for what we do or how we perform. But He doesn’t. God doesn’t value us for what we do or accomplish. He doesn’t value you because you’re a brilliant engineer or because you’re a successful business woman. He doesn’t value you because you’ve never missed going to church in 30 years. He doesn’t value you because you’ve got ten Division I schools knocking on your door to grab your athletic talent. God doesn’t value you for the greatest thing you’ve ever done. God values you because he willingly paid the price of His only Son for you.

Your value, your worth, has been imputed to you by God the Father. The Lord of Creation. The King of Kings. The eternal sovereign God of the universe. That’s where your worth is.

Whether you feel like it or not, you are of infinite value to God. If you’re feeling beat up and behind, torn and tired, guilty and grieving, remember you are priceless to God and ask yourself this question:

If God paid the ultimate price for me, why wouldn’t He take care of every other detail in my life?

“For God showed His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Jesus Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.” – 1 John 3:1   

“All Movies $9.99″.

On the top row in the middle was “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, an epic film from 1965 about the life of Jesus Christ. From His miraculous virgin birth to His sacrificial death on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead to ascension into heaven. A three hour and 17 minute masterpiece that can’t begin to record all the works that Jesus did for our good and His glory.

Right next to that DVD in the slot to the left was “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie”. The plot summary for this forgettable 1987 flick is, according to Volker Boehm,

“Seven disgusting kids but nevertheless of interesting personality are being made of the green mud coming out of the garbage can. Once alive their master gives them rules to obey although they think that life is funnier without following stupid regulations like no television or no candy. Naturally, this will cause some conflicts.”

Naturally.

On this night before Christmas Eve, those two DVD’s side by side well illustrate the reason for the season. Jesus Christ, the greatest story ever told, comes into our garbage pail world to clean us up and make us whole. It’s not an easy task. Because we Valerie Vomit’s and Foul Phil’s and Messie Tessie’s (add Terrible Todd’s) think that life is better without following our Master’s regulations. Left to our own desires, we’d rather live in our green mud. It’s bound to cause some conflicts. We are not very loveable people.

Which makes Christmas even more amazing.

Jesus Christ willingly left the glory of heaven to be born into our muddy world. And as He lived He didn’t hold His nose while walking through our garbage. He drew near to us. To hug and to heal. To dine and to drink. To talk and to touch. To seek and to save. Instead of avoiding our mess He waded into it.

When you think about where He comes from, it doesn’t make any sense. Moving from the Ritz on Park Avenue to the dump outside of town? How can “downward mobility” ever make sense? But Jesus loves us. So much that He came our direction. He took on human form to experience everything that we do. In doing so He became our perfect advocate before God the Father. “Dad, I know what they are going through. I’ve been there.” In short, when it comes to the hard life we live, Jesus can relate.

This Christmas you, like me, may not feel worthy of God’s love. If you don’t, you’re not alone. The Bible says that all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) The fact is, we aren’t worthy of God’s love. That’s the miracle of Christmas. The sinless Christ born for sinful us.

Jesus loves us. And not because it’s in His job description. He loves us willingly, joyfully and with no limit. There’s nothing you could do to make Him love you less and no great accomplishment you achieve could make Him love you more. Jesus loves you for who you are right now in this moment. We may think we need to clean up before we can come to Him, we may think we need to scrape off the mud and find some cleaner clothes before we talk with Him. But Jesus says, “I showed my love for you in that while you were yet sinning, I died for you.” (Romans 5:8) That’s the definition of unconditional love.

This Christmas I hope your “greatest story ever told” is how Jesus came into your muddy world and showed you His unconditional love. If you’ve never experienced that or if you have questions about much Jesus loves you, please contact me. I’ll be happy to point you to the God who absolutely delights in you. The God who loved you so much He came into your world to pull you out of your mud and into His arms.

Jesus Loves You. This I know.

Merry Christmas.

“God showed His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8

“And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For behold I bring you good news of great joy which shall be to all people. Unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord!” – Luke 2:10-11

Standing in the church parking lot, if the wind is right (or wrong, as it were) you get a good whiff of the Holsteins. Growing up an Iowa farm boy, I’ve always smiled at city folks’ olfactory sensitivity. A little scent of cow yard in the breeze and they run to their car as if trying to escape a nuclear cloud. “They’d never make it in the country”, I smile to myself.

A few days ago, walking across the church parking lot, I caught the scent myself. It brought back memories. And it got me thinking.

When I was on the farm everyday working around hogs and cattle, horses, chickens and sheep, I got used to the smells. It’s not that my nose quit working. It’s that the scents of animals, hay barns, feed bins, and manure became normal. So much so that when city friends came to visit and held their noses I didn’t understand what their problem was. After being away from the farm for a few years and going back, I was now the city guy. The aroma of the hog barn was more potent than I remembered it.           

As I stumble along each day, seeking God’s face in my awkward imperfect way, He is faithful to kindly show me more about myself. I am learning that my own fallen nature keeps me from realizing just how fallen I really am. Like the farm kid whose nose has adjusted and no longer experiences the full aroma of manure, my fallen sin nature keeps me from realizing, apart from Christ, how sinful I really am.

It’s taken years being away from the farm to realize how pungent the odor of a cow pie can be. Farm boy or not, there are other things I’d rather lay a nose to. Here in the city I can roll up my window and drive away from the dairy farm to the good smells of restaurants and mall stores. It’s not easy to drive away from my sinful self. Apart from Christ, it’s impossible. Still, somehow I need to get some distance from myself to get God’s perspective on who I really am if I am to become the man He wants me to be.

There’s no easy way to do that. It starts, I think, with time alone with God. Really alone. Time in prayer. Time reading the Bible. Time in honest conversation with God. Time spent doing a ruthless self-inventory to see where I have failed and where I need to grow. My friends who attend Alcoholics Anonymous put it more crassly, though I think more accurately. They call it the “process of owning your own shit.” I like that. Because that’s exactly what it is. It’s not a fun process. It’s a necessary one. I never looked forward to cleaning the hog pens, but it had to be done.

We shy away from it. We bury ourselves in activities and fill our schedules with every imaginable distraction. Anything to keep from “owning it”. Yet something happens when we “own it”. When we own it we are admitting to God that we are broken. When we own it we take a step away from self-delusion and a step toward truth.  To own it means it no longer owns us. When we own it we are living more truthfully. We are able to say, “This is who I am. Good, bad, and ugly, this is who I am. A person in process.” A person God, in His incredible mercy and grace, accepts with unconditional love.

It’s that unconditional, unfailing love that makes the process possible. As the Bible reminds us, “it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.” (Romans 2:4) God’s love creates a safe place where we can deal honestly with our stinky stuff. God doesn’t hold His nose at our sin. He loves us into submission. His kindness draws us back to Him.

Yet He doesn’t stop there. He is not content with that. He wants to grow us. To stretch us. Because He is committed to “perfecting the good work that He began in us.” (Philippians 1:6) God loves us too much to allow us to be nose-numb when sniffing the breeze of our life. He wants our senses fully awakened. To smell in our life everything that’s beautiful and everything that stinks. Then to make more room for the beautiful by being honest about everything that stinks. The more we “own” our stinky stuff, the more we experience God’s love and forgiveness. The more we experience God’s love and forgiveness, the more we become the people He wants us to be.

Owning it.

Lots of pain. Lots of tears. It’s not a fun process. It’s a necessary one.

But there’s no better feeling than being honest with God.

“Do you not know? It is God’s kindness that leads you to repentance.” – Romans 2:4

“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.” – Psalm 145:8 

When we were finished I went up to the counter to pay the check. After the cashier handed me my receipt, I turned around. Standing in front of me was a huge man. At least 6’5″ tall and every bit of 280 pounds. He was scary big. He looked mean, like a bulldog in a bad mood. His hair was brown and long, pulled back and held in place by a red bandana. He had a mustache goatee combination that made Fu Manchu look like a pre-pubescent school boy. Over his black sleeveless t-shirt he wore a black leather vest with Harley Davidson patches on it. His arms were tattooed. Some guys have muscles like guns. This guy had missiles with elbows.

I started to step around him when he held up his hand like a stop sign. I’m thinking, oh no, did I sit in his favorite booth? Did I take his parking spot?

In a brass knuckle voice he said, “My little girl said she saw you prayin’ before you ate.”

Great. Big Bad Biker Dude’s little girl saw me praying.

Looking at this guy who could snap me in half like a fortune cookie, I’m wondering how his little girl feels about prayer?

I’m hoping she’s in favor of it.

“Uh…yeah…that was me.”

“Well, I have to tell you that I think…that’s great. We pray, too. Hey, do you have a church home? Because if you don’t we’ve got a good one and you’re welcome to come visit anytime.”

He gave me the cross streets of his church, shook my hand and said, “God bless. Good to meet you.” Watching him drive away I couldn’t help but think he was the perfect man for the church outreach committee. Who could say no to his invitations?

I do it. You do it. We all do it. We judge people. We judge people by their appearance or their behavior. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the truth is most of us are very shallow readers. It’s easier to size people up by what we see or what we hear or what we think we know than it is to take the time to get know people for who they really are.

We do the same thing to God. We size Him up by what we see or what we hear or what we think we know. Because it’s easier than taking the time to get to know Him for who He really is.

For some of us, God is a perfectionist drill sergeant. For others He is an impossible to please task master. For some of us He is a divine policeman, waiting for us to make a mistake so He can bust us down and make us pay. To some of us He is an indifferent, uncaring being; distant and even detached from everything that concerns us.

We also tend to judge God by our experiences. Some of us grew up in homes where our parents shoved God down our throats and when we got old enough to shove back, we pushed God out. Some of us don’t want anything to do with God because we feel like He abandoned us by not answering our prayers the way we hoped.

Some of us judge God by our church experiences. Maybe we’ve been in places where they cared more about getting in our wallet than caring about our soul. Maybe we’ve been hurt physically or emotionally by someone professing to be a Christian.

There’s no denying the damage done by fallen people in a fallen world. We do some pretty fair damage ourselves at times. But sooner or later we need to extend God the same courtesy we desire for ourselves; the chance to define who we are by our own terms.

While the opinions of others can be valuable, no one can describe you better than you. No one can communicate your heart, your convictions, your passions and your dreams better than you. And in the end, whether people like you or not, agree with you or not, or believe you or not, isn’t there a deep gratification that comes from having been given a full hearing?

Sometime soon give a thought to giving God the opportunity to be fully heard. Set aside what your mother thinks. Turn off the slick televangelist with the slicker hair. Put your bad memories and your bias in time-out. Clear the stage of everything you’ve been tripping over or have been using as a prop to support your arguments and your excuses.

Then grab a Bible and read the words of Jesus.

And as you do, just keep this question in front of you:

How does Jesus describe Jesus?

In the end, whether you agree with Him or not, whether you believe Him or not, you will have extended Jesus the same courtesy you desire for yourself; the right to define Himself by His own terms. That’s being intellectually and relationally fair.

In the same way that people would be surprised to learn new things about you when they give you a full hearing, you might be surprised to learn a few new things about Jesus. That He came to seek and save you. That He’s with you for the long haul. That He loves and forgives you no matter what you’ve done. That He was making incredible plans for you before the foundations of the world. That He came to give you life. And an abundant life at that. And that’s just the short list.

Oh, and there’s that one about Jesus being “a friend of sinners.”

That’s my favorite.

“And the Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax-collectors and the sinners?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” – Luke 5:30-32

Driving away I was glad I took five minutes to listen to my kids. I’d hate to miss Annie’s insight on Happy Monica. My Jewish friends will love hearing that one.

Annie and Emma are still learning about Christmas. They’re happily absorbing the entire experience. From participating in their church Christmas program, to reading books about Jesus’ birth, to watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on TV. They have daily reminded me that they haven’t had the opportunity to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want. We’re going to Santa’s Village tonight so the old guy can put their minds at ease.

Christmas is a wonderful mix of truth and tradition. Jesus birthday is the reason for the season. But there really was a St. Nicholas, too. The Grinch and Frosty the Snowman are fictional characters but a real part of our childhood memories. We read about the legend of the candy cane, sing about Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, wonder why we put gifts in stockings and wonder why the other eleven months of the year we call them socks.

It’s the week family traditions are ramping up and rolling out. The “this is the food we cook on Christmas Eve” conversations are starting to happen. We look forward to the olfactory overload of gingerbread, pine scent from the tree, hot cider, smoke from burning logs in the fireplace and fresh baked cookies. Though I won’t be there to see it, I’m sure my Mom will be making oyster stew and chili that night. And some diehard Scandinavian traditionalists in my hometown will make lutefisk. My cousins Eric and Neil, who as children were unwilling participants of this holiday tradition, once described lutefisk as “bad tasting Styrofoam”. That’s not far off. It’s a bland, smelly, gelatinous fish that, in my way of thinking, contributed to a million Swedish immigrants getting on a boat and coming to America in the late 1800′s. There had to be better food over here.

Though perhaps we don’t notice it, over the years we’ve mixed truth and tradition within the Christmas account. We know Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem. For some reason we assume it was on a donkey, though the Bible doesn’t say. They could have walked. Since there was no room in the inn, someone had to tell them that. Who else but the innkeeper, though the Bible never mentions one. It’s a good bet that animals were present at Jesus’ birth, especially since Jesus was laid in a feeding trough after He was born. Maybe some sheep or donkeys or a camel. We don’t know for sure because the Bible doesn’t talk about any animals, either.

The Bible doesn’t say how many wise men there were but every regulation nativity set has three. Probably because three gifts are mentioned. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. That assumes that each guy brought one gift. Who knows? Maybe there were five wise men, one bought all the gifts and the other four just signed their name on the card? And don’t anyone go putting the wise men back in the box, but there’s a good chance they weren’t anywhere near the site of Jesus’ birth. It’s possible they didn’t find Him until up to two years later. Matthew 2:11 says the wise men found Jesus in a house, not a manger.

Whatever the configuration of your nativity set, there’s one piece common to all of them. The baby in the manger. That little baby became the central figure in human history. More than that, He came that you and I might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Jesus came to offer Himself as the solution to a problematic truth; the truth that you and I are sinners in need of God’s forgiveness, mercy and grace. Humanity was in need of some good news. Or as the angel said to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid! For I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all people. Unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord!”

Whether camels and donkeys and wise men were there or not, what matters is that the baby in the manger was there. Jesus is the reason for the season. That’s something to think about while we’re opening our presents, baking our cookies and (gag) eating our Lutefisk. Here’s hoping your week before Christmas is full of the truth and traditions that remind us of God’s gift to the world.

“The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all people. To you this day in the city of David is born a Savior which is Christ the Lord! And this will be a sign to you; you will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” - Luke 2:10-12

We are loaded down with the weight of living in a fallen world. Even our best days are sprinkled with sadness, disappointments and tears. And on our worst days we feel like it will never end.

The good news is that Jesus died that we might have life after this fallen world. The day is coming when the weight of our imperfections will be lifted for eternity. Heaven is a real place. A place of redemption, restoration, reunion, and rejoicing.

(Presented to Hope Covenant Church – Chandler, AZ – 11/20/2005)

We live in a performance based society. GPA. ERA. SAT scores. Sales figures. MPG. Batting averages. Won/Loss columns. S&P 500. P&L statements. We measure everything.

It’s easy to carry that performance mentality into our relationship with God. But what if our best efforts could never be enough?

The essential, invaluable lesson of “imputed worth”.

(Presented to Hope Covenant Church – Chandler, AZ – 10/23/2005)

These best friends went out to ride their bikes together and never came back. Some despicable, evil bastard stabbed them multiple times and left them for dead.

In an unrelated Fox News story, a stray dog in Nairobi, Kenya found an abandoned newborn baby in the forest. The dog got the baby girl out of the plastic bag she was put in, dragged her out of the woods, across a busy street and through a barbed wire fence into a shed where her own puppies were. The 7 pound 4 ounce infant is now in the care of hospital workers who have named her “Angel”.

Adults who are supposed to protect the young, murder kids and abandon babies in the forest. What does it say about our human condition when a stray dog demonstrates a better understanding of care and nurture than we do?

Some say the world is going to the dogs. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Murder. A mafia hit is something we can make sense of. When Guido gets popped in the head while eating seafood linguine at the neighborhood ristorante because he spilled the family secrets to the Feds, we get that. When someone goes postal and brings a shotgun to work looking for the boss who made his life miserable, we shake our head and say we could never react that way but we think, “Some people just get pushed too far and then they snap.” Gang bangers wage turf wars and kill each other in drive by shootings. It’s a tremendous waste of potential, but we say, ala Karl Marx, “environment determines expression” and we can sort of understand the tragic cycle.

Second grade girls haven’t lived long enough to betray secrets or experience pent up, trigger happy anger or mark their territory with a Glock. Second grade girls watch Rugrats and Sponge Bob Square Pants on TV and show each other the shiny tassels on their handlebars and think it’s oh so grown up to have a tube of glittery watermelon lip gloss in their pink Barbie backpack.

When Guido sleeps with the fishes and quiet Bob goes off with the 12-gauge and Paco shoots Jimmy while he’s washing his street rod, we shake our heads. But we kind of sort of get it.

When innocent second grade girls are murdered, there’s nothing to get but absolutely, completely livid in an “I want to kill whoever did that” way.

Think it’s a little extreme to feel that way?

I don’t.

A couple years ago someone asked me what I would do if someone tried to hurt my little daughters. I answered in a very calm and rational tone. “Whoever it is better know Jesus because I’ll kill them so fast they won’t have time to get saved.” The questioner backed away slowly. I guess it wasn’t the response he was expecting. I make no apology for being Papa Bear. God put me here to take care of my cubs and this I will do, to the death if need be.

How does one be Christ-like when responding to evil? How is a Christian to respond to gut wrenching headlines like this? Don’t be too quick with the Sunday School answer that “God loves the killer, too.” Yes, God does. Theologically, that’s correct. And for the families of these girls, it’s a truth that’s as hollow as an old dead stump. God is also the creator of life. I can’t imagine He is anything but angry and heart shredded by their senseless deaths.

It’s maddening though. Because God does love the killer. My human mind rants and rails against it, but it’s true. God’s offer of forgiveness and mercy is on the table for all of humanity. Even the ones who murder little girls. And in that statement lies both the evidence and my conviction. “Even the ones…” It betrays a mindset that deep down believes some sinners are worse than others. And of course I place myself in the “not as bad as they” category. How could I be as bad as the evil maniac who murdered these girls?

I may not be as bad, but it’s not about being bad. It’s about falling short.

God says we all fall short of His perfection. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) My prideful attitude, my occasional outburst of anger, my lustful thoughts, my desire for more at the expense of contentment, take your pick. Any one of these sins causes me to fall short of God’s perfection. Which means on my own merit, I don’t have a relationship with God and I don’t see heaven.

No, I’ve never killed anyone. But in a long jump contest at the rim of the Grand Canyon, there are no winners.

Only when we get up close to our own dirt do we realize the benevolent, gracious love of God. Romans 5:8 says that, “God showed His great love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Southern Baptist preacher/writer Will Campbell paraphrases the verse this way. “We’re all bastards. But God loves us anyway.”

Amen.

At the top of the High Hill, with a view of the entire valley below lived the High Mudders. Of all the mud in the land, theirs was the best. It had no rocks or debris. It didn’t smell bad. It was smooth and felt good to the touch. It was a mud made from the best topsoil and snowmelt water from the Peaks. The High Mudders were good people. They worked hard, went to church and cared about each other. They looked often toward the Peaks and wondered what it would be like to live beyond. They also looked down, glad they weren’t living below.

A bit farther down lived the Side Hill Mudders. They didn’t have the view that the High Mudders enjoyed, nor was their mud the best. Their mud was bad. It was lumpy, made from clay and water that wasn’t very clear. Their mud smelled like mud and it had rocks and sticks and debris mixed in. The Side Hill Mudders were good people. They worked hard, went to church and cared about each other. The Side Hill Mudders looked often toward the Peaks and wondered what it would be like to live where the High Mudders dwelled. They also looked down, glad they weren’t living below.

At the bottom of the valley in the Swampy Place lived the Muck and Mire Mudders. They didn’t have a view at all. Their mud was the worst. It was ugly. It was gloppy, green and slimy and smelled bad because it was made with stagnant water. The Muck and Mire Mudders were good people. They worked hard, went to church and cared about each other. The Muck and Mire Mudders looked often toward the Peaks and wondered what it would be like to live anywhere but the Swampy Place.

The Mud People lived each day in their mud. The High Mudders lived in their good mud. The Side Hill Mudders lived in their bad mud. And the Muck and Mire Mudders lived in their ugly mud. Thus the Mud People lived in their mud.

One day the High Mudders looked up to see someone coming down from beyond the Peaks. The place He came from wasn’t muddy. His clothes were white and clean. He waded into the good mud of the High Mudders and announced, “I am the Messenger. I bring good news from the Crystal Palace beyond the Peaks. You are all invited to the grand feast. Come as you are.” The High Mudders were thrilled. They had heard of the Crystal Palace and dreamed often of life beyond the Peaks. The Messenger waded out of the High Mudders’ good mud and left them to anticipate the grand feast.

The Crystal Palace was more magnificent than they had imagined. The Messenger greeted them at the door. “Welcome! Enter in to your joy and join in the celebration!” The High Mudders took their places at the tables. Yet the banquet hall wasn’t full. There were empty chairs. Lots of them. Who else could possibly be invited to the grand feast?

The doors swung wide and in came the Side Hill Mudders. The High Mudders didn’t recognize them at first as they had only seen them from a far distance. But the dried lumps of clay that crumbled from their clothes and fell to the pristine white marble floor confirmed who they were. What were they doing here? Had not the Messenger came to the High Mudders to invite them to the feast? The High Mudders wondered about this as the Side Hill Mudders found their seats, some of which were right next to theirs.

The doors swung wide again. It was the Messenger, pointing and directing the Muck and Mire Mudders to their seats. The High Mudders had never seen the Muck and Mire Mudders for the High Hill was far removed from the Swampy Place. Yet they could tell the Muck and Mire Mudders by the smell. Their shoes squeaked on the white floor leaving a trail of green slime and gloppy mud. The Muck and Mire Mudders found their seats next to the Side Hill Mudders and High Mudders.

Everyone was seated. The Messenger stood at the head table and said, “Thank you for accepting my invitation. It is my joy to welcome you to the grand feast. You are each one my honored guest. Eat, drink, and enjoy the banquet set before you.”

Delicious food and vintage wine were brought to every table. Joyous music filled the air. The feast had begun. The Messenger made His way from table to table. He warmly greeted each Mud person with a hug and a kind welcome.

The High Mudders wondered about this. Talking among themselves they decided to pull the Messenger aside. “You waded into our good mud and invited us to the grand feast. But we’re wondering why the Side Hill Mudders and the Muck and Mire Mudders are sitting at our tables.”

“Because I waded into their mud and invited them, too.”, answered the Messenger.

“But, their mud…it’s so bad and ugly.”

Sunshine of the purest light streamed through the windows and fell on the muddy footprints now covering the white marble tile. The Messenger answered, “When the feast is over, I will mop the floor. And when I do, be it good, bad, or ugly…mud is mud.”

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:23

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” – Ephesians 2:4-7

For the Roman soldiers walking the perimeter, it’s all in a day’s work. Some people push pencils and keep records for a living. Others sell groceries in the market. For these men, keeping order during riots and overseeing ghoulish public spectacles is part of the job description.

They aren’t here by choice. They are part of an occupying force hundreds of miles from their home. They’d rather be back in Rome. Someday they’ll go home. And when they do they plan to march straight down to the recruiting office and have a hands-on conversation with that guy behind the desk who said joining the Roman army meant they would experience adventure and see the world. He didn’t tell them it meant pulling duty in a backwards place like Jerusalem.

And to them, it is backwards. Take this crucifixion, for example. Back in Rome, you’d need a very good reason to put a fellow Roman to death. There would be a trial. The testimonies of the witnesses would have to corroborate. To convict would require hard evidence. The judge and jury would be unbiased. The verdict would be fair. However it turned out, the process would be logical.

To these Roman soldiers, the Jews, at least some of them, aren’t logical at all. When given a choice, they begged and screamed for a convicted felon named Barrabbas to be set free so they could put to death one of their own. That’s backwards. To execute a guy whose only crime it seemed was being too popular with the people. If this happened back in Rome, someone would be put to death all right. But it wouldn’t be this guy on the middle cross. It would be the ones who couldn’t get their story straight and gave a false witness.

But in the end, it’s not their problem. To the soldiers it’s just another day on the killing hill. Three criminals getting their just desserts. Supervising crucifixions is ugly business and gambling for a criminal’s clothing while He hangs dying just a few feet away seems morbid, but it’s a welcome distraction from the moans of pain and gasping sounds of death.

Maybe the next tour of duty will be easier.

After three years of earthly ministry, it ends here. Jesus nailed to a cross. It ends right here. Or does it? Say what you will about this man Jesus, that He was a troublemaker and a rabble rouser, a burr under the saddle of the religious establishment; or say that He was a good teacher sent by God. Either way, you had to admit that He was different. Really different.

How did they put it? “He was one teaching s with authority.” That’s one way to put it.

“Backwards” is another way to put it.

He said we are to be kind to those who hurt us. To turn the other cheek toward those who would hit us. To not refuse those who want to borrow from us. He said the fastest way to become truly wealthy is to give away our worldly possessions. He said if our desire is to become great then we need to assume a humble position. And if we want God to smile on us we should do our fasting and our praying and our giving in secret.

Crazy as these ideas are, most backwards is Jesus’ idea that the best way to make peace with our enemies is to forgive them.

He said it that day on the side of the mountain while preaching to the crowds. “Love your enemies”, He said. It’s one thing to be magnanimous when you’re the center of attention. It’s easy to be bold when you’re free to walk about under the big blue sky. Yet, here is a man pinned to a piece of wood saying “Forgive them.”

“Forgive me, God”, now that’s a phrase I can understand. Forgive me, God because I’m a total screw up. Forgive me, God, because I fail. “Forgive me, God”, is a phrase that makes sense to me. Because I know me. But “forgive them”? Especially when the “them” are my enemies? That’s backwards.

You’d think that being stripped naked and nailed to a cross when you’ve done nothing wrong would cause one to rethink their theology. Changing your position to one of revenge and retribution when you’ve been unjustly convicted of crimes you didn’t commit, well, who could hold that against you? Say what you will about this Jesus. He remains consistent, and backwards, even to the end.

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus is backwards even to the end. Asking forgiveness for short-sighted people who could no longer compete with His truth. Asking God the Father to forgive the ignorance of their actions. Nailed to a cross in excruciating pain Jesus doesn’t ask for His own deliverance.

He asks for ours.

Gambling for the clothing of one dying on a cross just a few feet away seems morbid. If I had been one of the soldiers that day I’d have probably taken my turn at tossing the dice. It would have been a welcome distraction from the moans of pain and gasping sounds of death coming from the backwards man on the middle cross.

The one asking His Father to forgive me because I didn’t know what I was doing.

Unlocking the door on my Mazda and getting in the way I’ve done thousands of times, I stopped half way. The feeling didn’t hit me at first. Then it did. Like a size-16 Tony Lama boot kick in the gut.

Shattered glass covered the seat and floorboard. Someone had, in broad daylight, smashed out the back windshield of my truck and stolen my stereo. The console had been cracked open with a pry bar, the wires clipped. They took the loose change in the ashtray and, for some curious reason, stole the bottle of hand sanitizer that was sitting on the seat.

I’d like to say I uttered something spiritual at that moment. Something that reflected a Christian maturity beyond my years. But I didn’t.

I cussed.

Then I began to process my thoughts.

Why did this happen? Why did it happen to me? I feel violated. My personal space has been invaded. Someone vandalized my truck and stole my stereo. Now my hand is bleeding because I cut it on the broken glass from my window that they smashed in my truck. Why would anyone do this? I’m really, really angry.

Maybe the next stereo I put in could have some kind of device that would blow up in their face if they tried to steal it. Nothing fatal. Just something that would leave them stunned and staggering blindly around the parking lot until the police came to take them away. Hey, they would deserve it, right?

Whoever did it was a small-timer, says Obed, my police officer friend. “Big-timers wouldn’t have stopped at the stereo. They would have stolen your truck.” Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better. The police didn’t help, either. “I know you won’t want to hear this, but it happens all the time here. We’ll take your information and give you a case number, but honestly, there’s nothing we can do.”

The insurance company said there was something they could do. After, of course, I paid my $250 deductible. Now I was wishing for some of that sub-zero Iowa weather. Grandpa used to tell me cold winters kept out the snakes and the riffraff, both of which abound in Phoenix.

With no radio to listen to, there was plenty of time to think on the way home. I’d processed some thoughts. Now it was time to process my theology. Did God understand me cussing first and thinking after? Did He understand my anger? And we’re supposed to give thanks in all situations. What was there to give thanks for? However mad I was, I’m sure other people in the valley had worse things happen to them today. And Obed was right. They didn’t steal my truck. I had to admit that was a good reason to be thankful.

Somewhere between Rural and McClintock on the eastbound 60 it occurred to me that I was using the word “my” a lot. My window. My stereo. My loose change in the ash tray. My truck.

My, my, my.

I stopped at Fry’s on the way home to pick up something for dinner. The checkout clerk asked if I found everything ok and was there anything else he could do for me. “Not unless you can find the person who smashed out my window and stole the stereo out of my truck.”

The guy behind me in line looked like a lost surfer in search of a beach. He set his groceries on the conveyor and said, “Dude! That really sucks. But ya gotta remember, it’s only stuff, man. It’s only material stuff.”

The only thing missing was a voice from heaven saying, “Thus ends God’s lesson for today.” God used faded sweatshirt flip-flop guy to school me in theology. It’s only stuff. What’s more, it’s not my stuff. It’s God’s stuff. In the end, stuff either wears out, gets stolen, or burns up. It’s only stuff. What matters is what we store up in heaven. That’s what lasts.

On the last mile home I thought about the person or persons who damaged my, uh, God’s truck. How could anything good come from this? Maybe they steal the stereo but don’t sell it. Maybe they keep it and put it in their own car. And maybe sometime when they’re listening to it the tuner breaks and sticks on one station. A Christian station. And maybe after they cuss and get mad about the stereo not working they turn it off.

But they get tired of not having any tunes so they turn it on and they hear something that sparks in their heart and reminds them of their need for God and maybe, just maybe, they get saved.

Ok, probably not. It’s just a fantasy to soothe my anger. But stranger things have happened. Like God loving a broken person like me enough to send His only Son to die that I might have life.

In everyone’s book but God’s, that was a real long shot.

Anyway, it was something to think about again last Saturday when I cussed again. This time a bullet hole in the driver’s window on my truck. Shattered.

Surfer dude wasn’t around this time, but his words linger. “Dude, ya gotta remember, it’s only stuff, man. It’s only material stuff.”

True.

And comprehensive glass coverage is definitely something to be thankful for.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
 - Matthew 6:19-21

She must have asked the question at least three times but I didn’t hear her over the spray of the garden hose. It was a Saturday afternoon during my last year of seminary. I was washing my truck in the driveway and a couple of stubborn tar spots on the bottom of the driver’s door were receiving my undivided attention. When it finally registered that someone was talking to me I looked up to find a girl standing on the sidewalk, a polite distance away.

“Excuse me”, she said again, “Could I possibly get something to drink? I’m walking to a friend’s house over on the other side of Mesa Drive and I forgot to grab a water bottle before I left.”

“Sure. No problem. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”, is what I said. “Thanks”, she said and smiled a very pretty smile as she unshouldered her bag and set it down beside her. It was a big bag. One of those oversized canvas duffle bags that causes certain husbands to wade into the perennially fruitless marital argument over luggage and how he could live out of a bag that large for a year so why can’t his wife survive out of it for a short weekend?

The bag looked heavy. Too heavy for a girl to be carrying down the street on a long walk. The black canvas matched the color of her duster coat and leather lace up ropers that peeked out from the legs of her boot cut jeans. Tossing the hose off into the grass and turning toward the house to get her something to drink, I knew this girl had a story. I wondered if I’d have a chance to hear it.

“I’m Todd”, I said, handing her a bottle of water and a phone. “I thought you could call your friend and see if they can come pick you up. That way you wouldn’t have to walk.” She touch-toned a number, got an answering machine and left a message. She handed the phone back to me with a thank you.

“I’m Annie”, she said, extending her hand. I shook it and tried to find the doorway into a conversation.

“So you’re headed to your friend’s house?”

“Yeah, it’s a couple miles from here.” Standing there in front of me she didn’t look any older than 17. I was thinking of my next question but didn’t need to ask it.

“My friend said I could stay at her house for awhile. I just need some time to think. My boyfriend and I broke up ten days ago and I’m not getting along very well with my parents, so this is probably the best. At least for now.” Well, I thought to myself, that explains the bag.

“I know you’re not supposed to ask a lady how old they are”, I said, apologizing in advance,”but will you forgive me if I ask you anyway?” She laughed at that. Like a sudden breeze it momentarily diffused the heavy cloud of reality she had just admitted to living under.

“I’m 19. Almost 20.”

Annie ran a hand through her shoulder length brown hair and pushed it off her face. Almost 20. The time in life when your convictions run faster than your life experience. Still, knowing how old she was made me feel somewhat relieved. When you’re almost 20 you can’t be considered a runaway. At least not technically. But she was running away. She knew that. And she seemed to know that I suspected it, too.

Her eyes caught my eyes looking down at the black canvas duffle resting against her leg. “That’s a nice bag. I’ve thought about getting one of those. You can put lots of stuff in it.”

“Thanks. I like it, too. I’ve got just about everything in here right now. My clothes. My boots. Some books. Even the things my boyfriend gave me.” She tugged on the button hole of her coat. “This duster is…or was, my boyfriend Larry’s. I bought it for him as a birthday present. But that was before…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered she was talking to a total stranger.

“Before you broke up?”, I offered. “Yeah. Before we broke up.” Her matter-of-factness wasn’t enough to mask the sadness in her voice.

“So what caused the break up?”

“I’m not sure, really. I thought we were happy together. His friends didn’t like me spending time with him. They don’t have girlfriends. I think they talked him into breaking up with me.” Annie tried hard to make her assessment sound convincing. Whether it was true or not, it sounded flimsy and she knew it.

Stuffing her hands into her coat pockets she looked down and ran the toe of her boot along a crack in the sidewalk. Then Annie took a deep breath. The kind of deep, serious breath you take right before you shoot straight with the person you’re talking to. The kind of breath you take right before you’re honest with yourself.

“To tell you the truth, up until ten days ago I was living with Larry. I thought for sure we would get married soon. I did everything for him. I put everything I had into our relationship. Because I wanted to. When we broke up, I moved back home with my parents. It’s been awful, being apart from Larry. I really love him.”

She bit down on her lower lip and looked across the street. “And, honestly, I’m really scared right now because I think I might be pregnant and Larry doesn’t know.”

It was an awkward moment. I wanted to let her know I cared but I didn’t know what to say. I reached in to the pile of phrases tumbling around in my mind like shirts in a dryer and grabbed one.

“I’m really sorry to hear that. I don’t know anything about your situation except what you’ve told me. But I’ve listened to lots of people’s problems. I’d be happy to listen to you.”

She gave me a hopeful look. “What do you do?”

“I’m a seminary student.” As soon as I said it, I questioned the wisdom of it. Saying you’re a pastor causes people to either open up like a book or close up like a clam. Occupational hazard, I suppose. I prayed that she would tell me more about this chapter of her life.

When she heard my answer she took a literal step back and swallowed hard on her water. “Wow. Really. That’s, uh,…that’s nice.”

She said “that’s nice” as if it were the main ingredient in her recipe for clam chowder. This conversation was over.

She reached down and snapped together the leather handles on her bag, paused, then stood up again.

“I used to go to church. In fact, I used to go a lot. All the time. You’d probably never believe it but I was one of the main leaders in our youth group. I was even one of the counselors at a Christian camp for high school kids.” And for a moment after she said it, she was quiet. I could almost see her memories of those days flash across her brown eyes. With a tear, Annie looked up and said, “I guess I should have taken my own advice.”

We talked for a while longer. We talked about God and I told Annie what she already knew. That God loved her and that there was nothing she could ever do to cause God to stop loving her. We talked honestly about choices and consequences. Mostly we talked about the grace of God. It was 20 minutes of real life conversation.

Just then her friend pulled up in a white Chevy 4×4. I picked up Annie’s bag for her and set it in the back of the truck. It was every bit as heavy as it looked. We shook hands again and she thanked me for the water. I thanked her for the talk and promised that I would pray for her. They pulled away from the curb, did a U-turn in the middle of the street and waved as they drove off.

I still pray for Annie. And when I do I can’t help but wonder if she’s still carrying that heavy bag.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30

It was 4 PM on the afternoon of April 16th. I had just put my twins down for a nap. Annie and Emma, protesting mildly because it’s in their job description, were smiling when they grabbed their fleece blankets to snuggle in for a snooze.

Pulling the stroller from the back of my truck I looked over my shoulder to see a bizarre and frightening scene unfolding. A white Chevy pickup stopped suddenly at the intersection of Nebraska Street and Elliot, a major arterial street. Other cars, forced to slow and swerve because of the truck, moved to outside lanes during rush hour traffic.

In the middle of this commotion, in the right lane of Elliot Road, stood a crying two-year old boy.

I sprinted toward him but I was three houses away. Thankfully, the man in the white truck scooped him up and carried him to the sidewalk. He had purposely parked his truck at an awkward angle to block the lane in hopes of keeping the boy from being run over.  A lady in a Chevy Blazer stopped and turned on her hazard lights, yelling to me as she got out, “Get that license number!”

About 50 feet away, a 4-door 1980-something Chevy Lumina was stopped in the right hand lane. I memorized the plate number. Two women in their 20′s, occupants of the car in question, were now running toward the boy. One was his mother, the other probably his aunt. The mother took him from the man who had carried him to safety. She began walking back to her car while those who had stopped to help bombarded her with questions and heated commentary.

“I can’t believe what just happened!!! The kid fell out of the car!!! I saw it happen!!! The back door just opened up and he hit the concrete!!!”

“Why the hell wasn’t he in a car seat?! There’s no damn excuse for that! Kids are supposed to be in car seats!”

“Is he bleeding? Is he hurt? He’s gotta get checked out.”

“Has anyone called the cops?”

The mom looked strangely calm. That made me mad. Maybe she was too stunned to be anything but numb. Over my shoulder I saw the boy’s rescuer on the phone with the police. I followed the mom to her car. When I looked inside, my blood boiled. In the back seat, a baby less than eight months old was sitting in an infant seat. The straps were loose and floppy, the seat wasn’t secure and, worst of all, it was facing the front of the car. I’ve seen people take more care in hauling home a gallon of milk from the store. A collision would send that baby bouncing like a ping pong ball. Next to the baby was a three-year old boy, roaming around the backseat like a goat in a pasture. Three kids. One infant seat. No car seats. Now I’m seriously angry.

“Don’t you have car seats???!!!” Given the exponential degree of blatant criminal carelessness I’d just witnessed, I was hoping for a tearful, “No, I’m sorry. I don’t. I can’t afford them.” That was something we could help her with.

“Yeah. I do.”

“You have car seats and you’re not using them???!!! Your kid just fell out of the car!”

“His brother must have opened the door.”

Stupidity is no respecter of gender. Yet had this been a male, my name would have been on a police report for “assault with intent to do severe bodily harm to an idiot.”

“You have to get your boy checked by a doctor immediately. He could be hurt.”

“I think he’s ok.”

“Thinking doesn’t cut it. You need to wait here for the police.” She didn’t think so. She drove away.

After all the pertinent information was passed along to the responding police officer, I walked back to the house. A line from the movie “Parenthood” popped into my head. “You know, Mrs. Buchman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car — hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any #!$%^&# be a father.”

Or a mother.

A two year old boy fell out of a moving car on to a busy street because his mother chose not to protect him. That’s child abuse, plain and simple. By her own admission, she had car seats. She chose not to use them. Thanks to God’s protection and the quick thinking of a man in a white Chevy truck, the little boy wasn’t run over and killed. How sad is it when total strangers demonstrate more love toward your children than you do? We can only pray that this little boy will live a long life in spite of his mother’s neglect.

Sitting in church on a Sunday it’s easy to nod your head in agreement when the pastor quotes from Ephesians 4 and says,”be angry, but don’t sin”. But Sunday is one day out of seven. This is Tuesday and I’m angry. I want this lady found and cited for endangering her kids. For not using car seats. And if possible, a big fat fine for seeming indifferent to the fact that her toddler fell out of her moving car in the middle of rush hour traffic. Then again, when your own son bounces on the street like a tennis ball and you can’t muster a single tear, a citation from the police probably won’t put much of a wrinkle in your day.

Mercy is not receiving the punishment we deserve. Because she drove away before the police arrived, the mother wasn’t ticketed for not using car seats. She wasn’t warned. She wasn’t fined. She wasn’t arrested. She didn’t get a visit from Child Protective Services. Based on those who witnessed the incident, she deserved all those things.

On a higher level, the mother enjoys another mercy; the mercy of being judged by a perfect God. One might think of mercy and judgment as polar opposites. By human definition, they usually are. We humans aren’t capable of being perfectly angry and perfectly just at the same time. My desire to see the mother given a ticket for her negligence, while justified, also contained a selfish desire to see her punished. While I would punish out of anger, God in His perfection will, in His time, judge from perfect love. While I cared more about the babies in the backseat than I did the mother, God loves the mother and the children equally.

Grace is receiving blessings we don’t deserve. The mother received more than showers of blessings. She received grace like Niagra Falls. Her son is still alive, even though he fell out of her moving car. He didn’t get run over. He didn’t get killed. Her other children didn’t fall out of the car when the door opened. In spite of her profound neglect, this mother received what she doesn’t deserve; a second chance. I wonder what she will do with it?

I’d like to believe that the mother will realize the danger in which she placed her children. I’d like to believe that she’ll jump on this second chance like a duck on a June bug. I’d like to believe that she’ll recognize the mercy and grace God gave to her in that terrifying moment, and that it will be a turning point in her life. But only God knows what she’ll do with her second chance.

Mercy means being spared the punishment we deserve. Grace means receiving blessings we don’t deserve. When grace and mercy meet, God often gives us a second chance. We can embrace it.

Or we can drive away.

“God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” – Psalm 103:10-12

Todd A. Thompson – ASliceOfLifeToGo.com

The 20-something brother and sister were looking through a stack of Phoenix Suns shirts.

“Who knows? We’re buying for our mother. She’s really picky.”

“Don’t you have the “it’s from my daughter, I’m sure whatever it is I’ll love it” thing going for you?”

“You don’t know our mother.”

“So it’s more like, “You’re my daughter, you should know better” that you’re dealing with?”

“Exactly…This looks like the right size but if it shrinks it’ll be too tight and she’ll be upset. If I go a size bigger and guess wrong she’ll open it and say, “What’s this? Do you think I’m fat?”

The brother speaks. “She likes Diamondback stuff. Get her the World Series DVD. She and Dad can both enjoy that.”

“But that’s really more of a present for Dad. And we already got him a shirt. Which means Dad would be getting a gift and a half and Mom would just be getting half a gift.”

“So buy a shirt for her and the DVD for both of them and it’s even.”

“What if I get the wrong size?”

“She can always return it.”

“From Minneapolis?”

A few minutes later they left the store carrying the weight of Christmas present in a two-ply shopping bag.

The holiday music floating above our heads proclaims this a season of comfort and joy. A quick check of the facial expressions in any mall during the month of December and you’ll see that many of us aren’t buying it. Retailers do their biggest business around the holidays. So do counselors and psychologists. Stress and the holidays go together like red stripes and candy canes.

We open more than neatly wrapped packages at Christmas. We also open up the emotional boxes we’ve been stuffing in our closet all year. Or, perhaps more accurately, Christmas opens them for us. There’s something about Christmas that shines the light of reality on our relationships. Be they good, bad or ugly, we’re more aware of our perceived success or failure with others this time of year. And our awareness presents itself…in presents.

The preferred year-end relationship therapy of Americans is to buy something. The perfect gift, we tell ourselves, will make everything better. The perfect gift will communicate what I haven’t been able to say this year. The perfect gift will make up for all my mistakes. The perfect gift will reconcile me to the one who pulled away from me. Or to the one I pushed away.

On December 24th and 25th people from New York to Newport Beach will gather in living rooms and sit in front of fireplaces, anxiously waiting for their perfect gift to land on the lap of the one they love. Or the one we wish loved us. Or the one we’ve never been able to get along with and wish we could. Or the one we’ve been trying to please all our life. Or the one we hurt. Or the one who hurt us. Or the one who keeps us at a distance.

In a few days, many of us will live or die by the expression on another person’s face. Our success or failure depends on that microsecond flash of non-verbal feedback when they open our gift. If in their eyes we see happiness and affirmation, we win. If we don’t, we lose. Until that moment, our perfect gift sits under a tree like a time bomb and we’re praying it’s full of confetti.

For many of us, “the hopes and fears of all the years” are wrapped in ribbons and reindeer paper and sealed with Scotch tape. The perfect gift, we tell ourselves, will make everything better. It will break the communication log jam. It will be the key that opens the door to a locked heart. It will win us the approval we desperately seek. It will close the gap and heal the hurt. That’s an awful lot of weight to put on a cashmere sweater from Sak’s. Or a socket set from Sears.

There’s something about Christmas that shines the light of reality on our relationships. Some 2,000 years ago God shined His light on a broken, hopeless humanity. His preferred method of relational therapy was to give a Gift. And God knows all about the deep desire for a gift to be well-received. Every day He watches the eyes of His created humans for that expression of affirmation, that confirmation that His gift of forgiveness has been accepted. It’s the grandest gift money can’t buy. Accepted, it closes the gap, heals our hurts and heads us toward heaven.

That’s an awful lot of weight to put on the shoulders of a baby in a manger.

And that’s the miracle of God’s Christmas present.

“And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all people; for unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you; you will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” – Luke 2:10-12