In a sentence…I have allowed my burden to become an idol.

For my readers who don’t know me, four years ago my spouse chose to walk away from our marriage. I didn’t want that. My daughters didn’t want that. We were (and continue to be) left bouncing in the wake of the consequences created by her decisions.

The burdens I’ve been carrying since; burdens of abandonment, betrayal, loneliness, starting life over from scratch without a network in a new state is but a short list of what has dominated my thoughts. Not to mention the constant fear she would again someday pick up and relocate our children again. I have allowed these burdens, by the amount of time spent fretting and obsessing over them, to become an idol. By definition, an idol is something to which time and devotion are paid. I have paid too much time and far too much attention to my burdens of the past four years. They have become idols at the expense of time and attention focusing on God’s sovereignty over my life.

Are my burdens real? Absolutely. I can’t begin to describe the profound loneliness of beginning life over in a place you never wanted to live where you know no one, leaving behind 14 years of deeply invested friendships, ministry, network, jobs and every good thing that feeds your soul. Add to that the burden of single parenting, a job God never intended in His original design of family, cover it all with a daily feeling of being “on the outside looking in” and it’s a small start in communicating what a head-banging process this has been.

My burdens are real. They are heavy. And they may not go away anytime soon. Yet in focusing on them, both knowingly and unknowingly, I have allowed these burdens to become an idol. Like a man examining a stain on his necktie, my vision has become myopic. I’ve become oblivious to the larger environment around me, the environment over which God is fully sovereign. Focusing on my burdens has created in me a spirit of fear. I’ve been waiting and worrying over the next bad thing that could happen instead of acknowledging God and His perfect love that casts out fear. To, even in one’s mind, relegate God in any way as subject to one’s circumstances is sin.

One would think a seminary graduate would have this figured out. But there is a big difference between head knowledge and heart assurance. At some point all of us will experience a life event that forces us to decide whether or not we will “own” our theology. When life is full of everything happy and circumstances are favorable, it’s easy to pay lip service to the goodness of God. When life kicks you in the head and takes away most or all of what you value, the question is unavoidable. Is God still good when life is not?

In the wake of my spouse walking away, my friend Jerry Sittser told me, “In God’s big-picture drama, people who walk out of your life are small players. As painful and horrible as this situation is, there is nothing anyone can do to thwart God’s purposes for your life. Or for the lives of your children.” This is a true statement. Yet in my pain I lost sight of this. God, in my mind, became subject to the decisions of my ex-spouse. Instead of rightly seeing God as in control of His universe (and mine) in the middle of my awful situation I viewed Him as subject to my rotten circumstances instead of sovereign over the details of my life.

Psalm 34 calls us to “magnify the Lord and exalt His name” and that in doing so God will “deliver us from all our fears.” In allowing my burdens to become an idol, I’ve done the opposite. In magnifying my fears I have minimized God. That in itself is grievous. Yet the arrogance of this sin is magnified by the irony that my spirit of fear has been cultivated while surrounded by God’s blessings. I’ve lamented to God the burden of moving to and surviving in a place where I knew no one, while across the room sits a cabinet full of customer files, every one of them a stranger until God brought them into my life. I’ve lamented to God the burden of leaving behind the bonds of an established church family, while the members and friends at Turning Point Church, many of whom don’t even know me that well, have consistently prayed for me and cared for my daughters as if they were their own. I’ve lamented to God my burden of loneliness, and in doing so treated God as if He hasn’t been here for every tear and every sleepless night.

While I’ve been guilty of treating God as though He is subject to my circumstances, true to form God has been incredibly patient and kind with me. He has, in ways big and small, used these same circumstances to remind and encourage me that He transcends everything I can see and imagine. He really does “cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose”. After disappointments in my job, He surprises me with unexpected sales. Or sitting in church, missing all my friends and ministry in Arizona, a hand on my shoulder and a voice saying, “You’ve been on my heart a lot. Let me pray for you.” Or in moments of deeply felt insignificance someone saying, “Thanks for what you said in your sermon. God really used it in my life.” And even in ways far outside the box like a guy named Bob at Sam’s Club in Roswell, New Mexico who offers to pray for me while filling my car at the gas pump.

If I’d spent as much time looking for God in the details as I’ve spent focusing on my fears, how different would my life look?

So there you have it. My confession. And my resolution to stop living from a spirit of fear. God’s arm is not too short to save. There’s nothing that will happen in my life that He’s not already aware of. The fact that I am still here is proof of His provision. He promises to give me a hope and a future. He promises not to quit working on me. And He promises to “restore all the years that the locusts have eaten”. I have no idea how He will do that, but I look forward to seeing it.

In the meantime, my burdens may not get lighter. My situation may not change. It may get worse. But it doesn’t matter because God is on His throne. He loves me. I don’t know why. But He does. And His promises are bigger than my fearful circumstances.

Or as He says, “If I (God) am for you, who can be against you?”

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

When I was a kid, we would spend Christmas with my cousins in Ozona, Texas. My Uncle John was U.S. Border Patrolman there. Ozona, maybe about 3,000 people, is the only town in Crockett County, a county that’s the same size as Delaware.  

Partly because of his line of work, partly because of living in Texas and partly because of personal hobby, my Uncle John had quite a few guns. So did my Dad who collected antique Winchester rifles. So for my cousin Jack and me, getting our first BB guns was a big deal.

But it was an even bigger deal a couple years later when we were about 10 years old. That year our Dads gave us pellet guns for Christmas. Matching Sheridan Blue Streak Air Rifles. To this day it remains one of my favorite Christmas presents. Solid wood stock, sleek shiny black metal barrel, bolt action, single shot, .20 caliber pellet, air pump…I can still feel it in my hands. It was a beauty.

As was often the case during Christmas vacation in Texas, we tagged along with our Dads when they went deer hunting. My uncle was a friend to many of the ranchers in the area and he was often invited to hunt on their private land. On this particular day we were hunting at Beecher’s Ranch; located just west of the middle of nowhere, about two hours from the other side of no place. If you’ve ever been to West Texas you know what I mean. Nothing but cactus and canyons and mesquite scrub.

Jack, his twin sister Kaye, our cousin Becky and I went along in the old station wagon used for hunting trips. After arriving, we stayed around the car while our Dads walked a short canyon they wanted to hunt. It was great fun and even better now that Jack and I were armed with our trusty air rifles.

Understand that Jack and I had gun safety drilled into our heads from the time we could point our fingers and say “bang!”. We grew up around guns and our Dads taught us well. Never point at anything you don’t intend to shoot. Point the gun at the ground while you’re walking. Never put a shell in the chamber until you’re ready to fire. Always keep the safety on until you pull the trigger. Failure to abide by these rules meant the BB guns got put away until we were ready to be diligent. The rules hadn’t changed now that we had upgraded our weaponry.

We were sitting in the station wagon with the doors open laughing and talking. I was in the driver’s seat, my cousin Becky on the passenger side. Jack and Kaye were in the back. My new Sheridan Blue Streak Air Rifle was on my lap. I have no recollection of how or why there was a pellet in the chamber. I have no memory of pumping air into the gun. Selective memory I’m sure, because who else would have done that but me?

All I remember was the distinct sound of the air rifle discharging. Pchoo! I didn’t feel anything at first. Then I saw blood running all over my left hand. Holding it up I looked in shock at my cousin Becky and yelled, “You shot my finger!”

Then it started to hurt.

At that point it was like a Keystone Cops movie. We all ran around the station wagon screaming and bumping into each other. My hand was bleeding, our Dads weren’t anywhere close and we’re in the middle of nowhere. Somehow in the panic one of us remembered seeing a small house, probably used by ranch hands, about a mile back up the road on the other side of the bump gate. So Kaye and I headed that way.

When we got there I went up and knocked. A Mexican gentleman who, in retrospect, would have been someone my Border Patrol uncle would have likely paid a visit to on a work day, answered the door. It became very clear very fast that he didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Spanish. I guess blood translates in any language because he took me inside to the sink so I could wash my wound.

Whatever this shack lacked in amenities it had an ample supply of whiskey bottles. In the middle of my washing the guy firmly took hold of my wrist with one hand and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other hand. He pulled the cork out with his teeth, and with a crazed smile grunted, “Ah? Ah?” while indicating he wanted to demonstrate it’s medicinal properties by disinfecting my still bleeding finger. I suddenly felt like I was in a Pancho Villa movie. And because yelling louder always helps when you don’t know the language, I kept shouting, “BAND-AID! BAND-AID!”

Somehow I got my point across and even more miraculous, he found a bandage for my finger.

Weeks before there was anticipation in hoping for the Christmas gift of a pellet gun and now there was anticipation of having to tell my Dad what happened. I had plenty of time to think about it on the walk back to the car. 

The upside was that it was only a finger. I didn’t shoot my eye out. That’s a good thing because for me to get a new plastic eye would have cost a lot of money.

I dreaded telling him what happened. Even though my cousin Becky did pull the trigger (a fact that I tell my children to curry sympathy), the reality is I broke the rules and put the pellet in the gun. And now I had to tell my Dad.

I thought he would take the gun away. I thought he would scream and yell. I fully expected a good spanking. And a long lecture about gun safety was a foregone conclusion. And I would have deserved all of it.

But he didn’t do any of that. He just asked me what happened and listened. When everything was talked about he said the hole in my finger was probably lesson enough. And that was that.

I was only ten years old but I still remember how I felt in that moment. Dad didn’t turn me over his knee. He didn’t call me a baby who was too young to have a pellet gun. My Dad was treating me, well, almost like a grown up. There were consequences to actions. Disobedience exacts a price. I was free to make decisions. The wisdom, or lack thereof, would determine the outcome. And if I didn’t learn from the hole in my finger, I probably wasn’t going to learn.

Over the years I’ve learned that more often than not, God responds to me in a similar way. Sure, God can discipline hard if He chooses to.  God doesn’t shy away from the truth or the consequences, be they good, bad or ugly. God corrects with truth. But He also corrects us with a loyal love that refuses to let us go, no matter what. And in doing so He nurtures and deepens our relationship. Or as the Apostle Paul put it in Romans 2:4, “Do you not know that it is God’s kindness that leads you to repentance?”

The kindness of God. He doesn’t beat us down or cause us to fearfully cower in the corner. He loves us into submission. All because of His fierce desire for relationship with us.

The type of weed determined how you killed it. Corn, milkweed, lambs quarter, pig weed, and water weed could all be chopped. Nightshade had to be pulled. As did velvet leaf, a.k.a. “button weed”. One button weed could have a hundred seed pods, each containing at least 700 seeds. When it’s ripe it explodes, sending on the wind a “be fruitful and multiply” scenario that anyone in a John Deere hat cringes to see. So you pull the button weed to make really sure it will die.   

When I was in junior high my Dad bought some farm land in north central Iowa. It was excellent land for growing corn and soybeans. The first year we farmed it we discovered a major weed problem. Apparently the previous owner didn’t care much about keeping the field clean. There were huge patches of cockleburs growing in the soybeans.

Cockleburs fell into the “pull” category. Only they weren’t as easy to pull as velvet leaf/button weeds. Some things are like they sound. Velvet leaf is soft. A warm fuzzy in the weed kingdom. Pulling cockleburs is like grabbing sandpaper. Itchy. Scratchy. Irritating. I can still recall the smell of cocklebur juice on my leather gloves and the blisters on my hands.

The cocklebur patches were so thick that one time I pulled 34 plants without moving my feet. Even then my Dad looked back and saw we were missing some. So in the worst of it we got down on our hands and knees to look under the soybean plants to be sure we got them all.

We weren’t walking beans. We were crawling them.

Sure enough, under the leaves were small cocklebur plants that, had we not looked, would have grown up to mock us as we drove by the field two weeks later. Just when I thought I’d got them all, I found some more.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how I live my Christian life. Some weeds are easy to see. And because they are easy to see they are relatively easy to get rid of. Walk and chop as you go along. An obvious unkind word? Yank it out. Lose your temper and make a fool of yourself? Whack it hard and it probably won’t come back. It’s not hard to walk along and get rid of the weeds you see.

More difficult are the weeds growing underneath. The cockleburs of an arrogant spirit. The velvet leaf of pride that, left to grow to maturity, will explode into seeds of destruction. 

The only way to find them is to get down on your knees. It’s awkward at first. You even resent the fact that you’re having to kneel. It seems so, well, beneath you. But once you’re down there, the more you look, the more you find. And when you find, you have to pull. Don’t chop at it. Small weeds, left to grow, will later mock you. It was always embarrassing to drive by your field and see one lone button weed, five feet tall and waving at you in the breeze. You had to go back and kill it. But this time the stalk is an inch thick and the roots are set. Much harder to pull out. A back breaker.

If only you’d pulled it out when you were down there on your knees.

As we walk, look back and look under to see what we’re missing. Time spent on our knees pulling weeds makes for a cleaner field.

A cleaner field makes for a better crop.

A better crop makes for a great harvest.

Praying for you as we pull together.

“He who wants his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.” – Dag Hammarskjold

“When we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9

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