Holding a grudge is like drinking poison hoping the other person will die.
- Unknown
A great illustration of why it is so bad for US when we don’t let things go.
2 Timothy 3:14a
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of…
One day recently, I found myself laying on the floor in Sydney’s room listening as she taught me in her school. There’s not much cuter than watching your seven year-old daughter hold a pointer in one hand while she guides you through a series of questions and answers. She’d point to a map and ask, “What state is this?” I’d answer correctly, of course. Then it was onto the alphabet, and even though she mixed the order up (like any good teacher would), I knew all 26 letters.
Finally, it was the math portion. Simple problems came first. 8+3, 2+1+4, 10+10. I was on fire! Then she smiled a smile that said she was going to really try to stump me, and she said, “One thousand plus 200.” As soon as she said it, she looked at me and grinned. I said, “Ooh, that’s a tough one. Let me think a second.” She waited. I “thought.” When I felt that I’d taken long enough to be convincing, I gave her my answer.
“1,200.”
She just kind of looked at me, like she didn’t quite know what to say. Eventually, she kind of mumbled “that’s right” as if she wasn’t really sure if it was. I pressed her a bit when I smiled and asked if she was sure I’d gotten it right. Knowing she was in a tough spot, her face lit up with that “okay, Dad, you got me” smile that melts me and she laughed when she said, “I don’t know! I haven’t learned that yet!”
Later, I couldn’t get that innocent exchange out of my mind, and it occurred to me that it is eerily similar to the dialogue the church often has with the culture around us. We play as if we have all the answers, but at some point they catch us. They find us asking them questions as if we have the answers, but with a bit of pressing, it becomes painfully obvious that we have asked them to answer questions that we ourselves haven’t even learned the answers to yet.
When Michael Jackson turned 30, Oprah Winfrey asked him, “You’re 30. What do you know for sure?” I don’t remember his answer, because I was too amazed at the simple brilliance of the question, and how the answer is more likely to be a short list versus a long one. And that’s okay, as long as the short list contains the most important answers.
Paul told Timothy to continue in what he had become convinced of. Paul was convinced that nothing could separate him for the love of God (Romans 8:38-39), and I have found that to be a touchstone truth for me, too. I’ve learned through life that I can be convinced that my God will never leave me, that He will never turn His back on me (Hebrews 13:5) and that there is always grace, even if I feel that the sin in my life is too big for it (Romans 5:20).
I’m also convinced that if we would spend more time living out what we know and less time trying to pretend to know everything, that the culture around us would find itself asking us questions about what we’ve learned instead of trying to catch us in what we haven’t.
And who knows? The passion and the honesty in our answers may be what helps them decide to come to school with us.
1 John 4:21
And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Last Saturday, I blew my daughter’s mind. I had finished my long run, Wendy was fixing a brunch that eventually became lunch, and we were both on the second pot of coffee. It was pretty typical eating conversation around the table and one by one we started to finish and leave. Soon, it was just me and Sydney, and we were both finishing the last of the pancakes. I had put butter and sugar on mine since we were low on maple syrup, and Sydney had gone with the cane syrup, which everyone in the family likes but me.
It’s important for you to know that Wendy absolutely LOVES cane syrup. I don’t. It’s way too thick, tastes funky and looks like motor oil, so it is out as a pancake topping in my book. So you can imagine the look on my face when Sydney held up a piece covered in the stuff and said, “Here.”
Now, I’ve eaten stuff that I wasn’t crazy about so that my children get the joy of seeing me try something they “fixed.” Shoot, just this week-end I gave my cup of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins to Sydney and ate her cup of cotton candy ice cream because she ended up not liking what she’d gotten. I think I have a pretty good track record of taste-bud-denial, but you’ve got to make a stand somewhere, and for me, that line is pretty clearly seen in front of a bottle of cane syrup. So, in my best “Father Knows Best” voice, I said no to Sydney.
Here response took me by surprise. “But, it’s mom’s favorite.”
Ooh, I wasn’t expecting that. I tried the “give it to her straight approach.”
“Well, I know, honey. Mom loves that kind, but I don’t.”
“You love Mom, but you don’t love her syrup??” Sydney was obviously struggling to process this world-shaking revelation.
“That’s right,” I said. I watched her forehead crinkle a bit, and it took what felt like hours for her to finally come up with her response, and the only way she could make sense of it all was with 3 simple words:
“Well, that’s weird.”
The more I thought about it, the more I have to agree with her. It just makes sense that if we love someone, we’d love the things that they do, too. I do realize that that’s not going to happen here on earth. After all, there will be Michigan and Ohio State fans that marry, Republicans and Democrats, Devils and Tarheels. But think about this: on a supernatural level, on the level where a powerful and merciful God can change the heart of a man, it only makes sense that if we love God, we’d love the things He loves, too.
We would be all about mercy, and justice, and the redemption of mankind to His arms. We wouldn’t be able to get enough of His people, His presence, or His purposes. We would stop liking what He doesn’t, and start giving ourselves totally to what He’s committed to. To borrow a popular poker phrase, we’d be all in for the things of our Father.
It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t come naturally. It takes time and commitment, but it is an amazing, transforming process, and in the end our hearts are one with our Father’s, and the world will no longer be able to look at the way we live our lives and respond with “well, that’s weird.”
And the best part? I still don’t have to eat cane syrup.
1 Samuel 10:22
So they inquired further of the Lord, “Has the man come here yet?” And the Lord said, “Yes, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”
In case you haven’t noticed, airlines charge for almost any baggage now. They charge for the first checked luggage, then the second, now some may even charge for the carry-on. Won’t be long now and they’ll say that both of our arms are carry-ons and they’ll charge for that, too. I guess then we really would be paying an arm and a leg, huh? At any rate, the point here is that baggage has always come with a fee, even long before the airlines tried to capitalize on it. In fact, Saul almost paid the most expensive baggage fee in history.
A little background on our passage may help set the stage for the verse above. By the time we get to this point, Israel has decided that God needs some help with his country and has asked for a king, Saul has been anointed as that first king, and his coronation ceremony is in full swing. Samuel has just gotten up in front of the crowd and has introduced King Saul to his country. As the praise team hit the highest point of musical energy, Samuel proclaimed, “Ladies and Gentlemen! Here’s…your…King…SAUL!!!!” The spotlights probably went crazy, darting in and out and around the crowd, before finally coming to rest on the entrance where Saul should have been standing and taking in all the applause. Everything was perfect, except for the fact that Saul wasn’t there.
Naturally, this raised a few questions. Most noticeably, “Where’s the king??” And that is where our verse picks up the story. The people asked God if Saul had even shown up yet, and the Lord’s response was that the freshly anointed king – the man who stood head and shoulders above anyone else in the nation – had indeed come, but was now cowering in the baggage.
We could get into all kinds of discussions about whether or not it was the perfect will of God for Israel to even have a king (umm, it wasn’t), but let’s at least admit that Saul was most definitely God’s choice to be the first one. In fact, 1 Samuel 10:1 said that Saul had been anointed over the Lord’s own inheritance! That is a high calling, and yet even after countless events that could only be explained as God confirming His hand on Saul, the man who would be king is hidden in the baggage, hesitant to take his place in God’s plan.
Now that is a high baggage fee, and if we’re not careful, we’ll pay it, too. Our baggage continually haunts us and taunts us, trying to convince us that we’re not ready for the very place in God’s plan that He has prepared us for (Ephesians 2:10). I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of paying such a high price for carrying my baggage, and instead of looking around for another airline, I think maybe leaving the baggage behind and trusting God on the flight is my best option.
Finally, I’m truly free to move about the country, and I don’t even need Southwest Airlines to take me there. Want to come along?
I’ve waited way too long to write this and I’m not sure why. It wasn’t a bad race, although there were definitely parts I’d like to forget. I think it took much more out of me than I expected, and I never felt fully recovered for a good 2 months and by then I figured, “What’s the point?” But, I would like to record the experience I had at my first marathon, even if it was 5 months ago. Perhaps it will encourage someone else as they prepare for their first.
I had decided to run Richmond SunTrust Marathon as my first almost a year ahead of time. It wasn’t because Richmond is that special, but rather because the date was. The race would be run on November 14, which was my brother’s birthday and would have been his 40th if he hadn’t passed in 2003. I went all out and made my family custom tees that matched my custom race shirt.
Race shirt front:
Back:
We had a bit of a celebration the night before in Williamsburg (where we were staying) and I gave them all their shirts and then we shared stories and memories about Stephen and talked about how excited he’d have been if he were with us. It was emotional for sure, but encouraging. I thought a lot about those stories during the race the next day.
