Archive - 2013

“Kevin! I think something sad has happened but I’m too scared to look!”

I grabbed his backpack and keys from his hand and pulled him out of the front door and into our second bedroom.

“Oh dear. That’s not good.” Kevin confirmed my fear – only one of the four baby birds in our window planter was in its nest. And it was dead.

After several minutes of sadness and discussion of the oddity of their disappearance, Kevin half-heartedly suggested we look downstairs. I raced out the door to find our tiny, pink neighbors.

We almost gave up our search when Kevin looked once more in the weeds. He pulled back the tangled grass and was greeted by three fuzzy friends, beaks open, begging for food. We faced our first difficult decision – do we leave them on the ground or return them to the nest? With a cat lurking ten feet away, we chose the nest.

Armed with cardboard, drum sticks, and a plastic cup, we maneuvered their fragile bodies back to the nest (after removing their deceased sibling). And so the wait began.

“God, please bring mama bird back.” Though I felt like a small child, I earnestly asked God to provide for our baby birds.

But by 10:00 pm that night there was still no sign of mama or papa bird. And so came difficult decision number two for the night – to let them freeze in the 30 degree night or to bring them inside. Neither was an ideal option. I chose to put a lamp with them in the window planter. By 10:30, Kevin was in bed and the baby birds nestled together.

But at 11:00, I still lie awake, mind racing. All I could think about was how that lamp gets so hot I have burned my hand on it before. What if it sparked? I could live with myself if the baby birds died but not if I burned down our apartment building.

I turned off the lamp.

Matthew 6:26 reminds us that God feeds the birds of the air. But God let those baby birds die.

Here’s a hard lesson we must learn in ministry (shout out to Kevin for telling this to me): We can only do so much on our own. Those baby birds needed their mama and she failed them. The people we minister to need more than we can give – a reconciled relationship, a parent released from prison, the revelation of a Heavenly Father.

For those of you in ministry – don’t be discouraged by our baby bird adventure. Take courage that where your efforts run out, God’s never will. Work with His strength that never fails,  knowing that He will empower us to overcome the list of things we cannot provide. And know that He is at work, even when you don’t see the evidence.

Then they said, “Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.
-Genesis 11:4

When I die, I want my family to know who I was. I want to have left a deep impact on people. But why? Why would I care? I’ll be dead.

It’s as though my soul knows it’s immortal. It knows that it will live on – but I want to be the one who decides how. The danger lies in the word “me.”

“Why don’t they like me?” “What if they laugh at me?” “That cookie is for me.” All statements I have made in the last month.

What’s wrong with me? (There I go again.) I should stop caring about superficial, fleshly me and focus on eternal, all-powerful God and people’s relationship with Him.

What if they’ve never heard? What if I get to be the one to tell them?

God was so displeased in Genesis that he confused their languages to protect them. He says in verse six that if they all speak the same language, nothing will be impossible for them. Unfortunately, in this context, clear communication caused the people to turn away from God. They were not trying to build a tower to worship God, they were building a tower to become their own God.

Think how pleased God would be if we stopped building legacies of legos and instead built them on Christ the Solid Rock.

In the middle of a dreary, wintry spring day, I, along with three of my coworkers, had the opportunity to attend Union University’s Business Through the Eyes of Faith this past Wednesday afternoon. As our community businessmen and women gathered in the first salon in the Carl Grant Event Center, the atmosphere warmed. Hands were shaken and business friends reacquainted.

Dr. Dockery walked to the stage and congratulated the School of Business for growing ever nearer to full accreditation status. He then introduced the speaker, Wai Kwong Seck, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Markets and Global Services across Asia Pacific for State Street Global Marketing. Seck had received an invitation to speak as a result of Union University’s mutual partnership with the Christian community in Singapore. Seck, though born and raised in Singapore, now lives in Hong Kong with his wife to eliminate excess travel for his job.

Seck simply stated his purpose in speaking: to leave us contemplating two words, surrender and platform.

He reached the people through the story of his life. When he was sixteen years old, his life was so consumed by his studies that he had to take sleeping pills to rest at night. Exhausted, he met with a local pastor who prayed for him. But young Seck left unchanged. Days and nights continued as restlessly as they had. Finally, he prayed, “I don’t care if I collect garbage, I want to follow You, Jesus.” That night, Seck slept.

Seck then jumped to his life as a fifty-year-old man. Rummaging on a shelf, he came across the Bible he used as a twenty-year old student. He stopped and wondered what twenty-year old Wai Kwong would say to fifty-year old Wai Kwong. These were the three statements he created.

1. You have gotten further in life than I ever imagined.
2. You have made more money than I ever dreamed.
3. You are much further from God than you ever were.

Seck believes that only when you surrender your work and your “success” will you find victory.

In East Asia, hunters lay traps for monkeys. They place nuts in a jar. The monkeys’ hands are just small enough to fit in the top of the jar. But once they grab the nuts, they cannot get their hand back out of the jar. Rather than leave the nuts and move on, the monkeys cling to them. Eventually, the hunter presents himself and kills the monkeys. Seck warned Jackson’s businesspeople not to be like these monkeys, clinging to small nuts of success.

He realized that his job is a platform. When people ask him to speak, they are asking the Executive Vice President but they don’t get a position, they get a person. Wai Kwong intentionally weaves his faith in his discussions about his business practices.

Seck’s faith is so real to him that he cannot segregate any aspect of his life from it.

I wonder, what will twenty-year old you say to fifty-year old you?

“NO! Kevin, please don’t make me!” I grabbed his hand tighter and used my body weight to pull him away from the  center walkway. Shrieks of terror echoed in the mall hallway.

“Oh, come on. We’ve got to get you over your fear eventually.”

“Says who? Who says I can’t be afraid of mascots until the day I die?”

He shrugged, not worth the fight. Some other small child will have to sit in the Easter Bunny’s lap today.

What makes you think of Easter? Rabbit-filled pictures? or empty tombs?

What answer did you fill the blank with?

Christ? or Easter?

Do we have to pick a side? Or can this weekend and Sunday morning be filled with Easter bonnets, pastel colored shirts, and egg hunts?

I’m afraid that our celebration of Easter is much like the chocolate bunny in our baskets – hollow. Because the pictures above can either spell “Christ” or it can spell “Easter.” Even non-believers can decorate with shiny, brightly colored grass, white wicker baskets, and candy filled plastic eggs. But only a believer can focus on Christ.

My initial Easter blog intention was to give a lecture on the history of Easter. But in the course of these last 24 whirlwind hours, I have two questions rolling around my head.

1. Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

 James 2:19 tells us, “You believe that God is one; you do well. The demons also believe—and they shudder.”

This question is not an end all discussion on a person’s relationship with God? Yes, believing is important. But it’s not the end of the discussion like I once thought. Even demons, who are actively at work against God, have knowledge and belief of Him.

2. How does that change your life?

Believing God exists isn’t everything God desires; He desires a relationship with us. That’s the whole point of Easter. The first two humans sinned, which separated them from a holy and perfect God. Ever after that, something had to die in order to cover this inherited sin. Dove after dove. Calf after calf. Grain after grain. No sacrifice was permanent. But God didn’t give up on His people – God loves us so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to walk this earth, be disowned by His people and executed. He was our sinless, perfect sacrifice that died in order for our sins to be forgiven. But don’t stop reading yet! Those were only the events leading up to Friday. Sunday is the day we picked in order to celebrate His resurrection. God raised Jesus back to life!

Why? Not just so that we would have an intellectual knowledge of Him, but so that we would have have a way to be in a right relationship with a holy God.

Chocolate bunnies melt; they satisfy for a fleeting moment. But knowing God and then changing your actions so that they glorify Him satisfies a soul for eternity.

Which will you spend more time celebrating this weekend? The Easter eggs that you dyed? Or the Christ that died and rose for our sins?

Maybe you haven’t stepped foot in a sanctuary since the last family member got married. Easter Sunday is a great day to return – to hear the truth of God’s love and to ask questions about how this impacts your life.

So you choose – what’s the answer to the picture at the top? Easter? or Christ?

If you joined in for this blog series, you probably saw this last topic coming. If you’re just now reading – catch up here.

These thoughts are not a fourth category of boundaries in relationships. It’s really a subsection of point three – Physical Boundaries.

So for those of you not struggling with the temptation to have sex outside of marriage – how about one that might hit closer to home? Flirting. Let’s ask ourselves, are we a serial flirter?

This encompasses modesty also. Again, most of us have been fed a line similar to this – dress modestly to keep guys from struggling. I had a high school teacher that would say, “Skin is sin so tuck it in.” (This was at a public high school where we were required to tuck all shirts in). I don’t want you to misread my following statement. Yes, ladies, we need to help protect our brothers in Christ. But again, there is so much more at stake.

I want Kevin to be attracted to me – not to my low blouse cut or my shorts that barely cover my underwear. I want him to be attracted to the love of Christ in me. Our lives should point others to Christ, not to ourselves.

So let’s conclude with one more quote from the book:

 Don’t give your heart away until you know what he plans to do with it.

Do you remember the verse from the very, very beginning of this whole series?

Do not stir or awaken love until the appropriate time.                                                                                               -Song of Solomon 3:5

We create physical boundaries in part to protect ourselves in a relationship. But we also follow these boundaries in order to better live a picture of the Gospel so that our daily lives match the words we preach.