For one very long semester, I worked as a substitute teacher. The phone would ring before the sun came up, and I got my assignment for the day. On a particularly cold morning, I found myself in a room with fifteen EBD (Emotionally and Behaviorally Disordered), elementary-aged students from around our school district. There was one other adult who served as an aide, but he left before attendance was taken to help find an EBD student who was a "runner." She had escaped immediately after arriving on the bus. All was not chaos. The regular teacher had left instructions on his desk. I passed around nametags and markers, then set out to collect them. One young man, a big sixth-grader, did not comply with my request to write his name. He watched as I neared him. "What's your deal?" he asked, spinning a thick book around the top of his desk. "I'm the substitute," I said brightly. "Yeah, I get that," he said. "What's your deal, though
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDon't you wonder what I wrote in the above post, then deleted, as my first official Boss of the Blog act? Aha. Now that I have your attention, WELCOME TO MY BLOG! It wasn't too long ago that I thought a blog was an unsightly stain on the carpet; no, wait, that was a blob. However, The Blob was also a semi-scary movie I saw in the late fifties.
ReplyDeleteNever fear, this blog shall tirelessly resist most scary, icky topics. In fact, here's the first question from me to you:
When you read inspirational fiction, are you more "inspired" by direct scriptures recited by the characters or subtle illustrations of scriptural truths through the actions of the characters?
How do we develop our faith to the size of a grain of mustard seed and never doubt? Robert Longman, Jr. says, in his Spirit Home site, that "the first thing we need is something we can't do for ourselves. We can't make the faith that will help us out of the fix we're in. Only God can create it in us. (Martin) Luther was furious (as was his way) at medieval theologians such as Duns Scotus who could speak so grandly of an 'acquired faith' that we can get for (or make within) ourselves. He went back to the Bible to show that the only faith that counts is that which is 'poured in' to us by the Spirit. Faith does not spring forth from our inmost self, no matter how much spirituality we practice or how many loving deeds we do. It comes from outside of us and then lodges itself inside of us. It's not our senses which give us faith, but the Spirit through the Word of God, who then lights up and directs our senses and our reasoning. It's not how strong your faith is, but it's who the faith is in. We can't have a right faith by anything we do, but only what is given to us by the Holy Spirit." What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI like when a message revealing scripture or spiritual truths unfolds in a storyline. Real scenerios that paint a picture of mercy, love, or whatever theme the author has chosen are sweet.
ReplyDeleteAs I grow older and the world seems even crazier, I find my prayers are abundant with requests for mercy. Do you find yourself more frequently pleading with God to intervene for a specific outcome in your daily life, and then exercising your less-than-a-mustard-seed of faith that the situation will be resolved accordingly? Or do you find yourself more frequently just asking for His mercy as situations arise? Maybe it's an age thing.
ReplyDeleteIn my prayer life, I tend to plead for mercy from The Lord in specific areas. Some of these include: keeping loved ones healthy, safe, happy, and alive, continued provision for my family, and forgiveness. I also pray for patience, wisdom, and understanding. I ask Him to make me the best wife, mother, homeschool teacher, neighbor, friend etc. that He wants me to be and that this would bring Him glory. He is so good to me and I know that I don't deserve it. Thus, much my time in prayer is in giving Him thanks.
ReplyDeleteP.s. Our ages are different, but I agree with you that the world is crazy. Things like Columbine and kids getting bullied so badly at school that they take their own lives (this just recently happened here in Cypress- so very sad) is part of why we have decided to homeschool our children.
ReplyDeleteI was kind of hoping that rewarding them with stickers or ice cream for being good would continue to work. Shiesh, better start working on that!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I am counting on the promise in the Bible that if we teach a child the way that they should go, that they will not depart from it when they are older.
God's word is always a good guide for me.
Good point, but I've always wondered what age qualifies as "older" when it comes to your own children..60, 80, 100?
ReplyDeleteLet's have some new holidays. How about National Forgiveness Day? Or Day of Selfless Thinking? We're All in This Together Day? Dropping Grudges Day? Other ideas? Hallmark would love it, but Congress could never agree to pass it.
ReplyDeleteIs it a stretch to say we give one another gifts at Christmas because the wise men brought gifts to baby Jesus? I heard someone make that comment the other day, and I'm sure you've heard similar rationales. How should we celebrate the birth of Christ, traditions aside?
ReplyDeleteI like Christmas Eve candle light services and having a celebration with family. I was thinking about the gift giving part the other day. Normally, we give gifts to the person having a birthday. For Christmas, we give gifts to the fellow people invited to the party. It seems sort of deep to me to do that because Christ wanted us to love one another and giving can be a way of showing love.
ReplyDeleteAs we enter a new year, I am reminded of
ReplyDeletePsalm 51:10 ~
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Blessings to you and yours.
Is our faith becoming more fragile and less tested as we expand only into our own membership? Is a weekly schedule of opportunities in a megachurch more like a multitude of choices in a secure microcosm of society? Bible studies, social gatherings, educational opportunities – do they truly impact the weak, the poor, and support our challenge to be fishers of men or are we only trolling in the safe waters of like-minded believers? How will our children be tested by fire and shown to have faith if the church umbrella over their heads is colossal? In 1 Peter 1:7, we are reminded: The purpose of these troubles is to test your faith as fire tests how genuine gold is. Your faith is more precious than gold, and by passing the test, it gives praise, glory, and honor to God… And, again, in James 1:3: You know that such testing of your faith produces endurance. (GW, 1995) How do we equip ourselves and our children, both emotionally and spiritually, to successfully make a Godly difference in the larger world?
ReplyDeleteI Got You, Lord
ReplyDeleteNo pun intended, but I watched Groundhog Day again this month. In the movie, Bill Murray’s character is perfectly obnoxious until he finally gets his life right by living the same day over and over, but learning from each rerun. Paying closer attention to his actions and reactions was tough for him and it is often the same with me. My heart might benefit if God reconstructed my learning curve in a similar format: every time I behave in a manner unworthy of my faith, I will wake up tomorrow and discover that it is today – again and again. All my tomorrows will be the same until I recognize each error of my ways and make things right. In other words, I might never make it past an existence of only a handful of tomorrows. On the positive side, I might have truthfully remained forever in my twenties.
Would it help if Sonny and Cher busted out “I Got You, Babe”, as in the movie, to consistently awaken us to our new selves in Christ? Anything is possible. Just imagine the plethora of opportunities to be Christ-like that are offered us during the course of one day, and how many of those chances we either ignore or truly miss. That’s not even counting our bad choices of which we are fully cognizant. We are blessed that we don’t have to correct our mistakes before moving on to the next day. The option is left with us. You may be like me – clearly way too busy to add one more responsibility to any day. Besides, I have nurtured my bad habits and I am so comfortable with them.
I get fed on Sundays and I try to apply what I read and hear from sermons and study groups. I honestly mean well. It’s just that I forget. Would I make a more concerted effort to be like Him if I had something tangible to remind me of who I am? Now we’re talking. A hot pink rubber bracelet imprinted with WWJD might help – especially if I snap myself with it every time I mess up. I could benefit from a shiny gold cross dangling from a necklace every time I happen to look in the mirror. Maybe I would catch a quick reminder when changing lanes on the freeway if I displayed a simple fish profile decal on the rear window of my car. I could also suspend a tiny angel from that rearview mirror. My very last resort would be to have a scripture deftly tattooed around my forearm, just above my watch.
Okay. I admit my premise is fantasy. Reality is much simpler than this early nineties movie, and outward symbols generally serve to declare our faith in Christ to others, not to remind us of our convictions. But don’t we have a genuine obligation to live up to the foundation of that relationship in all that we do from dawn to dusk? There are no rational guarantees that we will have the identical circumstances presenting infinite chances to demonstrate that we truly get it; therefore, our reality is to do what is right starting today and in all of our tomorrows. A relevant line from an even more popular movie comes to mind: “Do or do not; there is no try.” ~ Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back
“ Take my wife, please!”
ReplyDelete- Henny Youngman, King of the one-liners
Years ago, while sponsoring an after-school youth group activity, I found myself in an argument with a twelve year old who had recently resolved to be aligned with atheism. I had known him most of his life, but every line of reasoning I brought up was dismissed with evolutionary logic and at lightning speed.
My only point scored was when I asked him to explain how humans had developed such a unique sense of humor if we sprang from a black hole. This atypical topic seemed to annoy my young friend as he deferred to primates and their tendency to tickle-play and imitate social behavior. His examples fell flat as I pelted him with questions about the appreciation for and/or creation of humorous banter, conundrums, irony, parodies, satire, and plain old wit. The boy credited the highly developed language skills of our species for all my queries rather than some innate sense of humor. Still, I could see a tiny scratch in his freshly-honed atheist veneer.
As the other kids ate pizza, he and I swapped verbal accounts of several outstanding Far Side cartoons, and then he asked me why there was no humor in the Bible if humor was such a fundamental element of “intelligent design”. I suggested that our Western culture was not exactly like that of Biblical times; therefore, humor had surely evolved along with the mores and tolerance levels of all societies. Or it could be that early translators just edited out such trivialities since they were dealing with interpretations of much more profound issues.
We both agreed that it only exemplified desperation to nominate certain animals, e.g., giraffes or platypuses, as samples of Divine humor. He quipped that it was also not likely that there would be any knock-knock jokes tucked away in either Testament. I thought for a minute. There is something to be said, however, for delivery, I told him. For example, in the Book of Acts when a captive Paul tells King Agrippa that he would like for the king to be just exactly like him, but well…maybe without the chains.
He laughed, then his attention drifted to the dwindling pizza. I confessed that I was certainly not a Biblical scholar when it came to citing scriptures, but that I would ask around about the humor thing if he would keep an open mind about God.
He eyed me with no small amount of suspicion. “Does that mean you’ll be telling on me to the pastor?”
I smiled. “No, but I thought you might consider consulting a higher power.”
“I’m not going to get on some old ladies’ prayer group list,” he said. “You can forget that, dude.”
I raised my brow. “Actually, dude, I was thinking you should talk this over with your parents.”
“Oh, okay. Maybe.” He shrugged and walked away with what was left of the pizza.
A few weeks later, I overheard him grilling a new kid about the fundamentals of humor. My sage friend was leaning heavily pro-innate.
Ah, the sweet mysteries of life.