I've probably told you this story before but now that I'm, er, slightly older than 40, I'm allowed to tell the same ones over and over and you should just nod like you would at your crazy uncle when he tells you about the first car he ever owned for the hundredth time.

Back in Indiana, our church was close to two other Brethren churches, so every so often, like once a year, we'd swap pastors for a Sunday...no I'll just leave it at that...and I ended up in Muncie, Indiana (where Close Encounters of the Third kind is set BTW) on a Sunday where I wasn't really feeling that well--high temp, kind of rung out. My message was from Proverbs about the importance of the Bible, and I was nearly done when a lady in the group raised her hand. That hadn't happened to me a lot at that point (we're a little more interactive now), and I thought, well, ok, what is it? She said, "I just wanted to say that i really don't agree with what you said earlier."  Yikes!  So, against my better judgment, I waded into that, and asked her what she didn't agree with, and she said, "You said that if your wife doesn't agree with you that you should get rid of your wife, and I just don't think that's right!" Double Yikes.

Now, remember, I wasn't feeling too well, so I immediately thought, Am I so delirious that I said something like that?  I really was at a loss, so I assured her that if I did say that I didn't mean it, and then just tried to finish before I blundered into some other small, minor heresy. 

I was shaking hands at the back afterwards (this was one of those pretty traditional kinds of churches), and trying to avoid all the wives while all the husbands were slapping me on the back and offering to buy me a drink...ok, that part's not true...when a teenage girl came up to me and said, "I know what you said."  First I was astounded that a teenager was actually listening to me (as I still am!). She said, "You didn't say that if your wife disagrees with you that you should change your wife, you said that if your LIFE disagrees with the Word of God, you don't change the word, you change your LIFE." (It's actually pretty good that the lady asked her question, imagine if she'd gone through life thinking that was what I'd said.  We cleared that up.)  What a relief! 

The reason that story came to mind was this whole ten commandment thing we're looking at and how God is describing for us what life should be like, how he created us.  What I find is that I am really good at rationalizing my behavior against what the commands say. I don't want to change my life, I want to change the scope or meaning of the Word.  Instead, we should be wanting to bring our lives in line with what God has established for us.  Philip Yancey, in "What's So Amazing About Grace" tells the story about a man walking into the dressing room of the actor W.C. Fields and finding him reading the Bible. Fields was embarrassed that he'd been caught and muttered, "Just looking for loopholes."  I guess if God's heart for us was to be mean and stern and take away enjoyable and pleasurable activities, then we might want to find a loophole. But if he really does love us, and he really wants us to be safe and whole and healthy, then maybe our loopholes are really still just deception.

And I just got to say it's a good thing Ann hasn't disagreed with me all these years!

Most of you know I have a casual interest in sports (if you define 'casual' as foaming-at-the-mouth-throwing-things-at-the-TV-not-speaking-to-my-family-while-i"m-watching-sports. Then yes, it's a casual interest.) But it goes beyond casual (see above) especially when I'm watching the Pittsburgh Steelers--or "super stillers" as we know them in western PA.  But now, I'm  just heartsick over recent news--Big Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexually assaulting a college student in a small Georgia town.  Seems he was out bar hopping late one night with a bunch of body guards, and the girl made the accusations after he left. We of course need to wait for the outcome, he is innocent until proven guilty, but it is depressing nonetheless. And the one comment I've heard the most in discussion is that even if he didn't do it and this is a result of his notoriety, he should have had more sense than to put himself in a position where these kinds of charges could be brought against him. 

As I thought about that, somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind were words from the Bible struggling to the surface.  When these things finally make their way out, they always come out in King James English for some reason. These were: "Avoid all appearance of evil." I guess that doesn't sound very old English, but trust me, it is.  Paul writes it in 1 Thessalonians 5:22.  I think it's pretty applicable here.

Avoid (stay away from, like the plague) all (all) appearance (anything that looks like, smells like, acts like--it's a duck) of evil (bad things). If you couple this with what we've said recently about taking God's name (identifying with God and his character) in vain, that we should be bringing honor to God's name in everything we say, think and do, then I think Big Ben would have done well to employ this principle.  Stay away from anything that even remotely looks like evil or has the potential to evil.  Don't drag God's name (which you carry) into anything that resembles badness. Be a good representative, ambassador. Take this serious enough that you're willing to put aside anything that has evil connotations. Had Ben put that into practice, he might not have been in the situation he is now.

We need to be careful with that, when I was a kid that verse was used against all kinds of activity (don't drink, or smoke or chew or run around with gilrs who do) that ' not sure should really be considered evil.  And it's not a verse you should probably be applying to someone else other than yourself (like I just did to Ben...) But I do think we should be asking ourselves, "If I am a real, genuine, follower of Jesus, does this behavior (whatever that might be) reflect well on him?" 

To Ben: I hope these accusations aren't true. I wish you had stayed home and played scrabble that night. 

Here's what I caught myself doing last week. You know we've been talking about taking one day of rest out of the week, that God has made us in such a way that we need this for our spiritual, physical, emotional, and relational well being.  And I have to chuckle at how hard we fighting against the idea (it's like dragging my kids off to bed when they're little--"But I'm not tired, I don't need to sleep!" Then they become teenagers and sleep for 12 hours a day.)  So for me I'm trying to set aside Tuesdays as my Sabbath, and thinking about the 4th command and all, and I caught myself saying, "Okay, how should I schedule my Sabbath day? what kinds of things should I be doing, how can I fill this time with activity to make sure that I'm getting the most out of?" Just looking at my Sabbath schedule wore me out.

And that's not to say that we shouldn't have some ideas of how we should spend our Sabbaths, and I'm going to suggest some here in a sec, but I think we need to make sure this isn't just another thing on our to do list.  It's supposed to be refreshing, restful. You agenda anxiety people (you know who you are!) are going to want to strangle the enjoyment right out of this day.  And you "life just happens to you" people (you know who I am..er.. you are!) aren't going to put enough thought into it and miss out of what it can be for you. So let me give you some input, some ways that I'm learning to put this into practice.

1. you need to stop working at what you normally work at.  This is pretty basic.  6 days of work, one day of non-work. No going into the office. No bringing the office home. No watching The Office...no, that's a joke.  You can watch The Office as long as it doesn't make you think about your office and all the work you need to get done. And you really should stop thinking about your work too, as much as that's possible. Set it aside. It's possible. 

2. Don't just replace one kind of work with another.  If it's an "I have to..." whatever, it's probably work.  Most of you work five day weeks anyway, use the 6th day to do the stuff you "have" to get done.  If it doesn't refresh you, doesn't re energize you, you probably shouldn't be doing it! And that's gong to be different for all of you. What refreshes you is not going to refresh me (yard-work.) What energizes you won't energize me (yard-work.) What yard-works you won't yard-work...are you getting the picture? It should be a day of enjoyable things, restoring things.

3. Build some things in that connect you with God. Now most of your Sabbaths will probably be on Sunday, And I know that one of the things you'll want to do (this can't possibly be a "have to") is to use our worship worship as one of the ways you connect with, think about, thank, and focus on God. That's what it's designed for, you might as well use it.  And get somewhere where you sense God's presence,w hat some people have called your "thin places." (I love to be in my thin place!) Places where you easily commune with God, hear from him, talk to him. The beach, if we had one. The mountains. On a walk. Doing yard work (really?)

4. Connect with your spouse and kids.  In a relaxed way. Spending time with them. Listening, chatting, allowing for the oft chance that something important might happen!

5. Play a little. We all know that exercise is refreshing. Throw the ball with your kids. (or kick it, if that's your thing) Dust off the Monopoly board. Go to the park. Swing. Geez, do I have to think of everything for you?  Have you forgotten how to play? No wonder you need this day of rest!

Those are just some parameters. There's a lot of room for how you're built and what brings you rest here.  I think there's probably really only one hard and fast rule that should be followed--NO WORKING!

And for those of you who are saying, "I just don't have the time for this, I've got too much to do." Here's what I believe--if you'd be willing to start taking this day of rest, you'd find the remainder of your time, the other six days, that you were more productive and able to squeeze everything you needed to get done into those.  I think God would kind of multiply your other time because you were willing to trust him with this time. 

So I've decided to build a day of rest into my schedule, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it!

I heard a news item this week that said that research shows that very few of us are getting enough sleep at night. (They defined enough as 7 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep. They obviously left teenagers out of the poll because their 12 hours of sleep would have skewed the results.)  I think they said that on average people in only three states actually slept that long. I forget which states they were but I'm sure Michigan must have been among them because what else is there to do in Michigan?  Oh, lighten up, that's a joke....

That got me to thinking again about the command we dealt with this past Sunday in our 10 commandment series on taking a Sabbath rest.  Since we're looking at the positive force of these commands, we said that God has made us in such a way that we need this work/rest cycle built into our lives.  God exemplifies that for us at creation (6 days of work, one day or rest. Now God didn't need a nap after all that work, or time to recoup, but he establishes that kind of cycle for us that do.)  I think what he's saying is this: if you want to feel rested, want to live stressless lives (hey, God created everything, he can create new words--stressless.), if you want to remain connected with Me, if you want to enjoy life to the max, then you're going to build this same cycle into your existence.  Work six days, rest the 7th. 

And if that's true, if that day is really that important (and why wouldn't we think it was, all the other commands seem pretty important), then is it any wonder that we are so ridden with anxiety; so stressed out/burned out/petered out; feel so disconnected from God; feel so disconncetd from our families since we tend to fill every single moment of our lives with stuff to do.  Is it possible that a lot of the reason we're sick or exhausted or losing touch with the people we love is that we have lost sight of this principle--one day a week that is used for connection with God and others, for refreshment, restoration, fun and just plain r...e...s...t.  If there are consequecnes for stepping out of bounds on the other commands, there are certainly consequences for this one too.

I'm going to devote the next blog to how to keep a sabbath, and I think you're going to be very relieved that I'm not very legalistic about this, in fact this is more like giving you permission to take it easy.  And some of you are already trying to negotiate the idea away (why do we resist this so much?  You should be falling at my feet thanking me for such an idea...okay, falling at God's feet and thanking him, it's his idea after all.)  Someone wanted to know if you took shorter periods that added up to a full 24 hours during the week or averaged that per month. Go back to the research about sleep--I'm pretty sure it didn't count as a good night's sleep if you took it in hour increments, or cuaght up at the end of the month. It just seems to me that's there's something about that chunk of time that's important.

Why not give this a try and see if it works?  Yes, it may require that something drop out of your life.  This isn't just another thing to put on your to do list.  This goes on your don't do list.  Put it on your calendar first, draw a big block around the day, don't let anything intrude on it. then fill up the other days as much as you want. And don't just substitute one kind of work for another. I'm telling you, this is a vital part of our emotional, mental, physical relational health that we have missed out on and have suffered because of it. 

I now give you permission to rest!

I'm sitting in front of the idiot box (as my late father in law called it) last night watching...well, I'm watching the figure skating men's short program. Yes, I like this, but I'm also flipping back to the Suns game against Memphis, so don't get too worried.

Anyway, I'm watching the best in the world do what they do (triple bow wows, quadruple bow ties, I know all the lingo!) and almost without exception at some point in their program, each one of them falls down.  Now some of these guys have been doing what they're doing since a very young age, and I imagine they've done more triple toe loops than they can shake a stick at without falling down, but, ouch, there they go again.  That's gotta hurt.

But here's what really amazes me about this, and I was talking to someone the other day while watching the pairs competition...yes, I watched the pairs skate as well...and we were talking about how amazing it is that after they fall down they don't just skate over to the side and sit down.  I'm pretty sure that's what I would do. Think about how discouraging that is, how defeated you'd have to feel.  But these guys get up off their frozen butts, and get right back into the program.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect; but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting that is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."  That's what Paul says in Philippians 3:12-14.  I think he must have been a figure skater. 

Face it, we're going to fall a lot on this journey with Jesus. We're going to sometimes be on our butts (wow, I've said that twice now!) more often than we're on our feet at times. Lots of failures, lots of mistakes, lots of times wondering whether it's worth it to get back up. But Paul is telling us not to be defeated by those times.  We don't have to despair because we've fallen, God doesn't reject us just because we're on our...well,, three times may be pushing it...backsides. It's all part of the process. It's part of growing, of becoming more like Jesus.  Too often we allow the guilt of our failure to cripple us, to derail us.  Paul says, "Let it go." Confess it, repent of it, recognize it for what it was, learn from it,  and then put it behind you and press on to the finish line.

I imagine that when  skater goes down, there's a big ole voice in his head saying, "Just stay here. Why get up again? You're just going to kiss ice again. Cut your losses and get out of the rink." Don't we hear a voice like that when we fail? The enemy wants us to give up, to deaden our hearts.  But Paul reminds us that falling down is a normal part of this becoming like Jesus thing. It's part of the race. A song from a few years ago said, "we fall down but we get back up again."  Put the past behind you, and set your eyes on the goal, the prize, an eternity of life with Jesus.
BTW, the Suns beat the Grizzlies. 

I think I mentioned in my last blog that I'm reading John Ortberg's book "It All Goes Back in the Box." And I don't want to talk about too much because this is going to be the springboard for our men's retreat in April.  But I'm being driven by a deeper need--to share the conviction! Yikes, he's hitting where it hurts! And I don't want to be the only person squirming, so welcome to my guilt!

Two stories from this chapter on Prevent Regret that you need to read.  Here's the first: "When my son John was very small, he loved to play with machines and gadgets by the hour. One day, when he was three, he had been working with a tape recording for an hour or so. Finally, he looked up at his mom and said, "Mom, you know what the trouble with life is?" "No, I don't. What's the trouble with life?" "Then a three-year-old boy sitting on the floor, who had thoroughly reflected on both Fisher-Price technology and the condition of human existence, made one of the most profound observations of life I have ever heard: "The trouble with life," he said, "is that it doesn't have a rewind button."

The point Ortberg is driving home in this chapter is that we need to ask ourselves what we're doing (or not doing) with our lives now that could lead to deep regret?  Are we focusing on what's really important? Will we wake up one day and wish we had invested more time in things that really matter?  Will we wish that life had a rewind button?  Now that's pretty thought provoking (a euphemism for guilt producing) by itself, but he drive sit home with this story:

He talks about Scottish writer and historian Thomas Carlyle, who had married his secretary, Jane Welsh.  "She was highly intelligent and attractive, and she continued to serve as Carlyle's secretary after their marriage.  Sometime later, Jane became ill. Carlyle, sho was perhaps not tempted too much by money, was deeply devoted to this work. He did not seem to notice his wife's will health much. He was absorbed in what he was doing and allowed her to continue working. But she had cancer; eventually she was confined to her bed. Although Thomas truly loved her. he found he did not have much time to stay with her or much attention to give her.

After several years, Jane died.  The day of her funeral was stormy; hey carried her body to the churchyard through the rain and mud. Carlyle later returned to a house that was suddenly shatteringly empty. He went upstairs to Jane's room and sat in the chair next to her bed, the chair he had had so little time for. He noticed her diary lying on the table next to her bed. He picked it up and began to read. On one entire page she had written a single line: "Yesterday he spent an hour with me and it was like heaven; I love him so."

See why I wanted to draw you into this? Conviction loves company!  But the warning is pretty clear isn't it?  There are no rewind button's on life.  Are there ways you're living your life right now that someday you're going to wish that you had done it differently?  And maybe the followup question is harder still--are you willing to make the necessary changes that will allow you to avoid regret later? 

Any guys still want to go to the men's retreat?

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Avatar in 3 D.  Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever seen any movie in 3-D, which is sad to say and I've probably horribly embarrassed my kids.  So I didn't think much of it when we decided to go to a non-3-D showing about a month ago.  I enjoyed the movie, and as great as the special effects were sans the glasses, I went away thinking, "I can see the difference that 3-D would have made in that flick.  The flying scenes? (I heard someone got  little queasy on those rides) And when he touches the plants in the jungle and they immediately fold up? Lots of places I thought the 3-D perspective probably would enhance my viewing of the film. 

I thought about that today when I picked up John Ortberg's book "It All Goes Back in the Box." About how seeing things from a different perspective can give us a better understanding of what's really going on.  Ortberg uses playing board games as his analogy, particularly playing Monopoly as a kid with his aging grandmother who had no pity on him just because he was a kid (sound familiar, Ann?)  When he finally beats her, he wants to spend a lot of time relishing the victory, maybe bronzing the board to commemorate the act.  But all his grandmother says is, "Okay, now it all goes back in the box."  

Can you work this out? At the end of the game, does it really matter who wins or loses, because it all goes back in the box?  At the end of the game, what's really important?  If we could develop that perspective on the game of our existence--hey, at the end, it all goes back in the box, all the achievements, all the things, all the status, all the money, even all the losing, all the pain--if we could get that eternal perspective, the eternal 3-D so to speak, how would it change the way we look at what's important in our lives?  I've got to believe that how we invest our time, heck how we invest our very selves, would change if we caught just a glimpse of that.  What is it that I consider so important right now that one day is just going to go back in the box?

It's old, but it's poignant--no one ever says on their death bed, "I wish I could have spent more time at the office." 

Anyone up to seeing Avatar in 3-D?

I was catching up on my reading from Harvard the other day....ok, John Berkshire sent me an article about this study done at Harvard, but doesn't it sound much more impressive the other way?  Anyway, back in the late 1930's, researchers began following 268 men from their early college days at Harvard through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood and old age, in an attempt to determine what it was that made us happy and fulfilled.  Make sure you're sitting down, because the findings are going to shock you.  Here are some of the results that they've determined from following these men (one of whom was John F Kennedy) for the past 70 years or so:

     That money does little to make us happier once our basic needs are met, but faith and marriage do lead to happiness (or it could be that happy people are more likely to be married and spiritual [isn't that the same thing?])

     It talks of the power of positive emotions: awe, love, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, hope and trust [hmmm, there's sound vaguely familiar...]

     It also said about positive emotions that gratitude and joy over time will yield better health and deeper connections, but will in the short term put you at risk. That's because that, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak. [We've talked a lot about the risk of connection, but the study is suggesting that the benefits far outweigh the risk.  This is why speaking the truth in love goes a long way to deepening our friendships.]

    [Maybe you better sit down for this one, it's a shocker!] The only thing that really matter sin life are your relationships to other people. [Let that sink in for a moment--then take stock of what your life looks like compared to that truth.]

     You can say a lot of general things about these data that you could never say before, but many of them are relatively shallow. People who go to church report more joy, but if you ask why, we don't know.  [Again, I say, hmmmm....]

     [And here's the last thing]  To illustrate his [one of the researchers] point, he told the story of one of his "prize" Grant Study men, a doctor ad much loved husband. "On his 70yh birthday, when he retired from the faculty of medicine, his wife got hold of his patient list and secretly wrote to may of his longtime patients, "Would you write a letter of appreciation?" And back came 100 single spaced, desperately loving letters--often with pictures attached. And she put them in a lovely presentation box covered with Thai silk and gave them to him. Eight years later, the researcher interviewed the man, who proudly pulled the box down from the shelf. "George, I don't know what you're going to make of this, "the man said as he began to cry, "but I've never read it."  "It's very hard, "the researcher said, "for most of us to tolerate being loved."

I wish you could read the long pause between this sentence and the last as that washes over me.  It's very hard for most of us to tolerate being loved.  There's lots of ways that our sin nature has deamaged us, lots of lies that we have bought into about what our lvies are to be about.  The results are that we have elevated things that are relatively unimportant in the long run to priorities in our lives, while avoiding the very thing that has the power to bring real happiness and joy--deep, loving, compassionate friendships. But this is exactly what we're called back to as part of the family of God, to form intimate relationship with our fellow believers because its there and there a lone that we can experience the life that God has for us.  That's what we're after here at Oasis, we think it's what God originally made us for. 

A couple of months ago we watched a video on Sunday morning by Penn of Penn and Teller (here's the link if you missed it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa9JE_ZVL88&feature=related).  He's an atheist, but in the video he's talking about a guy who gives him a Bible after one of their shows, and how impressed he was with the guy, with how genuine he was.  He goes on to talk about what he calls 'proselytizing,' which means trying to convince someone to believe what you believe, and it's pretty surprising what he says--that he thinks that if you're a Christian, you should be trying to convince others to believe in Jesus. He says that if he knew a truck was bearing down on you, how much would you have to hate someone not to tell them that they were going to get hit by the truck, and that sooner or later he'd tackle you out of the way regardless of whether or not you believed you were going to be hit.  Do I even need to make the comparison? Okay, I will--if we really believe in eternal separation from God, how much would we have to hate someone to let them experience that without trying to introduce them to Jesus? See, I knew I didn't have to tell you that!

Not bad advice from an atheist is it?  Now we don't normally use the word 'proselytize' because, frankly, it sounds, well, odd. "I don't want to proselytize my friends, I like my friends!" (With a nod to Tommy Smothers, if you remember him.) We talk about being missional, or sharing our faith.  And we do it for the reason that Penn talks about, but let me say it in kind of a more positive way: How much would we have to love someone to want to rescue them from dying?  (Hmm, how much did God love us to do just that?)

See, we aren't missional because it's a way of getting on God's good side, that it earns us points we need to make sure we get into heaven.  It's not about putting notches on the belt of faith I wear (like the bat-belt) that shows how good of a Christian I am.  It's not even really about responsibility.  We want to be missional because there are people in our lives that we genuinely care about, people that we love.  And if we love them, and we really believe that they are in danger, we are going to lovingly try to help them see that danger and the way out of it.  If we just see it as our duty to tell others about Jesus, then all of our relationships are tinged with ulterior motives, and we discard relationships once our "duty" is done.  But if it's about love, then it's more about wanting the best for our friends or family, and an ongoing love for them regardless of how they respond.

I think it's pretty cool that Penn could have that perspective.  He really gets it, much better than we as Christians do most of the time. Balaam's ass strikes again! (Obscure Old Testament reference alert, see Numbers 22:21-33 if that intrigues you.)

So I signed on to facebook today, and saw a friend of mine from back east, Dave, was signed on as well and I messaged him to see how he was.  He told me he was in a big mess and needed help.  (Sit back, this is a long story.) I asked him what was up, and he said he was in London on vacation and had been robbed at gunpoint in a park by his hotel, and was now at the airport trying to get home.  I said, "What?!" (Pretty witty, huh?) At the same time another friend of mine hit me with a message and I just casually told him I was dealing with Dave in a crisis situation, and Tom said, wait a minute, I was just chatting with him to, I think this is a scam, that it's not really him.  "Really?" says I (I'm a regular Mark Twain as i chat.) So i called Dave to see what was up, and here he's in Ohio, going to work, and not stuck in London and had not been robbed and his facebook account had been compromised. So I go back to "Dave" who is still chatting with me and ask him what happened, and he said that he had been robbed and his right leg was hurt real bad.  So I said (honest, I really did write this) "I thought your right leg was your prosthetic leg. Or was that your left?"  Well, he ignored that and went for my money, so I told him I just just talked to Dave and I was pretty sure that neither he nor any of his friends would be helping him.  Found out later he had been chatting with lots of people trying to cam them out of money.)

Now besides the obvious lesson about the potential dangers of identity theft and being careful of facebook scams, let me make a really outrageous connection here to what we've been talking about as far as genuine community goes.  I wonder (are you ready for this) how often the person we're chatting with, even when we're standing there face to face with them, isn't really the person we're chatting with.  Does that need some explaining?  Are we really seeing the real person, the real Dave, the genuine article, or we seeing hat the other person wants us to see, the fake Dave, a front because the other person doesn't really want us to know who he really is.

Or, to put it on the other foot, are we trying to scam people with a false identity, because we don't really want them to know the real us?  Masks, false identities, even identity theft (trying to be someone we're not--hey, this is really a pretty good illustration after all!), we all do this to some extent.  And we might pull it off for a while, but it isn't long till others are posting the truth, beware,  we're a fake.

We need real relationships, places where we can be us--the real us--accepted and included and loved just as we are.  Because it's there, in those kinds of relationships that real transformation and healing takes place.  That's what we're after at Oasis.  No more scamming, no more masks, just a group immersed in the grace of God.

I'm not sure whatever happened to "Dave." he unfriended me as soon as I let him know I had seen through him....hmmm, maybe there's some parallel to how we handle relationships there too. Another time!